Quantum Trek

                        A Star Trek Enterprise/Quantum Leap crossover

                        By Nathanielle Crawford AKA DragonWriter

 

A brilliant flash of light accompanied the transfer and suddenly, Sam was in his next body. He looked around carefully trying to get a bearing on his surroundings.

He was in a cabin of some kind, closed in and with only one window. A little dog barked and held up a chewed up tennis ball to be thrown.

“What the hell is going on here?” He wondered looking out the window and seeing stars pass by.

Sam thought perhaps he was on the Apollo 13, and they were on their way to the moon, but that didn’t seem right. There was gravity for one, and as far as he could guess there were no dogs on that flight.

He waited for the (Project Quantum Leap) PQL to pick up his location and send Al through but so far nothing happened. This wasn’t like him not to be there within a few minutes of the leap.

Sam looked into a mirror next to a basin and saw…well…it was weird, but he saw himself. Usually he saw the image of the body he possessed, but now…what was going on here?

He looked around some more and noticed he was wearing a uniform of some sort. Blue with short gold stripes on the shoulders, and four little buttons on his right shoulder.

Just then…a flash and someone was in the room with him. It wasn’t Al, or anyone from the PQL staff, but it was some kid, possibly eighteen or nineteen, dressed in casual daytime clothing. He might have been a college student from the way he carried himself.

“Who are you?” Sam asked.

“My name is DragonWriter,” The man explained. “I have taken control of your leaping for just this one time. You may be interested to know that this is actually a point in TV time two hundred years from when Quantum Leap originally aired.”

“TV time, what the?”

“Have you ever heard of a show called Star Trek?”

Sam thought for a minute. Yes he had heard about it, he used to watch it nonstop when he was in college.

“Well, I am from a point in time where there is a new Star Trek, and it takes place before the original Star Trek of the 60’s.” DragonWriter continued to explain. “The fact is, I have this very petty fear. You’ll understand it more if I show you this…”

With that, DragonWriter pulled out a little device similar to Al’s device and pressed a few buttons causing a television to appear out of nowhere, along with a VCR and three blank tapes.

 

Sam sat there, watching tape after tape. The first tape was a collection of episodes from the very first Star Trek, the one he grew up with.

Then came another collection of tapes from TNG, DS9 and Voyager. Each episode featured a character from the previous series and that new character always seemed to be flaunting him or herself to the extreme. (IE Q when he appeared in DS9 and Voyager, and whenever Riker appeared on the show, etc)

DragonWriter was especially careful to make sure Sam watched the episodes of Star Trek Voyager when they encountered the Temporal Federation of the future.

Then, he turned to the next tape. Star Trek: Enterprise.

For all its intents and purposes, Star Trek: Enterprise was better. The theme song was well done and inspiring, all new characters took the stage, and the setting for the show left no threatening crossovers…until…the Sooliban showed up.

Temporal cold war? Oh my God, Sam thought, it’s in danger all ready.

Apparently these Sooliban sent someone back in time to mutate their own species. Now, in an episode much later, a man claiming to be from the future tries to stop these Sooliban from further damaging the timeline.

“Good gods, don’t mention the name Captain Braxton,” Sam and DragonWriter found themselves mirroring each other as they prayed for salvation from the dreaded crossover-demons.

The episode was over, and Sam stood up and looked DragonWriter straight in the eye.

“Now you see.” He said finally. “Enterprise is the first Star Trek series since Kirk’s time that actually has some credibility. Voyager and TNG don’t hold a candle to this ship, and now the crossover demons threaten to take away all of that credibility. I have for you now, a mission.”

“I’m ready.” Sam said with conviction.

“Captain Archer-the man you inhabit-his shift starts in an hour. Your crew is going to stumble upon a cheap plot device used a billion times in the past…an uncharted nebulae. There you will understand the nature of your mission.”

“Very well. Anything else?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” DragonWriter pulled out a pen and pencil. “A bunch of fellow fanfiction writers and trekkies asked me a few things. I doubt it’s possible but…well, just this one would be nice…can you possibly see that T’Pol and Trip get together?”

Sam smiled and put out his hand.

“I’ll so what I can.”

DragonWriter took Sam’s hand and shook it.

 

Having watched his leapee on the recorded episodes Archer took the bridge with confidence knowing everyone on site, but still unable to shake that song out of his head so he ended up humming it as he sat in his chair.

“Good morning Captain,” Lieutenant Reed spoke up from his security console. “

“Morning Malcom,” Sam answered without a problem. Thanks to DW’s instruction he knew to be cheerful and upbeat as always.

T’Pol spoke up from her console.

“Captain, there is a large uncharted nebulae on our course, should I make some comment as to Vulcan protocol that you’re going to argue till you’re red in the face or should we just go in head first looking for a plot?”

“I think we’ll go with number two,” Sam decided using his authorities voice.

Over in the corner Ensign Mayweather fished through his pockets for his credit chip and handed it to Ensign Hoshi. Hoshi grinned wickedly as she extracted the amount equal to the bet: It was fifty credits if the Captain and T’Pol argued about protocol.

 

An hour later the ship stopped a few kilometers from the nebulae and began doing routine technology stuff-that won’t be mentioned here for fear of tediousness.

Sam guided Archer’s body down to the sickbay to see Doctor Phloxx, who was standing ready to provide comic relief at a moment’s notice.

“Doctor, I need a small favor of you.” He said casually. “There’s a matter of…a friend…who wishes to get together with…another friend. These two friends…wish to be romantically engaged and…well.”

He was silenced when Phloxx raised a hand.

“Oh, don’t worry Captain,” he said happy as ever to offer assistance. “Tell me, who is the lucky girl. It’s T’Pol isn’t it? I always knew you two were meant to be together. It would be a little shaky at first but you’d get through your-“

“Doctor it’s not me and T’Pol.”

“Oh…Captain, you dog you.” Phloxx joked elbowing the Sam gently. “Taking a young and naïve girl like ensign Mason. Why don’t you leave Porthos with me for the night, I’m sure he won’t appreciate the extra noise.”

“For God’s sake Phloxx it’s not for me. It’s for a…friend.” Sam was losing patience.

“Of course it is,” Phloxx went into an open drawer marked Rarely used plot devices to later be exploited by fanfiction writers. He retrieved a small pill wrapped in paisley colored foil. “Just have your intended lover pop this in her mouth and she won’t be able to keep your hands off you. He he he he.”

Sam took the pill and left the room mortified.

 

Meanwhile at the Waiting room of DragonWriter…

 

“So wait a minute,” Jonathon asked stuffing back a burrito as they watched battle bots. “You mean there’s actually a list of reasons why Kirk is better than Picard? Yet neither of them have technically been born yet?”

“Exactly.” DragonWriter explained. “You see, in TV time your show is actually based about two hundred years or so before the very first one. However, you do have the “newest” Star Trek, so you haven’t done quite enough yet to be compared to Kirk or Picard.”

“Okay, so assuming I get a list, who would I be better than?”

“Well, Picard is one. It doesn’t take much to be better than Captain Picard. Hell, Captain Kangaroo is better then Captain Picard. ”Of course you and Kirk will always be jockeying for the position, but I honestly think you’re both equal in that respect. No one really holds a candle to Brooks, lets face it he ruled towards the last few seasons of his series, and you know everyone’s going to argue about Captain Janeway until the end of time.”

“Okay, so what sets me apart from all the others?” Archer threw back a bottle of pepsi and went back to munching his burrito.

“Thus far, none of the other captains have been interviewed on the Sci-Fi channel.”

“Excellent. Ah…the Burning Bot scorched the Samuri666, I win the bet.”

DW sighed and got up to recite the entire Enterprise theme song, backwards, in Klingon.

 

Back on Enterprise…

 

“Captain, are you sure this is a good idea?” Trip asked pleadingly.

“I need you two in there in case of an emergency.” Sam insisted. “Oh, and T’Pol, since you are going to be in here for a really long time your nasal agent will wear off after awhile. Take this pill, the doctor ensures me it will…enhance the effective ness of the agent.”

“Yes captain.” T’Pol took the pill knowing full well that she couldn’t argue her way out of it.

Sam left the two there in the enclosed room, locked.

“What is the point of all this?” Trip asked angrily.

“Isn’t it obvious?” T’Pol replied. “Captain Archer has clearly been replaced by another fictitious version of himself also played by Scott Bakula, an act on behalf of a fan fiction writer who does not wish to see Enterprise fall in to the same stereotypical traps as the previous four series. In addition fan fiction writers abroad expect us to eventually get it on, which is another reason why the Captain has slipped me this drug which is clearly a powerful aphrodisiac.”

Trip took this in and thought about it for a second. Then he said,

“Nah. That’s just a bunch of Vulcan gibberish.”

 

“Captain, I’m picking up a strange energy reading coming from the nebulae.” Malcolm reported.

“On screen.”

Outside near the nebulae a star ship blasted into reality and approached the Enterprise. It bore a Federation signature and sported the name, Time Ship Relativity.

“It’s approaching slowly, shields down.”

“Lieutenant fire all torpedoes at that vessel now!” Sam ordered.

“But Captain it may be a-“

“Just do it Lieutenant. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“All right by me then,” Malcolm let loose a volley of torpedoes not really caring what the captain’s motivation was just happy to exercise his trigger finger.

The ship blew up before it could make another move.

“Yes! Excellent! WHOOOO!” A familiar voice yelled behind him.

Sam looked up to see DW standing there.

“Hey, we did it,” He said happily.

“We sure did Captain.” Hoshi spoke up.

“Oh, not you ensign. Everyone, I want you to meet my dear friend DragonWriter.” Sam introduced DW to a crew who simply stared oddly. “What’s the matter with you people, show a little hospitality.”

“Um…” DragonWriter tapped Sam on the shoulder and whispered into his ear.

“What…you’re invisible…well why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

“Captain…” Malcolm said slowly wondering about the stability of their leader. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine Malcolm,” Sam rebutted. To DragonWriter he said, “Okay, I did my task. Why haven’t I leapt yet?”

“Well, there is this matter of T’Pol and Trip, they haven’t…”

 

Down below…

 

T’Pol finally got tired of Trip’s excruciating odor. Having nothing else to do she popped the pill just as Trip discovered a little button which caused a bed to jut out.

“Hey, look at this-“ Trip was interrupted as T’Pol spun him around and looked him straight in the eye.

In the room an old song from twentieth-century singer Barry White blared as the lights grew dim.

“Um…Sub-Commander…?”

T’Pol said something in her native language that must have resembled…let’s get it on…and threw the engineer to the bed.

From outside of the secluded room passersby could hear a pained voice screaming, “OH MY GOD!”

 

Up above…

 

The leap occurred just as security was escorting the captain to sickbay.

Suddenly, Sam found himself in a living room of a typical suburban two-floor dwelling. He was standing over a fireplace with several items including a matchbox, some thyme, and a quartz crystal.

He got up and realized he was wearing women’s clothing.

“Here I go again,” He muttered and looked into a mirror. Looking back at him was a red headed girl.

“Willow!” An impatient voice shouted.

Sam thought for a second. Willow…oh no.

“Ah great,” He muttered as DW appeared again.

“Oh, Sam, I should let you know, your series was canceled along time ago. That means you’re pretty much mine. I’m going to be using you to solve just about every little problem myself and my fellow fanfiction writers have with our favorite shows, movies, and books.”

Sam muttered something about kicking ass if the words Harry Potter was ever mentioned and went about completing his assignment.

 

A little epilogue…for the road….

 

“Look, Malcolm, I told you I’m fine.” The captain kept on insisting as they escorted him down the corridor.

“Of course you are Captain, but I think you need a little break from commanding for a bit. All the stress is getting to you.”

Archer gave up as they turned a corner and saw Trip leaving a room, his coat open, his hair all messy and missing a boot.

“Oh crap, T’Pol, I’m coming back in to get my boot, now be-“

“Get in here commander,” The sound of a primitive growl was followed by Trip being yanked into the room and the door being firmly sealed shut.