Return to Blacks Point

"Loading holodeck program "Blacks Point retrieval"

Sector Celes, Crenan system, Moon: Crenan 1 mining facility. Date: 2288 august 3ed. Time: 1846 hours.

"Make sure you double check the data buffer this time, a diagnostic bed got scrambled last time, we were lucky he didn't notice it."

The voice of a disembodied man could be heard but not seen. But a vary familiar voice, that of the facility's computer, responded.

"All systems with-in predetermined parameters" It said.

"Never hurts to be sure, have we verified the retrieval pattern yet?" He asked.

"No Chroniton emissions have been detected as of this time." The computer replied.

The voice sighed, it had no sound of being processed through a living body. "Well, they did just say he might show up soon didn't they? it's only been a year since his last resurrection and he's a fairly capable officer. He might not show up at.."

An alert went off. "Detecting build up of chronitonic particles in target chamber."

"Ah well, there's that then.. sync retrieval program on my mark.. now."

The holodeck lit up to show the scene of a mid twenty second century mining facility, it was wore down and apparently poorly maintained.

"T minus 5 minutes until event." The computer chimed.

"I don't need a count down thank you." He sounded almost annoyed. "Activating recreation."

Three figures appeared in the room, a large man wearing an old style starfleet uniform and holding what appeared to be a broken metal bar in his right hand. His left arm hung limply and his uniform was torn and smudged with blood and filth.

He stood over another man that was laid unconscious on the floor, an alien that was not readily identifiable.

The third person, a female human also dressed in a starfleet uniform but in much better shape, slumped half over a control station, as if thrown at it.

All three stood frozen for the moment. "Activate program sync when ready."

The figures came to life or at least Redding did. He stood breathing hard over the crumpled body of khronva, watching the blood oozing out of the wound on his head. Redding glared murderously down at the figure, the metal bar bobbing in his hand.

"Neil?" the woman said weakly as she carefully pushed her self upright.

Redding's head jerked in her direction and he dropped the weapon, going over to her and offering his good arm for support.

"Are you okay?" he looked over the burned spot on her shoulder, just a glancing wound. "I thought.."

"Neil.. Neil! he activated the device!" she said franticly "Khronva activated it, and it's tracking the Ajax!"

Picking up Khronvas fallen weapon Redding cradled his injured arm as best he could. "Can you take us to it Claire?"

She nodded and lead the way through the facility, at last reaching a newly excavated area. After a short jog they entered some sort of buried structure, as alien as anything Redding had ever seen.

"What is all this?" he asked as they went.

"I don't know, I've never encountered anything like it." she said just a bit excited. "But its at least 50 thousand years old, possibly much older than that."

"That's not much of a comfort coming from the ships science officer.." he mumbled almost to himself.

They entered a room with a large octagonal display set near an also octagonal control system. Showing in the display was the USS Ajax II, a Federation Excelsior class heavy cruiser. Symbols appeared around the ship as if it was displaying information about it.

"Do you have any idea what it's trying to do?" Redding said looking some what at a loss at the control panel.

"No, I'm sorry but I don't even know how Khronva got it working! at best I have a rough description I managed to translate that they provided me, It was 'Partial Remover'. She sounded frustrated. "So it could be a weapon or a transporter of some type or maybe it just cleans passing ships! I don't know!"

Redding put an arm around her. "It's a sure bet Khronva didn't know either, or he wouldn't have bothered grabbing you." He gave her a gentle kiss to calm her down.

"But I'm sorry Lt. Commander Tannon, but I'm going to have to shut it down, the hard way." He pulled up the energy weapon.

"Neil" she started to complain.

"Don't worry, we'll be far away when that happens, I'm setting this to overload with a five minuet charging time delay." he let her go.

"But first you need to get back to the shuttle and prep it for immediate take off, as soon as your there I'll set this and join you, grabbing Khronva on the way." and half smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'm not going to be late to the wedding."

She backed way still looking at him. "Two weeks Neil Stanley Redding, you got that, and no excuses." and started running.

Over the next few minuets Redding set up a make-shift sling for his arm until his communicator went off, he opened it and acknowledge the signal. 

"Neil, I'm at the shuttle with Khronva, but don't worry, he surrendered without a fight, I think he has a concussion."

Neil breathed a sign of relief. "Good, that's one less stop on the way out of.." But he was interrupted.

A strange alien voice uttered the words "Relavix sufre" and the images around the Ajax turned red.

"Claire, did you catch that?" As he looked closer at the display.

"Oh God Neil! I think that's a timing warning!" fear leap into her throat "You're out of time, you have to.. to.."

"We both know what i have to do, now get out of here Claire." he set the weapon to maximum power.

"But.. no. I.." she stammered.

"Don't give up on me just yet, I'll melt this dam thing and get as far away from it as possible, there might not even be explosion for all we know, now move! That's an order!" he took aim.

He could hear the shuttle engines hum as it increased power. As he did he opened fire, the strong steady beam ripped trough the control panel as he dragged it around over anything that looked important.

The display screen flickered and went off, some sort of alarm started echoing through the complex.

"Good enough" Redding said to himself as he dropped the weapon and ran from the room as fast as he could.

"Claire, I'm back in the mining facility, any sign of.." Then the first explosion knocked him off his feet.

The disembodied voice spoke up again, calmly as if this seemed normal to him. "Stand by for insertion in 5.. 4.."

Redding managed to get back on his feet in time to feel the pressure drop, a loud rushing noise was coming from every where.

"Neil!" Claire screamed from his communicator. "Neil, I love.." 

"1.. insertion." The voice said. and the holographic Redding faded out to be instantly replaced by the real Redding, standing exactly in the same stance, looking exactly the same way.

"..you!" Claire finished.

Redding started to run again but another female voice came over the line. "Commander Redding, this is Captain Somers! The jamming field is gone, stand by for emergency transport."

Redding came to a halt and within seconds, disappeared into a transporter beam.

"Okay, reset program to Ajax II simulation, and lets 'beam' Commander Redding aboard.

"Program initiated, program running." The computer replied obediently.

The figure of commander Redding reappeared in the same place mere seconds later, although 'here' was now the transporter room of the Ajax.

Redding swayed a little on the pad looking nauseous. "We have him Captain, but we had a little trouble."

The voice of Captain Somers responded. "No surprise ensign, the whole facility just went up down there, get the Commander to sick bay."

"You heard the Captain Commander." as two medical personal entered the room.

"No argument here, I feel lousy." Redding said, excepting the help of the two medics to keep him upright.

One of them ran a medical tricorder over him. "I'm picking up trace amounts of an unknown radiation, we need to get you into isolation Commander." and the other one injected him with something.

Years of training taught Redding not to resist primary orders such as these and he just nodded his compliance.

An hour passed and he found himself in the isolation ward being treated by one of the few doctors he'd never met in his five years aboard the Ajax.

The Doctor, a balding fair skinned human male, was just finishing working on his injured arm.

"There you go, how's it feel now?" he said with a grin. The voice was the same one that started the program.

Redding flexed his large arm and rotated it around. "Huh, I can't feel a thing.. like it never happened."

"Well, thank you. it nice to be appreciated once and a while. I don't get many patients you know." He looked away checking the dosage on a hypo spray.

"In fact, you could say I'm something of a specialist, I've only ever worked on injured left arms belonging to security personal." His grin widened.

"Well, that's..ironic." Redding said with a confused look on his face.

"Any word from Claire.. I mean Lt. Commander Tannon?" He said with a slight look of concern.

"Your fiancee, along with her guest, arrived safely back aboard the Ajax 20 minuets after you were beamed aboard, she is fine.. Khronva required surgery, but he managed to pull through to stand trial for kidnapping and attempted murder." He was pulling down a device that was obviously designed to fit around Redding head and over his eyes.

"Now try to relax Commander, I'm going to check you for any short term brain damage from the radiation exposure." He said fitting the device cheerfully.

"Ah.. well.. okay." Redding said trying to relax into the chair. "Say, I didn't catch your name Doctor..?"

"You can call me Mark One, I haven't really decided on a name yet, as it were." As he injected Redding with the hypospray.

Redding started to drift out slightly. "Haven't.. what?" he said groggily.

"We can talk about it later, enjoy the trip Commander Redding." and walked briskly out of the room.

"Computer, start memory upload sequence." as he seemed to fade away after walk out of the room.

"Program initiated." the computer chimed.

Continued from here.

A dull buzzing feeling seemed to permeate his head, as if he was being micro-sonic messaged around his temples and forehead. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling.

It reminded him of what happened after he reappeared at the site of the mining facilities destruction three days after the fact.

It was a good thing the Ajax hadn't left the system yet but even so, they were barely in communications range of his personal communicator.

A frown crossed his face as he lay there and started to remember how it led to the fight with Claire and their eventual break up, she had a hard time coming to terms with his 'death' and insisted he quit security or she'd leave him, and she did.

But life goes on and he remained aboard the Ajax as it's first officer for a few more years until he was offered his first command of the constellation class heavy cruiser Taurus, he did a lot of patrol missions in that old ship.

He remembered one combat action against a Romulan warbird that he.. died? was that right?

No, he was back at the mining facility.. his arm still hurt.. it had taken him weeks to rig a rescue signal out of what was left of a mining shuttle he had managed to find off site.

Every day it seemed the air got harder and harder to breath, he found out later that the accident had ruined the breathable atmosphere, in a few more years a respirator would be needed to walk around here.

After being rescued he remembered what a shock it was to find out that 23 years had passed since the facilities destruction, and that according to star fleet records he had only recently been reported as dead at age 57, Captain of the USS Taurus.

Those were some confusing times indeed Redding mushed as the upload continued 'reminding' him of his many lives.

It was at this point that star fleet assigned a task force to investigate the 'Redding Phenomenon' and what preceded was two years of poking and prodding, the construction of the Blacks point retrieval station on Crenan and Reddings threat of resignation if they would not allow his to return to active duty.

They obliged by promoting him and giving him command of an experimental transwarp modified vesicle, the USS Response.

Reddings memories of the Response, like most of these memories was not the sharpest. It was more like he was watching a movie about his life and occasionally thinking 'I don't remember it happening that way' every now and then.

It wasn't until after the disappearance of the USS Response in 2325, fourteen years after his last death, and he returned to Blacks Point for a third time that a system was created to collect stored memories using Dr. Ira Grave's transfer technique.

Considering the many holes in his memory from 2288 to 2325 it was decided that his original memories would be recreated using the newer holodeck technology at the time, extracted from ships and personal logs as well as eyewitness that were still available at the time.

These memories where then created and played, the role of Commander Redding being played by himself, in a holo environment. This procees took two years and reunited him with his ex-fiancee, Claire Tannon.

Claire, now 70 years old, caused Redding to fall into a depression that had him leaving star fleet on a granted personal leave for the next seven years, as he returned to his provisional house in Klingon space under the official title of federation diplomat.

He was a well received diplomat, engaging in fights, receiving command of the Klingon Lt. Cruiser named 'Black Hart' in Klingon and was involved in several border skirmishes along the Romulan frontier.

Continued here

And so it went on from year to year, ship to ship and death to death.

The death of his first wife.

The death of his brother.

The death of his best friend.

The destruction of his ship while in the Borg task Force.

Death-change-rebirth, followed by restored memories and new assignments.. over and over again for a total now of 6 times over a 150 years.

And now it was coming to his last stored memory, he had just received orders to report to Lotus fleets commander officer for placement aboard their newest flagship, the USS Horizon. He remembered worrying about weather or not it too would fail as it's predecessors had.

"Upload complete" the computer chimed again. "Time elapsed, 16 hours, 22 minuets."

Redding removed the headpiece and stretched giving an animated yawn.

The doctor returned holding a cup of coffee. "Here you go commander, cream, no sugar."

"Hay doc, ah.. nectar of the gods.." and took a long slow sip.

"First the good news" the Doctor said as he drank his coffee. "The Horizon did indeed successfully complete it's transwarp test run, although it did run into something classified, so I can't say what, the ship and crew made it back safely to starbase 10."

"So why an I here then?" just once he would have liked to hear "You slipped in the sonic shower." But it was always worse than that.

"On your next mission aboard the Horizon it has sent on a classified mission, I have received no word on it's current condition, only that you might be returning to blacks point and we should be prepared." the doctor ran a scanner over Reddings head. "Any discomfort, nausea or double vision? "

"Doesn't seem like it.." He stood up and walked a round the room. "What's the bad news?"

The Doctor gave him a smile. "That your here of course, my condolences, I knew him vary well after all, be nice and I'll invite you the funeral."

Redding held his hands up in mock defense. "No thank you, I couldn't stand to hear all those poor woman crying their eyes out."

he Doctor smirked. "I see your back to normal.. what ever that is."

"In two days you'll be picked up by our resupply cover ship and I'll go back into limbo waiting for your eventual return." and gave a sigh. "My job is rich and rewarding."

"Doc if I ever came back and you weren't here I think I'd freak and assume I was abducted." He walked to the doorway of the room.

"Well, I'm off to the showers but after that a little 3D chess doc?"

"I'd like that commander, and of course I'll keep the challenge level low." he smiled again.