STARDATE 53444
EARTH; CHICAGO

Makoto plopped down into a seat on the patio of the small bistro that sat on the shore of Lake Michigan before kicking her feet up and taking a sip of her beer.

The chilly breeze blowing in off the lake made her happy that she’d brought her jacket. It was late April, but it was still cool. About 11 degrees. Probably warmer than it should have been for this early in the spring, but still too cold for simply just her long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants.

“Hey,” Gosnell smiled as he walked up, leaned over her, and kissed her.

Makoto happily returned the kiss before Gosnell sat down across from her. She laughed slightly at Gosnell’s attire. The Q was dressed in a heavy coat, a hoodie sweatshirt and appeared to be wearing two pairs of pants.

“If you’re cold we can go inside,” Makoto smiled.

Gosnell shook his head. “No, it’s fine,” he smiled as he pointed to his drink, steam wafting off the top of it. “I got a mochaccino.” The alien took a sip before finishing continuing.

“Whatever the hell that is.”

Makoto smiled at him some more before drinking from her own cup. She watched Gosnell, who had started to admire some of the boats sailing around on the lake, a short while before speaking.

“I have some news that is probably not going to make you very happy,” she said.

Gosnell turned to her. “Oh?”

“The Directors asked me if I wanted to participate in an experiment,” Makoto explained, sheepishly looking away. “They have memory implants that will give me the ability to remember everything, perfectly.”

Gosnell nodded. “That doesn’t make me happy. The last thing I need is you having the ability to point out something wrong I did from fifteen years in the past to win an argument.”

Makoto laughed slightly. She then sighed as she turned back to Gosnell. “It’s risky.”

Gosnell shook his head and shrugged as he took another swig of his drink. “Any objection I have would be rather moot, wouldn’t it?”

Makoto sadly nodded. “I’ve agreed, yes.”

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, Gosnell’s attention returning to the boats as they casually floated across the lake, their sails ruffling slightly in the crisp April breeze.

Finally, Makoto spoke up again.

“Are you angry with me?”

Gosnell didn’t turn to Makoto but shook his head. “No. Obviously I worry about losing you, but I love you.” He turned back to her and smiled softly. “I trust you as well, so, I know you will make the right decisions.”

Makoto moved over to Gosnell’s chair and embraced him.

“I love you too,” she whispered, pushing her face against his chest, a pair of tears sliding from her eyes, down her cheeks, unnoticed as she held onto him.

PRESENT-DAY
STARDATE 62822

Ranma yawned as he walked out onto the Sisko’s bridge. There was quite a bit of activity, as there likely should be considering the inconceivable event that was about to happen, and he was glad that everyone didn’t wait for him to get there to get things rolling.

At tactical he took notice of Makoto and Jansen working. Both seemed to be quite busy. Likely they were putting the finishing touches on the shield recalibrations that would hopefully shield them from any surprises the Kunos might have in store for them and have the weapons ready to annihilate the Kuno cube once they tractored it back through the portal.

The operations station was abuzz with activity. Minako was working with Kaii, most likely on the sensors and double-checking the various other adjustments the DTI agents had given them.

Engineering was also busy. Lt. T’Sean, the new assistant chief engineer, was on the bridge helping Usagi with the sensor mirroring, to help conceal the ship. As well, once they crossed over, they would disable the warp engines to make sure they did not accidentally alert any other warp-capable race to their presence.

Finally, at the science station, Miharu and Kirie were working feverishly. Ranma figured they were doing some last-minute calibrations on the ship’s temporal protection array.

The array, located just above the main deflector, was experimental and was installed on both this ship and her predecessor. It had never been activated, but allegedly it could detect ‘anomalies’ in the space-time continuum and force them to collapse on themselves by irradiating them with an inverse-tachyon charge.

The DTI believed they could open the portal created by the Kunos with the array by reconfiguring it to fire anti-chronitons, along with the charge.

‘Either that or blow up the solar system,’ Ranma mused to himself.

The pig-tailed Captain walked down the bridge and stood in front of his seat. Shampoo, after finishing a status report she was reviewing, stood, and looked to him.

“I think Ranma father dead,” she said.

Ranma blinked. “What?”

“He no call in two hours!” Shampoo smiled.

Ranma shook his head and scowled. “Not funny.”

Shampoo patted Ranma on the shoulder as Minako piped up.

“We’re ready here, sir.”

Usagi concurred. “Engineering is as well.”

“Tactical is set,” Makoto called out.

Ranma turned towards the science station. “Is the array ready?” he asked.

Miharu looked up as if to speak, but Kirie cut her off.

“Yes, Captain. It should jar the fissure the Kunos made open wide enough for us to get through. And if these readings are correct, kick us out right after they entered,” she explained.

Ranma nodded. “Hail Starfleet,” he ordered Kaii.

Kaii complied and Genma appeared on the viewscreen.

“Ranma,” he smiled.

“Admiral, we’ll be departing now,” Ranma nodded. “See you later, or in a minute or two,” Ranma laughed. “Hell if I know how these time holes work.”

Genma laughed. “Good luck and Godspeed.”

Ranma nodded and closed the channel. Both Ranma and Shampoo walked up behind Ikuhara.

“Ensign,” Ranma ordered, “set a course for the time fissure. Full impulse.”

“Aye,” the helmsman replied. Within a few minutes the Sisko was a few thousand meters from what appeared to be normal-looking space, but in reality, was a massive tear in the space-time continuum.

“Activate the array!” Kirie ordered.

Nothing happened. Mostly because no one did anything. Kirie looked to operations where she saw Minako and Kaii looking at her strangely. She turned to Ranma and Shampoo, both were looking at her with the same, ‘what the hell are you doing?’ looks on their faces. She then noticed Makoto and Jansen had similar looks but also had their hands seemingly close to where their phasers were.

Miharu tugged on Kirie’s skirt slightly, causing Kirie to meekly, and without a word, slink back into her seat.

With the DTI mutineer now all but hidden in the science station now, the bridge turned their attention back to Ranma.

“Activate the array,” Ranma ordered.

“Aye,” Minako replied.

From the front of the Sisko, a blueish-purplish-silverish beam shot out and slammed into what looked to be open space. The beam caused a cloud to start to form that increased in size the longer the beam impacted it.

“Ten more seconds and it should be big enough for the Sisko,” Miharu reported.

“The event horizon should close behind us,” Kirie added, “so we shouldn’t have to worry about any other interlopers.”

“It’s not very stable,” Minako reported. “I suggest we get through it fast as possible.”

Shampoo poked Ikuhara. “Soon as it big enough, go.”

“Aye,” he replied.

“Red alert,” Ranma ordered.

“Two seconds,” Miharu said as the bridge’s lighting changed, and the alert klaxons sounded. Miharu watched her terminal intently before turning towards Ikuhara.

“Now.”

“Terminate array,” Ranma ordered.

“Go!” Shampoo shouted.

The beam disengaged at the same time the Sisko began plowing forward. It burst through the cloud and came out the other side, no one on the bridge seemingly noticing anything.

“Did we miss it?” Ranma asked.

“I don’t think so,” Ikuhara mumbled, looking at his console.

“No,” Makoto mumbled, “we didn’t. I’m no longer seeing the ships guarding it, the Terran Defense Fleet, Earth Space Dock...”

“Where Kuno ship?” Shampoo asked.

“Scanning,” Kaii said. “Other side of this planet’s moon.”

Ranma blinked before turning towards Kirie and Miharu. “I thought you said we’d come out of that thing at the same time they did.”

Kirie checked her terminal and groused. “I’m sorry, Captain. Interdimensional time travel isn’t an exact science.”

“Sir,” Makoto called out, a little stunned. “Based on stellar cartography, I was actually able to pinpoint our position.”

“Using our star maps?” Ranma asked.

Makoto nodded. “Yes, so based on that, I’ve been able to determine exactly where and when we are.”

“So?” Shampoo asked, growing tired of the suspense.

“Earth, around 1990.”

“Earth?!” Ranma gasped. “As in our Earth?”

Makoto nodded. “From what I can tell from here, it’s identical.”

Ranma was astounded. That said, he didn’t want his ship anywhere near where he could be stranded on another pre-warp civilization. He looked to Ikuhara. “Intercept the Kuno cube.”

“Aye,” Ikuhara replied.

“We need to shut down the warp engines,” Kirie reminded them.

“If the Kunos try to warp off, we need to be able to pursue them,” Ranma stated, sitting down. “Soon as we have them, we’ll shut them down.”

Kirie acknowledged that allowing the cube to get away was far worse than having a Vulcan scout ship come to the system to make first contact with Earth, which they could simply tell to go away.

“10,000 kilometers,” Ikuhara reported.

“They’ll be able to detect us soon,” T’Sean added.

Ranma nodded.

“Uh oh,” Minako sighed.

“What’s ‘uh oh’, Commander?” Ranma asked.

“I’m scanning two ‘non-Kuno’ life signs on that ship,” she replied.

Ranma looked to Shampoo concerned.

“Shampoo think timeline here already been altered,” she sighed.

Miharu looked to Kirie with concern. Kirie had the same look of concern on her face as she began to go through her PADD containing rules, procedures, and what-to-dos to try and find this kind of scenario.

“First thing first,” Ranma said, standing. “Disable that ship’s engines.”

George was enjoying his day. At least he was now that he had placed Sailor Moon in a soundproof room. He had no clue how it was possible that a human could cry, nonstop, for as long as she had.

Nonstop wasn’t totally accurate. She did stop for about five minutes when he fed her, and again for a short while when he convinced her that he hadn’t killed Tuxedo Mask and that the guns only stunned people. He even demonstrated it on Tatewaki to help alleviate her fears.

However, she started back up again, and he had no choice but to confine her.

Shame too, he thought. He enjoyed being in the company of pretty girls.

There was a lack of them on this ship as well. The only females being Kodachi and her army of drones, and he’d be damned if he’d do anything with them.

Even if they weren’t siblings.

Yuck.

George had the ship parked in a good spot. Hidden in the shadow of the moon. The last thing they needed right now was to be spotted and attacked by an armada of Andorians, Vulcans, or Klingons who might confuse them for over-ambitious Earthlings.

It was still within the ship's elongated transporter range of the planet.

So far, all their plans, including the ones they had yet to tell their Negaverse partners about, seemed to be going smoothly.

Seemed to.

A Tatewaki drone came running into the ‘living room’ area of the Kuno cube, where George was watching Seinfeld, flailing its arms.

“DANGER! DANGER GEORGE KUNO!”

“What?” George asked, muting the television.

“A Starfleet ship has dared breached the outer perimeter!” it reported.

“Starfleet?” George asked, dismissively. “I think your brain is as broken as your likenesses. There’s no Starfleet here.”

George is thrown from the couch as the ship is jolted. Hard.

“A Kuno drone does not lie!” the drone proudly states from where he’s being crushed by support beams that were jarred loose.

George quickly stands and runs into the control room as the ship is rocked again. He looks to the sensor readout before smirking.

“Saotome. How about that.” George begins to hit some buttons.

“Their weapons have been knocked offline. Their engines are disabled,” Makoto blinked. “Err.. scratch that... I blew their nacelles right off the ship.”

Ranma chuckled. “Whatever keeps them still.”

Shampoo turned to Usagi. “Take warp drive offline.”

Usagi nodded as Kaii’s panel began to beep.

“They’re hailing us.”

Ranma nodded. George appeared on the viewscreen and smiled at the captain. “Well, hello again, Captain Saotome. Long time no see.”

“Not long enough,” Ranma mumbled.

“Awww,” George frowned. “I like to think that of the three of us, I’m the most tolerable.”

“No question,” Ranma nodded, causing George to grin. “But I’d really rather not deal with any of you.”

George pondered this for a moment, then nodded. “I can see that.”

Ranma eyed George up and down for a moment before smirking himself. “You don’t seem as disappointed to be here as I thought you would be. I heard you ‘resisted’ your rescue.”

George cracked his knuckles, laughed a bit, and nodded. “Yes, well, I was initially reluctant to rejoin the idiots, but they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“What that?” Shampoo asked.

“Assured victory,” George smiled. “Now, I know you went through a lot of trouble following us across dimensions to stop us, but it’s quite pointless. We’re almost done with our master plan, and you won’t succeed.”

“Engines offline,” Usagi called to Shampoo.

George noticed Usagi. He stared at her for a good twenty seconds, turned slightly, then shook it off, and resumed his taunting. “It-it will take us no less than a day to regenerate our engines, then we can fly away.”

“We’re towing you out of here now,” Ranma growled, doing his best to ignore George’s reaction to his Chief Engineer.

“Not with our hostages on board!” George smiled.

Ranma simply stared at George.

“Yup,” George continued. “Besides, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m the only actual Kuno sibling on this ship. Oh where, oh where have my beloved brother and sister gone? Oh, where oh where-”

“Shut him up,” Ranma ordered. Kaii complied and the communication ended.

“You see how he stare at Commander Tsukino?” Shampoo asked.

Usagi shuddered. “You think he... wants me?”

Ranma moved up to the tactical station as he spoke. “It wasn’t that kind of look, Commander. Seeing you...” Ranma paused mid-step. “Seeing you freaked him out for some reason.”

“I’m not ugly, am I?” Usagi whimpered.

“No!” the entire bridge crew shouted, trying to make sure Usagi didn’t start bawling.

Ranma turned to Makoto. “Have Rei get her teams on that ship A-S-A-P. They need to recover those two people so they can be returned to the planet.”

“Aye,” Makoto nodded, contacting Rei. Ranma spun around to Kaii.

“Kaii, take Nighthawk and begin scanning the planet for signs of transporter activity and Kuno life signs.”

“Aye,” Kaii nodded, starting to move off.

“BELAY ALL OF THAT!” Kirie called out, standing quickly, her sudden shout causing the entire bridge crew to freeze in their tracks. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Captain, but you can’t just be forcing contact with the people of this universe and putting shuttlecraft in orbit! There are consequences!”

Ranma eyed Kirie for a moment before he casually flipped his pigtail off his shoulder.

“What would you have me do, Assistant Deputy Director if that is your real title? Drag that cube back with two people from this universe on board? Leave this planet with two Kunos on their planet and who-the-hell knows how many drones?”

“We have to leave this place the way we found it,” Kirie explained.

“The way we found it is fucked up,” Ranma growled. “It’s our duty and our responsibility to fix what the Kunos have done.” Ranma pointed at the planet on the viewscreen. “Their timeline is already corrupt. We need to mitigate the damage while doing as little damage as possible ourselves.”

Ranma sighed. “The shuttle cloaks. No one will see it. Those hostages have seen the Kunos, I don’t think seeing more aliens will hurt their sensibilities any.”

“He’s right,” Miharu nodded.

Kirie sighed and simply sat down.

Ranma motioned to Kaii to get moving before walking back to his seat. Before he sat down though he turned towards the science station.

“Oh, and Miss Kojime, as a reminder you are an observer and an advisor on this mission. The Sisko is MY ship. If you forget that fact again, you will be observing and advising from a lifeboat, is that understood?”

Miharu bit her lip as Kirie grumpily nodded.

“Yes, Captain.”

Ranma smiled, nodded, and sat down in his chair.

Makoto grinned widely as she turned to Amanda.

“That didn’t take anywhere near as long as I thought it would.”

The NSO teams quickly scurried down the corridor and into their transporter room. Rei’s team as well as Jitsia took their place on one pad, Kio’s team on the other.

Ishran and Pan nodded to Jitsia as she dematerialized. The pair walked out of the transporter room, Ishran sighing deeply as he walked.

“What’s wrong, Commander?” Pan asked.

“Well, this is getting annoying,” Ishran grumbled. “I’ve gotten to spend no time catching up with Gras since I’ve gotten here.”

“Well, things have been pretty hectic,” Pan nodded. “But we have two months of training ahead of us and we’ll all be together on the Miyazaki.”

Ishran half shrugged. “I know, I know. It’s just been so long since I’ve seen her.”

“Mmm,” Pan nodded. “Well Commander Gras is eager to start working with us all, so I am sure she’s as disappointed as you are.”

Ishran nodded a bit as the pair reached a turbolift. “I hope so. It would be rather cruel of her to break my heart again.”

Pan did not care at all for what was going through Ishran’s head, and the first chance he had, he was going to make a point of bringing it up to Commander Gras.

As is typical for their hostage rescue missions, both teams appeared in different areas of the ship. Alpha team beamed in near the control room near where the first non-Kuno life sign was; Bravo team beamed in down by the second life sign in the bowels of the ship.

Kio and her team had never fought the Kunos before. Most of them were even too young to have any experience fighting their next closest equivalent, the Borg. This would be a new experience for all of them.

However, they were well trained and well-disciplined. And the Kunos had not gotten the pleasure of going up against the NSO teams, so they didn’t know what to expect either.

They got a quick demonstration when a half dozen Kodachi drones came charging after Bravo team.

“ASCOND YE INFILTRATORS!” the drones yelled as they charged, ribbons twirling. Kio and her soldiers were at first a little stunned. After all, they were used to Jem’Hadar and Orions trying to shoot them, not a group of identical drones trying to... ribbon... them.

Regardless, it only took a second for at least two of them to come to their senses and without wasting a bullet they shot and placed every one of the drones on their backs.

A mixed batch of twenty or so Kodachi and Tatewaki drones blindly charged in, ribbons and bokkens flailing, shouting semi-poetic gibberish, but in the end, the result was the same.

A pile of expended shells, nanorobotic goo, and Kuno drone corpses.

“Can someone explain what exactly just happened?” Anthony asked.

The remainder of Bravo team shook their heads. Ten more drones came rushing in, and like their friends, were nearly instantly killed.

Kio ejected her magazine and loaded a new one. “I hope you brought plenty of ammo, Ian” she sighed, looking to Kagurazaka.

Kagurazaka nodded and patted the backpack he was wearing. “They said phasers would be useless against these guys, so I have about 5,000 rounds in here.”

Kio smiled, gunned down three more drones, and pointed towards the door. “The bio sign is this way.”

Rei and her group were greeted in much the same way. Her greeting party wound up in the same position as well.

Dead.

The Kunos could easily adapt to energy attacks. Sometimes, like with the magical energy used by the Negaverse and the Sailor Senshi, it took a few - dozen - waves of drones to get it done, but they could do it.

They could not, however, adapt to physical attacks.

And that was exactly what a gunshot with a projectile round was.

A chunk of metal moving through you at a high velocity.

Of course, the Starfleet rounds the NSO teams were using were especially nasty insofar as they also expanded and as a side effect from ripping apart the body at several times the speed of sound also caused additional damage that way, there was little the Kunos could do.

Parker, the pack-mule for the day, adjusted his backpack slightly and poked his head around the corner.

“There are several more headed this way.”

Rei checked her eyepiece and nodded. “Welp, that’s the way we need to go.”

Parker, Shelton, and Jitsia all nodded and hopped into the corridor. They quickly gunned down one group, turned, and gunned down another who was coming from the other direction.

The group, quickly but cautiously, moved down the corridors.

Rei thought back to the last time she was aboard this ship. She nearly died. The Kunos seemed a lot stronger back then. Or was it the other way around? Were they - was she - just not as strong as they are now?

The Kunos had two years to improve themselves. They had managed to fight off, sort of, both the Terran and Vulcan defense fleets with their drone ships in order to get through the dimensional portal, as well as defeat the small fleet sent to guard the jail, they broke George out of.

Perhaps this was so easy because of everything Rei and her group had been through.

Orions, Breen, Jem’Hadar, emotional Vulcan terrorists, regular Vulcans, private security mercenaries - the list went on and on. All of them, in one way or another, had either been defeated by or at least been placated by Rei’s teams.

While Rei would never allow them to consider themselves ‘perfect’ as they would give them no initiative to improve, Rei wondered to herself, could her team now be at her goal of 99.99 percent perfection?

“Commander,” Parker whispered, stopping the group.

“Yeah?” Rei asked.

“Life sign is in here,” he motioned towards a room. “Looks to be guarded by about fifty drones.”

Rei nodded smugly. “Okay. Watch your fire folks,” she said as she loaded a fresh magazine into her rifle.

George’s eyes darted back and forth across the information panel in the cube’s control room. He bit his fingernails several times as he watched drone after drone get destroyed.

“Why aren’t they adapting?!” he whimpered. George grabbed a passing Tatewaki drone and shook it madly.

“WHY AREN’T THEY ADAPTING!?!?!” he yelled at it.

“Wretched fiends are using projectile ammunition!” the drone replied.

“WHAT?!” George screeched, shoving the drone away and returning his attention to the control panel. “Well, that ain’t good,” he whimpered some more.

George paced around a bit, a couple of the drones mimicking his moves before he returned to the panel and activated the communication system.

“Kodachi!” he barked into it.

“Yes brother?” she sweetly answered.

“Is the hive ready?”

“More or less,” she replied.

“What do you mean ‘more or less’?”

“We need that Beryl lady for power, and there are a few minor details that need to be taken care of, but-”

“Well, that will have to be dealt with later,” George interrupted. “I’m sending Beryl down to you.”

“I’m not finished decorating!”

“FUCKING CRACKERS WOMAN!” George screamed. “Saotome has sent people over here and-”

“My darling Ranma is on the ship?!” Kodachi happily asked.

“NO!” George yelled, spinning in circles in pure frustration. “But he sent people over here who-”

“WE HAVE SCOUNDRELS DEFILING THE NOBLE HOME OF KUNO?!” Tatewaki interjected. “I shall return at once and dispatch them!”

George pondered for a second allowing him to beam up, then sighed. Deeply.

“Do not return to the ship. The ship is lost,” he said quietly. “They have projectile weapons we cannot adapt to.”

The two elder Kuno siblings were quiet for a moment.

For a moment.

“What about my darling Ranma?” Kodachi asked.

Again, George began to ponder turning himself in.

“You are just going to have to be content with the one on the planet,” George stated.

“I’d rather have both,” Kodachi admitted.

George just shook his head. “Look, I am beaming Beryl down there. Then I am killing the ‘interlopers’ by self-destructing the ship.”

“How do we take over the universe without a ship?” Tatewaki asked.

“We’ll just build a new one once the Starfleet ship leaves,” George replied.

The Kuno siblings agreed. “What about the blonde girl?” Kodachi scowled.

“I can’t get to her,” George sighed. “She’s in a transport blocked area because she was too noisy. She’ll just have to die.”

Tatewaki sighed. Kodachi cheered.

“I’ll be there shortly,” George finished before closing the channel. He looked to the Sisko on the viewscreen. He knew things were going to be a lot more complicated than how he explained it to his siblings. However, he hoped that with the Negaverse’s help, it would somehow work out.

The only annoying part was that now maybe they would have to stick to the deal they made.

George again sighed, noticed a couple of the Sisko soldiers getting close to the control room, beamed Beryl off the ship, activated the auto-destruct, and beamed himself away.

All it took to aggro the room of Kodachi and Tatewaki drones was for Parker to activate the door. Then, two by two, the drones came marching towards Alpha team.

And two by two they fell. First Parker and Shelton fired. Once they were out of ammo, Jitsia and Rei, then back to Parker and Shelton, and the cycle repeated till the group was out of drones to shoot.

Rei turned to Parker and the combat engineer, Sgt. Anderson. “The control room is just down this corridor. Only seems to be a few people in there. Go check it out.”

“Aye,” they both replied before scurrying off.

“Yuki to Hino,” Kio’s voice called out.

“Go,” Rei replied.

“Commander, our target’s bio sign just disappeared,” Kio reported.

“You think they were killed?” Rei asked.

“No ma’am,” Corporal Xiang, Bravo’s combat engineer reported. “We were right outside of where they were, and we detected energy traces consistent with transporter activity.”

“Okay,” Rei replied. “Have a look anyway, then meet us up by the control room.”

“Aye,” Kio replied.

The group slowly moved in and stepped over the pile of dead drones. Ensign Masters, the medic pointed towards a door that looked to have a Borgish looking lock on it. Rei walked up to it and shot it, causing it to spark a couple of times before the door opened slightly.

Jitsia and Shelton pulled the door open.

Everyone gasped.

“Usagi?!” Jitsia finally asked.

Masters quickly moved and untied Sailor Moon’s hands and pulled the duct tape from off her mouth. She quickly stood and wrapped her arms around a still stunned Rei.

“REI!!!!!!” she bawled. “I knew you’d come to save me!!!!”

Masters ran his tricorder over her. “Are you injured, Commander?”

“How in the world did you get over here, Commander Tsukino?” Shelton asked.

Sailor Moon pulled away from Rei a little bit and looked to Masters, Shelton, and Jitsia oddly. “How... How do you know who I am?”

She then moved around Rei a bit to get away from Masters. “What is that thing?” She began to whimper more. “Rei!!!! Help me!”

“Usagi...” Rei blinked.

Rei shook her head. “No, this can’t be right.”

“What?” Jitsia asked.

Rei activated her communications system. “Hino to Commander Tsukino.”

“Yeah?” Usagi asked.

“Nothing,” Rei replied. “Just checking.”

“Okay...” Usagi said.

Rei pushed Sailor Moon away. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Sailor Moon looked at Rei sadly. “What do you mean? It’s me. Usagi Tsukino. Sailor Moon.”

Shelton looked to Jitsia. “Sailor what?”

Sailor Moon looked Rei over for a bit. “Where - why are you dressed like that? Where’d you get those guns? Why-”

Kio and her group walked up. Anthony’s jaw hit the deck with a loud clang. Kio promptly shellacked him for thinking what he was obviously thinking. The rest of the group just stared at Sailor Moon oddly.

“Commander Tsukino?” Yayo asked.

“This is not Commander Tsukino,” Rei stated.

“And you’re not Rei,” Sailor Moon glowered. “Rei isn’t old.”

Rei glared at Sailor Moon.

“Oh snap,” Kio said, stifling a chuckle.

“Commander Hino!” Shelton called, running into the room. He skidded to a stop, slamming into the back of Yayo when he saw Sailor Moon.

“Wow,” he babbled. “Nice... uniform, Commander Tsukino...”

Sailor Moon began to look herself over as Rei turned and glared at Shelton.

“What is it?” Rei asked.

“The Kunos have activated the self-destruct on the ship. We have about a minute.”

Rei quickly turned to Masters. “Sedate her.”

Masters nodded and before Sailor Moon could object, she was hyposprayed asleep.

The group drug Sailor Moon into the corridor and beamed back to the Sisko. Shortly thereafter the Cube blew itself up, at least for now, stranding the Kunos on this Earth.