Star Trek: Just in Time Fest

ANNOUNCING THE STAR TREK: JUST IN TIME FEST

From the team that brought you Babel Trek!

A challenge to create works that speculate on the role of TIME in Star Trek (any Star Trek).

Time is such a malleable concept. Time travel, Not enough time. Perception of time. Quality time. Imagine the possibilities! 

We invite all creators to submit works (writing, art, videos, and more) set in the Star Trek universe to our page on AO3 any time from now until 8th February 2021. The first works will be revealed on 18th January 2021. 

STAR TREK: JUST IN TIME FEST

FAQ

The last Timefest fic came in under the wire, appropriately Just In Time, from @almaasi. A very cute fic in which Julian waits for a letter from SOMEBODY.

“Join us, Julian!” Jadzia’s raucous laugh fell on Julian’s shoulders along with a pushing hand. “Quark, another round! No, two!”

Jadzia, like the rest of the DS9 crew, was in high spirits. Quark poured bloodwine from glass to glass without stopping, and didn’t even cringe when he spilled the last drop and wasted it. He pushed the tray towards Jadzia, who took it amidst the celebrating crowds, all pounding at the bar and cheering from every barrier of the upper levels. Confetti rained down and scattered across the bartop.

“Worf’s going to sing!” Jadzia told Julian, shouting into his ear so she’d be heard over the other noise. “I know you don’t wanna miss that!”

Julian smiled at her, then grinned, but gently shook his head. He lifted his synthale. “I’m all right here. You go.”

Kira ran up to the bar and snatched at Jadzia, almost dropping the tray of drinks. “Come on,” Kira insisted. “You’re missing half the party!”

“Tell me about it!” Jadzia called back as she left. “I’ll save a seat for you.”

Kira shooed Jadzia away, then tapped Julian’s arm and leaned closer. “Chief O’Brien’s joined us with Keiko. It’s a full house, now.”

“I gathered,” Julian smirked, peering down into his drink.

“Don’t bother with him, Colonel,” Quark remarked to Kira. “He’s a lost cause. He’s been nursing the same ale for an hour.”

“Something wrong?” Kira asked.

Julian shook his head. “I’m waiting for someone.”

Kira grinned. “Ohhh, right. Your lover from Earth.

A glimpse at the Cardassian withdrawal of Bajor through the eyes of people who (mostly) weren’t there the first time around. 

Working by feel almost as much as by sight in the dim crawl space, Garak pried open the next relay switch in the series and began the painstaking process of re-wiring it to send its segment of the message to the runabout.

The barracks outside the crawl space were silent. The sounds of angry voices, combat, disruptor fire – gone. No one spoke. There was no sound of approaching Jem'Hadar footsteps.

Not yet, but there would be soon.

He finished the modification of the switch. No time to replace the cover.

One more wire. He disconnected it and pulled it around … but it wouldn't move. The wire wasn't long enough to reach its new destination. Garak pulled the wire out – too hard. His elbow collided with the wall behind him. All the walls immediately seemed to press in tighter. Any moment, he would be crushed – and there was no air!

A spicy ‘mating cycle’ garashir fic from @damnhardwork, with a little bit of ‘fuck or die cry.

The call had come in around 1300 hours. A simple request for assistance, Odo uncharacteristically vague, the only specification made that it be Dr Bashir in attendance.

Alone.

Julian had some inkling as to why he had been specifically requested. The current occupant of Holding Cell Three was one of the station’s more recalcitrant individuals: Elim Garak, former spy, current tailor, and all-round pain in the posterior. Though Odo professed to care little for solids and the intricacies of their interpersonal relationships, even he knew better than to send a Bajoran to tend to a Cardassian, exiled or otherwise. Garak’s ills would be treated, yes, but would be done so with cold hands and an equally icy bedside manner.

If there was one thing that could be said for Julian Bashir, it was that his hands were always warm.

(The less said about his bedside manner, the better.)

Fascinating post-canon first-person Garak fic.

The months were slowly winding by, trickling away bit by bit until my time as Castellan would finally be complete. For six years, I had served; two terms as Cardassians were most fond of things in threes. I could have chosen to run for a third term, but my hand-picked successor, a woman who was already greatly appreciated by our people even before I encouraged her to run, was eager to step into my comfortable boots.

It was time for me to move on, time perhaps find a planet more suited to my love of green things. Certainly, it seemed strange that after my 7-year desperation to return to my home world that I should be so eager to leave it. But I was bored and looking for someone—I mean—somewhere that I might explore or raise my orchids or travel or anything. I won’t deny a touch of wanderlust; a desire to see the galaxy and all that was out there. Time was everything and time was rushing past me. I was running out of time to do all the things I needed to do in my life.

Just a few more months and I—

“Castellan Garak? Communication for you from Captain Ezri Dax. She said it’s urgent,” my aid called from the box on my desk. Well, damn. I had forgotten it was there.

I pressed a switch on the archaic device. “Patch her through, Neela,” I said, running my fingers through my black hair. I really needed a haircut; it was practically long enough to braid! “On screen,” I said as I rotated my chair around to face the large screen up on the wall. I grinned politely as Ezri Dax’s face appeared; she had that same nervous little smile she always wore when we chatted. She was such a pretty little thing, but we were total opposites in personality and barely got along when we did talk. To be certain, I still preferred Jadzia to Dax’s current host though I never failed to be polite to Ezri. “Ahh, my dear Captain Dax! What a delightful surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of this chat?”

Ezri hesitated before replying and then said, “I need your help. It’s Julian—”

“Another lover’s quarrel?” I interrupted playfully. It was actually sarcasm; I loathed them together and couldn’t bear the thought of them touching. They had recently seemed on the verge of ending things for good and I couldn’t be happier. I take that back: I could be happier, but this would suffice for now.

A novel-length fic by @almaasi about Julian and Garak stranded for months together on a planet? Yes, please!

“Bashir to the Defiant. Come in, Defiant.”

No reply.

“Enough! Enough, Doctor. If I might make an educated guess,” Garak said, as he hung white-knuckled from the headrest of a pilot seat, one boot keeping him from falling into the spiderweb-cracked viewscreen, “down here, we have no signal. The chance that a distress call would penetrate those rather formidable-looking clouds, and reach the Defiant, let alone a rescue mission be launched and arrive before we plummet through these branches to the jungle floor, is really quite slim, wouldn’t you say?”

Julian bit his lip in a grimace, concentrating on the hissing, shimmering, bronze-green world spread out before them. “I don’t see a clearing anywhere. There’s nowhere to land safely.”

“At this point,” Garak replied all too calmly, “I would take landing at all over dangling here like some oversized, hard-shelled fruit. Who knows what manner of alien creature might find us a tasty morsel.”

Julian shot his companion a smile. “Hang in there, Garak.” He let out a breath in preparation. “Alright. Taking us down. Brace yourself.”

“Hm.”

Another by @aliceinthinkland. Different cultures tell stories differently, and Guinan is listening. 

The first time Guinan and Ro have sex, Ro drags the concept of endings into Guinan’s bed like a carcass.

“This won’t last forever,” she says, pulling away from Guinan’s kiss to sit up, straddling Guinan’s hips. “Us, I mean.” Her headband is charmingly askew, which makes the seriousness of her expression almost overwhelmingly adorable, but Guinan knows better than to point it out just then.

“Is that a problem for you?” says Guinan, her hands resting steadily on Ro’s slight waist. “That whatever happens between us is going to end someday?”

“No,” says Ro, quick and sure. She’s tense as a bowstring pulled taut. Guinan craves her in the way she craves Listening: for both the ease and the challenge. “I just think it’s important to be upfront.”

A very cute kidfic by @boredtrekkie in which two Milas meet. 

The chime of an incoming video message reverberated around Garak’s quarters.

“Yadik! It’s her!”

A young half-Cardassian girl bounced on the couch where Garak had been reading. The man in question put down his padd and smiled at the girl, who had started tugging at his sleeves.

“Give me a second! My old bones can’t take as much as yours.” He let out an exaggerated groan as he stood up, getting an unimpressed glare in return.

Sitting down in front of the console, Garak pulled the child onto his lap and accepted the call. The screen blinked on, revealing an older Cardassian woman, her grey hair neatly pinned up and her clothes pressed.

“Mila.” Garak nodded at her.

“Ah, Elim,” Mila cut off any chance for him to continue, “You wanted to talk to me?”

The girl in his lap was rocking slightly, a grin stretching her face. Taking notice of her, the older woman smiled kindly.

“And who might you be, my dear?”

This ASIT-compliant peek at Garak through the years from @jadzia-daxes and Tadandader. Featuring all your favourite Cardassians plus one favourite human. 

The days were shorter now, obscured by winter’s looming shadow, and the air was embittered with the promise of a rare frost. Passers-by didn’t stop to greet the two figures at the river’s edge, hurrying on their way before their ridges grew too chilled for comfort. All Elim Garak could focus on, though, was the fascinating slip of leaves through the whirling current. The waters tumbled through the narrow channel on their way through the city, carved so many seasons ago that even the eldest of the ancient families could no longer remember the absence of its constancy.

For Mila the frost was more of an excuse, a novelty that she could use to convince Tain to let her take Elim out for the morning. The cold wasn’t her particular favorite. She’d told Tolan just yesterday that she was starting to feel it in her ridges. But sometimes, despite how she cared, she did need some time away from Tain. And Elim did too. He… He was not quite as much like his father as Tain might have wished, and she worried.

She could take a break from such worries here. The river’s edge was slippery, creating entirely new worries for her to focus on, and she reached a hand out toward her son.

“Careful, now. We don’t want you dripping on the carpet when we get back. Uncle Tain only just had them deep-cleaned.” More accurately she didn’t want the cold to have a chance to sink its claws in. Elim was not a small boy, but he did sometimes seem frail. She had little faith in how much time she’d have off to tend to him if he did catch cold. She had even less faith in him getting a long enough break from Tain to fully recover.

A bit of dayoun from @mystrade4ever. Weyoun has come complicated feelings.

It takes time to adapt. Even for the Vorta, whose memories jump from one body to the next, consciousness fully formed before new eyes have even opened. Even for them, adaptation takes time. Weyoun finds himself musing on this truth, laying on top of the covers in a bed not his own, in quarters far more temperate than the cold preferred by the Dominion. The body next to him is cool, but so much warmer, in many ways, than anything he has felt before.

Damar is the catalyst for his current contemplation, as he has been for so many other things as well. From the first, the Cardassian has provoked a response in him. He has always prided himself on being able detach himself from circumstance and to react in a manner to benefit the endeavors of his gods. He has weathered difficulties that would have sent lesser envoys into conniptions with nothing more than a reassuring smile to mask his personal disquiet. With Damar, things have been different from the onset.

Absolutely fascinating pre-DS9 crossover with TNG from @ysalamiri-queen. Featuring all your favourite Ferengi. (Rom <3)

Noses rubbing together, Rom reached up to stroke Prinadora’s lobe, careful to not tug her earring and eliciting a low hum of pleasure. He knew just how to please her, and she him, and together they formed a union as good as anyone could ask for on Ferenginar, which was a rare thing indeed. Often marriages were born out of profit, and not for love, but Rom had somehow hit the spouse lottery, or at least that is how he felt in this domestic moment as she rose, flashing a toothy smile before plodding down the hall into another part of the house, leaving him to read up on the daily news.

Prinadora was everything Rom could have hoped for in a wife, beautiful, kind, and from a good family. That ‘good family’ bit was a complication, seeing the dense, detailed, and expensive marriage contract it resulted in. However, Rom was confident he had read even the finest of print and signed happily, leading to many joyous years. Prinadora was a fair partner, attentive to Rom’s needs and she had graciously borne him a son, helping to raise him to be how a good Ferengi should. Already Nog was stealing sweets from the cupboard to hoard under his bed and committing other small acts of acquisition. Rom could not be more proud. Nog was set to begin his formal education at the local primary school soon, the same Hopawup Academy for Young Lobelings he and his brother Quark had attended over thirty years ago. He would surely bloom into a savvy businessman, should he take after his granmoogie’s side of the family.

@lovemelizards‘ third Timefest contribution is a Garak POV companion to Say My Name and is similarly heartrending.

Lying came naturally to Garak; it didn’t take him much to spin a story so glorious it’d entertain even non-believers. Never choosing the direct path, always obfuscating that’s how he was used to living. Being in a relationship with Julian caused an internal struggle within him as his desire to be honest and his natural instincts fought for dominance and found no balance. How could he tell his lovely doctor, how much of him still resided in darkness? How could he tell him he would never meet his wide-eyed expectations? He couldn’t. But maybe if he tried enough the mask he wore would feel like skin.

Really vivid contribution by @arinaca-st of Julian’s return to the station after seeing Garak ‘die’ in the Dominion simulation.

Julian could hear the pounding beat of his own heart in his ears, like the ticking countdown of a clock, like running out of time.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

He heard the sound of a disruptor roaring in his ears and a sharp cry of pain. Desperately he spun towards Garak as Jadzia slammed against the wall, phaser pointed back down the hall. His vision tunnelled in horror as Garak was sliding against the wall, burns in his clothes and chest.

No, no, no, no, no oh God no!!

His hands found the thick cloth of Garaks clothes and he clung to him, the smell of burnt flesh near overwhelming his senses.

"Doctor… I'm afraid I won't be able to have lunch with you today…"