That's really strange. This story does exist twice here, written by different authors. Which is the original one?

Goodness, two proposals within about 36 hours, both unexpected - how strange. I really wonder why Data did that. Totally illogical unless he was wanting to give her a home on the Enterprise, thinking she would be stateless.

Of course, it is possible that Tony may decide that he doesn't want to join the colony if Maya is going to be there - he may opt for going back to Earth. That will be a bit of an obstacle for Maya to overcome. Maybe she just needs to pick up an infection from the crew of the Enterprise and be at death's door so he can see what he truly thinks. Failing that, maybe he is going to have to get himself into a serious life threatening situation in some way so that Maya has to risk her life to save him - maybe that will show him what she truly thinks.

Thank you so much for continuing with this tale - I hope the next update will not be too far in the future.

Subterfuge by Captain Picard - he is one shrewd captain. However, he wants to be kept informed. And he expects Dr Russell to be able to communicate with John and Tony how exactly? Their communicators were removed from them when they joined the ship and we've seen not sign of them being given back.

Hey, quick thinking Maya and well done. Great idea to use that trick & disguise. Now, find Riker.

Complicated escape and it nearly went badly wrong for her. She forgot to take into account Riker's ability as an officer to defend himself.

Hm, interesting - when she transforms into someone else she also 'transforms' into their clothes, or so it appears. But when she changes back again it would have been a good idea to transform back into herself wearing different clothes on this occasion. shame she didn't think of it.

Goodness, someone please get those two together by the scruff of their necks, knock their heads together and then throw them into a room and don't let them out until they've talked to each other and sorted the problem!

I do like the way you are complicating all of the relationships and continually throwing spanners in the works - great fic writing. I do wonder how this will all end. Hopefully not back on Alpha - I think that would be a real waste of such an opportunity.

Ah, shame, they do know - pity. Well, I guess it's John and Tony to the rescue. Hopefully Tony will forgive...ah, I forgot, she's in her nightdress. That means Tony will jump to the wrong conclusion and be even more intractable than before. Darn it.

And the moral of this story? If you want your lover to tell you he loves you - tell him. Otherwise don't complain. I wonder how many times Maya told Tony she loved him - if at all?

Hmm, they were gassed but Maya felt a crack on her arm - strange. Well, at least Riker has a really useful ally on his side - one able to change into a bear, a mouse, a wolf, an alien at will - very good. Hopefully the guy watching them from the roof didn't see her transform so doesn't know about this ability.

Good to see John has come round and is behaving sensibly again - good call on not telling Tony - although I'm sure the brooding Italian won't agree.

Wonderful to be able to transform into a bird and take off - if only. Good job there were no bigger birds of prey around - or hunters!. but who is watching them? and why? Are they considered to be a threat? We will see.

So John is no longer a COmmander? Good job - with the way he is acting he would probably have tried to force Helena to do something about it. No he can't - although I guess if they become colonists he'll probably still stay as the father of the tribe and have a certain level of authority. I hope he learns to be more pliable and less dictatorial before then.

hopefully someone will remember to ask Alan and whoever else has stayed on Alpha what they think about the idea. Did a medical person stay behind in case of emergencies? I hope so.

Ha, I was right. Slightly wrong about the timings though - goodness, a hundred years earlier and I bet she would have been a suffragette. I don't envy her the job of telling John - he has got one mean frown when he wants to.

The colonisation is a really good idea - probably the best solution overall I think - although being trapped on a planet of three hundred people with a jealous Italian may be something Maya wants to avoid.

Good on Deanna for being a little more upfront with Riker - although it's probably a little late in the day - that boy thinks too much with a certain part of his anatomy - shame Doctor Crusher couldn't prescribe some tablets for him.

Oh my goodness - what a mess they have got themselves into.

I think it would perhaps be better for Will to withdraw a little now, and certainly no to go to the planet with Maya. If Will really cared about Maya maybe he would be willing to leave her alone and to see if she really wanted to stay with Tony, no matter how she had to accept him treating her. The trouble is that by trying for Maya he is perfectly well aware that Tony is becoming more and more jealous and so showing himself in a bad light and so increasing Will's chances of success.

Is he really serious about Maya? I doubt it somehow - but time may tell. Perhaps, as they have left Alan in charge of Alpha and as the Alphans must all be starting to realise that they are going to have a hard job fitting into the tweny fourth century, when they get back to Alpha they will all decide to stay as the moon moves out into intergalactic space. I think that would be a bad, bad mistake.

"I got that robot to take me back to your quarters" - my goodness - what a difference in attitude ! He'd better not open his mouth like that in Captain Picard's hearing - he'll get a right telling off and well deserved as well. Tony may have difficulty adapting his somewhat chauvenist and bigoted twentieth century standards to fit the twentyfourth century he was now living in.

I suppose a man from the 1600's would be slightly out of his depth in the 1990's and would make similarly unacceptable remarks - very well observed. Again your contrasting of the two cultures works really well to show how strange the whole thing is to the Alphans. In this case though, as Maya knows the Enterprise crew already and as their level of technology is nearer to that of her home, it is almost the Alphans who appear to be the aliens even though she has lived with them for the last two years.

“That may be so. However, I would suggest that it would not be reasonable to pursue a potential partnership if pain and unpleasantness are all you experience.” There's nothing like the emotional detachment of pure logic to point out the obvious - if only things were that easy.

Top marks to Commander Riker - he is certainly being extremely diplomatic and leaving Maya in full control of what she does. The only trouble is, his gentlemanly behaviour will probably only attract her to him even more, particularly in contrast to the childish and embarrassing behaviour of Tony, and that in its turn will increase the emotional confusion she is feeling. Maybe it may be a good idea for Deanna to have a talk with her. Shrink! Oh good heavens, what a bigoted chump he is.

"The illusion of the lakeside scenery was ripped apart as the holodeck door materialised out of the air, and Data and Tony stepped through." This is one thing that really puzzles me about the holodeck. As a recreational facility I would have thought there was some way of ensuring someone could not just walk in on the middle of something that could be a quite . .. . . .personal.. . . adventure. Maybe there are rules regulating the use of the holodeck so that there are limits to what 'recreation' can be programmed in.

"She left by the other staircase, not wanting to be seen so obviously waiting for someone who wasn’t going to come." Of course it is possible that he was still 'stranded in a remote part of the ship' and was still lost. Maya really is emotionally mixed up.

After nearly three weeks without you, you bet it is.”

I promise you, for the past two weeks I have never seen them apart.”

NNhhuh? I thought the journey to rescue the Alphans was going to take ten days? Where did 'nearly three weeks' and 'past two weeks' come from? Did I miss something?

I must admit Riker has a point about Tony - his behaviour is certainly on the childish side at the moment - but then he has barely slept for the last ten days/two weeks/nearly three weeks. He must be near to unstable by now through lack of sleep. If Tony was always this jealous on Alpha (and I seem to remember he did always have flashes of it - all that hot latin blood I presume) then meeting Riker would be a very refreshing change for Maya.

“So you decided to go ahead anyway, hm?”

Helena stared at her, stunned. “No, of course not,” she said, automatically.

Beverly looked at her intently, then dropped her eyes and gave a slight shrug. “Okay. I’d have considered it myself.”

Now I'm guessing that Dr Crusher would have given the whole crew a once over when they came aboard to make sure they weren't carrying anything dangerous to the ship. I'd hazard a guess that Helena is pregnant and that, by her response, she probably decided to get pregnant after the previous pregnancy was discovered and allowed to continue. Possibly she might not know though, but only suspect. Well, we will see.

Uh-oh, the boy's letting himself down again. Dreaming of things that are not for him. He needs to make sure he gives Maya space to make her own decision - if that's what she wants to do.

A shame that the Alphans have to be so cautious and suspicious but unfortunately it's completely understandable given the history they have gone through. However, it is heartening that John put aside his doubts so quickly once he got to the ship - a good judge of charater there - a trait which has served Alpha well in the past. However, I think Tony's suspicions risk pushing Maya away which, with Riker in the offing, he can't afford to do.

I'm rather surprised at the suggestion of a skeleton crew - I think that's a really bad idea of Picard. It is known that the moon has been through a number of spacial anomalies and has time-shifted 400 years into the future as a result. although it's been 10 days since the initial contact who says that something won't happen to delay the Enterprise past the next five days? What if the moon goes through another anomaly in that time? All of the people on the base will be lost and this time it is unlikely Enterprise will find them. I hope Alan doesn't get lost. Also, much as I like Space 19 it would be really, really good to have such a positive ending as them getting found by the Enterprise - just think of all the things that can happen to them on their way back to Earth - four months is a long time in space.

Oh, that's a pity - you've jumped forwards several days. After the party trick that Maya pulled in the Captain's quarters I had expected that Captain Picard would want to meet Maya in private and ask her more details of the transformation ability that she has - after all, Enterprise is tasked with seeking new life and civilisation but they have never met a matter transformer before and Maya is clearly not a shape-shifter like Odo out of DS9 as she does not look like she is wearing a mask of plastic. Also, I had hoped we might get to see Will getting a telling off for his escapade with the alcohol. Oh well.

Dorzak is still alive? Interesting. That presumably means that since Maya joined Alpha they have not gone through too many temporal shifts otherwise it would have been up to 400 years before that Psychon had exploded and Dorzak had been exiled from Psychon before that happened.

So the Federation have got information on Tamyara? That's very interesting as it corroborates the matter re Dorzak. Earth was not capable of interstellar travel when Breakaway happened bso the jumps in time must have happened before Alpha got to Psychon to allow time for someone for the Federation to have got the information about Tamyara before it was too late.

Oh that's good, Riker is being a gentleman and seems to have pulled back from his promise to himself to win Maya before the alphans turn up again - I do hope he means it.

Hey, it sounds like the Enterprise may have turned up- interesting that they seem to have kept on the same time - John in bed at abbout three in the morning is roughly the same time Data told Maya they would be making the rendezvous - after 400 years I would expect the times to have got shifted .

Oh well - I asked and I got. Wonderful! So wonderful! Oh the looks on their faces - and good old Mr Worf pulling his phaser out, ever ready to defend the Enterprise. Well, so now they have heard, and seen, molecular transformation. Priceless, absolutely pricesless - if only this had been a ilmed crossover - if only. I love it!

Honestly, I hope will gets a nice thick stripe torn off him tomorrow. He knows full well they're not allowed real alcohol on board - I guess that's called breaking Starfleet Regulations and he deserves a real reprimand - what a way to treat a guest - give her bottles of real alcohol and let her go free with no advice or anyone to watch over her. Commander Koenig and Tony Verdeshi are NOT going to be pleased when they find out - oh no they're not.

I'm hoping that the Alphans choose to be rescued and then, at/after the wedding something happens so Maya gets to use her unique gifts in another way.

I am so enjoying this story - just in case you hadn't sussed that yet. Although it has been insinuated in passing a few times Maya hasn't yet shown anyone her party trick of turning into another living being. I do so hope we get to see this happen and get to see everyone's reaction to it - particularly Will Riker. He is coming across as a little cold blooded and ruthless in his desire of Maya - in build terms I think he could easily throw Tony across a room but I'm hoping that Maya will chose wisely and pick the guy whom she loved first and not the usurper.

I can see why John and the others made the decision not to tell the rest of the Alphans about Picard and the Enterprise but I think his choice was wrong and now we see what has happened as a result. In order for them to trust him, he must trust them. At times he is really quite a dictator and borders on arrogance. I think at times he should defer far more graciously to the opinion of others - usually when he is forced to do so it is with ill-grace unbecoming of a leader. Maybe he can learn some grace from Captain Picard.We'll see.

Despite his womanising Will Riker is still a gentleman and that comes through in your story. I think this is a wonderful mixture of old and new, contrasting the plastic 'modern day' with the technological swish advancements of the 24th Century.

Picard's natural courtesy and charm are really well done and all the time I am reading this I can see the characters as if I was watching them on film. I heard Gordi's voice and wandered through the tables of ten forward with them.