The Fourth Season Machine

• • •

by Dorky



Episode U-713: Spaceslide Part 2



Logline: With a slider missing, the others travel on another vessel with her double, and try to locate the Galileo before its destroyed and everyone is killed.

Starring: Jerry O'Connell, Kari Wuhrer, Robert Floyd and Alicia Witt

Guest Stars: Jonathan Frakes as Cpt. Pricherd, Taye Diggs as Officer Jim Reed, John Mahoney as Mr. Jack Ripley, and Charlie O'Connell as Colin Mallory


Synopsis: As the turbolift arrives at the bridge, Cpt. Pricherd and the others exit, with Mr. Ripley giving commands to the computer, to attack the ship. He sees that Cpt. Pricherd was near him, stating he must have said something to create this situation; Cpt. Pricherd tells Mr. Ripley that he needs to allow them to take control of the ship, if they want to survive. Mr. Ripley isn't sure, but soon agrees for the crew to take the ship back over. Cpt. Pricherd is given back the command of the ship and orders the tactical officer to fire phasers at the weapon's system, but its unsuccessful, with the Galileo under more fire attack as 3 more vessels appear. Cpt. Pricherd tells officer Reed to take them out of the area at maximum warp; but as that happens, the vessels follow, continuing their attack. The Galileo's crew continue to defend themselves, firing every type of weapon they had, until an alien vessel hits the ship, knocking most of the power out, and causing the warp core to lose as much power, slowing the ship down. Cpt. Pricherd contacts engineering, yet no one replies. Officer Reed tries to control the vessel, but its out of control, leading for the Galileo to speed through space, leaking plasma fluid, and soon speeding into a desert planet, and crash landing.

At the station, the scouting vessel had arrived, with Maggie's double on board working; Quinn finds her, asking if he could talk to her. The double doesn't mind the chatter, but just as long as she gets to work on the engines. Quinn states that he can understand why he and the others couldn't go with her through the wormhole, but he feels they've gotten in too deep already, with their friend Maggie missing. The double states the vessel was military, and if something was to happen, they could die meaningless deaths; Quinn states he and the others would risk it, if that meant finding their friend alive. The double stops using a small lazor pointing device, to look at Quinn, stating that their friend must really mean something to them, and would consider bringing them along, since she heard she have to command the vessel. She tells Quinn that if they came along, they would need some rules, including no touching the equipment, causing chaos aboard, or touching the commanding officer in obscene ways. Quinn smiles, agreeing to the plan; the double tells him, she would be in contact, then in a sarcastic tone, the double tells Quinn to leave her alone, or she would throw him off the station herself.

By the following morning, at the hotel, a knock at the door of the hotel room is heard, and Colin answers it, with revealing to the others that the double was there. The double walks in with a large case, stating the vessel was ready, and she can use the devices in hand to directly transport them to the ship, since the wormhole was opening in a few minutes, and they only have a certain amount of time until it closes. Colin heads to the bedroom to see of the others awake, but he notices they were slowly moving around and getting dressed. When the sliders have gotten ready, the double had placed 4 pole looking devices and she turns the top of each that light up. The group is told to remain in the middle of the devices, and the transport would complete itself. Wade asks what kind of technology it was; the double states that these devices scramble molecules and restruction them at another location. The sliders are unsure of doing the transport, but htey soon disappear and reappear aboard the scounting ship.

On the other side of the galaxy, Cpt. Pricherd awakens in a cooridore, realizing there was heavy damage to his surroundings; Officer Jim Reed is seen exiting a turbolift that had to be manually opened, carrying Maggie through some rubble. Cpt. Pricherd asks for casulties, but officer Reed couldn't tell. The 3 stay close together, with trying to return to the bridge, only to find barely anything there. Maggie notices Mr. Ripley on the floor, and when feeling for a pulse, there wasn't one, so at least they had one threat out of the way.

Aboard the scouting vessel, Maggie's double tells the pilot to take off and set a direct coarse into the wormhole, which happens suddenly, and the vessel quickly exits out into space, and the wormhole closes quickly. An officer at a station states they've arrived 20,000 light years from earth, but no detection of the Galileo; Quinn asks Maggie's double if they could try the farthest out area of the galaxy and work their way backwards. The double states that they could try, but it might be impossible, since the wormhole opens at any location; Maggie heads to a station, pushes a few buttons, and a lazor beam ejects from the ship into space, creating a wormhole that opens and the vessel quickly enters. The vessel exits another wormhole, this time they would be 556,444 light years from earth, and they still can't locate the Galileo; the double tells an officer to activate the wormhole and they would try again or until they got the location correct.

With the remaining crew, consisting of 28 officers, and including Maggie, were outsie of the wreckage, with the planet being breathable, and sustain life; Cpt. Pricherd tells the crew that they wouldn't survive long without shelter, water or food, since their rashens would disintigrate in a month or so, and with only 89 gallons of water, it wouldn't last long either. Cpt. Pricherd then states that they would need to find supplies more quickly, os it would be better to split into 2 teams and make travel split in half. One team would go southwest, while the other group went northeast. Officer Reed and Maggie joined the captain, as he stood over a large bulky object, and the captain states it was a probe to launch into space, with the earth's coordinates. The captain is unsure if it would make it, since its likely it would land on another planet, or destroyed by the alien race they ran into. The probe is launched minutes later, leaving the planet and heading into space.

A wormhole opens, bringing out the scouting vessel into the unknown. The double is told by the another officer that she was detecting a faint signal, from a vessel, but the double wasn't sure what to do. The double decides to pursue the signal, telling the pilot to set a coarse for the vessel's location, which they would rondeview in 3 hours. In the mess hall, aboard the scouting vessel, Maggie's double arrives, to get coffee from a replicator, and taking a seat at a table, over looking a notepad on a palm pilot type device. Mallory and Wade enter, getting drinks and joining the engineer. Wade tells Maggie's double that Cpt. Pricherd was lucky to have her aboard his ship; the double states she enjoyed being his friend, except she really didn't like it, when he gives orders that are questionable. Mallory asks what things he'd done; the double states with him being the captain of one of only 3 vessels running, he feels that earth should remain alone, without first contact with possible new species that exist. He had easily told the council to forget the plan, and it got dropped to travel through the wormhole and make possible contact.

Mallory finds it odd that Cpt. Pricherd would say a thing like that, since what they do, is like meeting new aliens everyday. The double states that she is considering of just opening up another wormhole and go home, making sure he got stuck in an unknown area of space; Wade comments that they could, but they would miss their friend to much. Mallory lights up a cigarette, and the double is shocked to see cigarettes around, since she thought people stopped using back in the 1950s. Wade smiles and looks to Mallorys, who doesn't care, and takes a few puffs, with blowing smoke into the women's faces.

Back on the planet, Cpt. Pricherd, Maggie, officer Reed, and 12 other officers make it near a mountainous area, they figure they should be able to go around them, even if it took a few days. Jim Reed catches up to Maggie, stating he forget to introduce himself, and stating that he had a lover that looked like her; Maggie figures this would be her double, and isn't surprised to see her alternate with a black male. Maggie introduces herself, and the officer is surprised of the same first name, as that of her lovers. Cpt. Pricherd finds some shade, stopping for a break, along with the rest of the crew; Maggie heads to the captain, asking how they would contact the other team if they didn't find anything. The captain pulls a small communication device, attaching it to his chest, by his heart and tapping on it, which resembled a cross with a triangle on top of it. Cpt. Pricherd states some guy had developed communicators, which was instant contact; a woman's voice answered, stating they located a volcano that looks like it was about to erupt, but figures there should be no danger for at least a few weeks. Cpt. Pricherd asks of finding their necessary needs; the woman states they haven't found anything yet, and would contact him later of their findings.

The scouting vessel arrives at the ship's location, but doesn't detect anything of the Galileo, only a vessel in pieces that wasn't know to the crew. The double asks to transport a piece of the vessel to scan it. an officer detects a probe which was not far from their location, with a signal from the Galileo; the double tells the officer to send the coordinates to the helm, so the pilot could take them to the probe. Quinn and Colin arrive to see the double entering another room, and soon following. A piece of the destroyed vessel arrives in a table for study. Quinn asks the double if hse knew anything about the vessel they found; she explains it was new to her, and thats why she has a piece of the vessel to study, but detected a Galileo probe, and they should find the ship soon, rescueing their people.

By sunset, at a campfire, the officers sit around, with Cpt. Pricherd explaining of their next few plans; Maggie brings up the volcano the other team found, and wondered if they should worry about it, since it could erupt and kill them all. Cpt. Pricherd believes they still will have time to get prepared to survive on the planet, even for 30 years if they had to. A female officer asks about what was going to happen if they were forced to call the unknown planet home, and had to continue on with a new breed of a crew; Cpt. Pricherd states that they will all have enough men and women to repopulate the planet, when the time comes, but he hopes people at home are trying to find them and return back to earth.

With returning to the bridge, Maggie's double takes a seat in her chair, when an officer reveals that they detected a large vessel, barring at coordinates 349.61; the double tells the pilot to input the coordinates and set a coarse for the vessel, figuring it had to be the Galileo. The scouting vessel quickly arrives at the coordinates, with the sliders arriving on the bridge. A large cubed vessel closens in by them and contacts the scouting vessel with an audio message only, with their message "We are the Borg, you will be assimulated, resistance is crucial to your well being" The double is shocked to see the Borg cube and fearing of the alien species, since she had never seen such a large sized vessel. The double doesn't do anything, until a tractorbeam was placed on the vessel and being pulled with the cube. Quinn tells the double of who the borg were, since he noticed them from ficticious writing about a race that took people from normal beings to create drones who had one mind. The tactical officer states that he located a weakness in the borg ship's power grid, giving them an escape. The double tells the officer to make it happen, and the scouting vessel is out of there immediately, even though the cube is in pursuit.

Wade overlooks a chart of what data had scanned of the area, and noticed a sun not far from their location, figuring they could hide in there for the time until the cube left. Maggie's double is told the idea, and considers it, but they wouldn't be able to last long, since they could burn up. Quinn asks if they could try quadraphasic shielding, that could let them remain near the sun until the ship disappears. The double asks how he knew about it and Quinn states it was stated in an article in Time magazine explaining a new way that vessels nearing a sun could survive for long periods of time. The double agrees to the idea, since she was thinking of applying it to the Galileo, but didn't get time to finish her work. The double uses her communicator, calling down to the engine room, asking to set up the betaphasic shields program she finished aboard the vessel; the officer is unsure of the procedure, so the double tells the pilot to head for the sun and she would be in the engine room to set up the program to activate.

With the double gone, 2 borg drones appear aboard the bridge, and an officer fires upon one, but the drone isn't injured due to shielding around them both; the other drone hacks into the central database, assimulating information. Within a few seconds the borg drones disappear, leaving the crew and sliders shocked of the experience with a new alien race. An officer contacts Maggie's double, stating the alien vessel had drones come aboard and they had taken information out of their database. The double states she has the betaphasic systems online, and about to be activated. The officer scans for the borg drone, but it had disappeared from the censors, so the officer tells his captain that the borg were gone. The double states it was worth the work, figuring they could have been killed if they couldn't have survived near the sun. The double tells the pilot to return to the original coarse, which was to locate the probe.

Back on the planet, with no sun seen. The captain's team and the other group reformed and they were walking through the mountains to get to the other side. Maggie walks with the captain, stating that this planet seemed liveable, and would consider living there than dying, in case of no rescue. Officer Reed notices the volcano nearby, that looks quite active, and near explosion. Cpt. Pricherd is told of this and he tells Reed that he has seen many volcanoes in his day, and he knows when they are to explode.

With the scouting vessel reaching the probe, it gets transported aboard. The double realizes it belonged to the Galileo, and knew they had to speed after them when arriving at the planet. The scouting vessel first had to deal with the lizard looking creatures the Galileo ran into before hand and who had surprised the scouting ship by fire. The lead ship contacts the vessel with it responding to the hail. The leader of the ship tells Maggie's double that they were invading his territory and would be destroyed. After contact ended, the double tells the tactical officer to fire phasers and a few torpedoes, but it made very little of an impact on the larger vessel, that was pounding them. Quinn asks the double if it was possible to send out explosives and light it with nitrogen fuel, which would be like stepping on mines. The double agrees, telling of the officer to follow through with Quinn's idea. The plan works, leaving the alien vessels badly damaged and the scouting vessel off to save the Galileo crew.

By the early morning, and the sun starting to show, the entire crew had reached a high range into the mountains, when an officer points out the volcano nearby to the captain, and he soon realizes that it was about to erupt, figuring his lessons in volcano eruptions were misinformed. Within minutes, the crew had reached an elevation of 400 feet, and the scouting vessel soon approaches, with landing near the crew on a flat area of sand and rocks. Maggie's double exits the vessel, heading to the captain, and stating she was glad to see him, and wanted to know what happened when heading for the wormhole. Cpt. Pricherd states he would explain along the way home. The sliders reunite with their Maggie and she states shes had a wild adventure, but was glad to be going back to earth and sliding off to another world, with technology like spaceships and alien races. The Galileo crew relax aboard the scouting vessel, with the sliders remaining on the vessel's bridge, as it flew through space.

As time went by, a wormhole was activated and the scouting vessel headed through, with returning to earth. A Borg cube is seen near it and in a room, a few Borg drones stand around, watching the vessel enter the wormhole. One drone speaks up, stating they have found a new species that would fit in well to their collective. Another drone states that with learning of their database, that there is new technology to travel through wormholes at will, into many sectors of the galaxy and assimulate many new species. Out in space, the Borg cube shoots out an electric bolt, creating a wormhole and it enters quickly.

Executive Producers: Jerry O'Connell
Bill Dial



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