.Dodecorus | By : keithcompany Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation Views: 1522 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek: Enterprise, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Data and Worf sat at the pilot stations. Riker took one of the passenger seats. Worf found diagnostics already in progress. He monitored them closely. "It will take approximately seven minutes, Commander, to be sure the novel transporter use did not damage ship controls or life support."
Data used the shuttle systems to access the Enterprise's scans. "Weather conditions will become problematical in approximately twenty minutes, sir." Riker acknowledged both reports. "Okay, we'll give them twenty minutes to join us, then-" He paused as the tiny object entered the shuttle, coming to rest near the back of an unoccupied seat. --------- "What is this place?" Kief was asking. "Don't care," Heest sighed. The giant door had closed and the winds stopped. The autopilot was sufficient for these conditions. She relieved the helmsmen. "Get some rest, both of you." Each officer bent to their displays to try to understand the new environment. Cleur scanned the displays that the two giants were interested in. Others checked the atmosphere, the gravity, the movements of the giants... Theex set the main display to see the one giant that was paying them attention. "He's kinda cute in a decent light, isn't he?" Heest rolled her eyes. "THIS is why they organize the Fleet in monogender crews." "You don't think he's cute?" Theex asked. Heest wasn't sure if the Upper Officer was teasing. "Twenty seven million," she hissed. "His manhood...it's bigger than you are. It's bigger than the whole ship! You could fit INSIDE it!" "You think he's into that?" Theex said. She stared at the screen. "Or could become...into that?" "Captain! You cannot possibly imagine... His seed is probably as big as you are!" "No," Cleur said. "No, I doubt that. If he's anything like a Scellaran, though, you could keep some in an aquarium." Data's precise ship handling kept the shuttle's flight relatively even by the winds as they rose into orbit. Artificial gravity and the Seeker's autopilot smoothed out any other indication that they were moving. Navigation might have noticed the fact but NAV was rubble. Theex had set her engineers a higher priority with survival systems. They had fully restored life support and were well into hull integrity. Kief did notice that the views through the ship's portholes changed. But in such a weird dimension such things were probably pretty normal. She went on trying to catalog all the forms of radiation striking the hull. --------- "So," Picard said from his seat at the end of the conference table. "Tell me about degenerate matter." "Deranged, sir," Data said softly. Picard nodded to acknowledge the correction. He also made a 'moving right along' gesture. "Theoretically," Craig said, "it's matter and energy that's been...compressed in space, so much so that all physical laws break down. At least, all physical laws that apply to matter at our scale." "How much?" Picard asked. He pointed towards the dodecahedron and glanced towards it. "How much mass are we-" He paused. The object was floating in front of Riker's nose. Riker was sitting motionless, leaning forward slightly. "Number One?" "Captain?" "What are you doing?" "I think I'm having a staring contest, Captain." "With what?" Crusher asked. "There's no face, much less eyes." "Hush," he hissed. "I can win this." "Anyway," Picard said after a moment, turning back to Data, Craig and Keerha. "How much mass are we talking about?" "There's no telling, sir," the Klingon replied. "It is literally beyond calculating. There could be the equivalent of a p'scka seed or a space station's mass in that frame." "We think it's why the Klingons were experimenting with it," Craig said. If you had something like this, stable, you could pack ten years of a city's worth of energy production into it and use it as a battery for a ship, a probe, a space station, a city..." "A torpedo," Worf said. Everyone but Riker turned to the screen. It displayed the crater on the planet's surface. Several officers shuddered at their mental images. "So where did it come from?" Picard asked. "If the Magister V research facility was working on deranged matter, could they have created the object?" "Unlikely, sir," Data replied. "The devastation below indicates that their control of the material was imperfect. It is hard to imagine that they lucked into such a stable construct by accident." "We think," Craig said, with a small nod to Keerha, "that they set up conditions for holding deranged matter, and those conditions turned into a portal to a deranged universe." --------- The giants appeared to be going through a period of hibernation. They sat very still under flickering lights and rarely waved at a wall of flickering lights. The Seeker's Navigator, Sa'ala, had the duty. She sat in the Big Chair and watched the screens. The Captain's favorite giant seemed to be watching her, looking out of the main screen and right into her eyes. They had traveled a long time after the big windless box. Enigmatic vistas trailed off in the distance and uncountable giants passed in all directions. The captain had kept the ship near the interesting giant, muttering something about 'the demons you know vice the demons of ignorance.' The giants were passionate about rooms. They didn't like the room they were in, they went into another one. When they came out of that room, everything had changed. But that wasn't sufficient, so they kept moving. Eventually they found this room. Bigger than some, smaller than others. Boring. After nothing happened for a while, Theex turned everything over to a skeleton watch and sent the maximum number of people to bed. Dace took similar steps with her people and their repair efforts. So the Navigator was practically alone with the giant. Of course, he was also about as active as a rock so the hibernation theory seemed likely. The flickering wall of lights was more interesting, if largely gibberish. Sa'ala wondered if it was a health thing, like photosynthesis? Or maybe religion. That's when she saw the Far Traveling Seeker. "Captain!" she shouted. --------- "...which drew the object through the portal," Data finished. On the screen a white dodecahedron rolled through the circle and came to rest over the symbolic destruction crater. "So can we-" Picard's question was interrupted as the object in question finally moved. It turned on its vertical axis and flew away from the executive officer. "I win," he whispered. It slowed as it approached the computer screen. It hovered right next to the image that represented it. "So it is intelligent," Picard said. "So it would appear," Data said. "Alight," Picard said with a nod. "Mister LaForge, see what you can find out about this object. Data, see about what research facilities might be able to help it back where it belongs." They nodded and stood. Geordi tried to get the object to follow him to Engineering. There was no reaction. "It gets like that," Riker said with a smile. "Let it sniff your hand." He turned to go out the other exit, calling back over his shoulder. "Maybe it'll trust you after-" "Commander?" LaForge called. Riker turned. The object was a scant few inches from the XO's head. "I think it likes you." "Very well," Picard said. "Will, you find out what you can about our guest." He stood to go out to the bridge. Others departed. In moments Riker was alone with his new friend. "Well, come on, then," he said. --------- Riker came to referring to the object as 'the Visitor.' He had to call it something as it was a constant companion. He replicated a model of the object and took to carrying it around. If he placed it on a counter or table, then Visitor would allow him to use the restroom alone. It would also keep the Visitor from following him onto the transporter pad. Then it would hover over the transporter controls until he returned to the ship. But he couldn't get it to follow Data down to engineering by having the Lieutenant Commander carry the model. Every time the science staff had a new experiment or had rigged a new scan protocol they wanted to try, Riker had to personally draw Visitor to Engineering or one of the labs. When Counselor Troi returned from a conference on Risa, Riker greeted her just outside the transporter room. He pushed off the wall as she came out and took her travel case. "There you are," she said with a smile. "I'd have expected you to be right beside the pad." "Visitor gets moody if he thinks I'm going to leave him alone." "Oh, yes, I heard about your little fan!" She glanced around the passageway. "Where is he?" "I think he got bored waiting in the hallway. Went off into a ventilation shaft." They reached the turbo shaft and waited for a lift. "Bored?" She looked up at him in sudden surmise. "You came down very early, hoping for that. Why?" For an answer he reached down and drew her into a kiss. "For a bit of privacy," he explained after that. "I see," she said. "Privacy is hard to get these days?" "I can use the shower and the toilet alone, but not much-" His head lifted and turned. The Visitor was coming swiftly up the passageway. "Deanna, meet the Visitor. Visitor, this is my friend, Deanna." Troi burst into laughter. "Oh, Will. They really like you." "They?" He looked around the passageway. "Where are the others?" "Oh, I don't know exactly what it means," she said with a smile. "But there are several people watching us at the very least." She took her travel bag and slipped into the turbolift. One hand blocked the XO from following her. "I think it would be much too crowded for all of us to take one lift. I'll just slip away through the throng." She smiled and stepped back. As the shaft doors closed she added, "And Will? You're using the wrong gender." Then he was alone with...the Visitors? He turned to look at it. "You're a girl?" he asked. "Or, well, many girls?" --------- The Far Traveling Seeker floated behind the Nice One's head. The giants had gathered for a mass eating ritual. There were attendees that were not recognized. Theex had ordered a fly-by to scan the new arrivals into the database. Nice One had become agitated and tried to keep the Seeker away from them. "Ambassadors?" Heest had guessed. "Salesmen? Or Clients?" was Sa'ala's contribution. "We still don't know exactly what 'our' giants do." "They're explorers," Theex insisted. "Same as us. These aliens ones are first contact. Local leaders brought aboard to establish trade and the exchange of information." No one had any other guesses or evidence for any other interpretation. "Well," Theex finally said, "there's food on the table. I'm not in the mood to watch even the Nice One chew morsels the size of a cruiser in a mouth like an orbital hangar. Standard dining positioning," she ordered. Her crew shrugged and went about their business. Heest stood close to her captain. "What, Heest?" "Captain, he's cute and all, but we can't just follow him around like lovestruck cadets." Theex raised one eyebrow. "We have to consider our future." "And what would you suggest, Heest? That we find a new land somewhere? Maybe a dusty closet shelf or one of those glassed in planters they use? Land, make a colony? Hope against hope that a Scellaran ship crewed by males shows up and helps us? "This guy thinks he knows where we came from. Maybe, if we are annoying enough, he'll push his people to figuring out how to send us home." "So...hovering over his bed while he sleeps is part of a plan?" Heest asked. She looked hopeful. She wanted to believe. "Captain!" Cleur shouted. "There's another spaceship here! One about our size!" CO and XO turned and ran to Cleur's station. "Do the giants know it's there?" Theex asked. "Doubt it," Cleur said. "Why?" Heest asked. "Because," she growled, "they're not shoving a scanner assembly up THEIR ass!" --------- The other ship was an asymmetrical shard of some sort. It was three times as long as the Seeker was wide, but slender. And nearly invisible. The edges were blurry on the screens and nothing could bring them into focus. The center took on the color of whatever surface was beyond it. The giants did not react to its presence, though they clearly watched the Seeker as they approached the other vessel. "What is it doing?" Theex asked. "It just dropped...something into the beverage container below it," Cleur reported. "Benefit or poison?" "You don't sneak vitamins into a grownup's drink," Kief offered. "Captain, the materials of the other ship... And what they dropped? Those things, they should not exist." "More deranged craziness?" Theex asked. "No, ma'am. I meant, as far as I can derive the physical laws of the giant's universe, this stuff is impossible." --------- "Picard?" Paris asked. The Visitors had rushed from Riker's head to the Admiral's glass. They now hovered just off the rim. "I have no idea, Admiral," Picard admitted. He looked over at Riker, who shrugged. The two of them looked over at Troi. "They mean no harm, Admiral," she assured him. "But I sense a rather intense degree of curiosity." "Curiosity? Over wine?" Paris snorted. "Picard, I'd have thought you'd have at least introduced the basics." "They've seen wine," Picard said. He turned to Data. "Find out what's different about the Admiral's glass." "I will acquire a tricorder," Data said as he stood. "For what it's worth..." Crusher offered him a medical scanner. Data turned it over and aimed it at the wine glass. --------- "Assume it's hostile," Theex told her Helm and Weapons officers. Heest stood ready for tactical actions. "Cleur?" "Something about the matter. It doesn't match anything we've scanned since coming here, and it doesn't slot into any of the gaps we've identified." She looked between screens. "They came from someplace even weirder than this place." The other vessel finally reacted to Seeker's approach. It split into three smaller, misshapen shards. They spread out to come at Seeker from apparently random angles. "Permission to-? Kief and Heest shouted together. "FIRE!" Theex replied. Four missile launches from the nearby facet hammered the deck under their feet. Heest used the reaction from the launch to impel the Seeker a bit higher over the giant's table. She aimed the weapon beam at the nearest shard. The emissions reflected harmlessly off the surface, scattering in a semi-prismatic effect. Two of the shards maneuvered to avoid the single missile dedicated to each one. The third seemed to be confused by the extra missile attacking it. It spun on its vertical axis but otherwise stood still. The missiles blew it apart. Kief sent all four missiles of the next launch at one other shard. It had learned from the first's destruction though and kept clear. Smaller shards fired out, peppering Seeker's hull with tiny explosions. Cleur looked at scans of the attack and whistled. "What?" Theex demanded. "Those things are like subspace transmissions frozen in time and shaped into arrowheads. Very weird." "Can they hurt us?" "Eventually. I think they're designed to hurt the giants and their matter, though. Gives us an advantage." "Not much of one," Kief shouted as the hull rocked under more of the explosions. That's when the hull started to vibrate again. The giants were scanning. "Batteries are overfull!" Dace shouted. "Bless their city-sized hearts," Kief muttered. She took control of the beam. The enhanced ray glittered for a very short moment, apparently flensing the shard's surface. Then the protection was gone. And so was that shard. --------- "Data!" Riker exclaimed. "The Visitors don't like scanning-" Bright lights flickered in the air over the wine glass. Then the bright light of the offensive light burst forth. Instead of hitting the scanner, though, it was aimed into the Admiral's drink. Fluid boiled up out of the wine just before the entire glass exploded. Data's android reflexes allowed him to drop thrust his hands out, absorbing the glass before it hit Admiral Paris. Wine and glass scattered in the other direction, spread across half the length of the table. Another light ray shot into the table, burning a hole through the linen and the table and halfway through the deck below. The Visitors then dropped to orbit the burn hole in a tight circle. --------- "Is there anything useful in the wreckage?" Theex asked. "Useful?" Cleur asked. "Either to identify the bastards, or maybe something we can salvage for the Seeker?" "I'll....I'll look," Cleur promised. --------- "Answers!" Picard snapped. LaForge and Data lowered their tricorders and looked at each other. "Well, it probably wasn't an attack on the Admiral," LaForge said. "Probably?" Paris laughed. "I can think of a few spots that laser-thing could have hurt me more than a wine-stain." "Then what was it?" Riker asked. "We are detecting minute traces of solanogen, Captain," Data said. He turned to Riker. "You recall the subspace aliens that abducted you, sir." "The ones from some level of subspace," Riker said. "They cut off my arm and reattached it surgically. Yeah, I think I have a fuzzy recollection of them." "I read that report," Paris said. "I belief the mission summary was: freaky stuff." "To make a long story short, yes," Picard agreed. "So...the Visitors are from subspace?" "No, sir," Data said. "I have analyzed the scans of the wine glass. I believe that they discovered a solanogen-based spaceship in the vicinity and engaged it." "We have another subspace rift?" Riker exclaimed. "No, we've done ship-wide scans for that," LaForge said quickly. "But I'm wondering if the aliens left something behind before we managed to close that." "So the Enterprise may have been subject to their little experiments all this time?" Picard asked. If anything, he was more angry now than he had been when they thought the Admiral had been under attack. "It is possible," Data admitted. "If they are of a size to match the Visitors, our scans may have missed their physical signs." "Captain?" Everyone turned to face the Counselor. She pointed towards where the Visitors still hovered. "I think they are curious about something... They're also apprehensive." "They shot down a subspace invader," Worf mused. "They want to claim trophies from the wreckage. But they don't want to risk offending us." "How would that offend us, Worf?" LaForge asked. "They may feel that we have first rights to any alien technology scattered in our territory." Everyone looked to the still circling object. "Makes as much sense as anything else," Picard said. "Data, can we learn anything from the residue beyond the fact that we're dealing with subspace invaders?" Data shook his head. "Then they can have it. Everyone out."While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
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