"The Hidden Ways"

[Mr. Atoz]

THE HIDDEN WAYS >>

Captain's log, Stardate 52293.2: The Odysseus is in the second day of a routine charting mission of the Great Orion nebula -- or it would be routine except for the fact that we are only the third starship to explore this area.

Like a tiny fleck of thistledown, the starship Odysseus drifted through the outer fringes of the great nebula, skirting the edges of clouds and streamers of dust millions upon millions of miles long, where dozens of pale white stars were being born. Even traveling at nearly eighty percent of the speed of light, the ship hardly seemed to be moving against the background. The Leading Edge, the lounge at the extreme prow of the ship, was filled with off duty crewmen feasting their eyes on the sight of an emission nebula close up.

Captain Atoz watched from his command chair on the bridge, conscious of a purely human desire to view it through a porthole with just his unaided eyes, although he knew very well that by doing so he would miss a lot of detail. From his present position, he had the main viewscreen of the ship at his disposal, with any combination of false-color images and vision enhancements he might possibly desire.

"A fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish," said the helmsman, seated just in front of him. The Ops officer, Ensign T'Pana, glanced across and nodded slightly as if in agreement.

"That sounds like a quote, Mr. Caeli," said Atoz.

"Marcus Aurelius, sir," the helmsman replied. "On infinity."

It was strange how the infinity of space could look so trivial and ordinary when it was empty, nothing but blank space with the stars making a sort of stage backdrop. To get a good idea of infinity, you had to have some kind of reference point, something like a nebula large enough to engulf a dozen star systems whole.

At the Sciences station, Lt. Cmdr. Diane Weir was hovering behind Lt. (j.g.) Sarah Zima, keeping her eyes locked on the sensor screen while busily coordinating the efforts of half a dozen other officers down on Deck 4. "We'll be passing through that density wave in sixty seconds, Roger," Weir said into her comm badge. "Make sure you get a good reading."

"There's another H2 area, sir," Zima commented, pointing at her display.

Weir nodded. "Log it for further study by Stellar Cartography. We don't have time to divert the main array right now. I want to make sure we get a good overview of as much of the nebula as possible first."

Atoz watched the science officers at their work, but not speaking because he didn't want to interrupt their concentration. His own specialty of study at the Academy had been exobiology, but thanks to Weir's earlier briefing, he had some understanding of what the two of them were talking about. The H2 areas were bright, multicolored clouds, illuminated by the radiation from the infant stars. The density wave she mentioned was a heavy, dark line like a solid wall of advancing thunderheads. Atoz didn't like the look of it.

Almost as if she knew what he was thinking, Weir turned to face him, leaning on the railing which separated the upper bridge stations from the command module. "The density wave is nothing to be alarmed about, Captain. It results from the resonances of gravitational interaction of all the stars around us. We feel these waves everywhere in the galaxy. It's just that here we can see their effects on the structure of the nebula itself."

"I'm more concerned about the gravity wells of these protostars," Atoz replied. "And what might be hidden inside all that dust."

"Every sensor station and porthole on the ship is being watched, Captain," said Weir, raising a somewhat patronizing eyebrow. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of warning, sir."

Atoz sighed, gripping the armrests of his chair. "Steady as she goes, Mr. Caeli." The ship trembled very gently as the density wave passed by.

***
Lieutenant Anya Gorski strode briskly into Main Engineering, running her practiced eyes over the monitor panels, and within thirty seconds she saw something which pulled her up short. "What are you still doing here?" she demanded of the blue-skinned Andorian leaning against the main console. "I thought I told you to get some rest!"

"Last time I looked," replied Lt. Cmdr. Vespis, hardly looking up, "I was the Chief Engineer."

"You've been on for two straight shifts," said Gorski, "and you don't look at all well. There is a reason we assistant engineers exist, you know."

"It's this Pinosian flu," Vespis moaned, leaning forward with both hands pressed to her forehead. "My cranial tubes are blocked up. I feel like my head's going to explode."

"Why don't you see Dr. Pierce?"

"I don't trust pinkskin doctors."

Gorski folded her arms across her chest sternly. "Well, I'm telling you, commander. Get some rest, or I'm going over your head to the First Officer. Your choice."

Vespis glared up at her. "For Zarkhon's sake, don't nag, Anya. You remind me of my ex husband."

"I didn't know you were married. What happened to him?"

"I cut off his keelacks and sold him to the Orions for asking too many questions."

Gorski was still standing there with her arms folded. The Andorian sighed. "Okay, I'm going." Pushing herself upright, Vespis trudged to the door. Once outside, she found it easier to keep going, by following the curve of the corridor. There was a gangway alcove at the second intersection, and Vespis leaned against the railing as she planted her foot on the first rung of the ladder. Her quarters were only on the next level up; maybe the effort of climbing would make her feel better. But as she hoisted her body upwards, the minor ache which had been throbbing in the background in her head seemed to suddenly grow worse. Her vision grayed out for a second, forcing her to step back to the deck so that she wouldn't slide all the way down the open hatchway.

"Gravitational sheer on the outer hull is approaching critical! Structural integrity is failing!"

"More power to the stabilizers!"

"Intermix temperature is eight thousand Kelvins!"

"Emergency impulse power! Keep her on course!"

For an instant, Vespis seemed to be hanging in space. She saw the ship driving through a bright, gaseous cloud, and then the hull splintered, cracking like an eggshell which was immediately torn into microscopic fragments. Then she dropped to the deck and saw nothing but darkness.

[Mr. Atoz]

Vespis woke up in Sickbay, with Dr. Ben Pierce leaning over the diagnostic couch shining a light in her eyes. "What's going on?" she demanded irritably.

"No fair stealing my lines," said the doctor, removing the light. "I get few enough as it is. You were found unconscious on Deck 7. That's about all I know. Did you black out?"

"I must have," said the Andorian uncertainly, noticing Captain Atoz standing unobtrusively behind him.

"You're showing symptoms of a bad Pinosian flu," said Pierce accusingly, glancing at the readings of his hand-held scanner. "And you haven't been taking care of yourself. I'm reading a high fever, vasodilation, and seriously low blood pressure for an Andorian."

"I'm all right," Vespis insisted.

"She must have picked it up when we stopped at Hawking III," said Atoz, striding forward a pace or two. "Is there any danger of this flu infecting the ship?"

Pierce shook his head. "Pinosian flu isn't very contagious, at least not to Humans. But it can hit the Andorian vascular system pretty hard. That's probably why she blacked out." He turned back to the chief engineer. "Any other symptoms I need to know about?"

"I... think I saw something," said Vespis hesitantly. "There was some kind of emergency. Sirens all over the place. And then... I saw the ship... er... blow up."

"You saw the ship destroyed?" said Atoz. "How?"

"I know it sounds crazy. I seemed to be... I don't know, drifting in space, watching it from outside."

"Hallucinations," said Pierce. "There is no known means by which a person's consciousness can be separated outside her body."

"I know that! I'm not stupid!"

"Irritable, too," said the doctor mildly. "That's another symptom. I think I should keep you for observation."

"Yeah, fine," said Vespis, sitting up. "I'll be in my quarters."

Pierce pushed her back down. "That was not a request, lieutenant commander. That was an order, from the Chief Medical Officer."

***
"Commander," said Lt. Rosh at the tactical station, "we are coming up on a metallic object, fourteen degrees to port-subport."

"I see it," Weir replied, narrowing her eyes as she peered over Zima's shoulder at the sensor station. "Roughly a hundred meters by forty, the size of a small freighter. Can we alter course to pass closer, Mr. Caeli?"

Caeli, as the ranking command officer on the bridge at the time, had been left with the con, but he interpreted the request as an order. The Science Officer did, after all, outrank him. "Changing course to intercept," he said as he tapped commands into his console. A minute or two later, magnified on the main viewscreen, the object seemed to emerge from the dark clouds of the passing density wave – a roughly brick-shaped construction, with tubular struts and support structures at regular intervals, tapered slightly at either end. The overall design looked thoroughly alien, like nothing he had ever seen before.

Rosh frowned uneasily. "It is a space vessel, configuration unfamiliar. I read no life support, no operational power systems. The hull temperature is the same as that of open space."

"Which is hardly surprising," added Weir, "since according to my positron resonance scan, it's been adrift here for twenty thousand years."

Caeli let out a low whistle, while his fingers danced over the controls, reducing speed to match the drifting ship. "How do you suppose they came to be here?"

"Take a look at this, sir," said Zima suddenly. "I'm getting a null reading."

"That's strange," said Weir. "There's something inside the ship that's reflecting the search beams back. Let's try a narrow sensor probe."

As the starship moved in closer, T'Pana stepped down the magnification of the viewer to keep the image constant. "Tactical sensors are malfunctioning," said Rosh. "I get no readings at all now."

"It's a disturbance in the search beam," said Weir, "like some kind of feedback. But that's impossible. We'd better run a--" Without warning, a bright nimbus of greenish white energy erupted from both the sciences and tactical stations, sending the three people manning those consoles hurtling to the deck. Their cries of surprise were almost drowned out by the crackling of discharge as sparks flew from both panels, reaching for the conduits overhead.

Caeli reacted instantly by raising the ship's defensive shields. By then the brief energy surge had already disappeared on its own. As the alert siren began to sound, he spoke into his comm link. "Red Alert, all decks! Medical team to the bridge!"

The turbolift doors hissed open less than thirty seconds later. "What happened?" said Captain Atoz, as he and Pierce, with a nurse right behind them, hurried over to check on Weir and Zima. The two science officers, sprawled on the deck, stirred to life and sat upright. Rosh was already on his feet again, assessing damage to the ship as best he could. The turbolift hissed open again as First Officer Charles Fawkes arrived and went straight to the tactical station.

"I'm all right, sir," said Weir reassuringly, as Atoz helped her to stand. "I think I was more startled than anything," she added, gesturing at the main viewscreen where the box-like alien ship was still visible. "We were scanning that ship, and some kind of energy discharge came over the sensor beam."

Atoz narrowed his eyes as he looked at the alien ship on the screen. "What was it? Some kind of defense system?"

"Your guess would be as good as mine, Captain," she replied, shaking her head.

"I don't see anything out of the ordinary," said Pierce, running his portable diagnostic feinberger over Lt. Zima, then moving to Weir. "Elevated heart rates and epinephrine levels, but that's only to be expected from a sudden shock. No evidence of tissue or nerve damage."

"I told you, I'm fine," Weir repeated. "I was just surprised."

"Are we still under attack, Mr. Caeli?"

"We don't seem to be, Captain."

"The main sensor array is off line, Captain," Fawkes reported grimly. "Elements four through twelve are burned out completely."

Atoz exhaled slowly as he stared at the strange spaceship. It would have taken an incredible amount of power to do that. "Realign the secondary array to try and get some passive sweeps of it. I want to know what we're dealing with."

"I recommend we launch a telemetry probe, sir," said Weir. "We got a null reading earlier. Something inside that ship is invisible to our sensors."

"Just a minute. Hawkeye? What's your verdict?"

The doctor had just completed a quick examination of Lt. Rosh, standing patiently behind the tactical station. "I don't see anything wrong with any of them, Seven."

"Good enough for me. Okay, Diane, prepare a probe."

***

The small cylindrical projectile was hurled from the starboard torpedo tube, paused a fraction of a second while its thruster ignited, then sped off towards the alien vessel, while Odysseus remained at a safe distance. On the bridge, telemetry came in over the secondary array, the visuals displayed on the main viewscreen. "I'm getting exactly what we got before," reported Weir. "No life signs, no power emanations. It's just a derelict space vessel belonging to a race we've never encountered before. The hull is a high-density alloy of titanium, vanadium and steel -- nothing out of the ordinary."

"And it's twenty thousand years old, you say?" said Atoz, sitting back in the command chair. Seen up close, the hull of the ship showed the erosive effects of centuries of exposure to the dust of the nebula, but it was still intact.

"Is that an air lock?" said Caeli.

Shutting off the main thruster, Weir maneuvered the probe closer to a rectangle which appeared to be of slightly different construction. A manipulator arm extended, found a manual valve, and operated it. The hatch jerked silently back on frozen pivots. The probe glided smoothly into a hexagonal corridor and from there through the vessel, revealing room after room of equipment. It was possible to guess at the uses of some items, but others were completely obscure.

"Organic residue," said Rosh at tactical, as the probe passed over a slender insectoid shape over ten feet long, rather like a giant praying mantis.

"Is that a member of the crew, do you think?" said Fawkes, looking at the image on the viewscreen.

"It's wearing clothing," said Atoz. "I would presume so." Whatever it was, only the dry dead husk of its exoskeleton remained.

"I'm picking up a slight gravity distortion," said Weir, turning the probe through a much thicker hatchway and into what was apparently the ship's cargo hold. Suddenly the faint gleam of artificial light could be seen reflecting from the walls, its source from somewhere ahead.

"I thought you said there was no power operating," said Fawkes.

"There is not," Rosh confirmed.

The probe moved on under Weir's direction, maneuvering gracefully around a line of metal drums. The source of the light was a perfectly round sphere, approximately five or six meters in diameter, nearly filling the cargo hold. The surface was the slightly greenish color of tarnished copper, and covered with an complex pattern of curved lines, like the seams of softball but infinitely more intricate. A gentle, pale green glow seemed to diffuse outward from the object in all directions.

"I get a null reading from the probe's sensors," said Weir softly, as if afraid to draw a breath.

"Any emanations at all from it?" said Atoz.

"Apart from the luminosity, none. No electromagnetic field, no Kirlian field, no positron emissions, nothing. I can't even tell what it's made of."

"Incredible," said Fawkes.

Weir got up from her station and clutched the railing. "I'd like to beam an Away Team over for a closer look."

"Absolutely not," said Atoz immediately, shaking his head. There was no way he was going to take a risk that big over a completely unknown phenomenon. "We'll lie off and monitor the telemetry from the probe for the time being. Mister Caeli, what's our distance to the alien ship?"

"Holding steady at three thousand kilometers, Captain."

"Put another thousand kilometers between us. Stand down from Red Alert. Go to Condition Yellow."

"But it's obviously an artifact of some kind!" Weir insisted. "There's so much we can learn from it!"

Atoz got up from the command chair and turned dismissively towards the ready room. "Whatever it is, Diane, it can wait a few hours. When you can give me an educated guess what stranded that other ship here, I'll think about it."

***

Sarah Zima stepped out of the turboelevator on Deck 6 and marched straight down the corridor between section H and section E. Without looking either to the right or to the left, she turned down another corridor, past rows of cargo containers. A dark-haired male lieutenant just closing one of the containers looked up with broad grin of delight and hurried to catch her. "Sarah? This is a pleasant surprise! I thought you were on the bridge with the Ice Queen today."

She stopped, glaring at Stephano because he was now blocking the narrow hallway. "You're no prize yourself, air-head!" she snapped.

"What did I do? All I said was--"

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call her that?"

He grinned good-naturedly. "Okay, honey. But I think you could cut your husband a little slack. I mean, if there was ever a woman who wishes she had been born a Vulcan..."

"Shut up, you half-wit!" Catching him off balance, she slammed the man backwards against the bulkhead, her hands locked around his throat. "I'm sick of listening to your inane babble! Sick of it!"

Stephano struggled. He should have been able to break free without too much difficulty, but she had both surprise and leverage on her side. He managed to slide sideways far enough to loosen her hold on his throat and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Stephano fell to the deck, and just before he lost consciousness, he could swear that her eyes were glowing green...

[Mr. Atoz]

From the porthole of his ready room, Captain Atoz couldn't see the alien ship. He sat down at his desk and tapped his intercom button. "Captain to Chief Medical Officer. How is Vespis doing, Hawkeye?"

"I'd like to say resting comfortably," Pierce replied lightly. "But there's very little about commander Vespis I would describe as comfortable. I practically have to strap her into bed."

"She hasn't had any more hallucinations?"

Pierce paused. "Are you thinking about that sphere they tell me you found? You don't seriously think it has anything to do with her hallucination?"

"I don't know what to think. First she had what you might call a premonition, and then we discover this mysterious thing. You have to admit, it's pretty peculiar."

"No I don't, Seven. It's a simple coincidence."

Just as he said that, the attention chime sounded on Atoz' ready room door. "Come in!" he said. And to Pierce, "I can't afford to overlook any possibility, no matter how remote. Let me know if there's any change in her condition." Then he tapped off the intercom..

Weir had slipped quickly through the door and closed it behind her. "Captain," she said softly, as she slunk across the room and sat on the edge of his desk, "I have more news about the artifact."

"Really?" he said, watching her cross her legs. "So soon?"

"The ship was stranded through a simple navigation error," she said, supporting herself with one arm as she leaned slightly towards him. "Their power systems were depleted escaping the gravity well of one of the protostars, and the crew died when the life support failed. It had nothing at all to do with the Foo Zayin."

"With the what?"

"With the artifact," said Weir, reaching her free hand over to lightly touch his shoulder. He noticed that the high collar of her uniform was unfastened, giving him an unaccustomed view of her bare neck. "It's completely harmless, Captain. It's perfectly safe to beam over."

"Are you feeling all right, commander?" As she moved closer, caressing his neck, the seam in her uniform opened further, so that he caught a glimpse of her cleavage.

"I've never asked you for anything, Captain," said Weir, coyly lowering her eyelashes. "But please let me do this! Let me bring the sphere on board! It's just so exciting! And I'd be so grateful..."

She was practically sitting in his lap now. Atoz seized both her wrists and held her off of himself long enough to stand up. "I think we should go see the doctor first, commander," he said.

"Why?" said Weir, smiling as she tried to lean closer still. "I don't need a doctor. All I need is you!"

With difficulty, Atoz managed to twist her around so that he could pin her wrists together in one hand while he tapped the comm link with the other. "Captain to Sickbay! Commander Weir is behaving strangely. I'm bringing her down there right away."

He steered her through the ready room doors and onto the bridge, and she seemed content to follow where he led without resistance, although she did keep trying to rub her body against him. Acutely aware of what this must look like to the other bridge officers, he pulled her along towards the turbolift. "Mister Rosh, help me to escort commander Weir to Sickbay. Have someone take over your station."

The security officer frowned back at him. "If you say so, Captain," he snarled.

"Is there a problem, sir?" asked Fawkes, swinging the command chair around and rising to his feet.

"There may be," Atoz replied, as he noticed that the Sciences station had been left completely unmanned. "Where is Lt. Zima? She should report to Sickbay at once, too."

"I will handle it, sir," said Rosh quickly, turning back to the tactical station.

"No, you're coming with me."

"No worries, Captain," said Fawkes. "I'll see to it."

Rosh was rapidly punching instructions into the tactical console. "Mister Rosh," said Atoz impatiently, "come with me to Sickbay!"

"Captain!" said Caeli. "He's armed photon torpedoes!"

"Mister Rosh, step away from the console!"

The Eminian turned to glare at Atoz in triumph, his eyes flaring with greenish light, but at that moment, the torpedoes fired. Two bright globes of antimatter streaked out towards the alien vessel and detonated. The ship was blown to shreds, vanishing in a cloud of vaporized metal. As Atoz watched on the viewing screen, appalled at the destruction, something came hurtling out of the debris, making a beeline for the Odysseus.

"Raise shields, Mr. Caeli," he snapped, as he let go of Weir and jumped towards the tactical console.

Rosh immediately stepped back, dropping into a combat stance and drawing his phaser. The security officer snarled, seeing Fawkes circle around to come at him from the other side. "I will not be taken alive," he declared.

Atoz stopped advancing, raising his hands palm forward to show that his intentions were not belligerent. As long as Rosh wasn't in a position to lower the shields, he was content with the status quo. "Relax, lieutenant. No one wants to harm you. We want to help."

"Foo Zayin is coming," said Weir, smiling. On the viewscreen, the sphere, miraculously untouched by the photon torpedoes, drew nearer to the ship.

"Foo Zayin?" said Atoz. "Who is that?"

Just then the sphere collided with the Odysseus' shields, energy flaring in between them. "Shields down ten percent, but holding, Captain," Caeli reported.

Atoz was just breathing a sigh of relief when Ensign Penner said, "Captain, something coming in over the general hailing frequency..." And then that same green white energy backlash erupted from her station. Penner screamed and tumbled out of her seat to the deck.

Fawkes and Atoz rushed over to help her. "Ensign T'Pana! Emergency lockout of all external communications! Sensors, navigation, everything! Close and seal all hatches and porthole covers!" The main viewscreen went dark as the order was complied with.

"She's unconscious," said Fawkes, feeling Penner's throat for a pulse. "But she's breathing and has a heartbeat."

"Foo Zayin is here," stated Rosh, with a grin of satisfaction. Then, still brandishing his phaser, he backed towards the turbolift door and disappeared through it.

"Computer," said Atoz, "this is the Captain. Suspend all access codes for Enir Rosh until further notice." Then he tapped his comm badge. "Security! Locate and restrain Lt. Rosh. He is to be considered armed and dangerous."

"I'm armed and dangerous," said Weir, snaking her arms amorously around Atoz' neck and nuzzling his ear. "Why don't you restrain me?"

"That's a very good idea," he replied, as he seized her hands and pried her off of him. "Let's go see the doctor in Sickbay."

***

Pierce studied the diagnostic panel grimly. Weir had made no objection at being taken to Sickbay, and was now lying passively as the two men stood back, Pierce near the head and Atoz near the foot of the table. "You can see for yourself," the doctor was saying, as he pointed out different features of the multicolored scan of her cerebral functions. "Her HEG is showing a disturbance in the alpha rhythm. Abnormal enzyme production in these areas of her frontal lobe, including her accumbens nucleus -- her pleasure center. That would account for her odd behavior."

"Something must be causing it," said Atoz. "What?"

Pierce shook his head. "There's concentrations of hyperonic radiation, types U and V, in her nervous system, but I still can't find any foreign influence that could be causing it. I'm going to try a micro-cellular scan, see what that turns up. What's worse, Seven, is that I've been getting reports like this from all over the ship. Lieutenant Zima's still unaccounted for. She could be spreading it somehow."

Speaking of that... "What about Penner?" asked Atoz, glancing over his shoulder at the comm officer, lying under restraints in another bed.

"The same," said Pierce. "I'm keeping her sedated right now."

"You're wasting your time," said Weir quietly. "Foo Zayin cannot be stopped."

Atoz stepped closer, ignoring the doctor's warning to keep his distance and leaning over her. "Who is Foo Zayin?"

She threw him an impish grin. "Your minds are so open. So easy to get into. So many doorways you leave unguarded. Not like the walking sticks."

"Walking sticks?" She could only mean the aliens in the strange derelict vessel. "If you'd like to communicate with us, we can arrange another way," he said. "I cannot allow you to interfere with my crew in this way."

Weir gnashed her teeth, struggling slightly against her restraints. "You cannot stop us. For too long we lay dormant. Now Foo Zayin will sweep the galaxy once again. Planets will fall before us. All will fall before us!" Her eyes flashed with a brilliant greenish glow. Atoz staggered backwards.

"Seven, are you okay?" said Pierce, darting forward to catch him before he fell. "I warned you not to get so close."

"I'm all right, Hawk."

"Are you sure?"

Atoz nodded. The flash had made him see spots before his eyes for a second, but the effect was already fading as he groped his way to the doorway. "Keep me posted on whatever you find."

***

Rosh got off the turbolift on Deck 10, near the gymnasium, taking up a stealthy defensive position with his phaser at the ready, his ears alert for the slightest sound. Trap him, would they?

Cautiously he sidled down the corridor, then made a quick dash into section C, where the fabrication machinery was. For a moment the life support station caught him off guard, the steady throbbing of its air purifiers sounding like the breathing of gigantic beast, but he relaxed against the forward bulkhead, planning his next move. It was in his nature to the be hunter, not the prey. He would not remain on the defensive for long.

A gentle whisper of voices heralded the arrival of three crewmen, coming from the aft structural compartments and obviously unaware of his presence. Rosh's lip curled upward in a smile as he crept forward into an ambush position...

***

When the turbolift doors slid open, the bridge looked normal. The officers all seemed to be at their stations, quietly doing their jobs. Atoz felt a momentary flicker of reassurance that, whatever was spreading among the crew, at least here things were still under control.

But then he noticed the stars lazily streaming past the main viewscreen, meaning that the ship must be doing Warp Two at least. "Who ordered the viewscreen reactivated?" he asked, striding up to the railing. "And who ordered a course to be set?"

Fawkes, sitting in the command chair, glanced up at him and shifted his position but didn't say anything at all. Caeli, at the helm, turned and gave him an exuberant grin as with one hand on the controls he put the ship into a gentle curve to port. "Heading for the Rigel colonies, sir," he said, pointing at Fawkes. "Captain's orders."

"I'm the Captain," said Atoz. "And I didn't order any such thing." He grabbed the armrests of the command chair and spun it around to face him. "Fawkes! Answer me!"

The First Officer looked at Atoz with no sign of recognition, but with a dull, greenish glow in his eyes. "The facilities on Rigel IX are better equipped to study the Sphere," he said. "You ought to know that."

"The sphere?"

"Captain," said a strong female voice. Ensign T'Pana had taken over the Tactical station, standing beside it with typically rigid Vulcan self-control. "The ship is on no consistent course, but heading in the direction of the Rigel colonies as the helmsman said. The sphere has attached itself to the dorsal surface of the ship, abaft of the main deflector assembly."

Atoz mounted the step to stand beside her. There was a tell-tale greenish tinge in her eyes. "T'Pana? Are you--?"

Her neck twitched slightly, the muscles of her jaw contracted. "I can feel the entity attempting to influence my emotions, Captain," she said stiffly. "But fortunately, it is having very little success."

"Good," he said, reaching up to rub the headache which he suddenly seemed to have. "We have to regain control of the helm somehow. Change course..." His voice drifted off. Who was he kidding? Hadn't he already made enough bad decisions to last a lifetime? Hadn't he already lost enough people because of his mistakes? Maybe Fawkes was right, and the science station on Rigel IX would know what to do. Turn it over to them and with it all the responsibility for this whole mess. Give it to someone who at least had the vaguest idea what he was doing. It would be better for everyone if he just gave up and...

"Captain?" said T'Pana. "Are you all right?"

Atoz closed his eyes, fighting off a wave of depression which seemed to settle over his head like a blanket. Everything felt gray and dismal. It was like an actual physical struggle to push those thoughts away. "Right. Let's get to auxiliary control."

[Mr. Atoz]

"I could have been a doctor," said Head Nurse Karen Miller irritably, as she tightened the restraints on Weir's table with a jerk. "I had the aptitude scores for it. There was one open slot -- it was between me and Florence Stokes!"

"You don't say?" said Pierce absently, keeping his eyes on the eyepiece of the micro-viewer. She had already told him this four times in the last fifteen minutes. "Can you push up the illumination factor another point five?"

With bad grace, the nurse began to move in the direction of the panel and stopped midway. "She had one more point because of a Mozart competition she had won in high school! A Mozart competition!"

"Medical boards are funny that way," said Pierce, reaching past her to make the adjustment himself. "If it had been Beethoven instead, you'd have been a shoo-in."

"So rather than wait to retest next year," she continued, ignoring him, "I went into the Nursing program." She cast a sour, green-tinted look around Sickbay, where all three tables were occupied by crewmen. "And here I am."

"Yes, here you are," Pierce sighed, squinting into the eyepiece awkwardly because of the polarized face shield he was wearing. The observation ward next door had also filled up before, ominously, emergency calls had stopped coming in entirely. Presumably that signified either that the affliction was no longer spreading or that it was now so widespread there were not enough unaffected crewmen left to report it.

He tapped his comm badge. "Sickbay to Captain. Seven, please don't tell me you've been affected by this, too."

"Not as far as I know," the Captain's voice replied. "Have you found out anything?"

"Seven, we're dealing with microscopic organisms."

"What? You mean like a virus?"

"Even smaller. More like a protein segment or a prion. That's why I didn't spot them with my tricorder scan. The organisms propagate by means of hyperonic U-rays. They show particular fondness for the saline content of the aqueous humor in the eyes. From there they shimmy up the optic nerve into the brain. And they multiply like crazy."

Atoz, at that moment on Deck 8 with Ensign T'Pana, stopped to think about what he had seen earlier in Sickbay. "And there they selectively target your emotions, to trick you into doing what they want."

"Exactly," said Pierce. "Early on, they cause confusion and disorganization. But the more they multiply, the greater control they have. There must be some kind of hive mentality at work."

"Can they be neutralized?"

"I don't know yet," the doctor responded. "But I'm on my own up here, Seven. My staff has all been infected."

"Understood, Hawk. Do what you can."

The comm link clicked off. Pierce thoughtfully turned towards the pharmacy. The first obvious thing to try was treating the symptoms. If it was hyperonic radiation acting as the carrier agent, perhaps...

"I could have been a doctor, " Miller said again, but this time she wasn't talking to Pierce. Lieutenant Sarah Zima was standing in the doorway leading in from the corridor. Her green glowing eyes were fixed intently on Dr. Pierce, but she was carrying a heavy steel bar as if it were a baseball bat, and she did not look at all happy to see him.

***

Suddenly the depression fell away from Atoz, just like the parting of a dark curtain. If he had been thinking more clearly, he would have recognized that as a bad sign. As it was, he felt relief. "Change of plans, ensign," he said. "Let's get to the small arms locker."

"Sir?" T'Pana replied. It went against all of her training to question the orders of a Captain, but this new development didn't seem logical. "May I ask what your reasoning is?"

"The ship has been taken over by some kind of alien presence," he said, leading the way around section B and towards Transporter Room number 2. "Obviously we need weapons to defend ourselves. And to punish the guilty."

"Punish, sir?"

Footsteps could be heard up ahead. There was a small arms armory just around the corner from Transporter Room 2, but the corridor in front of it was occupied by a dozen crewmen, their eyes all glowing green, kicking a ball back and forth, evidently some strange version of soccer that had no discernible rules. "Fawkes," Atoz muttered. "I should have known he'd try something like this, the minute my back was turned."

"But, sir, Commander Fawkes is not responsible for his actions. The alien--"

"It doesn't matter why he's doing it, ensign," Atoz interrupted. "He has to be stopped. Don't you see that?"

"Sir, I am beginning to wonder if you have been infected. You are not yourself."

"I'm perfectly in control of myself. I--" He broke off as the Vulcan reached up and touched him on the left temple. Her strong fingers slid along his skull, down the curve of his jawbone, to find and press a pressure point midway along his neck. He struggled for a moment, but his face cleared almost immediately. "Thank you, ensign. I don't know why, but for a second there, I had a strangely attractive mental image of Commander Fawkes being drawn and quartered."

"Sir?"

"Never mind. Let's get to auxiliary control."

***

As Zima advanced, hefting the steel bar with both hands, Pierce warily backed towards the doorway that led to the observation ward. "Uh... can we talk about this, lieutenant?" he said, ducking as she took a swing, the bat clanging into the bulkhead just above his head. "You're making this a very one-sided conversation!"

A hand suddenly reached up behind him and grabbed a handful of his uniform, pulling him backwards into the ward. Pierce heard the bar slam into the jamb of the doorway as a blue-skinned figure pushed him out of the way. Vespis was standing in a half-crouch, holding a rolled-up blanket stretched taut in between her hands. As Zima charged, swinging the bar wildly, she caught the weapon in the blanket and wrenched it out of her grasp. Then the two women went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Pierce scrambled on top, and between the two of them they managed to hold Zima long enough for him to grab a hypospray and sedate her.

"Thanks," he breathed, as they bundled her onto Vespis' empty bed and put restraints on her.

"A really quiet hospital you keep, doctor," said the Andorian bitterly.

"Occupational therapy," Pierce quipped. "It's the latest thing." He paused to peer closely into her eyes. There wasn't a trace of green. "Histamine reaction," he muttered. "Of course..."

"If you mean my eyes are watering like crazy from this stupid flu, yes," she replied, irritably pulling away.

"Great. Now that you're up, I can use a lab assistant."

"I'm supposed to be convalescing!" Vespis shouted at his disappearing back. But she pushed herself to her feet and followed him into the infirmary.

***

The doors to auxiliary control hissed closed, and Atoz immediately secured and locked them. The room was smaller than the main bridge. Three control panels were joined together in one long console, directly in front of a small viewscreen. To the left, the bulkhead was dotted with systems monitors, to the right, a screened off engineering platform. Atoz slid into the center seat, as T'Pana took the station to his left.

"Computer," he said, "transfer all command functions to the Auxiliary Bridge. Disable manual overrides on the Main Bridge. Voice print authorization Atoz Seven Seven."

The pleasant feminine voice of the ship's computer responded at once. "Voice print recognized. Functions transferred." Right away, a holographic image of an attractive young woman wearing a Greek chiton appeared on the viewscreen, and the same voice, although in a warmer tone, continued. "Hello, Captain! There is positive feedback involved with seeing you. Did you notice that the entire crew seems to behaving rather oddly?"

"Yes, I did, Arachne," he replied. "Thank you."

"There have been several attempts to introduce a semi-organic virus into the ship's computer, but I was able to prevent it from getting very far."

"A virus?"

"A very unusual one, sir."

"Captain," T'Pana said, "the ship appears to be on course for Rigel IX, at Warp Five. What are your orders?"

Atoz rubbed his chin as he pondered, wishing he could be certain that the organism wasn't influencing him in any way. "Obviously it wants to get to an inhabited planet so that it can spread. Set course in the opposite direction." He was about to add, "until I think of what else to do," but stopped himself in time. Like it or not, a Captain was always supposed to have a plan of action.

His comm badge chirped. "Sickbay to Captain," said Pierce. "Do you read me?"

Talk about the nick of time... "I read you, Hawk. What do you have for me?"

"Not good news, Seven," the doctor replied. "With Vespis' help, I programmed a portable neuroanalyzer to cancel out the U-rays. It worked on Weir, at least..."

"On Diane? Are you saying Diane's back to normal?"

"I'm fine, Captain," said Weir's voice, breaking in. "I'd... like to apologize for my earlier behavior, sir..."

"Don't worry about it, commander," said Atoz deliberately keeping his voice level. That would be a conversation for later, when they were alone, but he couldn't afford to let it distract him now. "Hawkeye, I distinctly hear a but in your voice."

"But it's only a temporary fix, Seven. I could program a batch of Nanites to deal with the prions, no problem. But as long as that sphere's around, generating more and broadcasting U-rays, we'll only get infected again. I don't see any way out."

[Mr. Atoz]

Atoz took a deep breath. "There's always a way out, Hawk. Is there anything more you can do from Sickbay?"

"I can't think of anything."

"In that case, I want us all together. Grab anything you think you'll need. Ensign T'Pana, access the remote transporter control. Beam the three of them here."

"Aye-aye, Captain." A moment later, three shimmering columns of coherent energy formed on the auxiliary bridge as Pierce, Weir, and Vespis materialized there. The doctor unslung the neutroanalyzer from its shoulder strap and set about scanning Atoz and T'Pana, while Weir took over the far right station and Vespis darted into the engineering alcove.

"The sphere is hovering over section 4L," Weir reported. "I don't detect any sort of propulsion system. It seems to be using some kind of pseudo-gravitic attraction to keep its place."

"Let's see if we can shake it off," Atoz said, punching commands into the console. There was a brief surge of inertia as the
ship jumped to Warp Six, then Seven, then Eight...

Weir shook her head. "It's still holding tight, Captain."

"Try the tractor beam," said Atoz. All they had to do was push the sphere outside the Odysseus' warp envelope...

T'Pana, at the other station, activated the repulsion beam. "It seems to be having no effect, Captain." Her expression remained unchanged as her fingers flew over the controls. "No change."

In the middle of all this, the comm system whistled. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Was it possible there were other crewmen somewhere on the ship still unaffected? Atoz reached over to switch the viewscreen. Rosh's face appeared, apparently on the Main bridge, his eyes blazing with green fire. "We are Foo Zayin," he said. "You wanted communication, Captain?"

"If you are sentient beings, we can talk," said Atoz. "We respect your right to exist, but you must understand we cannot allow you to interfere with the minds of our fellow beings."

"There is nothing you can do to prevent us. Resistance is... amusing, but ultimately futile."

"We control the ship," said Atoz.

"Precariously at best," the alien replied. "Not for long." The viewscreen went dark. A screeching whine was heard as, outside in the corridor, someone opened fire on the doors with a phaser carbine.

"How long can the door withstand that?" asked Pierce nervously.

Atoz shook his head. "Mister Vespis, can you reinforce the door?"

The Andorian's fingers were already dancing over the engineering panel. "I've set up a level three force shield, but it won't last fifteen minutes if they have access to the heavy arms armory."

Arachne's image reappeared on the viewscreen. "Thirteen point six five minutes would be my estimate."

Atoz thought rapidly. "Arachne, can you give me the location of the nearest neutron star or singularity?"

Her simulated eyes flicked to the left for a fraction of a second. "Working, Captain," she said solemnly. "There is a class 4 pulsar only twenty-five light-years distant."

"That's no help," said Weir, shaking her head. "It would take days to get there, even at maximum speed."

"One hundred and one point seven hours," said Arachne, "at Warp Factor Ten, which would not be advisable for an extended period of time. At Warp Factor Nine, it would take 144.7 hours. At--"

"Thank you, Arachne," the Science Officer interrupted. "But my point is that they will be through the door and we would all be assimilated long before we could reach it. I'm assuming you have a plan, Captain?"

"I was thinking if we steered the ship through an intense gravitational field--"

"--the sphere's intense pseudo-gravity would be attracted to it," she finished, raising one eyebrow thoughtfully. "Arachne, scan the Sciences database. Earlier today I remember charting a proto-star with about three solar masses."

"No, commander," said Arachne immediately. "Two point nine eight solar masses. Distance 17.9 light-days."

"That's doable. Feed the coordinates into the helm."

Atoz began programming the helm station. To cover eighteen light-days in just a few minutes, Warp Nine sounded about right. He hit the Engage button, and the ship shuddered as it veered onto the new course. "What do you have in mind, Diane?"

"Well, sir," Weir replied, rapidly running calculations on her own panel. "Two point nine is very close to the Schwartzchild limit. The subspace barrier at that point would cause a temporary fluctuation in our own warp envelope, and the resulting artificial wormhole would draw the Sphere like a rotten stump. The trouble is, we're going to have to get very close – practically skimming the star's surface."

Vespis, leaning against the engineering panel, snapped her eyes open. "Skimming the surface of a star at Warp Nine? Are you crazy?"

"The metaphasic shields should protect us, if we don't linger."

"I have to admit it sounds a little reckless, Science Officer," said Atoz.

Weir glanced across at him. "Do you trust me, sir?"

He stared hard into her warm, brown eyes, looking for some trace of green. "Heck of a time to ask a man a question like that," he said, turning back to face the viewscreen.

***

Outside in the corridor, a dozen crewmen had set up two heavy phaser rifles on tripod mounts. The sudden Lorentz contraction as the ship transitioned to Warp Nine sent them all scattering across the deck, but with single-minded determination, they crawled to their feet and repowered the weapons.

The howl of the phaser beams drummed on the door, nearly drowning out the whine of the engines themselves as the ship hurtled towards the star. The six people inside the auxiliary bridge held onto their stations as Atoz kept the ship on the course Weir had given him. For twelve long minutes the Odysseus sliced through the nebula, racing headlong towards the gravity well of the protostar.

"Gravitational sheer on the outer hull is approaching critical," T'Pana said, raising her voice to be heard above the vibration of the ship's tritanium bulkheads. "Structural integrity is dropping below twenty percent!"

"I've got it!" shouted Vespis, frantically rerouting power on the engineering panel, keeping one eye on the monitor which showed the Sphere still riding above the engineering section. "Keep going!"

The center panel suddenly overloaded, throwing a cascade of sparks upwards and hurling Atoz out of his chair Weir and T'Pana could only cover their own heads and desperately hold on as the acceleration caught him and slammed him into the rear bulkhead of the cabin with a sickening crunch of bones. Struggling against the inertial pressure, Pierce inched his way over to him. "More power to the stabilizers!" shouted Weir.

The Odysseus gallantly dove into the foggy corona, plunging through a magnetic vortex that rose up to great him like a flare. "Intermix temperature is eight thousand Kelvins," the Vulcan stated, as she called up helm control on her station. "I am reading temporal distortion. The engines are going into anti-matter imbalance."

Everything suddenly seemed to be going in slow motion. "Emergency impulse power!" shouted Weir, darting a fearful glance at Atoz, who was sprawled unconscious on the deck, swaying as the ship tumbled backwards and forwards. Another flick of her eyes went to the monitor. The Sphere was still there, beginning to wobble slightly as the star tugged at it. "Keep her on course!"

"I cannot," T'Pana responded. "Helm does not respond." The ship bucked like a horse, sending Weir and T'Pana tumbling across the cabin to smash against the port bulkhead. Vespis only remained in place by hanging on to the screen which shielded the engineering alcove.

Taking a deep breath, she leaped across the plunging cabin. As she grabbed the starboard control panel, she noticed in passing that the chronometer was running backwards. "Just my luck to have to live this day over again!" she shouted, shoving the stabilizer control forward and cutting the lateral verniers. The ship shot ahead, sprinting like a gazelle now. The Sphere gave one last, shuddering jerk and spiraled off into the heart of the proto-star.

***

Captain's log, Stardate 52294.9: The ship and its crew are both in need of repairs. Our warp engines were so badly strained, Assistant Engineer Gorski tells me that she'll need a week to get them back in shape. Medical Officer Pierce tells me it will take about that long to purge the crew of all trace of the Foo Zayin.

"Captain?" said Weir, stepping hesitantly into the ready room. "How are you feeling, sir?"

"Much better," said Atoz, getting up from his desk. His broken leg and fractured ilium still ached a little, but thanks to Dr. Pierce at least he was able to walk. "Did you manage to sort out what happened?"

"The temporal distortion from the wormhole," she said, "briefly sent us backwards in time four hours. That would theoretically account for Vespis' so-called premonition. For a brief moment she was living in two time-lines at once. Everyone else was unconscious from the inertial stresses."

"Whoever said 'stranger things have happened'," Atoz said, "never served on a starship." As he limped around his desk, Weir darted forward supportively in case he needed help. "But you could have saved this for the staff meeting. Something else is on your mind."

Weir stood awkwardly for a moment, trying not to meet his eyes. "I think... I think I should request a transfer, sir."

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious, sir?" she said, her body standing rigidly straight, but her hands twining together nervously behind her. "The alien brought out feelings in me. Feelings that aren't appropriate for a Science Officer to have towards her Captain."

"Diane, we've known one another for years. You must know that I'm attracted to you, too."

"That's just it, sir," she blurted. "The alien used those feelings against us! Feelings that I tried so hard to keep hidden!" Abruptly she tried to turn away, but he reached out for her and caught her hands.

"Diane, if the alien hadn't used those particular feelings," he whispered, "it would have found other things to use. That's what it did."

She pulled back a little, brushing at her eyes, but still looking down at the deck. "It's not fair using logic against me at a time like this."

That made him smile. Atoz touched her chin, tilting her head back slightly so that he could catch her eyes. "I don't want to lose you, Diane. Not as my Science Officer, and not as a woman I care about, a woman I can talk to. I need you in both capacities."

She was silent for another moment. "Will you settle for just having me as your Science Officer, for the time being?"

He wanted to kiss her then, but he knew that it would be a mistake. It would be too easy to push her away by taking too much for granted. "I think I can live with that," he said.

THE END --