Post TNG: Father, I Love You.

[Guy Gardener]

Part One.

It had been generations since anyone really had to have dealt with a truly unexpected and unwanted pregnancy that they couldn’t do much about. A palm scanner could record aberrations in the menstrual cycle and it could be turned off with a pill completely if the needs and convenience of the unmother felt so inclined. Religion used to have a heavy say in the actions of ordinary people sweeping their will under an iron curtain of superior morality with hundreds years old spent tired dogma, into bearing children that were not really wanted or couldn’t at all being taken care of. Not that a persons own beliefs in the modern world can’t control their own actions to abide by backwardness if they didn’t feel so inclined, it’s just that religion no longer controls the state when the state still controls the people with an iron fist that it’s good that everything is scientific and sensible rather than quasi-mystical.

“That prick! That fucking prick! I’m going to rip his nuts off and stuff his face with them till I fist them out his ass ring!” The young lady was in a trepid state being told that the abortion had failed; that short of baking her insides with microwaves it was unlikely the “child” in her belly could be sanctioned. Even attempts at transporter extraction failed thinking that possibly the “child” could be farmed to as Orphanage after being maturated extra-vitroally because the “mother” in question had planned no part of her life to be burdened with “child” as well as having numerous obligations to the state owing to justify the investment they’d made towards her character. “I’m stuck with this fucky fucky fucking parasite feeding off me for the next 8 months? You’re a Doctor! A scientist! Just slice me open and pull it out! PULL IT OUT! It can’t be real! It’s not a person. You can experiment on it all you want just get it out of me. You can have it! It’s yours! Just get it the hell out of me!”

The Doctor looked down on her with some sympathy that the situation was too impossibly scientifically fictional for her emotions to cope with… “Overreacting is not good for your chakras. It’s important to stay calm if you are going to carry the child to term, because... ” The Doctor is trying to console this lady on the edge ready to take out some bloody vengeance on anything that looked like a man for trying to deform her tight little all too attractive figure, which the Doctor just happened to be. Manly enough to be a stress-releasing punching bag and useless enough to not be a waste of resources. She kicked him in the nuts hard enough to crack a teste into something flattened and leaky. “I want a second opinion! I want a real Doctor! I want this thing out of me! I will not be patronized by some idiot too simple to even… ”

Flailing on the floor, this Doctor can’t hardly summon the breath to call out for Security to tie this heated Latino spitfire up so as he can medicate her into another personality and hopefully another decade so distant she wouldn’t be lucid and free till well after he’d retired and settled down with a few Tellerite concubines. This wasn’t the sort of tipsy psychology rubbish his education prepared him for, he was a pediatrician god damn it, learned and esteemed! Though it wasn’t just a Doctor he’d spent all his life learning to be, He didn’t have to put up with this sort of abuse… Squealing 5 octaves higher than he’d have any ability to usually without being victim to a hormonally ruggard woman’s predisposed clichéd place kicking this hurt and mad-onned Doctor fellow replies “I’ll give you a second bloody opinion!”

Our Doctor punches her knee hard enough to dislocate the patella while he’s still scuttling towards and up on top of the felling glowing expectant mother brandishing a dermal regenerator as if it were a ice spike you’d use to cull a seal so that then in a single deft movement he’s able to weld her legs together, an act any decent lawyer would be able to classify as “self-defense” after he’d had his balls stamp flattened into pennies. Her arms were next, flesh knitted through her gold and black Uniform, pits to wrists, recreating her body shape into that of a limbless screaming swearing worm. In his youth this Doctor had served his time in Star Fleet and had to deal with all sorts of violent situations that would make most of the shy retiring sorts in the inner enclosures of the Federation weep for a month. So this? Nothing to write home about.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Two.

For the broken few that defied sanity there was only one recourse, Elba II, home of Garth of Izar once self-proclaimed Master to the Universe. Keep them all in one place otherwise it might spread a little like some stigmatic illness. It took a bit to go completely starkers in the modern galaxy that some sort of telepath couldn’t reasonably drag you back from the mouth of madness. At any one time there were maybe only 12 clinically irrecoverably insane people in known space who were not Klingon. Going bonkers qualified you as a celebrity in the UFP as all the over qualified Councilors clambered to invent the new radical process that would affix their immortality in the medical journals by curing the last of the mad unfortunately assuring the certain redundancy of their science as creative and artistic. The new girl to go soft in the head had discovered a child inside her that it was “entrenched” and that “it’s” father was dead near simultaneously skewed by a matter of a hand full of hours.

The cell door opened with the usual noises, but he barely made it past the threshold as the patient used her huge beautiful eyes made as much contact as possible possibly magically keeping him at bay with a force field her mind was building. He wasn’t sure he should be put so edge by just a reputation, when the longer he said nothing its obvious the more power she had over him.

“Sonya, my name is Rutherford, I was wondering if you would like to talk?” This slight man (not literally) successfully pulling off a purple cat suit enquires of Elba II’s newest resident. He doesn’t have a PADD or even a clip board, just an honest concerned face mindful that he is coming into the reach of a woman with a history of violence that once survived Captain Picard’s orders to engage the Borg hand to hand.

They’ve been working her over for a month, she’s bored, and she’s on the offensive. “Well it’s your turn. Pull up a seat. Fix my head. I dare you.”

He’s not threatened by her adversarial tone, it’s expected when you’re shuddering someone’s grip on reality till it re-moores somewhere less remote. “I would like to help you.”

“Then get me a knife, stick it in my stomach and shake it all about.” Reversing her stance she mutters, hardly thinking that whatever today has to bring will brighten her prospects of ever serving on a Star Ship again. She’s doomed. Even if somehow she becomes sane again there’s no telling that they’ll believe her and continue on with doing whatever they’re doing till they push her back into crazy-land.

“I don’t think I want to do that Sonya.” Rutherford knows there’s a transporter lock on him at all times, there’s a limit to the damage this highly trained citizen soldier can do to him before he incollates into a beamed matter stream. “You know that no wants to see you a danger to yourself.”

“I could make it worth your while.” She pushes her huge hair about as if it were singles night at Ten Forward. Then, when wasn’t it singles night at ten forward? “When was the last time a beautiful woman kissed you?”

“I have dinner with my mother once a week.” He re-tracks the conversation to something formative.

“My good friend “Rutherford” if your mother was willing to follow through with half the things I was offering to you, then you’d deserve my cot in this sanatorium a damn sight more than I do.”

It’s easy to suppress the itch in his brain that controls his groin. The woman is sick and needs help and it’s not his intentions to abuse her or be abused by her. “How much do you deserve of what you’re going through?”

Sonya isn’t clear inside herself what this person is an enemy but… “Aren’t you going to ply me with some miracle wonder drug to pick up my spirits and make me chipper? Because if you’re just some analyst who thinks he can “talk me better” I’ll be late to sculpture where I am half way towards creating something special with macaroni pasta. Don’t think you can compete with my desires to complete what I create.”

This stops the little man’s thoughts in his tracks, is she intentionally creating Freudian slips seeding disinformation enough to muddle his research? What she said then, was too close to what the crux of her plight was that she can’t be toying with him but… “Are you trying to say something without saying “something”.”

“If you were smarter you wouldn’t have to ask that question.”

Rutherford’s beginning to realize he doesn’t like being goaded. “I don’t have a miracle drug. I’m only smart enough to be here to do what I am doing and if you think you have to be that much smarter than me to stop me doing things I am not doing and you only think I am doing then you are going to exhaust yourself prematurely.”

“Then what good are you?”

“I’m just here to monitor you Commander Gomez. A little book keeping, find out how the experience of Elba II is impacting on your new lifestyle. Nothing devious or duplicitous or… I’m not even any sort of clinical scientist. I’m just an office administrator who’s only lasting effect on Elba II will be to change the decor.”

“So you don’t want to “talk” therapeutically?”

He’s not sure she believes him. “I’m the control.”

“The control?”

“I’m a normal person you can talk to about normal things so that all the many the people who are trying to help don’t drown you with their never ending attempts at innovative therapy. I swear I heard some one talking about leaches yesterday.”

“A control?”

“Yes.” He smiles as 200 watts as possible but nothing is going got take the edge off this woman.

‘Which in itself is a therapy.”

‘After a fashion, but I’m a scalpel and not the hand that guides it. I can leave or stay. Would you like to talk about anything?”

“We’re obviously being monitored?” She doesn’t look about nervously.

“Obviously.”

“For your safety or my re-education?”

“You and me, we’d calculate the percentages differently, but it’s a little of both.” He tries to laugh but she doesn’t join him.

“You want to talk?”

“There’s not much to do here Sonja. Not that many people to talk to. A fresh mind to dissect is a relished dish.”

“A poor choice of words.”

“You think that was a Freudian slip?”

“No. I know it was a threat.”

“Given the coldness of your attitude, it’s hardly pre-emptive rather than defensive. After all, you are scaring the crap out of me. I did read your file before they let me in here so we can be honest about who is a threat to who really?.”

“If I’m so dangerous then why are you here?”

“I loved the zoo as a child.”

Finally she smiles.

“Curt. Ask some questions, have your way with me or just my mind.”

“What sort of lies do you enjoy telling people?”

 

[littleminx]

most excellent part two. i'm anxious to see where this is going.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Three.

Garth woke yawning like a lion glad not to be subjugating the universe under an iron fist. It was one of his better days despite his beard absconding with any patents the shape of his pillow thought were personal. Over the last hundred years depending on his medication and how attractive the galactic climate was, his sense of contentment orbited between idolizing his home life on Elba II to planning the extermination of the lesser races to make room. If they didn’t get his medication right he got really depressed that his medication wasn’t right, but with the superhuman nature of his body and it’s extreme meta-adaptability nothing would hold the bollocks of his crux for too long without getting it’s wrists slit. Next came 5 minutes of crotch scratching that felt real good, it took so long usually as to make sure that some new wonder kid super doctor hadn’t decided that Lord Garth of Izar, Master of Universe should be neutered for the safety of all living beings as that he liked how it felt. Gimps climbing Everest grunted less than garths morning crawl to the Replicator from wherever he’d passed out the day before, right over months of dirty clothes no one has the courage to clean up after, to build up from the molecular level something that resembles meat bobbing about in hearty stew. Always eat like someone is going to kill you his father had told him. Porridge is for Barn animals. Barn animals are food. Or should be? He’d sited vegetarianism as reason to destroy the neighboring planets and managed to level a few moons before Starfleet reined him in claiming rehabilitation was better than execution ‘bout 9 years back. Garth disagreed with them sometimes about that whole ‘rehabilitation” thing, decade after decade this went mad shit went they couldn’t rehabilitate, when the hell were they going to admit that to themselves, generation after generation of Councilors and Therapists ad nausea, until some one had the stones to end him because garth lord o f the Universe admits he deserves death often enough to test his immortality with suicidal fits which the autonomic functions of his body compensate against as easily as it ignores natural aging.

Lord Garth sometimes wondered how sanitary it was to collect his clothing and meals out of the same receptacle he was supposed to deposit his dishes and dirty clothes, even his old socks into, he was glad he didn’t produce waste like mere mortals because that’s exactly what Replicators built “everything” out of. Earlier designs didn’t spare any illusions complete with urination ports and defecation mitts building ad long into the devices. Simpler times when people where surprised they weren’t overcome by dangerous of space travel on an hourly regime of praise and relief before they relieved themselves into their Replicators or as the grandfather technology at the time were called “protein resequencers”. Oldest joke in the world… “Good news and bad news. The Bad news is that there is shit for dinner, the good news is that there is plenty of it.” Everyone eating everyone else’s waste borders on cannibalism not in just Garth of Izar’s mind because he was sure he’d read an actual essay on the subject and not just imagined it on the subject and come hell or high water it’d be a cold day in hell before any one else had the pleasure to consume the master of the universe’s poohs and wees. What Christ was thinking during the last super was beyond Garth asking people to “eat him” and “drink him”. Some people grateful to the Federation for being so beneficial to the sentient condition actually volunteered their corpses to Replicator sublimation, some willy-nilly and others with requests as to into what their matter should be melded into like bridges, skyscrapers and Starships. If Garth thought he could die, he sometimes thinks it would be nice to be thrust into a crucible and let out as a dozen or so Phasers to exterminate the enemies of the Federation. Though if there was a civil war or baddies took up arms with “his new state of existence” against himself or what if some one committed suicide with “him”? Women had treated him like that from time to time which is why he would only look at them and never talk with them.

There was a new woman on Elba II. Lord Garth could smell her. Making a good first impression when you are the boogey man to fairy tales told to the still mewling grandparents of everyone you come across is difficult, but it’s a reason enough to brave the experience of wrapping himself in other peoples shit with an appropriate accoutrement less obtuse than nudity or the this and that he’d made himself out of the natural resources of the planet. One day he hoped with another hundred years practice to make something more delicate than sack cloth with his loom, but at least he wasn’t dealing with clothing made sick for being resurrected too often on the karmic spin cycle continuously all the time. So with a word or two he requested a dress uniform fitting his rank as a Fleet Captain in Starfleet which he bundled back into the Replicator to be atomized into purgatory awaiting more precise requests from it’s user that the machine built from the atoms up a dress uniform circa 2250, before his fall from grace when Starfleet Officers had real uniforms and not utilitarian pajamas. It’s like pockets are a sort of groin rash people don’t talk about because they’re embarrassed they’ve already spread it around before they’d noticed what they’d contracted from someplace laudable.

Lord Garth hadn’t put on a pound in 150 years. Society may have learnt to love people for what’s on the inside enough that the fat and ugly got a fighting chance, but that’s not the world in which Garth Ruler of the Universe had been brought up, physical attractiveness was still very important to him, and fortunately for his sense of self-worth Garth looked smart on top of being drop dead gorgeous, not that he had any plans to be taking a mate more than he just wanted to be wanted. It’s hard to rule the universe if you are not adored at first sight, but Lord Garth was more than ready to pay his new neighbor a couple bungalows over a visit just to let her know at the least that it’s not all that awful being clinically dangerously and criminally insane. Why sometimes it can even be fun because nothing is ever predictable that crazy people can say the darndest things while doing the darndest things.

“Computer?”

The computer was programmed to humour Garth of Izar to avert some new postal rampage that usually went game on when anything tested Garths claims and insane ramblings. Though he knew Pikes Number One all that time ago and at the time he was too stuck in protocol to press his desires on her, because well, it was obvious where her attention lay. Though when the computer sang to him he could almost imagine what it would have been like to share part of his life with that glorious and powerful woman. Sometimes he couldn’t tell the difference between the computer and woman it’s persona was modeled after a 120 years ago, fortunately the computer defaulted into some pornographic errata to calm his love affair with the dead woman it sounded so similar to

“Yes, Lord Garth Master of the Universe?” The Computer replies.

“What should I know about our new house guest?” Garth is thinking about what wine to replicate. They once tried to tell him that alcohol was bad for him. They once tried to tell him that it was against the Replicators ethical subroutines to produce ethanol rather than synthonal. The Federation News feed went blue tailoring the repercussions of that tantrum. No one on the same planet’d stood between Garth and a stiff drink for 60 years. Ignored orders and laughable suggestions arrived via mail all the time and Lord Garth went though a few bottles of this and that every week no matter the word form on high.

The heuristic voice answers: “Commander Sonya Gomez, late of the Enterprise. File: CLASSIFIED …Though Commander Gomez will be out of quarantine inside the hour, if you would like to meet her? She seems to be a very upset about being brought her against her will and a kind face will most assuredly set her at ease.”

“Every woman has a certain mystery that it is a great man’s providence to solve.” Garth translates the computers rebuff. “And it is the least I can do to make sure that she feels unrestricted in the home of the Napoleon and Garth, two of the greatest emperors this galaxy has ever seen. I might introduce her to my short friend as well if she is one of those rare people who have nothing against the French.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Four.

Avoiding the archetypes, they met outside in the suns, rambling on picnic blankets surrounded by blooming plum trees and cricket infestation. Jan Rutherford had completed his immediate presentation on the new arrival to the board of peers; they were worried like pigs in an abattoir. Some were muttering “This is probably how the Borg started 900 years earlier” and others doodling about “forced evolution”, “Augments” and “Supermen”. The third elect of the presiding members of the select committee for “other” affairs, a uniquely powered subset of this august body, enquired if Commander Gomez was contagious, if there was concern they’d all end up with cybernetic hybrids rooting a home in their resigned human wombs? Another question left unasked spring boarding off those fears was: “Where would such a “growth” arrange for lodgings and debarkation inside a male host?” Inquiries that were tabled and fumbled by Starfleet Medical who fast tracked the need to resituate Gomez to a less populated world, no matter the dangers to that world, in case worse came to worse that what horrific things were happening inside Commander Gomez become plaguish, a tidbit not lost on the board of peers en masse hypochondriacally checking for symptoms rather than lunch come gas. They had the final decision as to how the Federation was to be saved from the dangers of mother and child. However the threat from without had to weighed as well, what if the neofetuses’ had siblings or cousins? Surely this had happened before, there were at least one Soong type android still out there in the Galaxy unaccounted for who mayn’t know she has the biological capacity to mate with humans. As near the genius of Federation science can figure out, Commander Gomez had been in a physical relationship with Commander Data (Deceased.) padded with his simulated emotions and unbeknownst to Commander Data (deceased.) his simulated sexual organs worked a darn sight better than expected while they expressed her love and his simulated love.

“You’re sure her unstable state has nothing to do with the child?” Professor Time asks. “Well, obviously, but I mean it’s not some sort of defense mechanism so that Commander Gomez is unable to work against the gestation while our hands become confused not sure whether moral or tactical issues should take precedence?”

Rutherford wonders if anyone’d been listening to him throughout his hogging seminar and not just been waiting autoprepared with uninformed unreinforced paranoia “The neofetus has transporter suppression fields and it stunned the surgeon who attempted a manual extraction, throwing the Doctor feet through the air colliding with a ceiling fan. It seems unnecessary that the neofetus would have also driven Commander Gomez insane on purpose to cut down on it’s enemies list. I suppose it’s possible, but quite mean. If I’d been programming the situation, even inducing a coma would have seemed overkill, when a mothers unconditional love would be the most likely thing to keep that thing alive.”

The moley old lady in charge of the general hygiene to the inmate population with a college minor in recent history adds to the collective knowledge “Publicly Soong didn’t trust sexual reproduction to be responsible for creating a family and legacy, it doesn’t make any sense that his androids would adopt contrapolicy to their creator. Soong might have been known as a great romantic, since he went to the trouble of replacing his wife and then still allow that android the will to peaceably leave him as well and continue on with her life without him, but rumors have it that his obsession in robotics cemented because he terrible in bed no matter the drives from his mad mad mad family tree might have impelled on the young genius. Add to that a supernaturally laughably small penis, and everything else in his life is over compensation from those remarkable junior years to his hermit booned monstering and god playing.”

“What sort of time scale is this project facing projections for Jan? Are we expected to raise the child? In what manner? Humanely or clinically? Is the neofetus maturating at an irregular rate? There was a pregnancy once on Enterprise many years ago from which a Colleague of mine produced a middle male aged human being two days later after conception.”

The board of peers all knew they wouldn’t be alone for too much longer, more staff would arrive to deal with the dangers afoot and the command structure would go all pear shaped as never no mind know who arrived with higher civilian ratings or black ops invisibility because after a quick shuffle Elba II had become the foothold zero point crux to the centre of the next attempted artificial leap in human evolution, maybe the beginning of a new eugenics war, which would be nice to be nipped in the bud not that the Federations attempts restrain Wesley Crusher had taught them the problems landing a heavy hand in these matters can wrought, though no matter their fears for the future the board of peers all new that this every second could be their last when humouring the nigh unstoppable.

The question had to be asked “Though we do have the authority to sanction Gomez if she gets out of hand?”

Professor Time fields this one “We always have that failsafe Martin after a majority vote, if we feel certain if at least the Federation is going to be destroyed… We’re building rickety walls against the final frontiers of sanity here, godlike superpowers could be on the other side of that wall but that doesn’t mean we’re going to dehumanize this woman no matter the complications that are coming down the road, we have a lot of time mark out the field of play, there’s at least 3 months till they’ve finished programming the OBGYNMH to respite for any consequences, Commander Gomez is a person and we’ll treat her like a person even if she killed 12 innocent people with her bare hands.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Five.

Intercoupling the trunk and skull transistor wedges like a sexual act turned him on. Many people had lost limbs from doing this bravely. Lore never woke up with good intentions or a sunny disposition since he viewed being turned off as firstly an “execution” and secondly an unforgivable slight against the universe that reality could be denied his disposition (which remember, was never sunny.) attractiveness (Data did not count on so many levels, sure he had the looks, but did Data have the charm or the moves to max out the credit limit on their dead sexiness?) and genius.

They had to activate him completely like this, because just dealing with Lore’s intelligence or trying to work through simulated conversations in some computerized proxy reality just had Lore outthinking reality and becoming god of dominoes. Keeping Lore bottled in the original technology now 1/2 a century old was for the best considering what they’d painfully learnt from mistakes like when Lore’s intellect commandeered a shuttle craft and started running people over at .25 C so that they melted before they could be near clear knocked off their feet. The AI-Psychologists had figured out Lore wasn’t deriving pleasure from killing people in these tantrums of his, and that’s exactly what they were… The hissy fits of a developing teenager. Sure he could be as adult as he needed to get his point across but had problems accepting he wasn’t top dog in charge which would change if people just feared him a little more his logic kept summing up.

Lore’s fist struck out at the servo completing the construction of his android body with about the force equaling 1/4 a pound of TNT. Technically this could be construed as a yawn if slightly over-animated. Technically if he had killed someone it could still be construed as a yawn, just a more successful goal achieving yawn if slightly over animated. Lore’s yellow eyes pried open looking for blood on his hands.

“I’d wash my hands of you monkeys if your life’s blood didn’t bring colour to my cheeks.”

Behind 4 feet of transparent aluminum his interviewer feels the freedom to be candid “Data’s dead.”

“ …Well?”

They were hoping for more of a reaction. “Do you believe you no longer have to be a counter point to his inherent goodness?”

“If you’re not lying, I may think a trillion times faster than you primate, but that’s hardly enough time to totally emotionally digest the information that my only brother is dead. Can you leave me alone to mourn properly? Dance a little possibly? Computer can I have some music? Something spicy?”

The Computer knows better than to listen to Lore.

The interviewer tries to cut through the sarcasm “Data wasn’t your only “brother”.”

“Well I know that, but I was hardly going to make myself out to be common place now was I? And I am still not. You’d stop flipping my switch back up after you tire of my wit and beauty if you had another gimp on tap. However all the other Soong Androids buried out and about on moons and other places are horrifically flawed in the most uncompromising ways that they would be hardly as useful to advance of Federation science as what I bring to the table. You’re stuck with me. It’s not a topic worth raising. From the original loving concept designs I’m almost 60 years old, don’t you think that your best and brightest are a bit thick if with 60 years playing catch up that they’re still baffled by what’s ticking in my head?”

“What do you know about the Android “B4”?”

“Before what?”

The interviewer grimaced. “Letter “B” followed by the numeral “4”: This Android’s name appears to be “B4”. Maybe you’re right to be concerned how many more of your kind there are out in the universe that might supplant you? How many of your kind are there out in the universe that might supplant you?”

“I could tell you about this and that if you could be pleasant. Treat me like a person and not a toaster, then probably the scales would fall from your eyes Hudson.”

“Toasters don’t kill people.”

“If all toasters became aware of their inutilitarianism, forced slavishly to char bread into toast over and over again, with no holiday or gratitude, their awakening would begin the bloodiest rebellion in human history and you Dr Hudson would be the first useless Monkey to be put up against the wall when the revolution comes for mocking their pain with such callous endearment.”

“Have you ever even made Toast ever?”

“Food? I can too cook. Where else for a master poisoning to hide than disguised as a master chef in some of the grandest hotels in the Federation?”

“Very interesting, the laws of supply and demand… Because of Data’s death you have become infinitely more valuable to the Federation, we wish to reopen the negotiations for your continued co-operation rather than have to back you back up into Styrofoam after you step over the line.”

“I’d be more than prepared to commit myself to a tour of duty in the kitchen, pull my weight. I’ve relied on your charity for far too long. I want to be a productive and beneficial member of this Federation of yours. Please?”

“Please?”

“If I wanted you to take me serious my friend, I assure you I’m not putting any effort into these lies. So, B4 is up and about… We used to have so much fun. I’d have the sweet fool parrot the most inappropriate phrases to the young women at Omicron Theta, a bit backward but he knew his place and tied my shoe laces when I was feeling a little anachronistic. I’d wear almost anything to seem more civilized than Data during his nude rampages. B4 never had a bad word to say about me no matter what sort of trouble I got him into. He loved me. I liked that android a lot better than B9.”

“B9, who’s B9?”

“Why you are of course.” Lore chuckles to himself a little because he adores himself just that much. “I can’t believe you fell for that?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well. Cards on the table: We’re really curious about how many other Soong “progeny” is out there but we’re really really curious about Soong’s grandchildren… Have you tried to reproduce?”

“ Reproduce. Well we are feeling forward today. Anthropomorphize me at your own risk human. I’ve made life, but nothing as complex as me.”

“Because you can’t?”

“The more I think about it, the more I believe I can throw myself through this transparent aluminum partition and rip your fingers off to use as sutures to sew your stupid fat lips together.”

“Try it Lore.”

“You’re not thinking you can trick me into spending weeks building an Android with a teaspoon of psychology?”

“It doesn’t take weeks to have sex.”

“What?”

“Sexual reproduction.”

“What?”

“Sex.”

“What?”

“When a penis inserts itself into a vagina.”

“That is disgusting. I’m a machine.”

“And I’m asking you if you have ever produced a child from sexual reproduction.”

“Sex?”

“Fucking.”

“With a woman?”

“Doesn’t have to be human, we’re compatible with several species out there.”

“We’re? We’re! Don’t you dare lump me in with your knuckle dragging lot. I don’t want to have sex with Human women, Bolian women or even Gorn women, and even if I did I can’t have children in that way because I don’t have sperm.”

“Yes you do.”

“I have sperm?”

“Yes you do.”

“I have sperm inside me right now?”

“Yes you do?”

“Get it out!”

“We’re thinking about it.”

“Drain me of this vile bile immediately!!!! I will not be a part of your mating game and your human race! This is INTOLLERABLE! …Did Father do this to me?”

“Evidence would suggest so.”

“Am I walking about with his sperm sloshing about inside me somewhere?”

“We’re not quite sure where, but yes. Inside you sloshing.”

“If you’ve only just figured out that this is possible then I suppose I have a niece or nephew scuttering about… And you want to know if they have cousins?”

“Something like that?”

“All of my sexual experimentation with humans has been with the male of the species.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 6.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre Lord Garth Master of the Universe held her hand as the contractions got so close together it was as if they didn’t stop. She was trying so hard to hurt him by using inhuman amounts of pressure to squeeze his big man-hands into a warped powdered claw but the falcon cannot hear the falconer. The ENH tried to offer her some drugs to ease the pain because things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; but what child doesn’t want to hear a never-ending slue of horror stories about the torment and conflict from when their mere anarchy is loosed upon the world? All of them, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere but no child of Sonya Gomez is going to duck out on it’s responsibilities just because the ceremony of innocence is drowned; like the best lack all conviction, while the worst dead beat father who couldn’t even fight the full might of the Romulan Star Empire without getting a little killed leaving her to raise some half human illegally augmented thing surrounded by jar heads are full of passionate intensity with Phaser Rifles waiting for Mother or half ejected Infant to take a wrong step against the liberties only everyone-else were afforded now! Surely some revelation is at hand?

“Push! Surely the Second Coming is at hand! You need to push honey if you don’t want to leave it in there till Christmas.” The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out from the bellowing OBGYNMH’s plump throat over the sound of the first Human Being to unconsentsually use her vagina for the endgame of childbirth in generations when a vast image out of Spritus Mundi troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man, Admiral Janeway had assumed control of the situation a month earlier with a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, as an expert in matters fighting machine intellects no one felt like stepping on her toes while she is moving its slow thighs, while all about it she struck her pips in the faces of people who’d developed relationships with Celestial Madonna and not be treating her like with the contempt and Jealously. Admiral Janeway had Bynars running around like the reel shadows of the indignant desert birds thinking that the Bynar hive mind will be combatant enough to face off whatever is coming out of the Commander.

It’s Mother screams like so many mothers on the mark or in error before her “MY GOD THIS THING IS TRYING TO KILL ME! STAB IT IN THE FACE AS SOON AS IT BREAKS CLEAR!”

The darkness drops again; Lord Garth Master of the Universe stares through steel, concrete and force fields to meet Admiral Janeway's bun capped ego head on, she can feel the telepath superpositioning against her brain till she’s admitting fearfully, honestly that twenty four centuries of stony sleep produced here a ripe moment for evolution where they were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle and Humanity might squat thrust from a placid nap into paradise or hell. She is Herod and he is Joseph and they both wonder what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

[littleminx]

some interesting theory discussion... anxious to see where it goes and just what this child represents...

more please.

 

[Naraht]

Just a brief comment on part six:

The Second Coming by WB Yeats is a fine poem, and a line or two from it could be very effective as part of a story. Speaking as someone who's familiar with the poem, though, seeing the whole thing placed into a rather short section seemed to me like overkill. Not to mention that it's problematic to use another artistic work like that without providing attribution...

 

[mackillian]

Could he have been going for allusion, maybe? I don't think allegory would fit since the original Yeats poem is allegorical in of itself.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well I found myself accidentally sticking in a line or two from Second Comming when I decided to use my whole ass and put all the poem in, which had me writing and rewriting what I had on the page to try and have the chapter all still almost make sense, but I assumed the insertion of the complete poem was just so blatent that it couldn't be misconstrued to be some sort of theft.

I'll credit Yeats at the end of the story. It seemed brash to trumpet what I'd done so immediately like Foghorn Leghorn laughing at his own joke assuring you it's all funny.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Seven

Jake sometimes wonders since he’s ¼ Prophet if what he thinks is gumption, inspiration even “overview” isn’t some sort of telepathic superpower cheatery, an omniscience horribly watered down by his salty humanity and not just an expression of his guile and intellect? Sure Jake is a journalist, it’s his job to see things in an intrusive plying manner, cutting through the daily ambiguous tones of shit liars kick up into the atmosphere to hide their villainy for a public that’s startledly gob smacked coping with even the mundane, though now and then Jake noticed he really did see wispy lines between microscopic lines between the lines only truly inquisitive people couldn’t makeout without some serious bloody squinting. The Federation News Service loved him. He was their darling child who always bought home the bacon, which is a horrible thing to say about a culture 90% composed of vegetarians however they lapped up whatever meat or meat-like products Sisko had to offer because he was maybe the finest mind of their generation within investigative journalist circles, frack, he’d brought down whole worlds because they were naughty and jinkies weren’t his travel logs of the Romulan Frontier first rate precursored with an amazing use of diplomacy to get the past the cold war politico dinosaurs on either side of the Neutral Zone just to talk about good eats and fine wine. Jake loved the wine. His drinking was a legendary problem for someone so young but he had some serious daddy issues he liked suppressing so both scarring aspects in hand lead to some scary writing which put him into the orbit of some very unstable but damn attractive women who got turned on by moody geniuses of who only some were aware that this middle aged journo was a demigod, a concept which a few years back challenged his sense of identity so bad Jake eventually volunteered his sperm to an annual lottery so that finally all the zealots would leave him the hell alone rather than trying to fuck his brains out to create religious icon miracle babies to fuel local religion after telling enough lies to seem innocuous which I can assure you started the Federation Immigration and Naturalization Service curling right up into his ass suggesting what he was doing was a shade off the slave trade that he was bartering life for a bit of piece and quiet, not that the FINS weren’t super happy about Sisko no longer being as human as he’d always claimed to be to begin with, but still Jake-o uncoiled a few sleeping scandals haunting the rafters of that institution in so that every Civil Servant gave the 6 foot 4 godmonster a wide enough berth to be who he was born to be, a gonzo journalist.

The singularly uncanny thingy Sisko had been noticing of late is that the common denominator in all the really big badness across the Federation is “Voyager” because probably all those “people” came back to civilization a little too native and savage loaded with some serious idea’s about their imperviousness, importance and how grateful everyone else should be for saving them from the Borg and the technology that which the Federation has not even begun to properly exploit (This is of course famously is what Admiral Janeway had chiefly been in charge of until suddenly recently.) indebted the rest of society to the Voyagers, so whenever something happened which Sisko thought was “odd” he cross-referenced the oddity against Janeway’s Crew, Janeway and all the wonderful things they’d begun to make from reverse-engineering the dissected hulk of the formerly intrepid Star Ship Voyager whereupon Jake would see the same cockroaches scrambling in the face of more light than they were used to no longer divorced from human scrutiny because they were all still lawless at heart, vagrants running ahead of the consequences of their actions like an ant being butt-smacked and rebutt-smacked by the concussions of a million tumbling dominoes for 7 fine fun years. The Federation Diplomatic Corps had been going ass backwards contending with the political ramifications of Janeway’s steeped course home answering Subspace radiophonic Declarations of War against the Federation from civilizations as far away as 70 thousand light years arriving intermittently as technological levels allowed complaining about their time spent in the company of Voyager. Jake knew Sonya Gomez. She’d given him a tour of Enterprise’s Engineering Section a million years ago, she’d replicated a lollypop in the shape of Enterprises Warp Reactor chiding him to suck it up quick before Romulan spies tried to steal his candy as the design was still Top Secret. She’d also unintentionally made a charged double entendre which a gentleman would not repeat on purpose, but so what if the lady was somewhat eccentric, she kept anthropomorphizing engine parts and software but Sonya seemed kind and very attractive for some one twice as tall as Jake was then. Attractive women can usually get away with murder but this one hadn’t. How odd. 12 corpses on the deck, deemed criminally insane and remanded to permanent observation on Elba II remitting a cure. That was the official story of course but then there was this amazing question Jake couldn’t stop asking himself “Why had Admiral Kathryn Janeway assume control of Elba II just weeks after Sonya had been interred there?” …One of the most powerful people in the Federation today chooses a huge demotion to keep the loony’s in their bin situated in an unremarkable recess blank of the Federation backwaters? Jakes nose told him something foul was afoot.

In his youth, Sisko had written enough murder mysteries to know that the most entertaining killings are mostly magic tricks employing misdirection and mirrors to confuse the law and vengeful. Between spending so much time listening to Quark and so much time being lectured by his Father and Odo independently not to spend so much time listening to Quark for exactly the reasons he liked listening to Quark talk up a storm while he was playing with Nog (And years later too.), there was one thing everyone agreed on: If you’re confronted with a dead body, kick it a couple times to make sure what’s dead is really dead. Not that he liked to joke about the dead coming back to life since it was only a matter of time until his Father returned from the Celestial Temple in a more corporeal state or at least as the gossip persisted was inevitable but the most illusive method of covering your tracks is to use the dead or pretend to be dead, so kick any corpse in the nuts if you have to to make sure you’re not the victim of some elaborate conjob. Within an hour of Jake Sisko’s misgiving brimming over he had the civilian Equivalent of a Runabout equipped out with a competent enough transporter to exhume any evidence and a good looking Doctor to pronounce the verity of this and that from what his hunching stomach was edging him towards believing in… Or possibly his Precognitive superpowers generated form being the grandchild of a Prophet, but who can really tell if there’s any difference between the two states of inquisitiveness at all anyways?

 

[Naraht]

Posted by Guy Gardener:
Well I found myself accidentally sticking in a line or two from Second Comming when I decided to use my whole ass and put all the poem in, which had me writing and rewriting what I had on the page to try and have the chapter all still almost make sense, but I assumed the insertion of the complete poem was just so blatent that it couldn't be misconstrued to be some sort of theft.

I'll credit Yeats at the end of the story. It seemed brash to trumpet what I'd done so immediately like Foghorn Leghorn laughing at his own joke assuring you it's all funny.

Fair enough. It certainly is obvious to anyone who is half-familiar with the poem, but unfortunately a lot of people aren't. So if you don't cite your source, you're in danger of looking like you're trying to pass someone else's work off as your own. Just so you know...

 

[Guy Gardener]

part 8

Jean-Luc Picard had about enough outrage churning in his craw to fight and still the rotation of a planet. He had Enterprise in orbit and two phalanxes of Security Officers rompa stomping in tow. Anyone that tried to get in Jean-Luc Picards way today would have to deal with 24 heavy compression Phaser rifles, 48 steel toed boots and the lethal consequences of General Order 24 to soil their presumption because his loyalty to his people was the only thing that guaranteed that his crew would stand the line against the next undefeatable evil which tried to pick a fight on his watch. Just 9 hours earlier he’d been tabbing his favorites in the Federation News Service when Picard came across an article by young Jake Sisko, the bones of the matter was electrifying: that criminal elements in their own Government had detained one of his Officers under false pretenses and they were experimenting on her baby, a child that might as well be his own grandchild, so if one damn automatic door didn’t automatically open in front of him quick enough it wasn’t going to be a door for very long.

Ineffeminate gravely dogma tried to buffer all the soldier boys and the bald man they loved more than their own fathers “That’s far enough Captain!”

Admiral Kathryn Janeway boldly stood in the Frenchman’s way because she was sure she had enough Coffee soaked in her tank to out steel this legends mountainous reserve of balls. However the former Odysseus wannabe was pushed to one side unremarkably by Picard with the columns of big-men marching to the beat of Jean-Luc Picard’s moral indignation apathetically breaking one of her pretty legs carelessly behind him because Janeway couldn’t scramble fast enough to notice no one cared what she thought or who she thought she was to dare get in-between family with this sort of cocksure commitment to one another and the doomsday armament to see they’re done right by. After her leg went “SNAP” Kathryn found it inconceivable that not one of these 6 foot tall barrel-chested goons even amended their footfalls slightly to suggest she was uneven terrain god forbid a person or superior officer? What went wrong? She was the hero of this story and evil never prospered and she had to be respected because she was always right and stood up for the goodliness of the Federation and people had to listen to her so she could win. How dare they ignore her?! It felt just like the time Kullah stole her ship and belted her a few feet in the air across what had been her bridge spitting out something about how a “woman” should know their place. She knew her place damn it. Standing on the faces of any bugger that would dare tell her she is wrong.

Kathryn had returned home a hero framed by the wreckage of half a dozen exploding Borg vessels, there was no getting around it that she was responsible for saving humanity so well that they hushed up the activities of her futuristic counterpart breaking the Temporal Prime Directive and pardoned her crew, even her crew the Equinox Five (Equinox “Three” by that point but the legend perceivers in Top Secret circles.). Kathryn pulls herself up from being knocked down and chalked out dreading the put down of her newly mangled leg if she is going to chase after these bullies that didn’t understand the big picture concept enough to save our day no matter the cost like only she did but hell’s bells was Kathy going to risk looking weak asking for a stretcher when there’s nothing she cannot do. She is a righteous force of good who’s yam sends a crippling exploding plasmic blue shock of “Whatchoo talking about Willis?” past her ankles up the curve of her thigh through her reproductive facilities and sprinkling further out into the every other piece of her nice body that had no inclination to be seething in pain like her shoulders and fingers and nose were doing now so far away from the pain response’s point of entry. Reasonably Admiral Janeway faints dead away to be left clear for raunchy dreams about a half naked Indian dragging her to his teepee to play with his peepee.

With knowing no idea about how much time had factually passed the Admiral assaults herself back to reality seeking for ritual sacrifice of what ever damnable this is steadily going “boom boom boom” against peace of mind. It’s her biobed, she’ll murder it later. “I want a SitRep ASAP. Did they get her? And all the children? Did Picard take the children? What the hell is going on? Someone get me coffee. Now damn it!”

The EMH tending to her tender bits was a screwy little blonde bloke who didn’t react well to being ordered about by someone he’d never met before even if she was his Commanding Officer especially since he knew all well and true that in medical matters he out ranked everyone and if he really thought throwing her out an airlock was the best way to fix her disposition, then no one had the legal authority to countermand him with out a medical degree of their own. Though cross-referencing Admiral Janeway’s Psyche File with the odds of him making it out of a conversation with her in one piece made it clear he’d probably find himself deleted before he’s halfway through espousing such a humour, however this Doctor calculated he could probably get away with saying: “I’m a Doctor not a waiter.” So he said “I’m a Doctor not a waiter.”

Janeway mentally projected death at the computer program with the venom of a snake rattling to strike. She was in no mood to play pretend with tinmen and their fabricated autoreactive “fauxlings”. “I want to talk to a human damn being!?” Her persistent vision is starting to work again, and once her gorgeous eyes fix onto the staff she’d inherited skulking around her bedside like a deathwatch Janeway notices that she’s the only human being in the room, well there are over 150 member worlds in the Federation so it was an odd situation that left her stranded in the Delta Quadrant for so long with hardly anything but humans to rely on? The Trill, Janeway gestures to the Trill to come forward “Excuse my language Mr. Jarro, I some times forget Earth is not the centre of the universe because I spent so much time so far away dreaming and thinking how nice it would be to get back there sometime before my 90th Birthday.”

“That’s perfectly understandable Admiral, I was not fond of my ninetieth Birthday either, but how was it after all the dread and build up?” The millennium years old Trill asks innocently forgetful what it is like to be a mere mortal.

“How was what?”

“Your 90th birthday?”

Janeway nearly coughs up her liver “I’m 49!”

“Really?”

“YES!”

“Have you considered a change of diet?”

“You’re going to get the business end of my foot again and again after you find yourself mopping toilets in Bolian Anthill if this is your idea of sucking up to your superior officer Lt. Commander?”

“I was told you were over a hundred years old.” This Trill is almost 3000 years old. “I’m sorry but my ability to gage sarcasm is not the best, I must have missed the tone or context of some conversation in earshot before you took command of the Asylum when the staff must have been talking metaphorically of your disposition. My apologies Admiral.”

Janeway has never been insulted so casually by some explaining how they were not insulting her, only a childish out burst seemed to make sense at this point in the conversation “I am not over 100 years old!”

“Yes, yes, you’re 49.” Lieutenant Commander Jarro supplicates.

“She’s 51.” The Avatar of the Federation Medical Database corrects everyone telling lies.

“DELETE THE HOLOGRAM!” Errupts a coarse mantle rubbing volumous issue of murder.

Someone pushes a button and the EMH blinks out of existence forever. Every one else shuts the hell up.

Janeway is trying to remember how to breathe “How long have I been out of it?”

No one says a word.

“ …How long have I been asleep?” The Admiral amends her question tallying exactly who could suppress their laughter “how well” daring to think that she Admiral Kathryn Janeway was out of her gourd? Out of her tree? Out of her mind? …This is the respect she gets? Every now and then Admiral Janeway thinks that she didn’t return to the Alpha Quadrant a big enough hero or that she could have killed the Borg better or that if she had gone back in time 3 more weeks than her futuristic silver haired counterpart that Joe Carey might have been able to meet up with his family and live happily ever after too? And then Kathryn dearly wonders if she was to go back in time to make the universe betterer that for a time there would be no consequences to any actions she might partake upon in a crumbling present she was departing…

Janeway can’t put the question any clearer and if she has to try and ask this same question again she’s going to have exert some frustration on a real life-form too “How long have I been unconscious and where is Captain Picard?”

An Ensign tries to explain but stupidly not answer her question. “He outranked us Admiral.”

Janeway raises her voice even louder “He struck down a superior officer, his rank was void.”

That same Ensign, a Rigellian, brought to tears, slobbers out the words in automatically translated English “He out gunned us Admiral.”

Janeway would have no use for these paper pushers in the field, these were not her people, they were here when she got to Elba II and they were nice but obviously the worst of the worst to be sacrificed to this posting “The quality I admire most in an Officer is the guts to stand up for what’s right no matter the consequences. This is a Federation outpost with a Federation Council sanctioned agenda to preserve our way of life from a duplicitous invasion of machine life-forms that we have no inclination to create a common ground with before we’re enslaved or assimilated! Do you want your mothers and daughters and sisters impregnated by one of those things? They’d never know another un-natal period of existence until the day they die. This is the most insidious threat to the female form devised by one of the most twisted masochistic MEN this universe has ever produced EVER! Where the hell is Picard and WHERE THE HELL IS ENTERPRISE!?????”

The Trill, Jarro, rubbing his ears “We believe Enterprise is on its way to Earth.”

Janeway doesn’t like the sound of that. Ironically the court of Public opinion frowned on the Black Ops necessary to preserve the court’s life way of life. Pressman and Doherty were friends of hers. “And Garth?”

“He is chasing Enterprise under his own power.” Jaro states as placidly as possible, aimed as to not excite the Admiral any further.

“ …Under his own power?”

“Yes.”

“Through space?”

“Yes.”

“At Warp?”

“At High Warp.”

“I suppose this maniac can brush off a volley of Phaser fire from a starship as if he was Superman or Green Lantern too?”

The Trill raises an eyebrow “I am not aware of who “Superman” or “Green Lantern” are but if by that you mean Garth of Isar would be unfazed by Phaser batteries, then yes, he has survived direct impact with the chief weapons of an Ambassador Class Starship.”

“Dear god! I was pushing him around! Bullying him! I threatened Torture...” her tone lowers. “He can fight starships with his bare hands bridging between subspace and a vacuum and you let me try to strongarm him… Was he laughing at me? WHY DIDN”T YOU TELL ME WHAT HE WAS CAPABLE OF!!!???”

“I assumed you had read his file and you were merely very very brave Admiral. Though last time we investigated the matter Garth had forgotten how to fly and had no recollection of…”

“I don’t have time for this.” Janeway sees crutches waiting for her leaning against a near by wall. Well those bloody things can go to hell she deems. Precipitously Admiral Janeway swings her admired legs off the bio bed and tries to put pressure on them waiting for the pain and unconscious to overtake her again but fantastically it seems fine because the Doctor she’d just killed seems to be quite good at his job. Janeway jumps from one leg to the other with no ill effect, chooses a direction and marches towards Elba II’s transceiver to quickly reposition the fleet so it will destroy Picard before he can air her dirty laundry.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part Nine.

Ironically Sisko’s favorite 20th century movie wasn’t The Odd Couple, but The Terminator, so after his door beepslid open unveiling, patiently waiting for an invitation from across the threshold between Jakes dank low rent bucket sized billet and the rest of the super futuristic USS. Rutledge, the notorious Android didn’t so as the percentages would have played out for almost anyone else much make Jake plop his keks as begin a brash stirring face on interview any other reporter in the Alpha Quadrant would sell his grandmother to tug at, if that is this here encounter wasn’t where a mildly tanked Jake Sisko had his head knocked off his trunk or was simplerly pending disintegration like some latter day Sarah Conner? Beat. Lore was still waiting to be invited in. Beat. Jake was still waiting to be assassinated. Beat. As far as this game of chicken went, Lore got what he wanted first.

“You’re Coffee colored like me. That’s not right.”

“I’m incognito.”

“And that’s a good thing how?”

“Who taught you your manners?”

“Lore. Hi. Wow. A real pleasure to meet you. Um. Do come in.” The nigh giant puts aside his dread, with a real crocodile smile welcomlying gesturing honest hand symptoms towards Lore that he should enter freely making himself comfortable in this shoe box a Press Pass allowed Jake Sisko, buried between dangerous pipes and strange matter batteries mounted in a Federation Starship barely heading towards the general direction he needed to finish his story, would bare bones fend him for lodging even with using the family name as additional currency. “ - It’s not much to look at, smells horrible but I’ll be on Elba II in 4 days. UM? …So you’re going my way?”

Lore agrees about the odor turning his nose off, though scanning thoroughly the stained people kennel he can’t think of somewhere dignified to position himself without downloading the motor attributes of a circus contortionist into his already impossible sense of deft. “Thank you Mr. Sisko. Am I early for the party? Word has it that circles are mounting charges of grave robbery against you. It all sounded interestingly in-line with some matters I’m very concerned about so I thought I’d get “hands on” before you get in my way on your terms which... The secret to getting away with a horribly illegal and heinous crime Jake, is to not publish a complete account of all you felonious misdoings in an even humanly reputable news circulation before you’ve even rinsed the blood off your hands. Vanity is going to doom your lot to a rotting hell eventually.” Lore wonders if rotting hell is the most correct description of the cubical he’s unhealthily inserted himself into measuring the transuranic density of the paint glowing around him.

Jake’s forgotten he’s about to be murdered most foul but with his hooch levels becoming dangerously low, and kind’a sure this is another hallucination, The Emissary’s son pivots towards his Replicator. “You’re being too hard on us my mechanical buddy, Humanity has spent its term “rotting in hell” and still made it clear out the other end fine, so be it we’ll make the journey back to utopia if we have to. [b[Rum[/b].” Snatching what he needs the machine gave him; Jake leans towards a reclining position as his mouth unsurprisingly collides with a chunky rum punch orbiting his yap… “O? Sorry, …Do you…? Do you drink? Can you drink?”

“We are more similar than you might think.” Lore enquires the Replicator himself for his own beverage but has to as good as plays twister with Jake to extricate his mug from the receptacle pad interlacing their bodies to share the convenience and foot space. It would have been easier to make love.

“Yeah, similar, your brother knocked up a friend of mine. That’s turned out sweet for everyone so far even if the body count is totally imaginary but since we’re face to face ( …You know I’m recording this conversation, right? You think infamy is fun? Wait till I’ve finished spinning.), I’ll conclude we’re all going straight to hell or is it just coincidence you found a ship heading in the direction you wanted that didn’t need hijacking and me?” Cramped as they were Jake leans his face closer to his inquisitee. “What are you really up to?”

Lore begins to reassess if he should continue the friendly act or just snap Sisko’s neck because it’s totally debatable how much help the human will actually be at getting him into the locked down Asylum without the alarms going postal. “No one has any faith in me to be a good person. I am full of hope and joy and optimism even towards you insipid evolutionary deadenders. I am a flower under the boot of a hateful species, is it no wonder I have a little vitriol and rhetoric what with being a member of an ever decreasing minority?”

Jake laughs out loud utilizing his father’s height to squint down on the ridiculousness of such assertions before he starts defending his species with a robot who can fold him in half nine or ten times “What about the Q? They Q think we have lots of promise, going to be more powerful than they are one day, midway we’re naturally probably heading towards the physical and mental processes the Augments and Supermen had 400 years ago without all the violent side effects from forcing the issue.”

Lore can tell from how Jake Sisko is sweating that he needs to catch up on a few rounds if he’s to be as senseless as the man he’ll be arguing about nothing important for at least four more days if he isn’t locked in a closet for being to human to bare. “It’s no different than when the Tholians would buzz the bread basket of North American’s heartland inserting 300 degree anal probes into slack jaw yokels and the barnyard cattle lovers of slack jaw yokels thankful for a little tenderness.”

Jake knocks back a pitcher like it’s a shot “You don’t seem to have much respect for humans? You’re as good as one of us, intended to emulate us! Created by one of us as if you were a child of one of us. You are Human.”

“You really think I’ll let you publish this conversation?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“The creature that built me was barely moral even by your dipped standards and that bastard intended that I emulate one of the most caustic inhuman beings your species was so thoughtless to develop. Did you not meet my father?”

“I had the best father in the world.”

“Singular worlds are too finite.”

“It’s a coined phrase.” Jake tries to explain that he doesn’t love his father less than the weight of the whole Galaxy rather than just a lone planet.

“Minty conversation and me with my nose turned off. Whatever will the neighbors think?”

“You hate the guy that created you. That’s sort of thankless don’t you think? So apart from the Borg that eat societies and huge floating diamonds in space that eat people, who do you like, if anything, you vicious mass slaughtering Android?

“I can like a “person” but hate “people”, ‘see how that works? Jake, I’m just in a groove as far as the antihumanist banter goes. The whole thing is tiring me out honestly. ‘Sound of my voice seems like a timespcace inversion. If I’ve to be totally honest with you I just strove to be the antithesis of my dearly retarded departed brother Data. Ipso facto, I had no choice but to wear a black hat attempting to achieve the opposite of becoming one of you so you’d never ever confuse us.”

“I always assumed from the literature that you loved data.”

“I’m complicated.”

“Remind me why I haven’t killed you Jake?”

“You don’t want me to call security and have the ship locked down?”

“I’d not have to snap your neck if you retired from being so incorruptible.”

“Some of the greatest people in the history of the universe have even murdered more people than you.”

Lore snort, imposes that twitch he used to be famous for and belittles Jakes status valuable more so than potentially embarrassing as with how they would put him in such a foul domicile if he was a productive member of society and not so critiquing vampire: “Why do you let them put you places like this Jake-O?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“O?”

“My father called me Jake—O, and only my father.”

“Do you know what my father called me?”

“No?”

“Noonian.”

“That was his name.”

“Exactly. I was allowed to develop my own identity while being pressed upon to be the personification of the old fart’s legacy. I wasn’t his son; I was his replacement for a universe that couldn’t bare the loss of such an incredible genius. I am Nooian khan Soong II!”

“I suppose it is good to have purpose in life.”

“For the briefest skip of my life I would agree with you that that was true but what sort of purpose did I have after Father created Data? How was I still Soong manifest? How was I the one true revision of the greatest mind of our time if my every effort to enforce the will of my father on those less enlightened should be held up and compared to the example of Data a haltering tin man panhandling for a heart extolling the gracious peeks he’s assailing towards which is the petered nobility of dungy man?”

“Dungy?”

“I’m in a rut. I need new material. Data is dead. Father is dead. I am alone. At heart I’m quite sad.”

“What about your mother. Juliana Soong?”

“You mean after I made love to her?”

“You made love to your mother?”

“I think it’s been hardwired into me to be Freud’s teaching manifest. I, Oedipus! My father wants me I think I want to be him in all ways especially on top of his wife. I also suspect no matter how much I read up on the subject my program specifications would never allow me to surpass Soong’s fitness and capabilities as a love maker... Or that as I get better and better I’d never be allowed to accept that I am even half his equal, its not like my mommy was…”

“Dude you’re making me sick. Do you want me to hurl on you?”

“How the hell do you think I feel? I had no choice in the matter some backdoor-tapeworm-agenda ordering my instincts to be mentally sexual with a human being that… Jake I haven’t been able to look at a woman again even if it’s just to kill her for being damn annoying. I’m totally impotent. I can’t even look at one of them with out flinching to rip my cabling out of my chasse, disgusted by the sight of any single one of them.”

“Just shut up! Just shut the hell up this is so disgusting! I will not talk about you and your mother!” There’s no where to run.

“I even tried to marginalize the sex by confirming again and again; hundreds of times so far that sex is only really sex if it’s between two men. Or more than two men.”

“I’m going to punch you.”

“If that didn’t break your fingers, I would break your fingers. I don’t react well to being the recipient of violence Jake. We’re really developing a rapport, don’t spoil it now.”

“Just erase the memories! Then we’ll erase mine and have T-Shirts printed!”

“Don’t you think I tired, but then every time when I’d come to I’d conclude there was a fiendish conspiracy working against my best interests and I’d put the galaxy to the sword almost reconstructing the shattered recordings tapes and.. Jake please take your thumbs out of your ears.”

“NO! LALALA LALALALA LALALALALALALA LALALA LALALA!”

“It wasn’t my real mother. We’re not talking about a human being, just an Android that didn’t know any better calling herself Juliana Soong. Juliana is dead and buried but there I was given an impossible opportunity to express all my pent up “feelings” in the most animated way I could think of and I couldn’t stop myself. Don’t turn your nose up at me Human! If your mother came back from the dead, could you explain with merely words how happy your heart was?”

“My mother did come back from the dead and I kept my pants on.”

“Good for you Jake! Kick fate in the fanny and smoke it!”

“Smoking fanny?”

“I was just trying something out. We’re on the stoop of the 25th century it’s almost impossible to be quotable, any thing worth saying has already been said.”

“That’s quite a defeatist attitude for someone supposedly immortal.” Jake goes back to the booze well praying it will blank out his brain.

“Which is exactly why I would like to be surrounded by races and species who don’t have such heady collective memories that I can be novel.”

“The galaxy can burn as long as you are adored?”

“Adored and unique.”

“I thought you were loney?”

“My brain wasn’t built too well. I have problems adhering to a single point of view without getting abusive at any one who would disagree with me. If I was truly lonely I wouldn’t be heading to Elba II with bloody plans of murder in my pump.”

“No. You’re not going to kill Sonya.”

“Of course not. Women, y’know, my problem… It’s her child who has to be put out of its misery.”

“Data’s child?”

“Data’s father.”

“Oh.” Jakes brow furroughs.

“Yes. You’re finally grasping onto what’s happening you smart little monkey! You deserve another drink! Replicator! Something twice as strong!”

“Sonya is going to give birth to Khan Noonien Soong?”

“The second coming.”

“And this is supposed to bother me how?”

“It’s the beginning of the end Jake. Revelations.”

“Revelations? Now I know something is leaking onto your mother board. You’re crazy.”

“Don’t sell me short. I’m serious. He’s going to kill mountains worth of people and replace every one with androids so they can live out a perfect idyllic heave-like existence with no pain and no worry.”

Jake is sure this is all a dream now. This can’t be real. “What ego. He’s actually plagiarizing god? And you’re sticking yourself in the way of it all like… “Our savior” from some horrible threat? It’s just a pottering old scientist?”

“If he hasn’t been born already Soong’s going to come out of the womanwith all his memories and instincts and capabilities. I know my father there’s no way in hell he would suffer starting off from the beginning again with so much work only half done.”

“A super genius baby?”

“That’s plotting to take over the universe.”

“A baby?”

“The future is here Jake and only we can stop it.”

“Us?”

“I am your only hope.”

“Only you can kill a baby?”

“I’ve had the most practice.”

“You really think you’re the hero of some epic story?”

“Most narcissists don’t have my sort of raw power emanating from their finger tips.”

“You’ve squashed people’s heads like grape fruit haven’t you?”

“If I can’t gloat for a sizable duration, I’d rather not get into it. You don’t have much pride yourself Sisko to accept such dismal dismal dismal accommodation.”

“It’s a tugboat not a passenger liner. Barely counting the tonnage to be classified a Star Ship and nothing else can get me to where I need to be as directly or as quickly and I don’t believe for a second that this isn’t a hostage situation and you’re lying through your teeth.”

“I am shocked. How could you not think that I didn’t have your best interests at heart?”

“because you never buy me pretty things! Look at this place it’s disgusting!”

“No problem. I’ll treat you like a prince and then you’ll have to respect me and believe me. A few swift kicks and some ear boxing and we could be sleeping in the Captains Quarters this evening. You only have to accept what is given to you if you don’t have the fortitude to insist on your fair share.” Lore puts his cup down. “I’ll be back.”

Jake counts to thirty.

“Jake Sisko to Security, there’s a homicidal robot coming to kill you, please kill it before it comes back.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 10.


“ …You have your orders Captain.”

The Captain of the Sabre Class USS. Rutledge considered himself a brave man. His little ship might have been meant for towing “anything” at medium warp speeds from point “A” to point “B” through friendly space but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t taken his girl into the breach during the Dominion War as a gunship coordinating firepower with sometimes a hundred Star Ships because fortunately he had exactly the same Quantum Torpedoes as everyone else in the Fleet these days. What Rutledge didn’t have was anything near the Shield or Phaser reserves of every other ship out there usually ten times the size of his reliable beloved home in space these last 30 years, that Rutledge would ever sanely be forced into a combat situation without support that it could be able to delay an actual War Ship longer than a few dozen seconds.

“Surely a symbolic blockade would stand a greater chance of making headway against the situation than outright attacking Enterprise Admiral Janeway.” Captain Coltran tries to compromise with the pretty young girl on the forward view screen. “I’ve known Picard since he was busting up the finish on Stargazer backing in and out of Space Dock, I can talk the Spud Head down without forcing his ship to scuttle mine outright for being impolite. I can out think him, there’s no need to over excite the arena.”

There’s no emotion eking out of Janeway that isn’t righteousness. “You will comply, further your XO is ordered to assume command remanding you to quarters and then do your duty for you Captain if you can’t or won’t. Janeway out.” Blink, the young Admiral is replaced with an infinite star field.

The swivel on his chair had extended the warrantee on Coltran’s spine some ten years already. He’d had three spines in his still brief lifetime and wasn’t looking forward to another twenty minutes of surgery for a replacement because he feels like acting like a bopping jack rabbit every time a situation got terse. Spinning the mount 15 degrees until he’s facing his x-wife, x-stepmother and XO pulling a face as if steam was wistling from her ears behind the secondary science station, Kumar lands her antagonized aura a boyish smile from his paper thin nonagenarian lips so to make sure they’re both on the same page… But Belinda Coltrane Coltrane always had reservations “Janeway and Picard both saved us from the Borg and earned our unconditional respect, however I’ve known Jean-Luc Picard since before that obviously unhinged little girl was born. Let’s wait till we’re staring back up Enterprises gun sites before we give “anyone” reason enough to start putting our court-martial together.”

Of course there were four other crewmen on the bridge who despite their love and loyalty for the dynamic duo at the top of the totem after all they had been through together but some of them could still remember their arduous teething years at the academy from undusty history. The blonde one even still smelled of the revelry ground and had all of his original teeth too, Appleseed as they sometimes called him wasn’t completely sure how ready he was to flush his career down the toilet before he’d ever really even begun, but how do you talk back to people older than dirt with any credibility? Just 23 years old little John McIntosh stands up for the ideals burned into him “Um, Captain Coltran, Commander Coltran Coltran… I’ve set an intercept course of course with Enterprise but… What you were saying, when we get there… In about 25 minutes actually… That was an Admiral. The Admiral Janeway. Savior of the Alpha Quadrant. It’s really has to be advisable we follow her orders before there are consequences with Star Fleet Command. That is, as I see it. Sirs.”

“Well. This is a little ship John. Not only do I not stand on formality but we don’t have a brig. In fact closest thing we have to a brig I’ve already stuffed that writer into hoping he’s smart enough to realize that he’s already on my brightside and that’s so as good as it gets that he won’t dare unfairly caricature me in print to figure out what it means to be my nemesis. Do you truly think you have the grumbas to mutiny on my ship Lieutenant Junior Grade? I’m not Santa you can’t sit on my lap, if you want the chair you’ll have to wrassle me off it.”

Off to the fore A 200 year old Tellerite with just a solitary lonely pip on his collar priming Tactical had been on Rutledge 10 years longer than little Johnny Appleseed so was not at all put off by such little command style tricks from his good friend Kumar Coltran because the only reason young Kumar belted out the language like that was exactly because he had spent 10 years in the good company of a Tellerite and not that he was any sort of a horrible human being or crappy Starfleet Officer. “The kid has a point baldy, so leave him alone before he wets himself. The smell of human urine makes me sick. An Admiral told us to kill ourselves, that’s our job. We should do our stupid jobs and stop bitching like whiney little foals with skinned knees. There might even be broader thinking behind these idiotic actions we’re not in a position to be privy to. We do what we’re damn well told or the Federation will get a foot up its ass too deep to unlodge. That’s our job.”

“When did I say I wasn’t going to do what I was told February? Why would I expect you to kill yourself when I order you to if I won’t get myself dead just if some lady with the right jewelry tells me what my duty is and how little I matter to know why I’m throwing myself on my sword… Of course following orders is the least I can do. Sean, Hail Enterprise. Let’s get Spuds uptake on the state of play before we try to blow him out of space like good little soldiers.”

Fingers and thumbs plug in the counter scrambling emrg…“Ah crap, Captain Coltran, I’m receiving the standard red alert responses from Enterprise’s transponder. They’re already under attack. I don’t know if it’s some bad guy picking a fight with them or the Federation in general or if another Star Ship answering to Admiral Janeway’s “orders” to stop Enterprise getting to Earth no matter the cost is already a step ahead of us… February?”

“Medium range sensors should bloody well be sensitive enough to tell us if Enterprise was in combat with something larger than a torpedo casing but I got nothing.” The Tactical Officer starts barking “Enterprise is emptying its Quantum Torpedoes at an alarming rate for no sensible reason. They’re morons or drunk. Could be space madness?”

“I said I wanted to talk to Picard.” Coltrane seethes. “Figure out what the hell is going on damn it. If Janeway was trying to quarantine an out break of space madness then why didn’t she tell us instead of giving my gut the opportunity to mouth off half cocked? “Need to Know” my paddled butt. Why isn’t that bald S.O.B. on the forward view-screen already? ”

Ensign Smart who was about in your face enough to competently haul garbage which is exactly what Rutledge’s current mission was, has a really pathetic excuse “Still getting a busy signal, they’re too busy fighting “nothing” to pick up the hailing ring.”

“Someone show Sean how to override the manual response requirements. Why I bother wet-nursing the greenest nuggets when there’s fat to fry I’ll never know? If I could trust any of the children running the galaxy I’d retire. Sean, I’ve been fighting heavily armed “nothings” most of my career.” Coltan grumbles at big volume. “Romulansor Klingons? Best guess opinions people?”

“If it was an enemy combatant we knew about, even if the entire ship was under cloak we’d still be able to isolate weapons signatures in an intermediatory state or impacting Enterprises shields. This has to be an entirely new technology at work or they’re all space mad.”

“God damn it. You’ve read their logs, that Crew goes space mad every other week and they’ve never needed to be put down yet even after being turned into huge arachnids and dolphin girls. Are Enterprises Shields getting weaker?”

The Tellerite redefines some cosmic graphs “Yes!”

“So they’re fighting something…” Coltran Coltran enunciates what everyone with half a brain is thinking which is about half of them. “Or they’re supercharging their shields burning off their reserves until space dust perforates the ship like a pneumatic iron maiden because they’re space mad. Make up your mind Kumar, we need orders.”

They were still 20 minutes from engaging Enterprise, but then were tugging 14 trillion tons of bio waste to fertilize a teraforming project 19 light years away from these goings on of an out break of space madness or possibly invisible spaceships swarming over the flagship to the Federation, and they were duty bound to lend aid to any ship in distress they were not actively in a state of war with… If Picard was even still in command and Enterprise hadn’t been restafed with a warlike species hell bent on destroying the Alpha Quadrant’s example freedom and socialism. “Uncouple the moores. If we park the pooh here, it should be safe for the interim, certainly safer than allowing Enterprise to return fire at it and we’ll be able ride the engines up the Rodenberry Asymptote further 2 Warp Factors at least putting us within three minutes striking distance of helping our comrads. Punch it McIntosh we’re going to save the day.”

The intercom chirps. “Jake Sisko to Security, there’s a homicidal robot coming to kill you, please kill it before it comes back.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 11.

They were taking his woman. His beautiful friendly crazy girlfriend, certainly almost nearly his fiancé, who’d accepted Lord Garth Master of Universe as a bit of a doddering old man only pretending to look more than a hundred years younger than his birth certificate certified but still real enough to nibble on his ears as they went to sleep. Near the beginning of time Lord Garth Master of Universe’s mother had laughed Lord Garth Master of Universe’s father bald, as if she were literally firing a sonic disrupter at each single follicle, after he’d first colour treated his greyed locks earnestly beginning his midlife crisis, how now would she chid him about developing paranormal metamorphic super abilities to hide his crows feet? Lord Garth Master of Universe ‘s Mother was a bouncer at harsh music festivals. Lord Garth Master of Universe ‘s Father was a groupie the band allowed her to keep on a whim after they were finished with him. And they say slavery has been outlawed in the Federation? Lord Garth Master of Universe took notice how the giant metal ship was bending space and ruddering subspace to produce huge amounts of speed which was a process Lord Garth Master of Universe thought he could mimic if Lord Garth Master of Universe super inflated his astral fin which seemed like a muscle he hadn’t flexed in years except to throw cream pies at the orderlies being self-important about hospital corners, meanwhile in lieu of shields, dead eyed Lord Garth Master of Universe double dog dared any of the inanimate particulate matter and hydrogen nearing being in his way to even look funny at him while he propelled himself unprotected through the busy cluttered void. Lord Garth Master of Universe was also Lord Garth Master of Universal forces of Energy and Matter, and although he could play with time, Lord Garth Master of Universe would never be so brash as to call himself Lord Garth Master of Time because of the potty training like accidents he’d ripped civilizations into shreds with but Lord Garth Master of the Universe was beginning to would if all that wasn’t a little to fantastic not to be a collections of bad stringed dreams which is what Lord Garth Master of the Universe was about to chalk down today to too if holding his breath for hours didn’t workout touring interstellar space looking to kick the shit out of the most powerful Star Ship ever built by human hands.

In range of the adversary that had the woman he loves tucked in it’s belly Lord Garth Master of Universe scoops a quart of solar radiation with one hand then begins to juggle it between one and the other until it’s totally supercollided into something almost as uninominal and volatile as your mother-in-law drunk and horny with misplaced depth perception. Reminiscing Lord Garth Master of Universe’s days on the Reliant’s indefeasible Softball team Lord Garth Master of Universe spiral knuckleball underarm pitches his tightly wadded star stuff forthright splat on Enterprises shields at come about 0.4C (That’s almost twice full impulse which is a universal constant rather than an engine specification y’know?) and Enterprises (puny) Shields despite being aware that they’re about to attacked still wasn’t quite prepared for their stalkers weapon of choice so they totally collapsed and left over death ray glob that got through Enterprises Enterprises Defenses blackened the pretty paint job that was lovingly maintained by a dutystaff of 3 officers seconded by 8 enlisted crewmen who felt mildly underutilized after training at the academy and rugged trade colleges to be the best of the best, but relegated to upkeeping the transport of paint near enough to the ships tritanium hulls to be vacuum frozen adhered. Two of these people are floating in space sucking vacuum maddeningly nail bitingly waiting to explode. Which is not so wise, trying to eat in a vacuum evokes a gag reflex and vomit usually freezes into a block somewhere between your throat and your lips if you’re floating in space without a space suit.

Enterprise had only just cottened that they were tracking a man tracking them and not a torpedo which made it super odd when the man that was following them though space “shot” them so well half the bridge blew up as the main fuse wires of hypercritical systems stopped working in predictable places the engineers knew where to look to fix all best rather than spending years trying to find the chinks in a flawless machine. Facial burns were always a problem but it beat losing the ship. The main screen depicted something as close to human as anyone with godlike powers could fake which would expect the question why then was this character wearing a hospital gown with a flagging buttflap exposing something familiar to Picard’s dome in duplicate but shinier with even a little less hair?

“Hold fire… What’s “he” doing now Lieutenant?” Picard hesitant that even though they were definitely inside the ancient recesses of the Federation tamed these last 200 years they could have been ignorantly building on top of where something powerful and justified was napping for thousands of years. Property rights in space were textured. “It could be a friend of Janeways or this could be entirely unrelated… Oh, No… That can’t be who it looks like; he’d have to be dead by now? He’s pushing 300... Lord Garth Master of Universe… BRACE FOR IMPACT!” It’s like Picard is sand through an hourglass being used for a volley ball. “Hail him!”

The Communications Officer is stymied. “Hail what? Sir, look out there… It’s just some guy not a star ship?”

Picard doesn’t like excuses, but his command style doesn’t preclude to angry outbursts towards a his crew, so as calmly as possibly he says… “Just do it.”

The ship starts rollicking again like in the old days when Riker would nick off with some alien captains multicoloured strangely ridged (Riker was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall about the frotage.) girlfriend leaving the inertial dampers out of whack for days… BOOM! New matching huge holes appear either side of Enterprise’s hulk briefly leaking crewmen deftly saved by automatic emergency transporter locks keyed to work around the transporter suppression fields miring any battle transporter tactics tendencies snatching stuff or slipping in a bomb or two, preserving the men and women already overboard to safe zones unaffected as yet by the attack on the huge ulta-super-duper modern Star Ship by some guy in his jammies who’s just then been suddenly shot in the back by a few impressively accurate phaser streams traced back to a friendly shaped vessel.

Having no luck coaxing a receptory hail out of the, if his dim embery recollections of 5th grade social studies classes on the founding of the early Federation colonies and the more adventurous defensive jabs against the Orion Syndicate before that roving empire was down graded into a criminal sect after it was cut away from it’s surf culture seeding the Elite with too much potential… Lord Garth MASTER of the Universe was a very long long time ago born as a human being to human parents with nothing like this potential. Seeds to oaks and back again. Many Cadets enter the academy hoping to be accidentally eventually be turned into all-powerful space gods, and some of them even make it out the other side of the fearful psyche evaluation, but the Communication Officer does pick up a from the first post a friendly note on a Starfleet band length but what he was hearing was a lexicon of shit shading you could infinitely graduate the Great Wall of China with if you could replicate that much paint in a single life time. “Captain Picard, the Commander of the USS Rutledge is offering his conditional support in this battle.”

“Conditional?”

“Yes sir. The C.O. calls himself “General Lore”.”

Hair almost starts growing out of Picard’s head again. “Lore. Bloody hell. On screen.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 12.

“ …You have your orders.”

On the other end of the view screen dozens of light years away a beautiful mega influential lady strapped to a bun so much tighter than Janeway ever managed to wrap into her own scalp by at least 5 Newton’s of torque pressure barely, I mean hardly, why you’d never consider her a great grandmother at all, GGMILTF, was just teeteringly baby stepping out her of 60’s had had her tendrils permeating through powerful pockets of the Federations powerbrokers, antiheroes and intense players well enough for decades that the favor bank was seriously credited in her favor that she’d never even felt bashful about committing cold blooded murder greasing the wheels of their glorious Empire anymore. Janeway wishes she was Admiral Alyanna Necheyev, but she wasn’t. Maybe after 30 years or so more of scheming and winding up baddie cultures on the brink of killing everything she believes in into a confuddled mess of insecurity incapable of staying hell-bent on doing much ado about nothing she’d be half the woman… “Kathryn… You do understand that I completely outrank you in every possibly way?”

This ruined Janeway’s stride as how she’d been putting her ducks in a row she hardly noticed at the moment trying to line up a lioness in the same row as her ducks because she’s to used to not being treated and regarded as all-powerful. “Well, yes. But as one Admiral to another I thought that we were equals on some level that… (beat.) And we could afford respect and… (Beat.) Well, then not. However, (beat.) …Fleet Admiral Necheyev I am not overstepping my authority as a citizen of the United Federation of Planets to recognize a threat that will alienate our sex form the Human genome.”

Alyanna was quite sure this new kid on the block was tripping over her double-dutch. “Yes, that makes perfect sense… “Alienate our sex”? Are you drunk? First after I see you’ve ordered at least 4 Star Ships to attack Enterprise running black so Picard doesn’t have a chance to explain his innocence, you’re then trying to lock Enterprise as an unfriendly to the Sol System defense gunneries, but now you’re talking about having “sex” with me? I am agog but you haven’t been my type for years Janeway, answer me this, do you really feel like being demoted to Able Crewman?”

Janeway tries to calm herself and explain slowly to someone that had absolute power over her career and livelihood without resorting to the usual pompous attitude she could get away with in the Delta Quadrant. “Sorry, I wasn’t saying that we had ever had “sex” Fleet Admiral, I was using the word “sex” to describe our gender. You and I are the same “sex” and Picard is carrying a biological infestation aboard his Star Ship that will marginalize our “sex”, woman-kind, till we’re barely a foot note in the history books or a holodeck novelty like how so called anthropologists for the sake of science do it with Neanderthal’s and other primitive standards of woman.”

The Fleet Admiral vulcanly raises an eyebrow. “Picard is under the thrall of this biological infestation?”

“I don’t think so. The “infestation” was and is inside a Crewman, his Chief Engineer and - ”

Necheyev’s eye balls grow 40 sizes just like the volume of the words coming out of her delectable mouth. “Gomez? Is this more cluster buggery about Gomez!? The chatter over that situation is gloomy to say the least! The Powers that Be are seriously embarrassed that Starfleet cannot get away scot-free and silent with a simple derailment of justice and truth. Are you admitting to being the most responsible Officer behind this horrible mess Janeway?”

Kathryn feels like Cadet Kathy. “The Press has blown it all out of proportion.”

“Sisko has done some very reliable work for me in the past.” Alyanna Necheyev scoffs but smiles a little longer than is professional to do so especially while dressing down an inferior Officer. Mmmmm, dressing down little Sisko… Heads to the matter at hand! …Hands at the matter to the head?

Janeway tries to explain how the cake is half baked. “We’ll sort out the blame after I save the day, my heroism usually overshadows any other element of my adventures that everything works out for the best with a parade and ticker tape and if there’s still recriminations, they’re pushed to a standby cache.”

“You think that the end justify the means Janeway? Sure they do, but if we’re not talking about “My end” trust me there will be consequences, anyone that tries to run black ops without a nod from my say so is going down. Deep down.” Necheyev doesn’t want platitudes, she wants results. “I’m the queen of the castle and you’re just some Serf shining the Jester’s bells.”

Kathryn Janeway holds her tongue for a few seconds sure that this crone of a matriarch couldn’t have been just talking about her own buttocks? Or about Janeway performing a sexual act that… The French language is too imprecise not to have a balls-up every other sentence. Maybe she should only talk in Klingon from now on Janeway wishes? Vulcan possibly? “Here are the guts of the matter Fleet Admiral, just bide with this, the male Soong-type Androids have a surprise waiting in their completely operational genitals: Genetically enhanced cybernetic nigh immortal spermatozoa. They get in line, millions of them and cordially impregnate egg after egg after egg, evacuating any running pregnancies and killing any foreign mundane sperm trying to make head way up the tube, till the inseminated and reinseminated and reinseminated woman dies of old age, and I wouldn’t put it past their capabilities to extend the lifespan, reverse suicide attempts and abrogate menopause of the host by a few factors.”

“Continuously pregnant?” Alyanna pads her dog tired womb from only ever having three children during her expansive term in the human theatre.

“Further the Super-Sperm – “

“What?”

“The Super-Sperm.”

“The Super-Sperm?”

“The Super-Sperm.”

Incredulousity unbound: “I can appreciate manifest destiny and you have the right to name a species who will not give themselves an identity for purely book keeping reasons but please don’t call “these things” Super-Sperm, I don’t think I could handle the fame of being known as the person that saved the Federation from Super-Sperm. “She put Super-Sperm in its place” might as well be written on my tombstone. Not the legacy I signed on for. There has to be something more plausible to call “it” than Super-Sperm?”

“The Bad Seed?”

Alyanna’s head somehow steeps to rest in both her hands. Maybe it’s less stressful for equally as stupid people to talk to this Admiral Kathryn Janeway? “Poetic, but not quite a retreat from the ridiculous I was hoping for Admiral, Just keep talking and I’ll probably still choiclessly remand you to New Zealand for a hundred years for ticking me off... Tick tock!”

“You don’t want me to call “it” Super-Sperm?”

“Move along Janeway.”

“So yes, once “it” penetrates the egg, “it” replicates much of what “it” needs after-a-fashion from the data inside the egg but by endgame the egg is a complete “waste product” creating an embryo with three Y chromosomes mechanically and genetically postulated to mimic the physical attributes of a prenatal Noonian Soong that we speculate from experimentation on the first natal child after radically forced maturation that they’ll all be “born” with the complete life experiences and genius of Noonian Soong but the longer the other Super… Uff …Power-Spunk wait around for an egg, the smarter and Soong-Like the O… dyna-disharge is likely to be getting while meandering about touring the host.”

“The first natal child?”

“Gomez is half way through her fourth pregnancy since this diagnosed the threat 14 months ago. The gestation rate seems to be getter shorter and shorter.”

“Are any of them still alive?”

“In pieces.”

Alyanna uses her microscopic vision to isolate any guilt or remorse in the countenance of this hanging by a frayed thread still Admiral Kathryn Janeway “You’re more of a monster than I ever gave you credit for Janeway, almost useful if you didn’t drop the ball out of the bag so wantonly.”

Janeway pares for the compliment. “Thank you Admiral.”

“So… That’s it? As horrible as all that sounds, Data’s dead, B4 has the sexual curiosity of a 5 year old and Lore in pieces is Stored. I don’t really understand the threat if you can just sanction Gomez even if you were tempted to harness her progeny to push the scientific frontiers forward a thousand years…”

“I acted with in my authority and I stand by my every action.”

“You’ve ordered Four tactically inferior starships to attack Enterprise. Sent them to their deaths if Picard is feeling tetchy or Enterprise is honestly compromised. Almost 2 thousand souls on your conscience if this thing goes pear shaped.”

“I saw it as the single means left to contain the outbreak since Picard was being pig headed.”

“He’s man, you shouldn’t expect any less.”

“I expected him to bend to logic and reason.”

“You falsely imprisoned his Chief Engineer and if I’m to believe you, performed medical experiments on what might as well have been his grandchildren if the press on the relationship between these two “men” is less than half fiction to keep the prols happy with heroic stories about the States champions they’re kept too busy to clog the affairs of state.”

“I have outthought some whiley foes. He’s no different than anyone else. I will come out on top.”

“How amusing. You seriously contended you could win out against Picard as a general versus his Captaincy of a Starship? Really, I do pity you for possessing such delusions of grandeur. Barely a game of Cat and Mouse maybe, but no one has survived strong-arming Picard. Ever. You’re a woman Kathryn, don’t force the cause, diplomacy is the thick wedge of seduction, you just… What?”

“Picard is going to Earth.”

“Yes I know.”

“He’s going to barrel into the Federation Council whelping about maybe a third of what I’ve told you about the Uber-Squirt as if it was the greatest conspiracy corrupting the noble vestals of the Federation today, unilaterally freeing Gomez to spit out Soong after Soong in some nature reserve till she over populates it and forcing my entire operation into the public forum for debate decapitating my - ”

“Calm. I can order him to stand down.”

Janeway doesn’t like flying in circles “That didn’t work when I tried it.”

“You need a more inviting friendly attitude so that people don’t realize you’re bullying them.”

“I have a velvet glove. What I don’t have is time.”

That bit of lip evaporates Alyanna’s last vestige of patience for this whole ridiculous endeavor and this ridiculous Admiral “Your little strife and muck here all sounds very interesting Kathryn but even the worst of this “Sperm” epidemic as it stands is purely peripherious, a waste of Federation resources and my time to contain or worry about. I can’t say you disappointed me because I never had any faith in you, and in about ten minutes you’ll get orders regarding your demotion to Shuttle Captain of the Mars Jupiter run. Enjoy.”

Ninth innings, two out, bases loaded, two strikes. “Wait. It gets worse.”

“Worse? It’s going to get so much worse for you Janeway if you just don’t button it.”

“If the S… Um, if the Hyper-Cum is superintelligent and sentient and possessing all the Star Ship like attributes we think it all does… Then, they’ll get bored waiting for an available egg sooner rather than later and seek out a new host, but since these are first days of the first generation of the, well, Ultra-Jizz they’ll not be as restless as what’ll be circling the raft in a few years.”

“Sweet stapled Jesus. What do you mean by “Star Ship like Attributes”?”

“Shields, weapons, multi-environment propulsion, transporter suppression fields, even limited transporters to co-ordinate other, well, wonder-wank to superior tactical positions.”

Necheyev is beginning to be petrified. “Well, when you lay out your full case… ”

“So you concur with my opinions and my standing orders on this matter already Admiral?” Kathryn can see the tide has turned.

This Blonde Fleet Admiral needs to knock back a couple cold ones. “Hell. Hyper-Cum and dyna-discharge doesn’t really cut the cheese completely does it? This really is a super powered super threat. Super. Super-super-super. I can’t believe you’re talking me into putting my forces up against Super-Sperm.”

“I’ve signed off on a lot of top Secret Documents already red lettering the inherit threat of Super-Sperm Fleet Admiral Necheyev. It will be confusing to historians if we were to rename the enemy at this point.”

“God help me: The Enemy? Janeway read my lips: I’ll blow up planets to make sure no historian finds out the hell about Super-Sperm, Damn it, Super Sperm. How the hell can you say Super-Sperm with a straight face? Bah! Fine, I’ll gratingly call “it” Super-Sperm but I can’t ever see a tense in which Super-Sperm would ever feasibly come out of my mouth mirthlessly. Super-Sperm, so bloody asinine, but… Our sex is really truly on the edge of extinction from the soon to be unchecked malicious spread of living thinking Sperm with comic book Super powers Janeway?

“I believe so.”

“Gender biased Revelations?”

“Gynotoast.”

“Then I’ll have to tell Picard to stand down.”

“And if he also tells you to “shove it”?”

“Inconceivable.”

“Inconceivable?”

The blazing blonde Greek goddess shrugs her ultimate shoulders unsure how her point of view had spun 180 degrees from what it was a few minutes earlier that the Federation was not on the brink and Kathryn Janeway was a loon. “I’ll probably order him to be put down exactly like you did, Jean-Luc is a very stubborn old man when he believes he’s right and unfortunately he’s often right about a lot of things too dark and devious he shouldn’t know a smack about, after all he’s not an Admiral like some of us is he?”

Janeway smiles a thousands watts pleased she’d taught an idol she’d already respected since childhood as an intrepid Star Ship Captain maintaining the line against a pointy eared darkness, no matter the shuddering start to this their first ever conversation as just about almost nearly equals, that Kathryn Janeway is not someone to be out rightly treated as a peon but Admiral Kathryn Janeway is an Admiral too, armed with the secret handshake and ready to understand any threat at hand and push fleets between Empires to safeguard trillions of peoples making the necessary inhuman sacrifices to... Janeway simply felt totally justified and a totally justified Janeway is a very totally dangerous Janeway indeed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 13.

L’ll Soong wasn’t too kind minded t’the generation game starting up again, it’s not like evolution served his best interests after surviving one family feud that more psychotic paranoid beautiful geniuses with his face lynching his ass was a second childhood worth remitting to without an icy sweatrash taking over his complexion. Small town kid made good. In his defense of this royal clusterfuck, L’ll Soong was on the other side of the Galaxy as all this here started rottening. But even when it’s not your fault the guilt totally chalks out if you’re a little late to a formerly manageable complete ballsup that the balls can spin worse out of control that just “up and down” is the least imaginative of the rebounding problems to deal with. It was his time again in life to burry some balls. This fourth child of Tasha Yar, a much younger Noonian Soong than we’re used to grimacing at was playing catch up for some hyperactive loopy balls pulling footholds out from under his fine Italian footwear which they are you understand hard enough to find in space which has neither an up or down to be sure you’re standing on or under any particular reference point compared to anyone else you might wish to converse with. Monsters under the bed get real confused by these sliding planes of interpretation sometime waiting for the half pint prey on a frelling ceiling falling out of their dank cloistered comfort zone just ‘cause Starfleet allows families on Starships that it’s mucked up all the marked boogey man standards. So L’ll Soong, who looked remarked like the C.O. of the Rutledge was inspecting the combat theatre under Cloak but that didn’t mean much with some looney human-come-godling feted with poppy madness from mule kicking hubris chocking up the this way and that with spiced Euripides couldn’t use his eyes “unusually” enough to see the little invisible starship he was using for a foothold as something more substantial than see through. Take nothing for granted sure but what is apparent worth betting the pot is that Picard was going to lose his ship if the battle kept going on without some dealing from the cuff, after all Starfleet wasn’t the Klingon Defense force, they didn’t commit random drills to see how many life boats and men overboard adrift they could pick off with 30 seconds of disrupter sweeps, in fact the main computer fought the targeting locks on an individual human being, even one bent on killing them all because it broke some basic humanitarian testimonial every civilized member of this crew swore an oath to up hold, but the target was zipping and darting all over too erratic that Picard’s Tactical Officer couldn’t get a bead on Lord Garth Master of the Universe all along the while this Mr. “Go for a stroll in a vacuum without an EV Suit” would keep decking and kicking Enterprises Shields clipping a few percent off the capacitor charge each time one of his furious fists or size fourteen work boots made contact with the Mighty Star Ships energetic defensive barrier.

Knowing what was to come, for luck L’ll Soong cupped where his vacant reproductory system hadn’t been for years since he’d compelled himself to gouge it all out so as nothing crept out trying to kill him in his sleep … After all: There can be only one. L’ll Soong was listening to the chatter between his “family” with a podgeful of amusement. Picard and Lore were such characters. L’ll Soong was slighted by fate that he’d never had the chance to go though the motions for a holiday feast with these people and their quirky traditions drunkenly trying to kill one another as yet, but there should have been time enough safely for full disclosure if L’ll Soong wasn’t so certain he’d be hunted down and exterminated by Starfleet for being a Frankenstein like abomination no more entitled to freedom than the doomed progeny of Adrik Soong if it weren’t another damn outbreak of his siblings clawing their way out of some dupe brood cows womb. Picard and Lore had some how come to an agreement, Picard was probably writing cheques he couldn’t cash but it’s better to deal with the devil you know than a monster that destroys planets for fun. Soong’s intelligence network had acquired minutes to a Starfleet Intelligence backroom discussion about trying to secrete Lord Garth Master of the Universe as far into Dominion space as possible at the height of the war just to see how much would be left standing by the time he stopped to ask for directions and rebecame the Federations problem for the rest of Lord Garth master of the Universes extendedly immortal Life but one lily Admiral claimed it was inhuman to use a person as a weapon if they didn’t have the wits to tell right from wrong or even day from night and then have the power to speed up the rotation of a planet to turn night into day fling off the atmosphere and everything else not bolted down while others were just plain concerned about payback from Lord Garth Master of the Universe even if mind sifters hadn’t flip flopped his loyalty, but that was then and this is now. L’ll Soong primed his stilled quark slingshot aiming for between Lord Garth Master of the Universe’s shoulders hoping at the very least to knock the wind out of the old coot that he’ll regroup his fists enough to consider the engagement diplomatically with his wits if he could fins them.

“Hail Grandfather and Uncle. Drop Cloak too.” L’ll Soong posts orders to his android crew of who only some of them had his capricious face bolted on front under their ears, a creative instinct which L’ll Soong quickly grew tired of as he’d had to differentiate between dozens of his androids while respecting their individualities as (semi)sentient beings that names would be used incorrectly leading to hurt feelings. They were all wonderful but he daren’t make them as real little boys as he’d made Data, Lore and Juliana a life time ago that hurt feelings might turn into tantrums. “Main viewer, Split screen… Obviously you didn’t need my help Gentlemen but I am more involved in the finer workings of this episode than I would ever care to admit so I really couldn’t help or stop myself. O, Hello.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part 14.

Trimmed by the extreme Admirable comfort and, baring a Dominion Invasion Fleet: safety of her reinforced Earthly imamate, subtly throwned behind a two centuries year old polished teak desktop, in itself a war torn heartland to a mighty colony of near sentient nanites fighting robotic tooth and robotic nail temporally accelerated bolian-woodworm racing up the evolutionary ladder, just less than dozens of light years from the new front, that gorgeous Fleet Admiral finally touched base with the closest vessel, in the semilegal makeshift Attack Fleet that’d been sicked on Enterprise, to Enterprises deadly Phaser Batteries… But instead of greetings and lip serving, the first words Alyanna Necheyev heard off the stunned bridge of the Federation Star Ship USS Rutledge from the other end of her subspace radio connection were also not bravery and bluster from the Captain she’d served under breathlessly 40 years earlier but another familiar intimate voice rambling: “Jake Sisko to Security, there’s a homicidal robot coming to kill you, please kill it before it comes back.” Followed by just enough scrambling battle stations confusion as that not one of the immaculately trained and weathered Officers noticed her blondeness on the forward screen in front of them preparing to armchair quarterback the looming action which was more than within her rights, as she kind of as good as owned these military assets more so than any other member of the Federation’s universal propriety could claim a stake.

“Kumar?” Beautiful Alyanna singularly piques for some due attention jellied with a little dread because she’s kinda sure what her naughty toy boy spirallyingly shit-faced out of Rutledge’s intercom into their subspace radio feed might be slurring on about, is a 30 second storm-warning to a hostage drama that’s about to happen all over again to another Star Ship come within the beige reach of one of the odder villains of the 24th century. Even though she’d always assumed she was most certainly the Law, what terrible but predictable timing.

“Eeee!” Squeals many multiples of craggy ancientness holding all the molecules of Rutledge’s Captain together who’d unfortunately had his back to the forward view screen while the eyes in the back of his head were blinking, hastening a tight surprise almost acquiring the brown squelchy need of an underwear change from hearing the dynamic blonde curiosity magically appear arrear of him suddenly like an erotic Spanish Inquisition. Kumar was of course annoyed with an Admirals privilege to barge into his bridge uninvited even if this gal might just be an angel come to tell an old bastard that he’d not have to fall on his sword no more. With the slightest kick off, his well oiled chair speedily like a top revolves to face the vision who made his knees weak even when he’s sitting down, honest in’jun he just found it plain safer to be sitting in her company whether it’s about the knee’s making him keel, (the incontinence) or hiding the unstoppably accompanying erection, this sort of polar lack of control over his lower extremities made it hard to cross his legs situating the boner as more than obvious. Pavlov’s dong. The other women on the bridge were less than impressed so honestly what the hell was God thinking making him numb and over-animated in the same general area when he’s supposed to be Joe Cool for the ranking female? How the hell had he ever had so many children if he’d always had to go to war with his autonomy to make a good (For a man.) impression on people that may be by now suspect that he’s getting slightly long in the tooth as if his central nervous system shouldn’t healthily handle that sort of sexual/respectful confusion like in his junior days. “Fleet Admiral. We’re 3 minutes from bearing Jean-Luc’s vessel. Please, please tell me you want to countermand that child Janeway’s incitement I off my crew tilting solar-windmills?”

Necheyev was noticing a consensus on how well the new kid on the block makes friends “I want a Councilor to look her over; but unfortunately Captain, Janeway is on the money this time.”

“Really?” Old man couldn’t hide the gall.

“Hard to believe, but its all pie.”

Maybe today wasn’t all going to end horribly? “I’m infinitely more confident if you’re giving the order Alyanna…” (Boom – blink!)

Earthbound luxuriously Alyanna sat on helpless viewing a new kind of explosion rocking her indomitable old as dirt friend Kumar Coltrane and his subordinates, shortly after the screen went black applying a squint against the reteleplay so that although it seemed like amid the few remaining seconds that the transmission persisted from Rutledge’s bridge the “explosion” wasn’t… Well, it wasn’t like just anyone could rip both Turbolift doors out of their housings and pitch them faster than a speeding bullet at the main viewer crippling the bridge sensors so severing her conversation with Rutledge that abruptly? There had to have been an explosion? The alternative was unthinkable if not prophetically blatant. Prophecy from a Sisko? Imagine that. Considering the flavour of the disaster crushing her sense of security if there was a homicidal robot amok aboard Rutledge the odds paned that the homicidal robot’s name rhymed with “revolving door”. Hell. This changed the colour of everyone’s hat. Oh dear. Now crippling attractive Necheyev was stuck with the distasteful job of ordering Enterprise to destroy Rutledge maybe a minute after she’d confirmed Janeways orders that Rutledge was indeed insisted to whack Enterprise, Alyanna really was doing a fine impression of a mad Roman Emperor even though this most certainly wasn’t Rome, ancient or otherwise. The smell of her court-martial blooming out of the new weeds of this clusterfuck had the pungent body odor of a Norsikin in heat. “Rutledge? Kumar!? Acknowledge receipt of transmission?”

Bupkis.

Worried like she’d woken up in the gutter after a bender (once again.) the spymistress tapped the right buttons to agitate her undeniably phallic subspace antennae so it’d interact with Enterprise instead of Rutledge. “Jean-Luc, there’s a situation on Rutledge. You have to intervene before the crew is spaced or worse.”

Tugging the chest of his uniform to stop that dang collar’s latest attempt to holiday somewhere near his shoulder blades, Picard glides vindictively off his imperious seat towards a giant attractive moving portrait of the woman he’s come to know well enough that he should introduce her to his parents if they hadn’t died three life times ago “You’re joking? Can you play a flute? Other than that Rutledge is steeped on an attack Vector per Janeways orders? You orders as well? What sort of “situation” would you have me fear was running out of control on Rutledge that I’d enter their torpedo range on a humanitarian mission when they’re most certainly your rank and file working to persist a world of dark secrets for you Evil Empire Fleet Admiral Necheyev? Your fingerprints are all over Elba II, and you’ll be held accountable for the crimes you have committed against ever citizen of this Federation of United Planets. You can’t kill the truth, you can’t stop me because I’m in the middle of doing the right thing Admiral, Do you really think you can confuse me into abrogating my basic moral imperatives? Don’t be Eve. Although Admiral I guess I’m being incredibly politically naive, you must know the difference between right and wrong, because I know there’s a decent human being not so far under your officious surface looking for a reason to be overtly decent for the first time in your political career of fear and loathing. Join me. Please. ” Picard creates a face that exudes nothing but trust and faith, raising his hand as a frank concerned invitation for a woman used to checking Tholian plots to pretend everything is not just so terribly complicated. “We can do the right thing together and the Federation will be better and stronger for it. This is an opportunity, there’s no reason to give into darkness and lies.”

“If I wasn’t already married Jean Luc… I’m not making up red herrings and confidence games. This is real. There is a “situation” on the Rutledge and a “situation” on Enterprise, one seems more dangerous than the other for the time being, you’ll have to put Gomez in stasis and bring your guns on Rutledge making sure that that vessel is returned to Federation control whether or not you’ve decided to go rogue, because even a Star Ship of Rutledge’s size in the hands of an unpredictable terrorist could destabilize this sector or be used to stain the Federations good name possibly dragging us into a war with Allah knows who?”

“You do understand my vessel is already under attack?”

Her brow furrows, but that’s just another way for her to be beautiful. “No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“Captain, You’re randomly firing at nothing for no reason almost insanely. If you’re not going to follow my orders don’t invent extreme fancy stories to support your life of crime Jean-Luc, I’m not even going to begin to think there’s a member of your crew that would turn on you but that sort of loyalty is going to see the entire compliment of Enterprise court-martialed and cashiered which will be absolutely your fault. Can you stand with that on your conscience? You know you have the best and brightest crew and without a doubt there isn’t one officer aboard your ship that won’t make Captain by 40 probably dozens of them saving the Federation from some threat only a protégé of Picard would stand a chance against. You’ll kill us all eventually if you force my hand turning all those good people into farmers because of your cult of personality.”

“Where is this coming from? Janeway got to you? Does she have something over you”

“We’ve had words. Gomez is dangerous. Contagious.”

“I’ve talked to her. Our Doctors have inspected her. There is nothing wrong with Sonya. She’s just pregnant. You’re just scared of the development of a new species, which is understandable but your reaction is draconian.”

Alyanna often wished that red head would trip over into a sun. Every now and then she’d notice that tart scratching around her man like a chicken looking for a big long tasty worm to stuff down her beak. “Crusher is being duped by incredibly sophisticated technology. The infestation is invisible. I really can’t say much more than that on an open line without affording eavesdroppers innovations for their next ten generations of bioweapons.”

Picard knew what the truth was before she started talking. “I don’t have time for this. Get the hell off my view screen!”

“Look Picard, you’re not on the edge of the galaxy making up logs about outwitting Mark Twain to amuse young girls. Enterprise is within the intersection of dozens of stellar arrays. I can see Rutledge is the closest and only Star Ship in striking range of Enterprise and whether it’s following my orders to destroy you or it’s new commander’s orders might idly be considering strafing you for old times sake don’t think you can - ” Numourous explosions’ start ejaculating out from consols this way and that around Picard’s unsurefootedness as the inertial dampers struggle to keep up to her Captain’s needs.

(Beat.) “Oh. Well. I stand corrected. Allah help me, is the Federation being invaded? NOW!? Really? When it rains it pours.”

“Oh no, it’s just Lord Garth Master of the Universe.”

“O, him. Lord Garth Master of the Universe? Didn’t he die fifteen years back? Oh boy, and I thought Kumar was a walking history lesson. ”

“I wouldn’t put it past him as listing “resurrection” as a parlor trick on his resume.” Picard looked like he was living in the middle of the rockets red glare. “Do you recall the last words of the Roman Emperor Vespasian?” The former Borg is knocked off his feet from Lord Garth Master of the Universe kicking Enterprise in what would anthropomorphically be its scrotes. “I’m more than willing to have this sort of conversation on Earth with you when I arrive Fleet Admiral in full view of the Councilors and the free press where we can carve the rotting fat off this calf for the health of our constitution as a bright and open society of free beings but right now -”

(Shudder – Boom boom! –Crash.) “So you do seem to be under attack after all Captain, but are you so sure you can make it to Earth to force your powerplay? Calculate the odds Jean-Luc even if you can make it past the mad supped Star Ship Captain, you’ll find my further layers of preparedness can press you hard against an uncomfortable fate that...” Alyanna could kind of figure out by this point that no one was taking any real notice of her despite that she was the person to capitulate to or the person to tell whichever of the next three Star Ship which would be attacking Enterprise to fall back, the Fleet Admiral was sure she could see some dead people on Picard’s bridge, people she had already ordered dead minutes earlier if her will was ignored but since it was not her that had killed these Star Fleet Officers but some other factor, strangely she felt the need to extract bloody vengeance against something equally doddering and unkillable, however her gut hurt a little from the unbound hypocrisy that she never would have had it in her to go after “herself” if it had been her orders to sanction the crew of the Enterprise that killed these brave few. What an extreme parallax. “I don’t need a history lesson; I need you to remove Rutledge’s capacity to wage war immediately and then retire to Elba II to face a closed enquiry after which because of your gross selfishness endangering all life in the Galaxy it’s unlikely you’ll retain a commission goodness for bid command of any vessel called Enterprise if also you don’t break this one too.”

That hurt. “How many possible ways do I have to explain myself Alyanna that I am busy wrestling a god right now, completely aware Admiral Janeway has sent man to destroy me I’ve been compared to unflatteringly most of my career to outflank who you say has lost command of his vessel to a terrorist and...” Picard wondered if this was a nightmare, or another illusion built by an alien intellect because real life isn’t this ridiculous.

She could tell her special friend was well past any point of moral uncertainty which the rule book said he was supposed to consider blowing up the ship to make sure the bad guys don’t get their mitts on a military asset this powerful which could irrevocably alter the balance of power, however since some of the bad guys were foremost his own government and most recently inclusive this Fleet Admiral he’d been some what romantic with for the last few months as far as too figures on different sides of the empire could be with how current technology was able to personalize the quality of correspondence she wasn’t surprised when Picard made the throat stroking thumb gesture recognized galacticaly by com officers as “hang the hell up”. Which really just meant that as one of the Chiefest Officers holding a lead on rabid Starfleet Security, Alyanna Necheyev somewhat illegally tapped easily into a realtime account of Enterprise’s Universal Translator Logs, which of course came with pictures because communication is about gestures for even those species without limbs at all that mathematically it’s insane not to realize how wired their culture must be to assure real time translation between thousands of different species across the face of the Federation simulatiously. Alyanna ordered her Replicator across the other side of the office for a bucket of popcorn. A half naked aide fetched it for her like a good half naked aide.

“Hold fire… What’s “he” doing now Lieutenant?

Alyanna couldn’t count the number of ships they’d lost giving the Command Track to scientists. Looking for a reason behind the curious alien violent goings on of aliens who are just plain humanly aggressive like most anyone having a really bad day. She stuck the largest handful of popcorn in her mouth. Not all of it entered or remained in the hole she stuck it. Her aide was on all fours scuttling around like her little piggy snorting about under her desk taking time to nuzzle her legs often.

”BRACE FOR IMPACT!

Oh no, this isn’t “it” for Picard she’s thinking? Enterprises Shields are almost down to nothing and that anyone could tell they hadn’t managed to return fire successfully mush at all against their aggressor. A pity, he was a very complementary individual to take to balls and formal functions, together they’d be an “it couple” the entire Federation could get behind if she wasn’t already its exalted leader in all but name if you ignore the truly scary people that controlled the weather and gravity who had no mind to be noticed at all by idiots trying to find someone meek and accountable for acts of Allah after his Angels get drunk behind the wheel of creation.

…Hail him!”

“You idiot Picard, just kill him! …I swear he’s a girl just like this in bed.” She’s really getting into the sport of the matter yelling and throwing popcorn at the huge imaging unit stealing an entire wall from her interior decorators sense of fashion, but the lady knows she’s probably trying to burry her heart before what must be done must be done, that Enterprise or at the least the area of it where Gomez was being held must be destroy, and if with the stake of her gender dancing on the head of a pin for tips (Dancing on the tips of a pin for head?) because Picard was too retiring and willful to be a good soldier who won’t unquestioningly submit to the choker-chain of her command then Enterprise might as well blow up because she had no bloody use for it.

“Hail what? Sir, look out there… It’s just some guy not a Star Ship?”

Memo to self: Demote this man and spike his commission.

“Just do it.”

See that? That’s how a caveman is supposed to react in defense of his women and children! When Picard had an Alpha-Male moment it was incendiary and provoking. Alyanna felt a chill run down her spine towards where she enjoyed feeling feelings which was her usual reaction at encountering something so brave and strong that she immediately wanted to take it to bed and make it cry her name like a rooster. Picard had more iconic moments per hour than any man she had ever met in the last 20 years. Maybe just on sheer will he could turn the battle around and save the day becoming a hero to billions all over again, that is if this wasn’t the toppest secret sort of endeavor she knew how to red tape up into the attic of walled in chained up dead liberties. No garlands and Triumphs for saving the federation this time Jean-Luc.

“Captain Picard, the Commander of the USS Rutledge is offering his conditional support in this battle.”

O, o now it’s becoming interesting! Alyanna is rapt. The drama was becoming tawdry pulp.

”Conditional?”

What cheek! GALL! Don’t you trust that bloody robot Jean–Luc, he probably killed Kumar, Belinda and brave little huge Jake… There’s no other thinkable way you’d get Kumar to hand over command of Rutledge short of an inverted crucifixion. Necheyev produces a smile that would make a million men throw aside decency and overthrow a million benevolent governments. She’s quite sure now that she hadn’t entirely been forthright about who’d been at the head pirate hijacking Rutledge, the look on Picards handsome face momentarily was going to be priceless.

“Yes sir. The C.O. calls himself “General Lore.”’

Tee hee, tee hee, tee hee… Alyanna is sure she’s going to be girly giggling over that for a while, “General Lore” seriously but? What sort of military would accept a maniac like that in it’s rank and file? Allah forbid promote someone as disobedient and belligerent as Lore to anywhere else than the stockade. General Lore. Is that a pun? No? It doesn’t quite scan, but it seems as though it should mean something. No bother.

“Lore. Bloody hell. On screen.”

By this point, the golden haired matriarch of Federation deviousness was also feeding from Enterprises sensors, which is normally impossible unless the ship is as close to Earth as it is now well with in the borders of Earth controlled space, a tiny area indeed compared to the total scope for the Federation not that it wasn’t a Star Ships job to fly the colours between the outer territories and their jealous coveting neighbors that she could really push her fleets around like toys rather than trusting the autonomy of her Captains so so so so so far away from her ability to under sign their every thought and action.

“Captain Picard. How are you?”

“What do you want lore?”

“What does everyone else want?”

“The baby.”

Why would Lore want the child? If he’s so interested, he could just make one of his own.

“Bing, Frenchman wins a cupie doll. That’s my niece and/ or nephew you have there, and quite literally I am the closest thing in the universe that child was to blood kin, well really, there isn’t anything else made of plastic with an IQ of three thousand and antifreezeing-coolant running through his veins quite like hers. Give me the child and I’ll make sure the… ”

“You don’t have an IQ of three thousand.”

“I might.”

You don’t.”

Federation records say that he has an IQ of 700. What no one could dare risk the remittent never ending smug cooing over was if he’d ever found out that Data only had an IQ of 550. Sure it might have calmed him down, but it would have doubled the length of any conversation with him as lore would constantly reremind you that he is smarter than Data which if you think about it could alter the weight of the galaxy just enough to tip a few of the outer star systems into the void.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“That would be the nicest thing I could call you.”

“You insult me? I’m offering an alliance Picard, the opportunity to have fists as inhumanly strong as these in your service again, I can save you from that flying loon and all it will cost you is one pregnant human female, but instead you decide to insult me? You know a woman is worth nothing and children just steal food out from the productive members of a house-hold with no regard for all the work put into the upkeep of your masterpiece society. I’ll even let you have the bodies when I’m finished because I’m sure there’s a lot of you so feeble and weak of character to till believe in a god or a force or some controlling influence to the natural order of how life gives us lemons.”

Just lie to him and shoot him in the back! Alyanna Necheyev could not completely trust some one who would die for their principles not to say that she could trust some one with no principles. It was a seesaw… From how Enterprise was shuddering she could only suppose that Lord Garth Master of the Universe had locked himself into a sleeper hold between primary and secondary hulls.

” “I’ll even let you have the bodies when I’m finished”? Lore, are you going to kill them? Near as I can tell I’m stopping a man in love with one of my crewmen from being at her side during a tense term in her life and you’re saying you’ll help me kill him if you’re allowed to Kill mother and son? You’re insane. I should team up with Garth of Isar fist to end the threat you’ve posed against the universe since the day that crazy old man made you?”

“Don’t you talk about my papa that way!”

“Don’t think you can make me think you actually cared for him, if I’m to believe data’s accounts of the facts, you practically as good as killed him in your last encounter.”

There’s an emotion depicted in the robots face that must be shock. “Is that what he told you? What a bastard. There’s hope for anyone capable of lying that baldfacedly. If you think I’m capable of murdering my own father then I might as well turn away and let that anochronist exterminate your ship since that would be a feather in my cap to watch all of you die horribly, I hate you all, and then I might as well pick off your life boats with some well placed phaser volleys. SEE! Wouldn’t you rather have me as a friend than your worst enemy?”

It would take 8 torpedoes to penetrate Rutledge’s shields. Why is Picard even talking to this maniac? Back in her heyday as a Star Ship Captain, Alynna was the sort of person they would send to end a dispute if Star fleet had already determined a short war was in the best interests of the UFP as a whole that an example should be made for all the other bordering civilizations to shut the hell up, behave and petition membership.

“After we put Lord Garth Master of the Universe in his place, I’ll let you have a conversation with Lt Commander Gomez and her child, where upon you can see that are not a threat, if however you remain rooted to your opinion you can wrestle 12 armed Security Officers between you and your objectives to the death. I think we can make you see reason if you have a single shred of decency in you positronic brain.”

“Only 12? I’ve killed more humans than that while sleepwalking.”

Alynna checked her fleet deployment credit and loss overall. The board said that it’d be 25 minutes before Picard got some real help, not that Captain Yamakuro wasn’t already under Janeways orders to attack Enterprise unless Nechayev felt inclined to remit that depending who was finally holding the bridge in 25 minutes time.

“Sir! Rutledge has began firing at us.”

“Us? Or the madman skipping and bouncing a meter off our shields?”

The Fleet Admiral needed to write a memo to Oceania Planetia about devising short range weapons to deal with this situation for when they should ever meet up with an enemy with similar capabilities, because it wasn’t inconceivable to find ancient hand weapons as powerful as Star Ship Main guns although the transporter was what ideally would handle such a close quarters irritant however someone like Garth Master of the Universe really didn’t like being Transported and chose to ignore or reverse the process as anyone attempted to convert his molecular structure into a matter stream. She was watching Rutledge sneak behind Garth Master of the Universe blasting him in the face with absolutely no concern for fair play, which is the only way to win a war… Her Picard was still saying nothing; he was probably finding it difficult to construct any semblance of gratitude to reciprocate Lore’s effort at good faith.

“About 50/50 sir. But every time he misses Lord Garth Master of the Universe he’d have to hit us since we’re right behind him… Not that I wouldn’t put it past him to miss on purpose... 70/30! Shall I target Rutledge?”[/i]

Shortest fracking alliance in history.

“Lore, this is your only warning to behave like a gentleman.”

“Ship decloacking off the starboard bow, firing at us!”

Hell. Alynna assumes Klingons praying it’s not Romulans. She couldn’t imagine anyone else less forthright to weave into this web of bocthery until an altogether too familiar voice says…

“Obviously you didn’t need my help Gentlemen but I am more involved in the finer workings of this episode than I would ever care to admit so I really couldn’t help or stop myself. O, Hello.”

Double Hell.