Star Trek Section 7G: A Private Little Clusterfuck

Episode 45: "A Private Little Clusterfuck"

Extortion. The surest way to keep your job. These are the voyages of the starship Nixon. Her five year mission: To secretly follow behind Starfleet's "golden boy," Captain James T. Kirk and fix his fuck ups before they get out of hand. To cover shit up and never let him know what's going on.

Captain's Log: Stardate 4218.4 Christ, just when I think that Kirk can't screw up any worse, he goes and fucks up what should have been a simple mission. Granted, no one expected that the Klingons would be mucking about, but the man didn't even bother following basic mission protocols when they beamed down. Instead of showing up in the native costumes and talking to the locals about the pharmacological plants, he tries to do a "smash and grab" and its only by accident that they discover what the Klingons have been up to. Somehow, I'm going to have to fix this mess without tipping off the Klingons, or letting Kirk screw something up on his next stop.

Lincoln snapped off the recorder and hurried to the conference room. He wasn't optimistic that he was going to be able to come up with a solution, and he was certain that his senior officer staff wouldn't be much help. What worried him most were the Klingons. The Nixon was in bad shape. They might have had the ship fully repaired by Dr. Dehner, but since then, they'd been through a number of rough encounters, and hadn't been able to put in at a starbase for complete repairs since. Mr. Aphroodle might be adept at cannibalization and tricking others into doing the work or providing parts, but even he had his limits.

The doors to the conference room swished halfway open and then stuck. Lincoln attempted to squeeze his way through the gap, found he couldn't quite fit, and tried to force them open the rest of the way. They moved slightly, and then jammed.

"Sybok, if you don't mind," Lincoln said with mild frustration.

"No, captain, I don't mind, go right ahead." Sybok beamed vacuously from his seat.

"I meant that if you don't mind, I'd like for you to come over here and use your Vulcan strength to open this door." Lincoln tapped his forehead against the edge of the door in frustration.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Sybok rushed over to the doors and pried them wide open. There was the sound of metal grinding on metal and of components breaking. The left hand door dropped rapidly towards Lincoln, who flinched as it stopped just millimeters from his head.

Lincoln stepped through the doorway, turned back to look at it and asked, "Mr. Aphroodle? Any chance of getting that fixed?"

"No parts! No fix!" was the reply.

Lincoln sighed and moved to take his seat at the table. He was the last to arrive, Hatfield, the Chief Medical Officer, Cornrows Vageena Africa, Communications Officer, Osama Bin Hussein, Navigation, and Salvadore Chi-Chi, Helm, having gotten there before him, along with the others.

"Well, gentlemen," he paused, briefly, noticing the stinkeye that Cornrows was giving him. "And lady, I don't much relish the idea of us trying to have a conference here with the door stuck open, but I don't suppose we have any choice in the matter. Now, what are we going to do to try and fix this mess?"

"I don't see how's its any of our business to do anything. We's supposed to obey the Prime Directive and leaves these people alone!" Cornrows crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, her large bracelets clattering together as she did so.

"But there's Klingons!" Salvadore's voice squeaked with excitement. "I know they like to pretend to be the butch tough guy, but get them in the bedroom, and they're all 'Call me Mr. Slave!' I'm telling you!"

"And like everything a McCoy does," Hatfield drawled. "The medical reports are half-assed. There's a chemical analysis of a few dozen species of plants, but nothing about the millions of other plants on that planet. Not even any interviews with the local healers about what plants they use. And no samples of the Mugato venom. Why, for all we know, they could just be some of the natives dressed up in albino gorilla costumes, with horns and scales glued on the thing to make it look scary!"

"Look," Lincoln sighed. "The Prime Directive wasn't designed to cover situations like this. It says we're not supposed to interfere in the internal matters of a species not capable of warp drive. We have a planet, with a pre-literate society, I might add, which has one side being given military aid by the Klingons. Now, I don't know where Kirk gets his ideas from, but the Klingons are not simply going to walk away from this planet. We know that they came here once, gave the villagers flintlocks, modeled after Earthly designs and not Klingon, so clearly the Klingons are trying to frame the Federation, left, and then returned. I think that its safe to say that the Klingons are going to return at some point."

"It is the honorable thing to do." Hussein nodded.

"The Klingons don't care what happens to the inhabitants. If they manage to wipe themselves out, then the Klingons can move in and occupy this world easily. If the villagers become dominant, they'll remain puppets of the Klingons, if the Hill People gain the advantage, the Klingons can claim it was the Federation to blame for the mess, pointing to the Earth-like flintlocks as proof.

"Even if the Klingons do stay away," Lincoln continued. "These people are in trouble. They're an illiterate stone age people who've been given 17th Century Earth weapons, with no moral and ethical guidance about how to conduct their society. Whatever pacifist tendencies they may have once had, they've been subsumed by blood lust. How many years or decades will it be before they can return to their peaceful ways? In the meantime, if we do nothing to try and help these people, their blood will be on our hands."

"How Earth fix? How Vulcan fix?" Mr. Aphroodle sucked back drool as he spoke.

"Well, Kirk made a record of the weapons and the suspected presence of the Klingons." Sybok interjected.

"Which the Federation will no doubt use to harangue the Klingons with in diplomatic meetings, meanwhile the locals of this planet will continue to kill one another, and millions of people will continue to suffer from diseases that could be treated by compounds found in the plants on this world." Hatfield fumed.

"No! No! No!" Aphroodle stood up and pounded on the table. "Earth kill all the time, then one day stop! Vulcan kill all the time, then one day stop! How Earth fix? How Vulcan fix?"

"Well, in my case, it was an Orion slave girl with a Denebian tongue vibrator. Oooh, captain! Can we import some of those?"

"No, Sybok. Mr. Aphroodle, are you asking how Earth and Vulcan overcame their violent behaviors and became peaceful societies?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Aphroodle nodded vigorously.

"Well, on Earth we had people like Gandhi, Helen Keller, John Lennon, the Dalai Llama, and Cesar Chavez, all of whom advocated non-violence. And the Vulcans had Surak."

"Captain Lincoln!" the voice startled most of the people at the table. It was a woman's voice, with a proper British accent, but very, very cold. "Most of the time I'm content to speak in an assumed dialect because people find it hard to believe that this is my normal speaking voice, but not today, and not now! Need I remind you that some of the most powerful voices in the non-violent movement have been African-American?"

Cornrows was standing up, with her palms pressed down on the conference table, harpoons shooting out of her eyes. The rest of the table blanched away from her.

"Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, W. E. B. Du Bois, to name but three, and even Malcolm X was starting to come around to the idea when he was gunned down. If you're going to teach these people non-violence, then you'd better include the lessons from those Earthlings whose color is a bit darker than your own."

Cornrows sat down to an awkward silence. The rest of the staff embarrassedly drummed the table with their fingers and looked around in directions other than where Cornrows was seated.

"So, as I was saying," Lincoln broke the tension. "We have folks like Gandhi, and Lennon --"

"I'm gonna kill your white ass!"

"And, of course, Martin Luther King. But I don't know what that has to do with our current situation."

Aphroodle planted his forehead violently on the table.

"Captain stupid," he said. "Make it stop."

"What?" Lincoln was flummoxed by his Chief Engineer's behavior, but then again, that was to be expected, considering how stupid Pakleds were.

"Captain, I believe what Mr. Aphroodle is suggesting is that one of the things we should do, is give these people the collected philosophies of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the others, so that they might be able to learn to work past their violent tendencies much faster." Chi Chi's voice had the tone of a teacher explaining something to a small child.

"Why?" Lincoln's face twisted up in puzzlement. "They can't read, so what good would it do them?"

"We teach them to read, dumb ass, I mean, sir!" Cornrows snapped after Chi Chi joined Aphroodle in planting his face on the table.

"Oh, I see," Lincoln drew the words out as he grasped what the others were telling him. "You're saying that if we teach them to read and give them works on the philosophy of non-violence, we might be able to enable them to return to the kind of peaceful existence they had before the Klingons showed up, is that it?"

"Yes!" The others shouted.

"Its worth a shot. Sybok, go through the ship's library, and print out copies of everything that you think will be necessary to accomplish this. Dismissed."

The officers got up from the table and made their way out of the conference room. As he reached the Turbolift, Lincoln was stopped by the doctor.

"Henry," Hatfield said. "I just had a thought. We don't know what these people are going to be like when we get down there, and this isn't going to be a short mission. Its going to take time to teach these people how to read, and I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't try to fix the shortcomings in McCoy's botanical study."

"Are you sure you want to do that, doctor? You know that they'll never let you have any of the credit for any discoveries that you might make. It'll all go to McCoy."

"Damn it, Henry, I'm a doctor, and my first duty is to save lives. McCoy might have forgotten how important that is, but I haven't. If we go down there and don't come back with a complete analysis of everything, I'll be betraying the oath I took as a doctor."

"All right, doctor. We'll stay as long as we can. Now what did you mean by 'We don't know what these people are going to be like'? I'm sure if we explain to Tyree, or his people that we're friends with Kirk, they'll be happy to see us."

"Will they?" The Turbolift arrived and both Lincoln and Hatfield stepped into it.

"Bridge," Lincoln gave a twist to the control handle. "Why shouldn't they be, doctor?"

"How do we know if Tyree's still alive? What if he was killed in a raid? Who do we talk to, then? Just as important, how do we keep ourselves from being killed by the villagers while we're down there?"

"We'll have our phasers with us, and we'll take plenty of security people along."

"In case you haven't noticed, captain," Hatfield's tone was dry. "This ship isn't exactly staffed with Starfleet's finest, and we're kind of running low on security personnel. They keep getting killed on away missions. It's like their uniform has a bullseye painted on it or something."

"So, what do you suggest we do, doctor? Beam down a communicator and some books, while we stay safely in the ship? And hope that the natives figure out how the communicator works and that they're willing to take reading lessons that way?"

"No, but suppose we used the ship's phasers to stun the Hill People and the villagers. We could then beam down, do a survey of the area, try to find out if Tyree's still alive, and then when they woke up, we could start teaching them."

"That's not a bad idea, doctor."

"Thank you, captain." Hatfield beamed. "I'm wondering about the Klingons. We've no idea if this was an operation officially sanctioned by the Klingon government, or if it was a power grab by a single Klingon captain in order to boost his status in the Empire."

Lincoln released the control handle, stunned. The Turbolift stopped.

"Doctor, you're right!" Lincoln began pacing in the Turbolift as he spoke. "Kirk never bothered to try and figure that out! If this is an organized plan by the Klingon Empire, then they'll attempt to counter anything we do. If we were to show up, give the natives non-violent philosophies, leave, and expect everything to be okay, we'd be no better than Kirk. Its only a balance of power if our efforts are the same as the Klingons. This complicates things. I'm not even sure what we should do now.

"Besides what we've already talked about, of course." Lincoln added, hastily, after noticing the look of concern on the doctor's face. "We can't stay here to guide these people to a civilized society, and we can't expect the Klingons to stay away from this planet. Starfleet's certainly not going to do much to help us in this matter. Our division doesn't officially exist, any reports we file are generally ignored, unless, of course, there's something in them which would make Starfleet look bad. Somehow, we have to checkmate the Klingons, using only a pawn, and doing it in a single move."

Lincoln grabbed the control handle, twisted it, and sagged against the side of the Turbolift as it started up again. His face was pale and furrowed as he thought. There had to be some kind of solution to this issue. What nagged Lincoln most about it, however, wasn't that he had no idea of what to do, but that if he failed to figure something out, Kirk would essentially have beaten him. After all the times Kirk had cribbed off Lincoln's work back at the Academy, to have Kirk come out ahead of him now, was just too much.

The Turbolift doors opened on the bridge, and Lincoln absentmindedly stepped out, Hatfield following behind him. He barely gave the crewman time to get out of the captain's chair before taking his seat. There were the standard status briefings as to their location and the status of the ship that the crew began reciting, and Lincoln waved an acknowledgment to, even though what they said didn't penetrate to his consciousness. Fleegman said something about them being just hours away from Neural, which meant that they had very little time to try and get a handle on all of this. Less time if the Klingons returned while they were on the planet.

It would be easy to deal with all of this if it turned out to be a rogue Klingon acting on his own initiative. Simply kill the Klingon captain, and odds are, the interference would stop, and there would be, a balance of power. If, however, this was a concerted effort by the Klingon Empire to extend their influence, then killing the Klingon captain would only delay them for a little while. Worse yet, the Klingons could be undertaking similar operations on any number of less advanced worlds. Within the Klingon Empire, this was no concern of the Federation, and there were vast stretches of space that the Klingons could explore that weren't considered Federation territory, so why pick this world to tamper with? Clearly something much larger was going on. Were the Klingons blocked from heading in the direction opposite the Federation? Why not head to the next spiral arm?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Tuckerfan

Episode 45: "A Private Little Clusterfuck"

Extortion. The surest way to keep your job. These are the voyages of the starship Nixon. Her five year mission: To secretly follow behind Starfleet's "golden boy," Captain James T. Kirk and fix his fuck ups before they get out of hand. To cover shit up and never let him know what's going on.

Captain's Log: Stardate 4218.4 Christ, just when I think that Kirk can't screw up any worse, he goes and fucks up what should have been a simple mission. Granted, no one expected that the Klingons would be mucking about, but the man didn't even bother following basic mission protocols when they beamed down. Instead of showing up in the native costumes and talking to the locals about the pharmacological plants, he tries to do a "smash and grab" and its only by accident that they discover what the Klingons have been up to. Somehow, I'm going to have to fix this mess without tipping off the Klingons, or letting Kirk screw something up on his next stop.

Lincoln snapped off the recorder and hurried to the conference room. He wasn't optimistic that he was going to be able to come up with a solution, and he was certain that his senior officer staff wouldn't be much help. What worried him most were the Klingons. The Nixon was in bad shape. They might have had the ship fully repaired by Dr. Dehner, but since then, they'd been through a number of rough encounters, and hadn't been able to put in at a starbase for complete repairs since. Mr. Aphroodle might be adept at cannibalization and tricking others into doing the work or providing parts, but even he had his limits.

The doors to the conference room swished halfway open and then stuck. Lincoln attempted to squeeze his way through the gap, found he couldn't quite fit, and tried to force them open the rest of the way. They moved slightly, and then jammed.

"Sybok, if you don't mind," Lincoln said with mild frustration.

"No, captain, I don't mind, go right ahead." Sybok beamed vacuously from his seat.

"I meant that if you don't mind, I'd like for you to come over here and use your Vulcan strength to open this door." Lincoln tapped his forehead against the edge of the door in frustration.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Sybok rushed over to the doors and pried them wide open. There was the sound of metal grinding on metal and of components breaking. The left hand door dropped rapidly towards Lincoln, who flinched as it stopped just millimeters from his head.

Lincoln stepped through the doorway, turned back to look at it and asked, "Mr. Aphroodle? Any chance of getting that fixed?"

"No parts! No fix!" was the reply.

Lincoln sighed and moved to take his seat at the table. He was the last to arrive, Hatfield, the Chief Medical Officer, Cornrows Vageena Africa, Communications Officer, Osama Bin Hussein, Navigation, and Salvadore Chi-Chi, Helm, having gotten there before him, along with the others.

"Well, gentlemen," he paused, briefly, noticing the stinkeye that Cornrows was giving him. "And lady, I don't much relish the idea of us trying to have a conference here with the door stuck open, but I don't suppose we have any choice in the matter. Now, what are we going to do to try and fix this mess?"

"I don't see how's its any of our business to do anything. We's supposed to obey the Prime Directive and leaves these people alone!" Cornrows crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, her large bracelets clattering together as she did so.

"But there's Klingons!" Salvadore's voice squeaked with excitement. "I know they like to pretend to be the butch tough guy, but get them in the bedroom, and they're all 'Call me Mr. Slave!' I'm telling you!"

"And like everything a McCoy does," Hatfield drawled. "The medical reports are half-assed. There's a chemical analysis of a few dozen species of plants, but nothing about the millions of other plants on that planet. Not even any interviews with the local healers about what plants they use. And no samples of the Mugato venom. Why, for all we know, they could just be some of the natives dressed up in albino gorilla costumes, with horns and scales glued on the thing to make it look scary!"

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuckerfan

"Look," Lincoln sighed. "The Prime Directive wasn't designed to cover situations like this. It says we're not supposed to interfere in the internal matters of a species not capable of warp drive. We have a planet, with a pre-literate society, I might add, which has one side being given military aid by the Klingons. Now, I don't know where Kirk gets his ideas from, but the Klingons are not simply going to walk away from this planet. We know that they came here once, gave the villagers flintlocks, modeled after Earthly designs and not Klingon, so clearly the Klingons are trying to frame the Federation, left, and then returned. I think that its safe to say that the Klingons are going to return at some point."

"It is the honorable thing to do." Hussein nodded.

"The Klingons don't care what happens to the inhabitants. If they manage to wipe themselves out, then the Klingons can move in and occupy this world easily. If the villagers become dominant, they'll remain puppets of the Klingons, if the Hill People gain the advantage, the Klingons can claim it was the Federation to blame for the mess, pointing to the Earth-like flintlocks as proof.

"Even if the Klingons do stay away," Lincoln continued. "These people are in trouble. They're an illiterate stone age people who've been given 17th Century Earth weapons, with no moral and ethical guidance about how to conduct their society. Whatever pacifist tendencies they may have once had, they've been subsumed by blood lust. How many years or decades will it be before they can return to their peaceful ways? In the meantime, if we do nothing to try and help these people, their blood will be on our hands."

"How Earth fix? How Vulcan fix?" Mr. Aphroodle sucked back drool as he spoke.

"Well, Kirk made a record of the weapons and the suspected presence of the Klingons." Sybok interjected.

"Which the Federation will no doubt use to harangue the Klingons with in diplomatic meetings, meanwhile the locals of this planet will continue to kill one another, and millions of people will continue to suffer from diseases that could be treated by compounds found in the plants on this world." Hatfield fumed.

"No! No! No!" Aphroodle stood up and pounded on the table. "Earth kill all the time, then one day stop! Vulcan kill all the time, then one day stop! How Earth fix? How Vulcan fix?"

"Well, in my case, it was an Orion slave girl with a Denebian tongue vibrator. Oooh, captain! Can we import some of those?"

"No, Sybok. Mr. Aphroodle, are you asking how Earth and Vulcan overcame their violent behaviors and became peaceful societies?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Aphroodle nodded vigorously.

"Well, on Earth we had people like Gandhi, Helen Keller, John Lennon, the Dalai Llama, and Cesar Chavez, all of whom advocated non-violence. And the Vulcans had Surak."

"Captain Lincoln!" the voice startled most of the people at the table. It was a woman's voice, with a proper British accent, but very, very cold. "Most of the time I'm content to speak in an assumed dialect because people find it hard to believe that this is my normal speaking voice, but not today, and not now! Need I remind you that some of the most powerful voices in the non-violent movement have been African-American?"

Cornrows was standing up, with her palms pressed down on the conference table, harpoons shooting out of her eyes. The rest of the table blanched away from her.

"Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, W. E. B. Du Bois, to name but three, and even Malcolm X was starting to come around to the idea when he was gunned down. If you're going to teach these people non-violence, then you'd better include the lessons from those Earthlings whose color is a bit darker than your own."

Cornrows sat down to an awkward silence. The rest of the staff embarrassedly drummed the table with their fingers and looked around in directions other than where Cornrows was seated.

"So, as I was saying," Lincoln broke the tension. "We have folks like Gandhi, and Lennon --"

"I'm gonna kill your white ass!"

"And, of course, Martin Luther King. But I don't know what that has to do with our current situation."

Aphroodle planted his forehead violently on the table.

"Captain stupid," he said. "Make it stop."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuckerfan

"What?" Lincoln was flummoxed by his Chief Engineer's behavior, but then again, that was to be expected, considering how stupid Pakleds were.

"Captain, I believe what Mr. Aphroodle is suggesting is that one of the things we should do, is give these people the collected philosophies of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the others, so that they might be able to learn to work past their violent tendencies much faster." Chi Chi's voice had the tone of a teacher explaining something to a small child.

"Why?" Lincoln's face twisted up in puzzlement. "They can't read, so what good would it do them?"

"We teach them to read, dumb ass, I mean, sir!" Cornrows snapped after Chi Chi joined Aphroodle in planting his face on the table.

"Oh, I see," Lincoln drew the words out as he grasped what the others were telling him. "You're saying that if we teach them to read and give them works on the philosophy of non-violence, we might be able to enable them to return to the kind of peaceful existence they had before the Klingons showed up, is that it?"

"Yes!" The others shouted.

"Its worth a shot. Sybok, go through the ship's library, and print out copies of everything that you think will be necessary to accomplish this. Dismissed."

The officers got up from the table and made their way out of the conference room. As he reached the Turbolift, Lincoln was stopped by the doctor.

"Henry," Hatfield said. "I just had a thought. We don't know what these people are going to be like when we get down there, and this isn't going to be a short mission. Its going to take time to teach these people how to read, and I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't try to fix the shortcomings in McCoy's botanical study."

"Are you sure you want to do that, doctor? You know that they'll never let you have any of the credit for any discoveries that you might make. It'll all go to McCoy."

"Damn it, Henry, I'm a doctor, and my first duty is to save lives. McCoy might have forgotten how important that is, but I haven't. If we go down there and don't come back with a complete analysis of everything, I'll be betraying the oath I took as a doctor."

"All right, doctor. We'll stay as long as we can. Now what did you mean by 'We don't know what these people are going to be like'? I'm sure if we explain to Tyree, or his people that we're friends with Kirk, they'll be happy to see us."

"Will they?" The Turbolift arrived and both Lincoln and Hatfield stepped into it.

"Bridge," Lincoln gave a twist to the control handle. "Why shouldn't they be, doctor?"

"How do we know if Tyree's still alive? What if he was killed in a raid? Who do we talk to, then? Just as important, how do we keep ourselves from being killed by the villagers while we're down there?"

"We'll have our phasers with us, and we'll take plenty of security people along."

"In case you haven't noticed, captain," Hatfield's tone was dry. "This ship isn't exactly staffed with Starfleet's finest, and we're kind of running low on security personnel. They keep getting killed on away missions. It's like their uniform has a bullseye painted on it or something."

"So, what do you suggest we do, doctor? Beam down a communicator and some books, while we stay safely in the ship? And hope that the natives figure out how the communicator works and that they're willing to take reading lessons that way?"

"No, but suppose we used the ship's phasers to stun the Hill People and the villagers. We could then beam down, do a survey of the area, try to find out if Tyree's still alive, and then when they woke up, we could start teaching them."

"That's not a bad idea, doctor."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuckerfan

"Thank you, captain." Hatfield beamed. "I'm wondering about the Klingons. We've no idea if this was an operation officially sanctioned by the Klingon government, or if it was a power grab by a single Klingon captain in order to boost his status in the Empire."

Lincoln released the control handle, stunned. The Turbolift stopped.

"Doctor, you're right!" Lincoln began pacing in the Turbolift as he spoke. "Kirk never bothered to try and figure that out! If this is an organized plan by the Klingon Empire, then they'll attempt to counter anything we do. If we were to show up, give the natives non-violent philosophies, leave, and expect everything to be okay, we'd be no better than Kirk. Its only a balance of power if our efforts are the same as the Klingons. This complicates things. I'm not even sure what we should do now.

"Besides what we've already talked about, of course." Lincoln added, hastily, after noticing the look of concern on the doctor's face. "We can't stay here to guide these people to a civilized society, and we can't expect the Klingons to stay away from this planet. Starfleet's certainly not going to do much to help us in this matter. Our division doesn't officially exist, any reports we file are generally ignored, unless, of course, there's something in them which would make Starfleet look bad. Somehow, we have to checkmate the Klingons, using only a pawn, and doing it in a single move."

Lincoln grabbed the control handle, twisted it, and sagged against the side of the Turbolift as it started up again. His face was pale and furrowed as he thought. There had to be some kind of solution to this issue. What nagged Lincoln most about it, however, wasn't that he had no idea of what to do, but that if he failed to figure something out, Kirk would essentially have beaten him. After all the times Kirk had cribbed off Lincoln's work back at the Academy, to have Kirk come out ahead of him now, was just too much.

The Turbolift doors opened on the bridge, and Lincoln absentmindedly stepped out, Hatfield following behind him. He barely gave the crewman time to get out of the captain's chair before taking his seat. There were the standard status briefings as to their location and the status of the ship that the crew began reciting, and Lincoln waved an acknowledgment to, even though what they said didn't penetrate to his consciousness. Fleegman said something about them being just hours away from Neural, which meant that they had very little time to try and get a handle on all of this. Less time if the Klingons returned while they were on the planet.

It would be easy to deal with all of this if it turned out to be a rogue Klingon acting on his own initiative. Simply kill the Klingon captain, and odds are, the interference would stop, and there would be, a balance of power. If, however, this was a concerted effort by the Klingon Empire to extend their influence, then killing the Klingon captain would only delay them for a little while. Worse yet, the Klingons could be undertaking similar operations on any number of less advanced worlds. Within the Klingon Empire, this was no concern of the Federation, and there were vast stretches of space that the Klingons could explore that weren't considered Federation territory, so why pick this world to tamper with? Clearly something much larger was going on. Were the Klingons blocked from heading in the direction opposite the Federation? Why not head to the next spiral arm?

---

+1

"Sybok to captain," the intercom chimed. Lincoln punched the button on the armrest of the captain's chair to answer, and had to quickly fumble to grab it as it fell off. He motioned to the crewman acting as Communications Officer to transfer the transmission over to the main bridge speakers.

"Yes, Sybok?" Lincoln vainly tried to force the armrest back into place as he spoke.

"Captain, I've run into a small problem."

"What's that?"

"The Neuralians don't have a written language, so not only do I have to research the appropriate materials, but I also have come up with a written language and a method of teaching it to them."

"Fuck it, Sybok, we'll just teach them English. They're probably going to be joining the Federation in a few years, and its bad enough I have to listen to 'Press 1 for Andorian, press 2 for Orionian,' and so on, every time I contact the Starfleet, I don't need another damn language added to the list. Takes me 30 minutes to get to English now."

"Roger, dodger, captain."

"Sybok!" Lincoln shouted, hoping to catch Sybok before he broke the connection.

"Yes, captain?"

"The doctor and I were talking after the meeting, and we realized that we've no idea if the Klingons supplying the Neuralians are a rogue element, or if they're acting under orders of the Klingon Empire. If they are under orders, then I don't know what good it'll do to follow through with our plans, or how we'll even be able to maintain the balance of power as Kirk intended."

"Hmm," There was a long pause before Sybok spoke again. "Logic would dictate that we're fucked. Is the doctor there?"

"I'm here, you pointy eared nutjob."

"Doctor, need I remind you that species slurs are a violation of Starfleet regulations?"

"I'm sorry, Sybok. You have to forgive me, I was born in the segregated South."

"Bullshit, you just like being an an asshole." The doctor made a face in response to Sybok calling him an asshole. "Now, do you have any Klingon aphrodisiacs?"

"Why?"

"Because this is turning out to be a suicide mission, and if I'm going to die, then I intend to plow the shit out of Nurse Basilica before beaming down to the planet."

The bridge erupted into laughter at this announcement. Lincoln glared at the crew who quickly turned back to their stations, trying to suppress snickers.

"Sybok, what you do with Nurse Basilica is your own business, but I'd appreciate it if before you, um, 'saddled up,' as it were, that you came up with some suggestions of what we should do if the Klingons are acting under orders from the Empire."

"My first suggestion would be to get the doctor to give you some of the aphrodisiacs as well, and start plowing Yeoman Paul, because I can't think of any way this is going to come out in our favor."

"Shut up!" Lincoln shouted at the bridge crew, who once again had burst into laughter, with several of them falling out of their chairs. "Sybok, I need answers! And dipping my dick isn't a useful one right now."

"I disagree, captain. Getting laid would do you a world of good, besides, its not like you know when you're going to get the chance again."

"Sybok!" Lincoln's voice was barely audible over the laughter.

"Very well, captain." There was the unmistakable sound of a heavy sigh. "I will attempt to sort this all out. How long until we're in orbit?"

Lincoln looked at the navigator, who wiped the tears from his eyes and checked his instruments.

"Seven hours, captain. Just enough time for you to roll Paul in flour and find the wet spot!"

Lincoln waited for the laughter to subside before he spoke. His voice was calm, but trembled slightly, from repressed emotion.

"Consider yourself on report, mister! As for the rest of you, if I hear anything out of you, you'll be joining him on report. Helm, increase speed to warp nine, and hold it there for as long as you can. We've wasted too much time as it is. We'll just have to hope that there's no Klingons in orbit of Neural when we get there. Doctor, my quarters."

"Captain, the increase in speed will complicate my plans." Sybok's voice was plaintive.

"Deal with it, Sybok. Lincoln out." Lincoln let the armrest fall and walked to the Turbolift, with Hatfield close behind.

Captain's Log: Stardate 4219.5 Just when I thought that we had everything worked out, the doctor and I realized that we have no idea how we're going to ensure that the Klingons don't continue to interfere with this world once we've accomplished our mission. Our hope is that once on the planet, we'll be able to find out some clue about the Klingon motives. If this is a rogue mission by a single Klingon captain, then destroying him and his ship should be enough. If not, we're going to have to find some way of making this world unpalatable to the Klingons, if the natives are going to have a chance of developing as a peaceful, independent society. For now, myself, Sybok, and Dr. Hatfield are beaming down to the planet to see what's happened since the Enterprise left.

Lincoln and the others entered the transporter room, ensign Fleegman and Tim were at the controls. As Hatfield and Sybok placed the equipment they would need for the mission on the back transporter pads, Lincoln stepped up to the control panel, and pushed the intercom button.

"Lincoln to bridge."

"Here, bridge." responded Aphroodle.

"Mr. Aphroodle, these native costumes you had made up for us are a bit uncomfortable. The crotch down where your nuts hang is a little too tight, they cut me, it's like riding a wire fence. I could use a little more room from the crotch back to my bunghole the next time you make something up for me."

"Yes, captain."

"Now, Aphroodle, you sure that the ship's phasers will only stun the natives?"

"No kill I."

"Okay, Mr. Aphroodle, fire the phasers on the coordinates for the Hill People and the villagers. Once we're down on the planet, maintain radio silence until we contact you to have the second wave of personnel beamed down. If the Klingons show up, get out of here, and don't come back until you're certain they're gone."

"Will a hundred years do?" Chi Chi's voice was faint in the background.

"I heard that, mister!"

"Phasers fired! People go sleepytown." Aphroodle interjected.

"Thank you!" Lincoln leapt to his transporter pad and nodded to Tim. "Energize."

They materialized in the center of the village, with phasers drawn, and flashlights blazing away in the night. Since the Klingons were affiliated with the village people, it made the most sense for the crew to inspect the village before moving on to the Hill People. They had no idea of how long it was going to take to estimate how many weapons the villagers had and how many people might be trained in their usage. It was also possible that there was a Klingon agent, and they would have a better chance of catching him if he was unconscious. If the Hill People awoke while Lincoln and the others were inspecting the camp, they could hopefully play off Tyree's friendship with Kirk, to prevent a major incident from developing.

Finding that Aphroodle had, indeed, gotten the settings right on the phasers, and that the villagers were unconscious, Lincoln, Hatfield, and Sybok gathered up their equipment.

"Where's the weapons stored?" Lincoln asked.

"Tricorder readings show what's most likely a forge in that building," Sybok said pointing to one of the buildings. "Kirk's report had the flintlock components being stored in a building with a forge, so I suggest we start there."

As they entered the building, they caught the odor of burning flesh and hair. Looking around, they spotted the smith, face down in the coals of his forge. He must have been working at it when the Nixon had fired her phasers. Hatfield raced over and pulled the man from the forge, but a quick scan with the Tricorder revealed him to be beyond the abilities of the doctor to save, Prime Directive or not.

"Mr. Aphroodle," Lincoln had flipped open his communicator once it had be ascertained there was nothing to be done for the smith. "Make a note that the next time we decide to stun an entire village that we first do a sensor scan to make sure no one will be killed unnecessarily."

"Aphroodle do."

"Lincoln out." He snapped the communicator shut and turned to face the others. "Now that I think about it, Sybok, you'd better make the note, as I have no idea what Aphroodle means by any of his log entries. Have you two managed to get an estimate of the number of weapons and how long it will be before the villagers are able to make their own without help from the Klingons?"

"There's several hundred here, either assembled or waiting to be put together. As for the villagers ability to make the weapons on their own, the Klingons have failed to teach them the concept of interchangeable parts or how to set up an assembly line. I would be very hesitant to fire a Neural made weapon." Sybok informed him.

"That's something, I suppose."

"Henry, I just had a thought. What if, instead of trying to teach these people non-violent conflict resolution, we simply took the weapons away from them?" Hatfield suggested.

"A nice idea, but it won't work." Sybok responded before Lincoln could answer. "The Neuralians know about guns, so even if we took them all, the natives would eventually figure out how to make their own. Plus, they no doubt have trading networks with other towns and villages and have exchanged flintlocks for other items with those people.

"Captain, these people do not have slavery as such, but women are not considered equals here, and I'm sure that at least a few brides have been traded for guns."

"Makes sense." Lincoln nodded.

"I know that it goes against Starfleet regulations," Sybok continued. "But since we're already violating several dozen of them, including the Prime Directive, I was wondering if I could trade some of our items for one of the local women. I doubt if they're as skilled as an Orion Slave Girl, but I could no doubt train one, and on the Nixon she would have a better life than she would have here."

"No, Sybok, you may not." Lincoln snapped. "Now, let's get on with the survey of the village. I want to get a look at the Hill People before they wake up."[

I'm going to enjoy reading these.

The survey took them several hours as they went house to house, doing an inventory of the number of weapons which had been handed out. They found a couple of other unfortunates who'd been in positions which lead to their deaths when hit by the ship's phasers. More problematic, however, was Sybok's behavior when they stumbled upon a couple who'd been stunned in the middle of a sexual act. Sybok would attempt to adjust their positions in order to improve their experience, but Lincoln would veto the idea, since it would seem even more suspicious than the fact that several other people had seemingly inexplicably died in the middle of the night. He was finally able to convince Sybok to drop the matter when he pointed out that it might be traumatic for the village people to wake up in strange positions after becoming unconscious during sex, and this might give them sexual hang ups.

As they finished the survey, Lincoln checked the time on his communicator. Daylight was still several hours off, but the effects of the phasers would soon be wearing off. They might make it to where the Hill People lived before there was any danger of someone waking up, but it'd be impossible to complete the survey in time. After verifying that Hatfield didn't believe anyone would suffer ill effects from being stunned a second time, Lincoln and the others moved out of phaser range, and put in a call to the ship.

"Mr. Aphroodle," Lincoln said. "Please stun the villagers and the Hill People again. We're far enough away that we're in no danger of being hit."

"Ok," Lincoln could hear Aphroodle giving the necessary order, followed by someone on the bridge crew saying something to Aphroodle. "Captain, Klingons come in!"

It took Lincoln a moment to realize that Aphroodle was trying to tell him that a Klingon ship was approaching. What to do? They needed to find out if the Klingon Empire was behind this or not, but the Chief Engineer wasn't exactly qualified to deal with the Klingons on his own. He could beam back up to the ship, and deal with the Klingons personally, but that would mean they wouldn't be able to complete the survey, since he couldn't trust Sybok not to screw things up down here, and who knows when they'd have a chance at investigating the Klingons again, if they didn't do it now. There were no good options, no matter how he thought about it. Even sending the Nixon away might not work, since its possible that the Klingons had already picked the ship up on their long range sensors, and Pakleds were lumbering beasts, so expecting Aphroodle to be able to get the ship out of there undetected was a bit much, his earlier orders to Aphroodle notwithstanding.

"Aphroodle," Lincoln said at last. "I need you to prevent the Klingons from sending a landing party here until we're at least done with our survey."

"How stop?"

"I don't know, Mr. Aphroodle, I'm counting on you to think of something. Lincoln out." He snapped the lid to his communicator shut and turned to the others. "We'd better hurry, I'm not sure how much time we're going to have."

"Henry, are you sure that its such a good idea letting Aphroodle handle this?" Hatfield asked as they broke into a rapid jog.

"What choice do I have, doctor? We can't really abandon the survey, since we don't know what the Klingons will do in our absence, and if we beam back to the ship to confront the Klingons, we might not be able to get back here to try and help these people."

Chief Engineer's Log: Stardate 4220.2 Captain Lincoln, planet go. Aphroodle told to stop Klingons. Aphroodle think for hours. Aphroodle not have much hope, but know must captain obey.

"Yo, retard!" Aphroodle's entry was interrupted by Cornrows shout. "The Klingons are calling us, whatcha you wants me to do?"

"Screen on." Aphroodle hung his head in shame.

The image of captain Krell filled the screen, Aphroodle stood and alternated between awkwardly looking at the screen and staring at his feet. There was a unnerving pause as Krell took in the sight, then he began to laugh heartily.

"What's this? A Federation starship commanded by a Pakled? I see Starfleet has finally decided to put their best and brightest in command!"

Aphroodle shook in response to Krell's tone. Sweat formed on his forehead, and the times when he looked at the screen, he flashed a broken smile.

"Who are you?" Krell leaned forward and leered at the screen.

"Aphroodle."

"Well, Aphroodle, I am Captain Krell of the Klingon Imperial Cruiser Rotlh NaHlet, and by treaty, this world is off-limits to anyone but xenopologists. Clearly, you're not one of them, so why are you here? Is the Federation meddling in places they shouldn't be?"

"Our ship broken." Aphroodle's smile was fragile. "Make it go?"

Krell managed to keep from falling out of his chair as he convulsed with laughter, but only just barely.

"I just muted us so his pointy eyebrowed ass can't hear us," Cornrows was standing up and shouting at Aphroodle. "Now what the hell is your dumb ass going to do? I ain't fixin' to die 'cause you is stupid!"

Aphroodle turned to her and gestured for her to unmute the Klingon.

"I plan. We no die."

"What's the matter, Pakled?" Krell gasped between laughs. "Can't you control your woman?"

"She my bitch, she know."

"Aphroodle!" Cornrows was livid and had slipped back into her English accent. "If you don't give me a good reason to put up with your insults, I'm going to have no choice but to relieve you of command!"

"Mute?" Aphroodle turned to face her, while pointing to the screen.

"Yes, of course, I muted us."

"Captain said Klingon stop. We no can fight, our ship not strong. Must use smarts. Me have smarts, just talk dumb. You see. You, scared act."

Cornrows flinched and fell back on her controls, making sure to unmute them.

"Oh, lordy! Please don' beat me, massah Aphroodle!"

Krell spent a few more minutes laughing heartily.

"I guess she is your bitch, after all!" Krell wiped the tears from his eyes. "Now, tell me why I should help someone from the Federation."

"We make Kirk good."

"What?"

"Kirk, big fuck up. We fix. We make him look good. You fix ship, we tell you how stop Kirk."

"You're trying to tell me that Captain Kirk," Krell spat the name out. "Owes his reputation to a ship commanded by a Pakled?"

"True it."

The roar of laughter coming from the Rotlh NaHlet was deafening. It overloaded the comm system and all the crew of the Nixon heard for several minutes was digital distortion. Aphroodle stood unfazed by all of this, despite the confused stares from the rest of the bridge crew.

"You know, Pakled, I kind of like you. I might just spare your life and keep you as my jester."

"Proof, I have."

"Now you're claiming you can prove this?" Krell kept his laughter under a modicum of control. "Okay, Pakled, if you can prove this, I'll agree to your bargain."

"Bitch, Order Zero send!" Aphroodle snapped at Cornrows.

"Huh? Oh, okay." Cornrows complied, but wondered if she was doing the right thing. Order Zero was the highly classified order requiring them to follow behind Kirk and make sure nothing he did ever came back to bite him on the ass. Transmitting it to the Klingons would be a treasonous violation of regulations, but Aphroodle did seem to be smarter than he was generally given credit for. She would have to monitor outgoing communications from the Klingon ship, and if they tried to retransmit the order, she could jam the signal, but that would mean they would have no choice but to destroy the Klingon vessel. Was Aphroodle really planning to do that? If the ship was acting under Imperial orders, it could start another war with the Empire. How was Aphroodle planning on extracting them from this mess?

"The Pakled speaks the truth!" Krell shouted after he read the order. "Very well, my simpleton, I shall fulfill my end of the bargain. Expect our first team of engineers to beam aboard your ship in fifteen of your minutes. Krell, out."

"Surely you don't intend to help them?" Qlp asked.

"Of course not, you fool!" Krell spat on the navigator. "That ship is assigned to protect Kirk, we can't allow it to leave this system."

"So you mean to destroy it?"

"Later. But they have all of the Federation's codes stored in their computers, since they have to be able to intercept Kirk's transmissions to Starfleet. We capture that ship, and we will have those codes. I shall be promoted, and the Empire will be able to rid itself of the Federation's interference!"

"You are wise."

"I want our best strike team, in full armor, in the transporter room in seven tup!" Krell barked at the communications officer. "Its possible that the Pakled is smart enough to know what we intend to do to them, and will have the air pumped out of their transporter room, so we'll make sure our soldiers don't need air.

"Helm! Bring us in closer to their ship, and hold our position between them and deep space, I don't want them trying to make an escape. Train all weapons on their ship, but do not fire unless I give the order. I want those codes!"

As the viewscreen went dark, Aphroodle jumped from the captain's chair and vaulted himself over the bridge railing with surprising speed for someone of his bulk. The ensign at the Engineering station screamed at the sight of the Pakled's mass hurtling itself towards him, and dove out of the way.

"Beamer room!" Aphroodle shouted as he mashed the intercom button with his fist.

"I do not understand your request." the computer responded.

"Transporter room!" Cornrows interjected.

"Beamer room," Aphroodle repeated.

"Uh, this is Tim in the transporter room." The voice was hesitant.

"Go, now! And take air!"

"What?"

"He means get your ass out of there, and vent the room to vacuum." Cornrows had moved beside Aphroodle and was watching his fingers dance over the engineering controls far faster than she could have imagined was possible. She still had no idea of what Aphroodle was up to, but realized that he did, indeed, have a plan.

"Security!" Aphroodle mashed the intercom button again. He had no idea how long the Klingons would give them before they started beaming over to the Nixon, but he knew they would never give them the fifteen minutes they had been promised. He had no idea if his plan was going to work, it could get them all killed, and the reprogramming of the warp drive needed to accomplish it was going to take a considerable amount of the time they'd been alloted. He wouldn't even be able to run simulations of the changes if he finished early, because he was relying on their position relative to Neural's moon, and they would have to engage the engines the moment conditions were right.

"Security here."

"Two squads! Beamer room one! Suits! Big phasers! No go in! Now!"

"I don't understand, sir." Came the reply.

"He's telling you to send two squads in space suits, with phaser rifles, to the transporter room, but not to enter the room! And hurry it up, 'cause like your ass, we's fixin' to be covered in Klingons!"

"Oh God, we're going to die!" Fleegman's wail could be heard over the intercom.

"Aye, aye, sir!" the security officer who answered the intercom said and broke the connection.

"Sir," Hussein's voice was soft but insistent. "The Klingons have closed to less than four thousand kilometers."

Aphroodle nodded, but said nothing, his fingers furiously manipulating the controls. That would make things easier for him, hopefully the strain on the starboard nacelle wouldn't be so bad this way. They couldn't have much more time before the first Klingons beamed aboard. He didn't know what was going to happen when they materialized in vacuum, but he hoped that it would delay things long enough for them to reach the right point in their orbit. Otherwise, they were going to have to make another orbit, and he didn't relish the idea of holding off that Klingon ship for the nearly 90 minutes it took for them to go around Neural at this level. Setting up the macros to handle the controls was going to take nearly as long as the modifications to the warp drive formulas, but had to be done, since the operations required needed femtosecond timing in order for Aphroodle's plan to have any hope of succeeding.

The Klingons were energizing their transporters! Aphroodle checked the clock, it'd been only about 8 minutes since he'd spoken to Krell, so he was right not to take them at their word. How much longer until they'd reached the correct orbital position? Ten minutes. Could the security detail keep the Klingons in the transporter room that long? Would he get the macros done in time?

"Me, speakers." Aphroodle turned from the controls to look at Cornrows.

"You want me to put you on the ship's speakers?"

Aphroodle nodded and turned back to his console. Cornrows moved back to her station and pushed the switched to allow Aphroodle to be heard over the ship's public address system.

"This Aphroodle. You grab!" Aphroodle dropped to the floor and wedged himself under the engineering console as best as he was able. If they survived this, he was going to make sure all seats were bolted to the floor and had four point restraints. It was damned stupid for them to be flung all over the bridge whenever the inertial dampers failed.

"He means hold on motherfuckers, this shit's about to get crazy in here!" Cornrows shouted, and threw herself to the floor, wrapping her limbs around the bridge rail supports.

There were several tense moments, long enough for the crew to wonder if Aphroodle hadn't lost what little mind that he had. Cornrows considered relaxing her grip on the supports, when the lights went out. She wanted to ask herself what had caused that. Was it the Klingons, breaking out of the transporter room? Or was this all part of Aphroodle's plan? She didn't have the chance, however, as she nearly struggled to maintain her grip and stay conscious when the ship began to move. She could tell they were shifting into warp drive, and that Aphroodle had significantly cut the power to all the other systems in order to provide enough power for the engines. What was he planning? Going into warp this close to a planet was extremely dangerous, and they were at risk of dragging the Klingon ship with them, it being so close. Now it felt like they were spinning. It was getting harder for her to hold on, and nausea began to make itself known to her. She closed her eyes.

"What's happening?" Chi Chi shouted.

No one answered him. Even if they had been able to, the whine of the engines was loud enough to make it hard to hear anything else. Gradually, members of the bridge crew began to slip into unconsciousness and be flung from their anchor points. Eventually, they all ended up pressed against the bulkhead in a mass.

Security Chief Goldsmith cut the connection after hearing Cornrows translation of Aphroodle's orders. If Klingons were coming, then shit was getting pretty bad, and they needed to break out the armored suits. They wouldn't do much against a direct hit from a disruptor, but would stop a Bat'leth, which the Klingons tended to prefer in close order combat.

"You heard 'em," he turned to face the security officers in the duty room. "Squads five and seven, get your armored suits and phaser rifles, then take up positions of concealment as close to the transporter room as you can get. Everybody else, get your gear ready and be prepared to move out if needed."

"I don't want to die!" Fleegman screamed.

"Jesus, Fleegman, shut the fuck up with that shit, would you? And stop pissing your pants, its degrading." Another officer shot back.

"But its Klingons!"

"So fucking what?" Goldsmith slammed Fleegman up against a locker, pressing a KaBar into Fleegman's neck, just enough to cause pain. "The Klingons like to rack up a lot of kills quickly, which means if one of them gets you, you won't have to suffer long. However, if you don't man up and do your job, I'll kill you. Slowly, painfully, and with lots of your own blood spilling out in the process. Do you understand me?"

Fleegman nodded.

"Good." Goldsmith stepped back from Fleegman, who fell immediately to the floor. "Now suit up, and when this is over, put in a transfer to some other department, because I'm tired of mopping your piss up every time you have to go on a mission."

Fleegman scrambled to his locker and began suiting up. Goldsmith began putting in calls to the cabin's of off-duty security officers. This wasn't a time to worry about over-kill. The Nixon was an obsolete piece of shit that couldn't hope to survive ship to ship combat with a Klingon vessel. Whatever method by which Aphroodle had managed to convince the Klingons to send personnel over offered them the best chance at survival. He assumed that transporter room was going to become hostile territory as the Klingons wouldn't dare risk intership beaming. Once they retook the transporter room, however, Goldsmith intended to beam over an armed photon torpedo.

With the Klingons intent on capturing the Nixon, they wouldn't have their shields up, and putting a torpedo inside their ship, even if it didn't destroy it, would create so much chaos as to even up the odds.

"Torpedo room," Goldsmith pressed the intercom button after alerting the last of the off-duty security personnel. "Get a team in suits, and have them take a torp a corridor down from the transporter room. Make sure they stay well behind the security squads in the section and they're to remain hidden until after we've retaken the transporter room."

"Why, sir?" The tech on the other end asked.

"Because, once we regain the transporter room, I want you to arm that torp and beam it over to the Klingon ship. Its our best shot against the bastards."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Goldman stepped to the computer terminal in front of the security monitors and began pulling up the camera views from both outside and inside of the transporter room. The room itself was empty, and he could see Tim in the corridor at the atmosphere controls for the transporter room. Did Aphroodle think to order them to exhaust the room? Damned clever of the Pakled, if so. The system wouldn't allow the doors to open until the air was restored, and the controls could be locked from the outside. It wouldn't stop the Klingons, of course, but it would slow them down, and hopefully make them easy pickings for the squads now concealed outside the room.

"Fleegman!" Was it the squad leader calling his name? He didn't know. It was hard to tell with everyone dressed in suits that made them look like electric razors. Why did they make the suits look like that? There should be insignias on the outside of them so you could tell who was who, like the knights in armor with their shields.

"Fleegman!" Whomever it was that was yelling at him was standing directly in front of him now. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Stop standing there filling your piss bag, and get that phaser rifle set up in the corridor!"

Fleegman jerked involuntarily, since he had no idea how the man knew what he was doing. He fumbled into the corridor and spent several moments fumbling with the tripod for the phaser rifle before managing to get it set up. He then began moving around behind it agitatedly. He was nervous, and his urine bag was nearly full, and the weight of it on one leg only served to aggravate him more.

"Fleegman, I swear to god, if you don't hold your position behind that rifle, I'm going to burn your ass where you stand!"

Fleegman quickly shifted back behind the rifle, and tried to keep from fidgeting. He didn't understand any of this. He'd never asked to be in Section 7G, he hadn't even wanted to join Starfleet. That was his father's idea. It being a family tradition and all that. Fleegman just wanted to be a lumberjack, but his father said that there weren't any more lumberjacks, and that Fleegmans look silly in flannel, so he had no choice. When he flunked out of the Academy the first time, his father had made some calls, and Fleegman found himself assigned to Section 7G. He tried to put in his resignation, but was told that the only way one gets out of 7G was to reach retirement age or die.

"They're beaming in!" Someone holding a Tricorder shouted. "Get ready!"

There was no sound. Fleegman hated that. There should have been some kind of noise. They should have been able to know that the Klingons were materializing. Instead, there was nothing. Not even the red alert klaxon. How long would it take? Would the Klingons blast the doors open and charge right out?

"Here's what I want," it sounded like the squad leader speaking. "If the Klingons blow the door, I want you sweep the opening and at least a meter on either side of it with your weapons. If the Klingons cut through the walls, I want you to sweep the area of the cut for at least a meter on all sides. We do that, and we stand a good chance of holding them here. Don't wait for an order, just fire as soon as you see something!"

"Sir!" the voice came from whomever it was that was holding the Tricorder. "I'm picking up readings that the Klingons are cutting through the floor of the transporter room! They're trying to get to the next deck!"

"Shit! Get that door open, now!"

As a suited figure approached the controls, the sound of Aphroodle came over the ship's speakers. He was ordering them to hold on. Fleegman looked around for something to grab, when he found himself falling towards a bulkhead. The impact was cushioned by his suit, but the shock caused him to gasp. Then the gee forces began to build and consciousness slipped from him.

Hatfield stepped from the final Hill People tent that he had to inspect. Looking up at the sky, he noticed that it would be soon time for the planet's moon to set. The Hill People would soon be waking up, and doing whatever it is that primitive societies do when they wake up. Hatfield realized that he had something in common with those who'd soon be waking, as his bladder was making itself known. Moving away from the camp proper, he found a tree, unvelcro'd his pants and began relieving himself while looking at Neural's moon. It appeared to be roughly the same size as the Earth's, though without the same features, and seemingly more smooth.

A brilliant white light suddenly formed on the moon's surface, spreading itself upwards and outwards, like a flower blooming. Hatfield stared at it for a moment, and then realized that it could only mean something very large could have hit the moon. It was possible that it was an asteroid, but it could also have something to do with the Klingons showing up. One side of the "flower" began to stretch itself across the face of the moon, heading towards the terminus and the light was growing brighter. If it was an asteroid, it was a damned big one.

"Henry!" he shouted. "You'd better come see this!"

Lincoln angrily opened the flap to the tent he was in, prepared to chastise Hatfield for shouting. While it was unlikely that any of the Hill People would be awoken by the noise, it didn't do to take any chances. Knowing Aphroodle, he'd not set the phasers correctly, and the Hill People would wake up early.

"Doctor, keep your voice down!" he hissed loudly.

"Henry, look at the moon!"

The "flower" had started to fade in spots, but portions of the moon were glowing red, where the portions of the "flower" had retreated from.

"Shit." was all Lincoln could manage. The kind of energies required to create something like that on the moon were very high. Perhaps Aphroodle had fired on the Klingons and missed, hitting the moon instead. Or, as seemed more likely, given how simpleminded the Pakled seemed, he'd managed to crash the ship into the moon. "Sybok! Out here, now!"

"Yes, captain?" Sybok emerged from one of the tents with a smirk on his face.

"Sybok, best guess as to what's happening Neural's moon."

"Whoa," came the reply. "That's some pretty wicked shit."

"You don't suppose that Tricorder of yours would tell us anything about what's going on up there, do you?" Hatfield's voice was dry.

"I forgot all about it." there's was a decidedly embarrassed tone to Sybok's voice as he held it aloft in front of him and began to take readings. "The type of radiation I'm picking up seems to be consistent with that produced by a warp core breach. Somebody seriously got fucked, it looks like."

"That 'somebody' might be us." Lincoln snapped. "Can you tell if it was our ship or the Klingon's that blew up?"

"I'm afraid not, captain." Sybok's tone was a bit more subdued. "At this distance, and with only the limited range of the Tricorder, all I can say for sure is that it was a starship that impacted with the moon."

"Lincoln to Nixon!" He'd flipped open his communicator and called desperately to the ship. "Mr. Aphroodle! What have you done to my ship? Aphroodle! Answer me!"

There was the sound of a ratcheting click. Lincoln and the others froze.

"Captain, I believe we have more immediate matters of a pressing nature." Hatfield's voice was calm and even, though Lincoln tell there was a slight nervousness to it.

Turning slowly around, they saw the Hill People arrayed behind them, pointing flintlocks in their direction. Lincoln and the others raised their hands, hoping that the Hill People would recognize it as a sign that they intended no harm. Lincoln scanned the faces of the Hill People, hoping desperately that he'd be able to find some indication of which one of them might be Tyree. If they could find him, and talk to him, they might have a chance.

"Hello," Lincoln tried to keep his voice calm. "I'm looking for a man called Tyree. We're friends of Jim Kirk. We've come here to try and help you."

"Help?" A wounded man hobbled out of the shadows and into the moonlight. "With more thundersticks? Or those small boxes that kill with light? I don't know if giving us either of those will help. All we Hill People do these days is kill villagers, and burying those of our own kind that the villagers have killed."

"Are you Tyree?" Lincoln asked.

"I am." came the reply. "And I am not sure I should trust you, friend of Kirk or not. We have become killers, and I admit that I once enjoyed the killing. I saw it as a way to avenge my wife's death, now, I am not sure that it is better than our old ways. The children do not play as they once did, but must hide, because if the villagers see them, they will kill them."

"You have my sympathies." Lincoln hoped that his tone would allow him to at least convince Tyree that they were friends. If that was the Nixon that got pasted all over the moon, they were going to be trapped on this planet for the rest of their lives. "Our own people have gone through similar turbulent times, but we have managed to work through them and become peaceful. Jim Kirk gave you the thundersticks to try and keep you safe until we could arrive. We bring you many things, even a kind of magic which can help you live peacefully with the village people once more."

Lincoln hated having to be so overtly supportive of Kirk, but it seemed to be the best way of gaining Tyree's trust. It might not be so effective, now that Tyree had gotten over his bloodlust, but Lincoln wasn't so sure of what other tack to take at the moment. At the very least, it seemed to be keeping them alive, which meant that there was hope.

"What kind of magic?" Tyree came closer. "Magic that kills? Like the thundersticks? When I first met Kirk, he said nothing about thundersticks, then when he came back, he knew all about them. He said nothing about magic, now you tell me about magic. You are a strange people. You know of many things, but pretend to be stupid. You come from the lights in the sky, you are not of us.

"How can I trust you? This time you say you come to give us magic, but what of the other things that you know? Will you hold them back from us, and then one day show up, only to offer us more things? And what of the village people? Their friends, the dark skinned ones, gave them thundersticks, but you did not, even though you were here first. Speak to me, friend of Kirk. Tell me why I should trust you now. But know this, if I do not like your answer, my men will kill you, magic or not."

"Please, you have to understand, Kirk was only obeying our customs." As Lincoln said it, he realized how much it sounded like the old excuse of only following orders. "In our travels, we have found that it is better if we do not interfere in the lives of other people. When Kirk came here the first time, it was only to learn from your people. Unfortunately, the Klingons, those you call 'the dark skinned ones,' do not share our customs. They gave the thundersticks to the village people in order that they might rule over your people. I promise you that we will hold no secrets from you. We will give you the magic we have brought with us and we will hold no secrets back from you."

"And what does this magic do?"

Lincoln started to respond and then stopped. How the hell does one explain writing to a pre-literate people? "Talking book" doesn't make any sense to them, since they've no idea what a book even is. Nor would telling them that it was a method of communicating knowledge over the years work for them, since, as a society based on oral traditions, they'd have no idea that such things change over a long period of time. Still, it was probably one of the most important developments in the history of any civilization, save the invention of deodorant by Jatravartids.

"This magic," Sybok leapt in to cover Lincoln's silence. "Is the key to everything our people have accomplished. Not only does it hold our most sacred truths, but it helps us control who can understand them."

"And with this magic we will learn all your secrets?"

"In time." Lincoln realized he should probably take the conversation back from Sybok, as Sybok was liable to start babbling about Orion slave girls again. "There is much to learn, and no one of us knows all of them. I can promise you, however, that the secrets we give you will enable you to return your world to the peaceful place you once knew."

"Do the dark skinned ones know these secrets?"

"Some of them, but their customs are different than ours."

"Why have you not taught them these secrets?"

"Our people have an old saying, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.' We have tried to teach the Klingons, the dark skinned ones,". Lincoln hastily corrected himself. "But they do not wish to learn."

"What's a horse?" Tyree was puzzled.

"They're a kind of animal that you ride, to get around faster."

This was met with blank stares.

"You don't have beasts of burden?"

"Beasts are for eating." Tyree's answer was matter-of-fact.

"Ok," Lincoln's arms were getting tired. "The point is that just because you offer something to someone, doesn't mean that they'll accept the gift. If you'll put down your weapons, and allow Sybok to get some of the things we brought with us, we can begin teaching you."

"I do not know." Tyree's face was troubled. "The dark skinned ones brought the thundersticks, and death came to us. Jim Kirk also gave us thundersticks, because I was upset over the death of my wife, and now there is more death. You say you are a friend to Kirk and that you bring us the secrets of your people so that we may end the death. How can I believe you?"

"One of our great leaders once said, 'Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.' Are those the words of a man who is interested in killing?"

"Those are wise words." Tyree answered after contemplating them for a few moments. "I will allow you to get your things. Lower your weapons."

Lincoln breathed a sigh of relief as he dropped his arms. They would get to live a little longer. He didn't relish the idea of being trapped on this planet, but there was always the possibility of capturing the Klingon ship. If they could somehow take control of that and turn it over to the Federation, that would be a huge coup. They might even get transferred out of Section 7G as a reward.

"Sybok, if Tyree will grant you some help," Lincoln looked quizzically at Tyree, who nodded his assent. "Please take a few of these gentlemen with you and get the items we brought with us."

Tyree gestured at two of his men to go with Sybok, and the three of them set off to where Lincoln and the others had left the books. Lincoln allowed himself a smile. It wasn't a perfect solution, and he was going to have to figure out how to capture a Klingon ship with over 400 people on it, if they were to have any hope of getting off this world. Still, it beat having a lead ball lodged in some part of his vitals.

"Now," Tyree looked carefully at Lincoln. "Suppose you tell me more about this great leader of yours."

"Uh," Lincoln fumbled. The quote he'd given was about the only thing he knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. and not knowing what all Sybok had compiled about the man, he was hesitant to try and say much more, for fear of getting something wrong. "I'll be happy to, but it looks like you're in a lot of pain. Why don't we wait until Dr. Hatfield here has had a chance to look at your wounds. He has knowledge unknown to even your greatest healers."

Captain's Log: Stardate 4, shit, I don't know. I think its been about three days since the explosion on the moon. All I know is after Sybok showed up with the books, I decided I'd get some local tail. Bitch jabbed me in the arm with some kind of plant, next thing I know, my dick's hard as a rock, and I'm jack hammering away at a tent pole. Doc says he doesn't think that there'll be any permanent damage, and he's managed to get all the splinters out, but this turn of events is not what I expected. Anyway, we're teaching the Hill People how to read. I suppose that we're making some kind of progress, but how the hell can you tell after just a few days. Still no word from the Nixon and no sign of the Klingons. I'm hoping that instead of Aphroodle managing to get my ship blown up, he also, somehow, took the Klingons out with him.

Sybok, when he's not busy trying to teach the Hill People how to read, is attempting to construct a communications beacon in hopes that we might be able to contact Starfleet and secure a rescue. So far, he doesn't seem to be having much luck. He claims that the problem lies in the fact that the natives have yet to invent something called a "Speak & Spell." Whatever that is.

Lincoln snapped shut Sybok's Tricorder that he was using to record his log, and stepped out of the tent. He ignored the laughs and giggles coming from the native women and children that was directed at him. They might think him a fool, but he was certain that they would forget that in time. If not, there were always the village people. No doubt he'd be able to get one of their women to offer up herself after he bribed the village elders with something that Sybok had brought down with them. In the meantime, he was going to see what kind of progress they were making at teaching the natives.

Hatfield was with the Hill People's medicine man and the two of them were stirring a cast iron pot sitting over a fire. The medicine man had a troubled look on his face as he stared at the pot. The doctor, however, seemed to be at his wit's end. What kind of problem could he be having, Lincoln wondered. The two of them had a common interest, that of healing the sick, and unlike Sybok, Hatfield was well adjusted, so they should be getting along just fine. As he approached, he began to hear some of their conversation.

"I do not understand why we should boil the things." the medicine man said.

"You remember my saying that there are small creatures living on everything?"

"Yes, of course. I am not a stupid man, doctor."

"We boil the things in order to kill the small creatures so that they don't make our patients sick when we treat them."

"I am supposed to save lives, not take lives."

"You eat meat, don't you?" Hatfield's tone was frustrated.

"Yes, but that is different. When we go on hunts, we find the animal who offers himself to us, and then, after we kill him, and as we're eating him, we thank him for his sacrifice. We don't just cook him."

"Henry!" Hatfield exclaimed excitedly as he saw Lincoln approach. "I was just trying to explain to my friend --"

"Tunare," the medicine man interjected quickly.

"Tunare," Hatfield continued with an appreciative nod. "About the need to sterilize before performing surgery."

"I heard, doctor, and it is perhaps the most important thing you can do, as I understand it. Billions of people are alive today because of it."

"Exactly!" Hatfield nodded excitedly. "And as a healer, my first duty is to protect the health of my patient. Wouldn't you agree, Tunare?"

"Yes," Tunare nodded. "But one must always remember Eh-neeek-chock."

"What's that?" Lincoln had skimmed Kirk's original report from thirteen years ago, but it had mentioned nothing about Eh-neeek-chock.

"Eh-neeek-chock means that if you do harm to others, you can expect harm to be done to you."

"That sounds very much like our idea of karma." Lincoln replied.

"Captain, doctor, may I speak with you a moment?"

They hadn't noticed the appearance of Sybok and were caught off-guard.

"Certainly, Sybok." Lincoln inclined his head towards Tunare to apologize for having to leave. Tunare nodded his understanding.

"Captain, I've been thinking," Sybok said after they had moved out of earshot.

"That'll be a first." Hatfield snorted and turned his head aside.

"Really, doctor, I find your continued use of insults directed towards me distasteful, and if you persist in them, I will have no choice but to report you to Starfleet when we next are able to contact them."

"You sound like your brother."

"Doctor, I may have rejected the Vulcan philosophy of 'All Logic, All the Time,' but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the value in being able to function logically when the situation demands it. Were I to allow my emotional side to have control of the situation, I'd have beaten you to a pulp by now, and would no doubt be court martialed by Starfleet."

"Gentlemen!" Lincoln snapped. "While I might personally wish the two of you would fuck each other and get it over with, we have a job to do on this planet, and your arguing with one another doesn't do anything to get us closer to our goal. We have no idea of when, or if we're going to be rescued, or what the Klingons are up to. And if we don't get the natives to play nice with one another, there's a good chance one of us could wind up with a lead ball in a vital organ! And while I'm sure the good doctor would do everything he could to save us, we're stuck dealing with societies that haven't even learned to read, let alone have things like blood banks. Now, the two of you behave, or I swear to god I'm going to jab the two of you with the same plant I got jabbed with and lock you guys in a cave so you can express your love for one another."

"Uh, captain," Sybok raised a finger, but Lincoln cut him off before he could continue.

"Sybok, if this is about the regulations on fraternization between officers, or anything else other than the situation of dealing with the natives here, let me just say that I fully intend to record the two of you fucking like bunnies and will have no compunction about posting it to Fleetbook. Understand?"

"Perfectly, captain."

"I'm sorry, Henry."

"Good." Lincoln put his hands on his hips and looked smug as he glanced from one to the other. "Now, Sybok, what was it you brought us here for?"

"Captain, I just realized that there's a much larger issue in dealing with a society as primitive as theirs that we hadn't thought of."

"And that is?"

"Disease."

"Well, Sybok, that was one of the things I was trying to explain to these people when you showed up." Hatfield's tone was one of restrained anger.

"Yes, doctor, and that may be a problem."

"Are you saying I'm incompetent?" Hatfield moved closer to Sybok in a threatening manner.

"Of course not, doctor, and that's the problem."

"What do you mean?" Lincoln held his palm in the direction of Hatfield in an effort to control the doctor's emotions.

"On Earth, as well as every other planet we've encountered," Sybok ignored the implied threat from Hatfield's body movements. "Every society has had to deal with pandemics of one sort or another millennia before those societies discovered the microorganisms that caused them. While those organisms did kill billions of people, they did ensure that those who survived had much stronger immune systems. That meant that the succeeding generations had much stronger immune systems than those who came before them. If we teach them proper sanitary procedures now, we might be enabling them to be susceptible to diseases even our most advanced sciences cannot cure, and in turn, weakening their species."

"That is a problem." Lincoln planned to ask Sybok and Hatfield what they thought they should do, when he was cut short by a beep from his communicator.

"Did you ever get your beacon made, Sybok?" There was more curiosity than mockery in the doctor's voice.

"Not yet."

"Lincoln here." He ignored the other two, for fear if he paid attention to their discussion, they'd resume bickering again, and answered his communicator.

"Captain," came the unmistakable voice over the communicator. "Here, Aphroodle."

"Eh-neeek-chock means that if you do harm to others, you can expect harm to be done to you."

"That sounds very much like our idea of karma." Lincoln replied.

"Captain, doctor, may I speak with you a moment?"

They hadn't noticed the appearance of Sybok and were caught off-guard.

"Certainly, Sybok." Lincoln inclined his head towards Tunare to apologize for having to leave. Tunare nodded his understanding.

"Captain, I've been thinking," Sybok said after they had moved out of earshot.

"That'll be a first." Hatfield snorted and turned his head aside.

"Really, doctor, I find your continued use of insults directed towards me distasteful, and if you persist in them, I will have no choice but to report you to Starfleet when we next are able to contact them."

"You sound like your brother."

"Doctor, I may have rejected the Vulcan philosophy of 'All Logic, All the Time,' but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the value in being able to function logically when the situation demands it. Were I to allow my emotional side to have control of the situation, I'd have beaten you to a pulp by now, and would no doubt be court martialed by Starfleet."

"Gentlemen!" Lincoln snapped. "While I might personally wish the two of you would fuck each other and get it over with, we have a job to do on this planet, and your arguing with one another doesn't do anything to get us closer to our goal. We have no idea of when, or if we're going to be rescued, or what the Klingons are up to. And if we don't get the natives to play nice with one another, there's a good chance one of us could wind up with a lead ball in a vital organ! And while I'm sure the good doctor would do everything he could to save us, we're stuck dealing with societies that haven't even learned to read, let alone have things like blood banks. Now, the two of you behave, or I swear to god I'm going to jab the two of you with the same plant I got jabbed with and lock you guys in a cave so you can express your love for one another."

"Uh, captain," Sybok raised a finger, but Lincoln cut him off before he could continue.

"Sybok, if this is about the regulations on fraternization between officers, or anything else other than the situation of dealing with the natives here, let me just say that I fully intend to record the two of you fucking like bunnies and will have no compunction about posting it to Fleetbook. Understand?"

"Perfectly, captain."

"I'm sorry, Henry."

"Good." Lincoln put his hands on his hips and looked smug as he glanced from one to the other. "Now, Sybok, what was it you brought us here for?"

"Captain, I just realized that there's a much larger issue in dealing with a society as primitive as theirs that we hadn't thought of."

"And that is?"

"Disease."

"Well, Sybok, that was one of the things I was trying to explain to these people when you showed up." Hatfield's tone was one of restrained anger.

"Yes, doctor, and that may be a problem."

"Are you saying I'm incompetent?" Hatfield moved closer to Sybok in a threatening manner.

"Of course not, doctor, and that's the problem."

"What do you mean?" Lincoln held his palm in the direction of Hatfield in an effort to control the doctor's emotions.

"On Earth, as well as every other planet we've encountered," Sybok ignored the implied threat from Hatfield's body movements. "Every society has had to deal with pandemics of one sort or another millennia before those societies discovered the microorganisms that caused them. While those organisms did kill billions of people, they did ensure that those who survived had much stronger immune systems. That meant that the succeeding generations had much stronger immune systems than those who came before them. If we teach them proper sanitary procedures now, we might be enabling them to be susceptible to diseases even our most advanced sciences cannot cure, and in turn, weakening their species."

"That is a problem." Lincoln planned to ask Sybok and Hatfield what they thought they should do, when he was cut short by a beep from his communicator.

"Did you ever get your beacon made, Sybok?" There was more curiosity than mockery in the doctor's voice.

"Not yet."

"Lincoln here." He ignored the other two, for fear if he paid attention to their discussion, they'd resume bickering again, and answered his communicator.

"Captain," came the unmistakable voice over the communicator. "Here, Aphroodle."

Chief Engineer's Log: Stardate 4221.5 Aphroodle's plan seem work. Make big warp bubble on starboard side. It capture Klingon ship, fling Klingon ship on moon. Now have to see if all Klingons dead.

Aphroodle gently pushed off the recorder button on the dangling armrest of the captain's chair. He stood up from his crouched position on the floor and looked around at the bridge and its crew. Control panel covers were scattered about. Why didn't they have them secured with wires so things like this wouldn't happen? And he was really going to have to do something about the lack of seat belts on board the ship. People could get seriously hurt flying around all the time. The stupid "passive laser restraint" system that Starfleet was so fond of, clearly didn't do jack.

"Cornrows! All decks, damage?"

"Everything seems to be relatively minor. Aw, shits! We gots Klingons running around!"

"How?"

"The bastards cut through the floor of the transporter room into the deck below. They's carving up the floor buffing crew like nobody's business from the sounds of it."

"Security, send!"

"You gots it!"

"Fleegman!"

He didn't know how he was able to hear his name being shouted over all the noise around him. Normally, he wouldn't be able to hear any environmental sounds, but with his helmet on the deck, bone conduction enabled him to pick up the ambient noise, which had to be deafening to anyone not in a suit. Instead of responding, he just feigned unconsciousness. Surely if things were as bad as they sounded, they'd have to give up on trying to wake him up.

"Fleegman! I know you're awake!" the voice shouting at him was the squad leader. "I can see your vitals on the suit monitor and it says that you're awake, so get the fuck up!"

"Ok." Fleegman opened his eyes and got reluctantly to his feet.

"My god, man! You've got piss on the outside of your suit! How did you manage that?"

"I must have filled my urine bag, sir."

"You also didn't seal your suit properly, otherwise it'd all be on the inside! Now get your phaser rifle and follow the others through that door!" The squad leader pointed to the open transporter room door. "The god damned Klingons have cut through the floor and are busy killing the floor buffers!"

"But I could get killed!"

"That's kind of what I'm hoping for, dickweed! Now, get your ass in gear, or I'll phaser your ass right now!"

"You can't do that!" Fleegman was indignant.

"Bullshit, mister." The squad leader leveled his hand phaser at Fleegman. "We're in a combat situation, and regulations clearly state that if I think your actions put the rest of the squad in danger, I am authorized to use any and all means necessary to protect the rest of the squad. Right now, I'm not seeing why your life is more valuable than that of the guys who run the floor buffers, and since nobody at Starfleet gives a shit about Section 7G unless we fuck up and make them look bad, I don't think they're going to mind if you eat some high energy particles."

Fleegman screamed and threw himself down the corridor at the phaser rifle, he grabbed it, rolled to his feet, and ran towards the transporter room. Any thoughts he might have had about fleeing were erased by the occasional phaser blasts the squad leader fired in his general direction. It wasn't until he crossed the threshold of the transporter room door that he had second thoughts about how he was following orders. He'd assumed that the Klingons had cut their hole directly in front of the transporter pads. Instead, realizing that this might render the transporter inoperable, they'd cut their hole in front of the door. A fact Fleegman didn't discover until he was falling through the hole, screaming as loud as he possibly could.

He landed face first on top of his rifle, knocking the wind out of himself. A moment later, he felt the thud of someone landing beside him. As he lay gasping for breath, he felt whomever it was that had followed him down the hole grab his suit and flip him over.

"Ah, you've only had the wind knocked out of you." It was the squad leader. "I suppose you've pissed yourself again."

Fleegman shook his head to indicate that he hadn't.

"Alright, on your feet, then."

Fleegman was abruptly jerked to his feet and then roughly tossed into the arms of another member of the squad. Fleegman clung feebly to whomever it was, desperately trying to refill his lungs. Over the shoulder of his squad mate, he could see ample signs of the Klingons' handiwork. Being unfamiliar with the design of the ship, they had promptly begun cutting their way through all four walls in order to find the one which offered the best means of escape. Or had they?

As Fleegman got his wind back, he began to try to think about things from the Klingons perspective. Clearly, they had to know that they were going to be beaming into potentially hostile territory, and finding the transporter room abandoned, with no atmosphere, would have confirmed this. Their next step would have been to find a way out of the transporter room that posed the least risk to their safety. The Klingons might not have a problem with dying in battle, but they weren't stupid. They had to know that going through transporter room door would be the easiest way to get shot. Thus they cut through the floor into the deck below, killing anyone unfortunate to be below them. At that point, they'd want to take a path which offered them the least chance of getting killed, but enabled them to inflict the most damage upon the ship. Presumably, they wanted to gain control of the ship and expected that once it was discovered they were going through the floor, security teams would be sent to the deck they were now on.

So, the real question was: Would the Klingons have split up once they got to this deck? Certainly, they couldn't have known that the Nixon was going to undertake such wild evasive maneuvers to escape the Klingon ship and that everyone was going to be knocked out for a time. They also would have expected re-enforcements to arrive shortly after they beamed over. Given that the Klingons would have expected the most obvious line of attack to come from the door into the compartment they were now in, that would have been the least likely way to go. Now, could Fleegman convince the squad leader to let him take that path? If he could, then that would enable him to avoid a chance encounter with the Klingons, and thus avoid getting killed unnecessarily.

"Sir!" Fleegman snapped to attention once he gained his breath, and faced his squad leader who was examining the holes the Klingons had cut in the bulkheads.

"What is it, Fleegman? You want your mommy?"

"No sir! I was just thinking that if I were in the Klingons shoes when I beamed over, I'd split my team up and go in as many directions as possible in order to inflict the most damage, especially if I were expecting follow up teams to come behind me to provide support."

"Oh, you want to stay behind in case any more Klingons beam over?"

"No sir! I don't know what Aphroodle did, but I think its a safe bet that we won't see any more Klingons beaming over for some time. I was thinking that our best bet at stopping the Klingons was to split up and send teams down each one of the paths the Klingons cut, rather than trying to figure out which one they might have taken, assuming they all went the same direction."

"Fleegman, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Too much sense for you to have come up with it and not be planning on it keeping you out of combat."

"Uh, thank you, sir?"

"So, here's what we're going to do. I don't like the idea of splitting the squad into teams and having you putting a decent man in jeopardy. You get to go out there alone." The squad leader turned to face the other members. "My squad! Break up into three man teams, then start going through the holes the Klingons have cut in the bulkheads. I'll stay here and advise squad seven what we're up to when they drop through. Fleegman, you take the corridor and head aft. Maybe you'll get lucky and find the re-enforcements Goldsmith should have coming. Move out!

Fleegman started to scream.

"You heard me, Fleegman! Now, move it! Move it!"

Fleegman kept screaming as he dashed out into the corridor. Maybe he could run fast enough to reach the Turbolift at the far end before the Klingons spotted him. The squad leader didn't say what Fleegman was supposed to do when he got to the end, so there was no reason that Fleegman couldn't take the Turbolift and go back to his quarters in order to hide until all this blew over. To Fleegman's mind, the old saw about a coward dying a thousand deaths proved that it was better to be the coward. After all, emotional humiliation was nothing new for him, so to have it happen a thousand times was slightly less than what he experienced on shore leave.

About a quarter of the way to the Turbolift, he realized it'd be a good idea if he looked from side to side to make sure that the Klingons weren't coming out of one of the compartments or connecting corridors. By this time, he was breathing so hard he couldn't hear his suit radio. There were just the sounds of his gasping and the blood pounding in his ears.

"You can make it!" He wheezed to himself as he ran. "You can make it!"

Ahead of him, he could see panicked crew members peering out of their cabins as he ran towards, and then past them. Thankfully, none of them could identify him through his helmet, so he wouldn't have to worry about facing their accusations later on.

Halfway to the Turbolift, the corridor went dark, save for the rhythmic light given off by the red alert signals. Fleegman stopped, nearly tumbling over his feet. Had the Klingons cut the main plasma conduit? Or had someone from one of the squads killed the lights in order to make it harder for the Klingons to make their way through the ship? If the plasma conduit had been cut, then the Turbolift was probably out of order on this deck. Fleegman certainly couldn't hope to pry open the doors, and if he cut them open, then the safety features of the Turbolifts would prevent it from leaving the deck until the damage was repaired. Twirling in panic, he tried to think of what to do.

"What's happening?" He heard himself shouting. "Why're the lights out?"

"The Klingons cut a power conduit!" A voice in his ear said.

Something was moving in the shadows near him, visible during the flashes from the alert signal. What was it? He couldn't tell. If it was a Klingon, why didn't he strike? If it was someone from another squad, or one of his fellow crewmen, why were they obviously trying to hide?

"Sir!" Fleegman winced at how high pitched his voice sounded. "I think I found a Klingon!"

"Ok, Fleegman." For once, Fleegman found his squad leader's voice comforting. "Where are you?"

"I don't really know, sir. I think I'm at around junction N, as in Norman, in the main corridor."

"Stay calm, I've got back up headed your way. Make sure your phaser rifle is set to stun. I want to try and take at least one of these bastards alive."

"It is, sir."

"Good, when you think you've got a clear shot, I want you to take it."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Fleegman turned back to where he saw the shadowy figure moving, rifle at the ready. He caught a glimpse of the figure moving and fired his phaser rifle in the general direction. And then began screaming as portions of the bulkhead began to vaporize. Instead of removing his finger from the trigger, he panicked, pressed the trigger harder, and began to sweep the area erratically. The beam cut a jagged path and the mysterious figure got to tis feet and started to run in the opposite direction Fleegman had come down the corridor, before Fleegman's beam amputated its feet.

The figure fell to the floor and Fleegman continued to sweep around, unable to calm himself. As he neared completing his second circuit, he caught a bright flash out of the corner of his eye. The next thing he knew, he was laying on his back, body twisted in an uncomfortable position, staring up at the roof of the corridor. He no longer felt the phaser rifle in his hands. A figure in a Starfleet spacesuit appeared in his field of vision.

"Christ, Fleegman," a voice in his ear said. "You're almost as bad as the fucking Klingons. We had to stun your ass or you'd have killed us all. You're lucky that the only person you shot was a Klingon. I thought you said your weapon wasn't set to kill."

"I thought I had it on stun."

"Obviously not." The figure twisted a knob on the front of his suit, and Fleegman realized that he was tuning his comm unit to the squad's frequency. "Its okay, folks. Fleegman's been disarmed. You can all come out now."

Fleegman felt himself being pulled to his feet by whomever the suited figure was and he realized that someone must have gotten the lights working while he was unconscious as he could see the corridor clearly. It was hard to believe that being stunned by a phaser could so scramble his circuits that he wouldn't recognize something so obvious as the corridor no longer being in darkness, yet the fact that it took him being standing up before he noticed it was proof enough.

The figure propped Fleegman up against a bulkhead, and then twisted a knob on the front of his suit again.

"Goldsmith to bridge." The figure had pulled off his helmet and Fleegman could see that it was the Security Chief.

"This be the bridge." Cornrows' voice was in Fleegman's ear, telling him that Goldsmith had patched everyone into Goldsmith's comm unit.

"You can cancel the Red Alert. All six Klingons accounted for."

"Alive, dead?" Aphroodle asked.

"Four dead, one currently unconscious and one wounded, thanks to Fleegman."

"How damage?"

"It looks pretty bad, and we're going to need as many medical teams as you can send."

"Roger." Aphroodle delicately pushed one button on the captain's chair armrest before pushing another. "Doctors to the floor buffer deck. Repair crews same."

Aphroodle stepped away from the captain's chair and approached the helm and navigation console. Hussein and Chi-Chi were seated at their stations, running system checks.

"We, where?"

"I'm not entirely sure, Mr. Aphroodle." Hussein replied, seemingly stabbing buttons at random. It looks like we're about a half a light from Neural. After I've had a few minutes to make sure everything's working I can get a better fix on our location."

"Sensors, Klingon watch, and find broken ship."

"What?" The ensign manning the sensor's console asked.

"He means," there was a distinct nasal quality to Cornrows tone as she spoke. "Keep a look outs for anys Klingons that mights show up and sees if you cans find the wreckage of the Klingon ship on the moon."

"Yeah! Yeah!" Aphroodle nodded.

Chief Engineer's Log: Stardate 4222.1 We leave orbit Neural moon. Two engineerings on moon. Looking for parts. Parts to fix ship and stop Klingons from come back

"Orbit standard, Chi-Chi." Aphroodle turned in the captain's chair to face Cornrows. "Call captain."

A moment later, the sound of captain Lincoln's voice was heard over the speakers.

"Captain, here Aphroodle."

"Mister Aphroodle!" There was genuine affection in Lincoln's voice. "You're alive! How's my ship?"

"Broken, always."

"How broken, Mr. Aphroodle?"

"Seen worse."

"Good, good. I assume that was the Klingons who hit the moon?"

"Well, it sure as shit wasn't us!" Cornrows snapped.

"Glad to hear you're still with us, Lt. Africa. Mr. Aphroodle, I'm going to expect a full briefing from you in an hour, but I need you to make something a top priority for me first."

"That what?"

"It seems that Sybok," there was no missing the sneer in Lincoln's tone. "Failed to fully plan for our mission here. We have plenty of books, but if we're going to get this stuff properly disseminated, we're going to need a printing press. Do you think your people can whip us up one? I want it designed so that it can be easily used and duplicated by these people, and now that I think about it, you'd better make us at least a couple of them. I don't want to take a chance on something happening to the only one before these people learn how to make their own."

"I only Pakled on ship. My people too far away to help." Aphroodle replied.

There was the distinct sound of Lincoln smacking his head with the communicator.

"No, Mister Aphroodle," Lincoln struggled to maintain a calm tone. "I mean, can you have engineering make us up at least four printing presses?"

"Oh, yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Aphroodle nodded vigorously. "Can do! Can do!"

"Good. Beam them down as soon as they're ready, and I'll expect that report in one hour. Lincoln out." He snapped shut the lid to his communicator and turned back to the others. "Now, gentlemen, let's see if we can't resolve this issue."

"Henry, you can't expect me to allow these people to continue to remain in ignorance of germ theory! We have a chance to save billions of lives. Imagine if we could stop the bubonic plague from hitting Europe during the Dark Ages! That's 200 million people saved, right there! How many people in the Americas died because they had no resistance to European diseases? There's the nonsense with bloodletting? How many people did that kill?"

"Doctor," Sybok sounded patronizing. "I understand your concern, but this planet's destiny has already been interfered with once, and we have no idea of the possible outcomes from those actions. If we continue on this course, we may do more harm than good."

"Listen, you bipolar logician--" Lincoln held up a hand to cut Hatfield off.

"Sybok, doctor, you both make very good points, but let's face it, all likelihood, these people are probably fucked. We've shown them the concept of the written word before they've ever domesticated any animals. Hell, the Klingons have taught them some comparatively advanced metal working technologies. Both sides have given them flintlocks! And we don't know when, or if the Klingons will return to continue to muck about here. We have to do something if these people are going to have a chance to survive! Sybok, how many Hill People do you think there are?"

"Uh, at a rough guess, maybe a thousand."

"And how many villagers?"

"Perhaps twice that number."

"Now, we know that these people have trading networks, but it takes time, years even, for people to traverse this continent, and there's societies of similar technological levels scattered on the other continents and large islands on this planet. It took us, on Earth, hundreds of years, once the Age of Exploration began, to discover every inhabited spot on the planet. With what we're planning on giving these people, it'll still take centuries for them to explore this world. And unlike our ancestors, they'll have the wisdom and knowledge at the beginning, that it took our societies thousands of years to develop.

"We have no idea if the village people are the only group of natives that the Klingons have made contact with, nor do we have the time and resources to find this out. We have to work with this group here. That means that there will still be diseases out there which can kill them, and perhaps there's a disease like AIDS out there, which they won't be able to detect until their technology is sufficiently advanced. It will kill millions of people, helping to ensure that these people continue to develop a robust immune system, and once they are able to detect and diagnose the disease, unlike our ancestors, they won't sit idly by for over a decade as it kills people.

"I hate to compare these people to children, but all we can do, gentlemen, is give them the best tools we possibly can and hope that they don't use them to kill themselves. Now, let's go see if we can convince Tunare the value of antiseptics."

"Tunare, I apologize for the disruption." Lincoln said as they returned to the fire.

"Disruption seems to be the way of your people." Tunare replied wryly.

"It can appear that way, I admit, but I think that you'll find its benefits outweigh any disruption." Lincoln suppressed the desire to call Tunare an ignorant savage before having the Hill People's camp vaporized by the ship's phasers. "As I was saying, your Eh-neeek-chock, sounds similar to what our people call karma, and I believe your people have a similar term, don't they, Sybok?"

"We call it, 'Lakanookie' on Vulcan." Sybok deadpanned.

"Yes," Lincoln quickly shot him a dirty look and continued on. "The solutions both our people's came to are remarkably similar. The men and women who are most troubled by this worry that our well-meaning actions can have negative consequences for someone else, become ascetics. People who retreat from the rest of society to reflect upon the deeper meaning of life, and to create ways in which all persons can live in happiness and harmony with one another. They live simple lives, and they endeavor, through sitting quietly, or by doing exercises, to bring balance to the world as people who harm no other living creature. Many of them have produced great wisdom and both our societies owe a great debt to them. On Earth and Vulcan, great numbers of people believe that were it not for those individuals, we would have destroyed ourselves.

"In addition to the secrets of medicine, we have brought their secrets along with us to teach you. If you find practicing medicine our way distasteful, then perhaps you will find the life of an ascetic more to your nature. Indeed, their philosophy is much like your own, before the Dark Skinned Ones came."

Tunare sat silently for a few minutes, deep in thought. At last he moved slightly and looked up at the others.

"I will listen to the doctor's advice, and if I find that it is not to my liking, I will become one of these ascetics you have talked about."

"Excellent! Sybok and I will leave the two of you to your work."

As Lincoln and Sybok walked away, they heard Dr. Hatfield talking excitedly about how Tunare was going to be able to experience the greatest period of any planet's medical history when everything was all "know-how and make do." Hatfield was explaining how he once removed a uterine tumor with his teeth when the conversation was lost in the distance.

"Captain, I feel compelled to point out that you have effectively given these people religion. On Earth, religion was responsible for some of the bloodiest wars in human history."

"Sybok, it's Buddhism! Sure, religion's not the greatest thing in the world, but at least I didn't give them Scientology. And besides, Buddhism's a fairly peaceful religion. Its not like they went around committing genocide for centuries."

"True, but I think it would have been better if you'd have taught them something like Tantric practices."

"You know, Sybok, I realize that this might come as a surprise to you, but not everybody wants to be able to bend themselves into a pretzel so they can suck their own dick."

Any retort Sybok might have made was cut-off by the sound of Lincoln's communicator beeping.

"That'll probably be Aphroodle calling to give me a report." Lincoln pulled his communicator from his belt. "It'll probably take me three hours to figure out what he's saying. Why don't you go and teach the natives something?"

"Orion Sexual Meditation?" Sybok practically threw himself at Lincoln with excitement.

"Sure, whatever." Lincoln waved Sybok off as he flipped open his communicator and began listening to Aphroodle's report.

"Team One to Team Two," Doz's voice crackled in Terence's ear. "What's it look like on your end?"

"So far it looks like the orbital survey was right, for once, and most of the sections of the Klingon ship that impacted away from the core are largely intact. I don't know how they survived the impact. I would have thought the ship would have hit with enough force to vaporize half the moon." Terence was standing in the debris field created when the starboard propulsion unit impacted Neural's moon. The unit had broken off from the main body, which tumbled, shedding sections and bouncing up into space before coming back down on the port unit, which also broke off the ship. The main section had come down next, shearing off the boom, and when the main section had impacted again, hundreds of kilometers away, the containment field around the warp core collapsed causing the explosion Lincoln and the others had seen from the surface.

"Aphroodle would have had the warp drive cycling on and off pretty rapidly. That close into Neural, we'd have been in danger of shifting the planet's orbit had he thrown it on at full power and left it there. So, when the ship hit, it probably wasn't really going all that fast. Done right, they may have hit with slightly more than terminal velocity for this place.

"I've got to say, Aphroodle's shown himself to be a damn site cleverer than I thought a Pakled could be. Not only did he manage to take out the Klingon ship, but he did it in a manner which allows us to scavenge it for spare parts! Hell, if Jim Kirk was twice as good as he thinks he is, he couldn't have done half as well!" Doz was exultant as he spoke.

"You know," Terence was squatting down, trying to examine some of the debris, while silently cursing the screening that covered the faceplate of his spacesuit helmet. "The hull plating on the Klingon ship is better than what we've got on ours, we'd be stupid if we just left it here. I don't know how long it'd take for us to adapt it to the Nixon, but we'd stand a better chance of surviving this mission with it added to our hull."

"No shit." Doz stopped walking and studied the readout on the compartment door of the propulsion unit section he was examining. He grabbed his Tricorder and let it scan the display in order for it to be translated. "Hey! I found a compartment that's got pressure in it! How much do you want to bet that there's still Klingons alive in it?"

"No bet." Terence grinned. "Even if you can't get a reading through the hull, the way the sections spun around, everybody in that ship probably got turned into goo."

"You're a smart man," Doz pulled out his phaser and used it to cut the section most likely to provide power to the magnetic locks holding the compartment doors closed. "I'm going in here and I don't want to wait to drag a portable airlock over. So if they're not dead now, they will be as soon as I get this door open."

The lights on the panel by the doors suddenly went out, and there was a slight shift to the doors. Doz released the trigger on his phaser, re-holstered it, and began scanning the area for something to pry the doors open with. Spotting something a few meters away that he thought might work, he bounded over, grabbed it, leapt back, a feat made possible by the low gravity of the moon, jammed it into the door crack, and put his weight against it to try and force the doors open.

As the doors sprung open, a thin purple mist drifted out. Doz stepped into the compartment and had a look around. He guessed that it was some kind of auxiliary control room. Why the hell anyone would need such a thing located in the propulsion unit in an era when computer technology was so sophisticated was beyond him. But then again, the Nixon had a similar set up it in her nacelles and she was some fifty years old. It was almost as if everything in the universe had been designed around the middle of the 20th Century on Earth. A crazy idea, he would be the first to admit, but not any crazier than any number of other beliefs found in the Federation.

"Man, this place looks like Jackson Pollock threw up in it!"

"Who?" Terence was grunting as he pried open a compartment on his propulsion unit.

"A mid-20th Century wife beating alcoholic who made his living randomly pouring colored chemicals on pieces of cloth."

"That was a thing?" Terence stumbled into his compartment. It looked like an access tunnel junction. There was some kind display on the opposite wall with a series of concentric circles cut into wedge shapes. He stared at it for a few moments and then realized that it was some kind of countdown timer. It couldn't be an auto-destruct, as that would have gone off already. Most likely, it was to alert the crew how much reserve power they had left in the section.

"Yeah, we learned about it in Applied Historical Psychology. They called it 'art,' but in reality, it was more a manifestation of how damaged their society was, than anything else. They prided themselves on being peaceful, even while they killed millions of people, and the fact that they thought works which couldn't even have a basic form of composition showed their unwillingness to put any serious effort into any number of tasks.

"It really began to manifest itself a few decades after Pollock's death. One of the great powers would trump up reasons to invade a smaller country, proceed to blow the shit out of it, and instead of sticking around to do a massive rebuilding effort, would just leave, claiming that there was nothing they could really do and that the natives were savages. Even though this would bite them on the ass years later, they never learned from their mistakes and kept doing it."

"Sounds awful."

"It wasn't all bad. Their spacesuits, for example, didn't have these stupid cheese grater things over the helmet. They also had these things called 'mobile phones' which were like our communicators combined with a Tricorder. And they had cameras small enough to mount on their helmets, complete with a radio transmitter. They could beam live video back to their ships, or even to the opposite side of the planet."

"Its the 23rd Century! Why don't we have shit like that?"

"Unfortunately, in 2020 a consortium of technology companies managed to lock up all the patents on the technology."

"But, the Resource Wars of the mid-21st Century bankrupted all the corporations!" Terence exploded.

"Never underestimate the power of lawyers to really fuck things up."

"And they think us 7Gers are the dumb ones! When they formed the first united Earth government in 2200 they should have tossed out all those old laws."

"Hey, guys!" Stamper's voice interrupted the conversation. "I'm up here in the bow section and guess what I found!"

"Zefram Cochran?"

"Funny. We found him last year. No, their torpedoes are intact and so's the reserve of antimatter used to power them!"

"Whoa." Doz stopped trying to figure out the controls. "We'd better let the ship know. This gives me an idea."

Lincoln listened intently to the word salad coming out of his communicator. From what he'd been able to piece together, Aphroodle had taken out the Klingon ship by clever use of the warp drive, and that there had been a small band of Klingon shock troops on the Nixon, but they'd been taken care of, with no one important killed. If Section 7G was for the rejects that couldn't be kicked out of Starfleet, then the floor buffers in 7G were the absolute bottom of the barrel. The engineering teams on Neural's moon had not only found valuable pieces of the Klingon ship that they could deliver to Starfleet Intelligence the next time they stopped at a Starbase (along with the two surviving Klingon prisoners), but they had plenty of material with which to upgrade the Nixon, as well as put a system in place which would keep the Klingons from returning to this world. Clearly, Pakled's weren't nearly as dumb as they seemed, if Aphroodle was able to pull all of this off.

"Aphroodle," Lincoln said after the Pakled had finished giving his report. "Remind me to give you a commendation once we get back to the ship. You have singlehandedly done more to help Starfleet Intelligence than anyone else in the Federation. If Starfleet had any sense, they'd move us all out of 7G after this, but I think we all know that's out of the question.

"I'm going to have Sybok send up a list of supplies we need, and once you've gotten them down to us, your orders are to go back to the moon and use all available personnel to strip the Klingon wreckage and get everything ready. Put the prisoners in stasis if that'll let you get more people on the moon. We're two weeks or so behind the Enterprise, and I don't have any idea of what Kirk's up to. Even if he hasn't fucked anything up yet, he'll do it soon enough, and the farther behind him we are, the harder it'll be to fix. Given the kind of clusterfuck this has turned out to be, I hate to think of what he'll do next. Lincoln out."

Lincoln flipped shut his communicator and headed off to find Sybok. He'd said something about teaching the natives Orion Sexual Meditation, which meant he was probably in trouble in the Hill People's camp. Hopefully they hadn't killed him, breaking in a new first officer was always tough, and the odds of getting another Vulcan were pretty slim.

Entering the camp, he asked the first person he saw if they knew where Sybok was. They pointed him to a tent some distance away that had clouds of smoke billowing out of it. Lincoln ran over to the tent, assuming that it was on fire, with Sybok having been tied up by the natives and deliberately torched.

"Sybok!" He flung open the tent flap and peered inside, expecting to find a raging inferno. Instead, he found Sybok glassy eyed, naked save the furs he was wrapped in, cuddling with a native woman, beside what was obviously a giant incense burner.

"Henry!" Sybok waved affectionately to him. "You've got to try this stuff! Both the, what did you call it my dear?"

"Narito." The woman giggled and waved to Lincoln.

"Both narito and Yrucrem here," Sybok gestured to the woman. "Are fucking mindblowing. And Yrucrem is good at both fucking and blowing!"

The woman giggled, and nuzzled Sybok gently.

"Maybe later, Sybok." Lincoln didn't want to think of all the possible ramifications of Sybok offering him both a powerful drug and a piece of tail. It could provoke a diplomatic incident, or it could be the time of his life, and he didn't have time to figure out which. "I need you to pull yourself together and come up with a list of things we need from the Nixon before she leaves orbit."

"Leaves orbit?" Sybok was suddenly sober. "Where's she going?"

"Back to Neural's moon. Aphroodle's got two teams of engineers there going over the wreck of the Klingon ship to try and salvage as much of it as possible as well as set up a defense system for this planet to keep the Klingons from coming back."

"I thought that the Klingon ship hit the moon and was destroyed." Sybok staggered around the tent, trying to keep from falling over as he gathered up his clothes.

"Nope. Aphroodle managed the impossible. He killed the Klingons, except for two that are locked up in the Nixon's brig, and neutralized their ship. One he gets back to the moon, most of the ship's crew are going down to the moon to strip the wreck. We'll bring their data banks and a few other things with us to the next Starbase we stop at. The armor plating from their hull will be used to re-enforce ours, we'll upgrade our weapons with some of theirs, and the rest of them, along with the superstructure will be used for a planetary defense system."

"Holy, fuck!" Sybok stumbled out of the tent, half-dressed. Lincoln couldn't help but notice that the whites of Sybok's eyes were green, this confused him for a moment, before he realized that this was the Vulcan equivalent of being bloodshot. "How did the retard manage to pull all that off?"

"Fuck if I know, but its the biggest goddamn thing anybody's done to get Klingon hardware into Starfleet's hands. No matter what, no matter how shitty it is being stuck in Section 7G, they can never take this away from us. Fuck Jim Kirk and the rest of Starfleet command! They can treat us like shit all they want, but we're the ones who save their asses."

"So, what's this list of things you want me to get to the Nixon?" Sybok was completely dressed by this point.

"I was thinking, we need to do more than just give these people writing and the other things we've talked about. The key to any civilization developing is rapid communication over long distances. They'll no doubt be able to figure out how to do it with messengers once they domesticate something like a horse, but that could take years, if not decades. In the meantime, these small groups we've been dealing with could be wiped out by disease or natural disaster. How much trouble do you think it would be to teach them how to build a telegraph?"

"Hmm." Sybok sniffed his fingertips as he thought. "They're almost at the necessary metallurgical level, but I don't know if this planet has something like rubber which could be used for insulating the wiring. I'm assuming you're wanting to get all of this done as quickly as possible?"

Lincoln nodded.

"In that case," Sybok began gesturing to illustrate his points. "What we need is something that they can use with the skills they presently have. I have an idea, its not a perfect solution, but it will do almost everything a telegraph can do, and the skills needed to operate can be easily taught. A heliograph."

"Heliograph? What's that?"

"Its basically a fancy signaling mirror. During the day, it'll reflect the sun's light to send messages, at night, they can power it with a candle or a lamp. Its limited to line-of-sight, but the range is several miles, more if they install the system on top of towers and use larger mirrors."

"And when they do develop the telegraph, they can use the heliograph towers to string the wires. I like it. Have Aphroodle make up a couple hundred, and send down anyone onboard who's trained as a xenopologist or at least taken a course on it at the academy. There's no way the three of us can teach the Hill People how to read, and we still have to make contact with the village people and start teaching them. We're going to need more help. I want us to be ready to leave when the Nixon gets back from building the defense system on the moon."

Lincoln gestured to indicate that Sybok should call the Nixon and headed off in search of Tyree. He wanted to see how he was doing after Hatfield's treatments. He also hoped to find if there was a way that they could ensure at least a temporary truce between the Hill People and the village people. If they could meet under a flag of truce, it would make things easier for them to begin teaching the village people how to read. Without it, they could potentially have a very difficult time.

He found Tyree in the center of the camp, holding court. As with all societies, there were disputes between individuals, and as tribal leader, Tyree had to spend at least a portion of every day settling them. While he waited, Lincoln enjoyed the peace and quiet of Neural. Sure, they didn't have anything approaching modern medicine, transporters, warp drive, anti-grav units, or the other things people in the Federation took for granted, but they also didn't have all the noise, constant distractions, and rapid pace found in the Federation. If only there was some way that they could duplicate the peacefulness of this world, perhaps put it in a section of the ship, so they could take it with them, and could pop into it whenever the mission got to be a bit too much for them.

Ten minutes after having that thought, Lincoln realized how incredibly bored he was. All he could do, was to sit and wait for Tyree to finish handling the natives problems, which were pretty damned dull. One tribe member was upset at another tribe member because the first thought that the second had cheated him on a trade. Another tribe member was seeking Tyree's help in getting a woman's father to allow him to marry her. A third tribe member wanted to know why Tyree had forbade him from owning a flintlock. The fact that he'd accidentally shot four other members of the tribe the one time he'd been allowed to use the weapon, didn't seem to strike him as a valid enough reason.

Eventually, the petitioners were all heard, and Tyree motioned for Lincoln to approach him. Lincoln got up, bowed his head respectfully towards Tyree, and stepped forward.

"Tyree, I was wondering, do you and the village people have some kind of signal you give to one another to indicate when you wish to talk to one another and are not there to fight?"

"No, we do not." Tyree seemed genuinely puzzled by the concept. "When the village people see us, they try and kill us, and when we see them, we try to do the same. We no longer talk to one another. Why do you ask?"

"If we are to return your world to peace, then we must give our magic to the village people as well as to you."

"I must admit that I am not impressed with most of the magic you have shown us so far." Tyree's tone was curt. "Your healer has done me much good with his magic, but the other magic, all is the same as it was before. And the pointed eared one, all he does is burn the narito and sleep with our women."

"I apologize," Lincoln was conciliatory. "As I said before, our magic takes much time to learn, and with just the three of us here, it has been difficult to devote the necessary time to teach you. I assure you that is going to change shortly. More of my people will be here shortly, and they will dedicate all their time to teaching our magic to your people.

"I was just hoping that you had some method of having a temporary truce with the village people. It would make it easier for us to start the process of teaching them the good magic. That is something we will have to work on."

"Will your magic still work if the people of the village do not wish to learn it?"

"It some ways it will be more powerful for you, if they don't learn it. In other ways it will be less powerful."

"What if they learn it faster than we do?"

"Then they will be slightly more powerful than you. However, the magic we are giving you both is the kind that will help your peoples, not make it easier to kill one another."

"And what if the Dark Skinned Ones return?"

"That's unlikely to happen. We have killed the ones who have been coming here, teaching the village people how to kill, and my people are busy working on a way to protect your planet, so that you never have to worry about them returning."

"I am concerned by all of this," Tyree shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Clearly, he was not relieved by Lincoln's answers to his questions. "You say you will give us great magic, which will help us to restore peace to our world, but you cannot promise that it will work. You say that you must give this magic to the village people, but you cannot promise that they will not master it faster than we do. They have killed a great many of my people, and there is much hatred between us. If they learn this magic faster than we are able and decide to use it for killing us, how will we be able to stop them?"

"Tyree, my people cannot remain here for much longer. At best, it will only be a few weeks, and we have much to teach you." Lincoln didn't mention that he was going to try and get some crew members to volunteer to stay behind for a few months until the Nixon could return to pick them up, since he didn't know if anyone would agree to it. "How long is it going to take before the village people trust us? A day? A week? Maybe never. Regardless, your people will have a head start on learning this magic. It will be up to you to keep that head start.

"And think about this: Even though Kirk gave you the same number of thundersticks that the village people have, you're still at a disadvantage because you haven't had them as long as they have. Right now, with as little magic as we have given you, you are at least equal, in terms of knowledge, to the village people. No matter what happens, your people now stand a fighting chance."

There was a sharp crack in the distance. Lincoln turned to face the noise.

"The village people are coming!" Tyree rose to his feet to begin shouting commands. "My people! We are under attack! Get the women, children, and the elders to the caves! The rest of you, we must go!"

While Tyree was giving orders and gathering his weapons, Lincoln pulled his communicator from his belt, flipped open the lid, and set it to three-way communication.

"Sybok! Hatfield! Drop whatever you're doing, grab your phasers, and meet me in the center of the camp now!" Without waiting for a reply, Lincoln closed up his communicator and replaced it on his belt, then removed his phaser, set it to stun, and waited for the others to arrive.

Hatfield was the first to arrive, Sybok took a moment or two longer. Both of them had their phasers out, looking anxious. There was the sound of more gunfire, the Hill People had all taken their positions, leaving the three Starfleet officers alone in the center of the camp.

"Set your phasers to stun," Lincoln kept a watchful eye in the direction Tyree and his men had gone. "We don't know how many of the villagers there are, but I want to try and take some of them alive. We may be able to use them as bargaining chips to open up negotiations with the villagers."

The others nodded.

"Sybok, Tyree and his men went in the direction of that big tree," Lincoln pointed as he spoke. "I want you to go about halfway between that tree and that ridge on the left. Doctor, you go to the right, about halfway between the big tree and that other tree over there. I'll follow directly behind Tyree and his men. Get ahead of them, if you can, and stun any of the village people that you see. Hopefully, Tyree's men won't attack a man when he's down, but if you have to, don't hesitate to stun his people as well. Now, go!"

The three of them headed off in their separate directions. Lincoln's mind was racing to try and figure out what to do if they got there too late, or if Tyree and his men weren't amenable to letting at least some of the villagers live. If he could stop some of the killing now, it was their best chance at restoring peace among these people.

It took Lincoln a few minutes to catch up to Tyree and the others. He nearly got himself shot in the process, because while they were creeping through the brush, in order to try and regain the upper hand on the villagers, Lincoln was racing at a breakneck pace, crashing loudly through the undergrowth. One of Tyree's men, upon hearing the noise, assumed that it was either a Mugato, or that one of the villagers had managed to slip around them, and was coming up behind them. Thankfully, the man had enough sense to hold his fire until he had a clear shot, and when he saw that it was Lincoln, he lowered his rifle, after gesturing that Lincoln should be quiet.

The two of them then crept slowly through the brush until they met up with Tyree. Tyree motioned for Lincoln to crawl beside him, and pointed to the body of a man, lying crumpled at the bottom of a cliff.

"The villagers have killed one of our sentries." His whispered faintly as he spoke. "I've sent some of my men around to try and find the villagers. We will wait here to see if the villagers come this way."

"Tyree, Sybok and Dr. Hatfield are to the far left and right of us." Hatfield pointed in both directions. "They're going to try and stop the villagers, but not kill them. Our weapons allow us to put someone to sleep if we so choose, and that's what Sybok and Hatfield are going to do. Your men, will they do anything to the villagers once they're down?"

"My men will kill the villagers, that is what they have to do, otherwise the villagers will kill us." Tyree spoke as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "And I do not believe that you have a weapon which can make men sleep. Otherwise, Jim Kirk would have given them to us."

Lincoln adjusted his phaser to the lowest possible setting.

"See that man there," he pointed to one of Tyree's men crouching a few meters away from them. "Watch!"

Lincoln fired a short burst and the man toppled over. Tyree and the others gaped in horror at the sight. A few of them pointed their weapons at Lincoln. Tyree waved at them to keep looking for the villagers.

"Why have you killed Demang?" Tyree hissed. "I thought you were here to help us!"

"Give it a moment!" Lincoln hissed back. "I swear to you, he's only sleeping! He'll wake in a couple of minutes."

"What are minutes?"

"A short period of time. If he doesn't wake up, I'll let you kill me in retribution, and my people will continue to help you. You have my word."

They lay there, quietly, waiting. Both Tyree and Lincoln would alternate looking in the direction that the villagers were most likely to come from, and then back in the direction of the stunned man. After what seemed like an eternity, the man began to stir. Lincoln and Tyree both breathed a sigh of relief. Tyree in that the man was still alive, and Lincoln because the man had woken before Tyree had decided to kill Lincoln.

"Why haven't they shown themselves?" Tyree demanded. "Is it possible your men have found them and put them to sleep?"

"No." Lincoln shook his head. "They would have let me know if that happened."

A blank expression came over Lincoln's face, and then he suddenly got up, motioning for the others to do the same. His face was filled with panicked urgency.

"Shit!" He shouted. "It was a diversion! They're attacking the camp from some other direction!"

As if to punctuate his statement, a woman's loud scream was heard.

"The caves! They're at the caves!" Tyree's voice matched Lincoln's in tone and volume. "Hurry!"

Lincoln pulled out his communicator and informed the others as they ran towards the caves. He hoped they were in time to prevent too many of the Hill People from being killed. It would be hard to convince the Hill People to attempt to make peace with the village people if there was a mass slaughter. Tyree's influence over his people only went so far, and a pile of dead Hill People would set the survivors against the villagers, no matter what Tyree wished.

Pounding into the clearing at the center of the camp, they saw a woman Lincoln didn't recognize, screaming. She was dressed not as the Hill People, but in the manner of the villagers. Instantly, his mind put together what was going on.

"It's a trap!" He tackled Tyree to the ground as the sound of gunfire erupted from the trees on the opposite sides of the clearing.

They rolled, coming to a stop with Lincoln on top of Tyree. There was a second barrage of gunfire as Tyree's people fired wildly. Then silence.

It took Lincoln a moment to figure out what was going on. None of them had learned to stagger their fire in waves! He had maybe a minute or two before the villagers were ready to return fire, and then as long before Tyree's people were ready to fire.

Leaping to his feet, he set his phaser to wide, pulled the trigger, holding it down as he turned in a circle, hoping to knock out as many of the village people as he could before they drew a bead on him. Unconscious bodies rained down from the trees as the beam swept over them. The phaser began to grow uncomfortably warm in his hands, but he didn't care. All that mattered was he stopped the two groups from shooting at one another. To that end, he allowed his beam to play over both Hill People and villager. Even if everybody was out cold, it was still better than Tyree's people hacking away at the unconscious villagers.

The phaser's low charge alarm began beeping, but Lincoln ignored it. He repeatedly swept the area, hoping that he would catch anyone who'd been hiding behind an obstruction on a subsequent pass. When the phaser died, he tossed it aside and quickly surveyed the area. It looked like there were close to 30 villagers unconscious on the ground, which meant that this must have been a major raid on the villagers part. The fact that Lincoln was still standing after several minutes of making himself an easy target meant that he either knocked out all the villagers, or those that were still conscious had fled.

"I think it's over." He reached down to help a slightly confused Tyree to his feet. The few Hill People that had been closest to them, and thus been missed by Lincoln's phaser, began to stand up.

"Is anyone hurt?" Tyree asked of his men who were gaping in amazement at the scene around them.

The men standing indicated that they were all okay. Tyree glanced at Lincoln.

"Take your men and go see if the others are safe, but send someone back as quickly as you can with enough rope to tie the villagers up."

"What for?"

"I'm going to try and use them to bargain with the village elders."

Tyree seemed puzzled, but didn't question Lincoln's answer. He agreed to send someone with rope and joined his men in running towards the caves.

Lincoln walked over to one of the unconscious villagers when he heard Hatfield calling his name. Turning, he saw Hatfield on the edge of the clearing, leaning up against a tree, gasping.

"Henry, are you okay?" He wheezed.

"Fine, but my phaser's dead. Where's Sybok?"

"Right here!" Lincoln turned to his left to see Sybok loping into the clearing.

Before any of them could say anything, the air filled with the sound of a transporter beam materializing something. Soon, the shimmering forms of six people began to take shape behind Sybok. Lincoln's eyes darted around looking for cover. It should be crew members from the Nixon, but it was always possible that another Klingon ship had showed up and taken the Nixon by surprise. He relaxed when he saw that it was crew members of the Nixon.

"Brigman!" He called out when they fully materialized. "Is this everybody?"

"No, sir. We've got 18 more coming, plus the supplies."

"Good. I need everyone to spread out and cover the folks unconscious here. Put your phasers on stun and shoot anyone who moves, unless I say otherwise."

The group spread out as ordered, and a second group began to materialize in the same spot as the first. In between giving orders to the new arrivals, Lincoln called up to the ship and had them add some portable charge packs to items being sent down. Hatfield moved amongst the unconscious figures, checking to see if any of them needed medical attention, while Sybok ran to see how things were going at the caves where the Hill People were hiding.

As the fourth group began to materialize, Sybok, along with a couple of the children from the camp, returned to the clearing. All of them were carrying bundles of rope.

"What's it look like back there, Sybok?" Lincoln asked.

"It doesn't appear that the village people made it to the caves. Tyree and his men are scouring the area, just to be sure, but I think no one got past us."

"Good." Lincoln turned to address everyone. "Ok, folks, get some rope, and any of these folks on the ground wearing cloth needs to be tied up. Hands, feet, legs, and arms. Don't worry about the ones wearing hides, they're Tyree's people. If they try to hurt anyone tied up, stun them, but nothing more. Doctor, what're we looking like in terms of injuries?"

"Not bad." Hatfield straightened up from the man he was bending over. "So far, it looks to be nothing more than minor cuts and scratches."

"Good." Lincoln then began helping the final team to beam down as they moved the supplies out of the landing zone.

Either Sybok or Aphroodle, Lincoln didn't know which, had decided to that there needed to be four different versions of heliographs. Two were nearly identical tripod units, except of different heights, one was a large unit, designed to be mounted on a large tower, and the last one was a compact unit that could be worn on the chest of the operator. All of them were simply designed, so that they could be easily replicated by the natives and used either a candle or an oil lamp for illumination, save for the large one, which required a small fire.

Captain's Log: Stardate 4225.6 The only casualty from the raid was the lone sentry of the Hill People who was killed as part of the diversion. Despite some objections from Tyree and his people, we were able to capture all of the raiders alive. Now, the task is to see if we can open relations with the village people.

Myself, Sybok, Dr. Hatfield, and twelve of the ship's crew that beamed down to the surface, are taking half of the captured villagers, as well as some of the books, printing presses, and heliographs to the village, in hopes of opening negotiations with Apella, the leading elder of the village. The remaining twelve members who beamed down to the planet are staying behind in the Hill People's camp, not only to guard the remaining prisoners, but to begin the process of teaching the Hill People how to read and how to use the heliographs.

My hope is that by only delivering half our prisoners to the village people, they will agree to a truce with the Hill People, and this will allow us to start teaching them as well. If we should fail in our mission, I take full responsibility, and recommend that any personnel killed be given posthumous commendations.

"Why are you doing this?" The villager, Lincoln learned was named Nonac and was the leader of the raid, asked. Like the other members of the raiding party who were being returned to the village, had his arms and hands bound tightly about him. Unlike the others, he also had a large white flag on stick dangling from his bindings and was in at the head of the group walking in the direction of the village.

"Because," Lincoln was walking behind the man, with his phaser pointed at him. "You people have been corrupted by the Dark Skinned Ones, and if we don't help you to learn how to be civilized, then you'll either wipe yourselves out, or become slaves to the Dark Skinned Ones. We don't wish that to happen."

"The Dark Skinned Ones are our friends!" Nonac stumbled, but managed to recover before he fell. "They gave us the thundersticks!"

"And rewarded you for killing the Hill People, who were your friends before the Dark Skinned Ones arrived." Lincoln's tone was dour. "Its an old 'game' my people call 'divide and conquer.' To defeat an enemy, you get him to split off into two groups and then trick them into fighting one another. Then, when one of them emerges victorious, you attack him, because he is now smaller and weaker than he was before you divided his forces.

"Had you and the Hill People remained friends, the Dark Skinned Ones would have been forced to find some other place to conquer, and many of your friends and family might still be alive."

"I do not believe this. Why would they do that?"

"Because this place is a paradise and has much to offer, but they have an agreement with us that your people are to be left alone until you decide who you want to be friends with. Given your nature, if left alone, you would most likely not choose to be friends with the Dark Skinned Ones. So they give you the thundersticks, and tell you to kill your friends the Hill People. Turning paradise into a nightmare, and making it easy to conquer your people."

They reached the flat ground, which meant they were just over a kilometer away from the village. Lincoln halted the procession and motioned for Sybok to come over to him.

"Take your Tricorder and scan for the location of any sentries that might be waiting for us."

"It doesn't appear that they have seen us, yet." Sybok said as he studied the readings. "There's a lot of activity in the village, so its probably only a matter of time before someone comes this way."

"Ok," Lincoln moved so he was in front of Nonac, facing him. "We're going to remain here. You're going to walk to the village and tell Apella that we're here under a flag of truce, which means that we will do you no harm. Explain to him that he and his closest advisors are to come here, unarmed, so that we may talk. If he does this, the people we have brought with us will be set free, and we will give him gifts greater than any the Dark Skinned Ones have given him. We will discuss releasing the others being held in the Hill People's camp when he comes. If any of my people are harmed, or he does not agree to come out here unarmed, he will never see the people we have captured again. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Now, go!"

Nonac ran towards the village carefully, trying not to stumble and fall as he went.

"Ok, prisoners," Lincoln said once he was sure Nonac was out of earshot. "Sit down and don't say anything. The rest of you take cover as best you can. I don't know how well we can trust the villagers to honor the terms, so I want to be prepared in case they try something. Sybok, Brigman, I want the two of you to take a forward position. If the villagers head this way carrying weapons, I want you to stun them as soon as they're in range. Disarm them while they're out, then fall back to your cover, and wait for them to wake up. I don't want to kill any of these people unless we absolutely have to."

Surprisingly, the prisoners obeyed their instructions. There was some confusion amongst the crew about what to do with the sleds laden with the gear that they'd drug this far. Eventually, they decided to leave them where they were, so that the villagers could see that there were gifts, as promised. Lincoln took up position behind the prisoners in order to keep an eye on them. Then, they waited in the warm sun.

He'd been standing there for about half an hour when his communicator beeped.

"Lincoln here."

"Sybok here, captain. Just thought I'd let you know that the villagers are in sleepytown right now."

"What happened?"

"A dozen of the villagers were headed in this direction, half of them armed. Brigman and I stunned them and disarmed them, just as you ordered. They'll probably be out for another fifteen minutes."

"When they come to, Sybok, I want either you or Brigman to inform them that they will not be allowed to return to the village until they come to see me. Stun them if you have to, but I don't want them going back there until I've had a chance to talk to Apella."

"Understood, Sybok out."

"Remember this moment!" Lincoln spoke loudly so that all the prisoners could hear him. "My people could have killed your people, but we choose not to, because we wish to talk. We believe that there is more to be gained by talking, than there is by killing."

Lincoln then waited, assuming that Sybok would be calling him back in a few minutes to let him know that the villagers were on their way. Instead, the time began to drag on.

It was two hours before Lincoln heard from Sybok, and then the news was not at all what he expected.

"Captain, this just isn't working." Sybok's frustration was evident in his voice.

"What's wrong?" Lincoln stared at the prisoners, still seated uncomfortably in the hot sun. Several of them had soiled themselves.

"Well, we stunned them, took away their weapons, and then after they woke up, explained to them that they were going to have to come and see you."

"So? What's wrong?"

"Instead of heading in your direction, they turned and tried to run back to the village, so we stunned them again. When they woke up, we told them that they were going to have to go see you, and again, they tried to make a break for it, so we stunned them again. Captain, that's all we've been doing for the past two hours."

Lincoln smacked his forehead with his communicator before speaking again.

"Ok, Sybok. Just start dragging them up here while they're out. Maybe once they see that everybody's alive, they'll hold still long enough for us to talk to them."

"Ok, and Henry, could you please not hit yourself with you communicator? Its painfully loud on this end when you do that."

"Sorry, Sybok. Lincoln out." He returned his communicator his belt and sighed heavily. "God, you people are so stupid!"

Chief Engineer's Log: Stardate 4225.6 We orbit Neural moon. Have meeting with engineering teams to plan Neural defense.

Despite most of the engineering department and nearly all of the ship's other crews being on the moon, busily dismantling the wrecked Klingon ship, the main conference room was still standing room only, with just the senior officers and the heads of the engineering teams. Aphroodle called the meeting to order once he was certain everyone was in the room.

"Shut up!" Aphroodle pounded the table to make sure he had everyone's attention. "Doz, Stamper, Terence smart. Have big idea. They talk."

"Ok," Terence was the first of the trio to speak. Slides appeared on the Visiscreen behind him that presented bullet points of his comments. "The way we see it, there are a number of issues we have to take into account in designing a defense system for this planet.

"The first is that we have no idea how long its going to need to last. Starfleet regulations prohibit us from having significant interference in a primitive society until they have developed warp drive. Of course, we're violating those regulations now, but we were kind of forced into this position by the Klingons. Still, while we'll be able to get a pass on what we're doing, because we managed to salvage considerable valuable information from the Klingon ship, there's no way we can talk Starfleet into sending routine repair ships to this system. We also don't know how long its going to take the natives to come up with warp drive.

"On Earth, it took us approximately five and a half thousand years to go from where the natives are today to the discovery of warp drive, depending upon how you want to look at things. If civilizations like Rome, ancient Greece, or the Indus Valley Civilization hadn't collapsed, we might have gotten there sooner. Those of you from planets other than Earth, don't ask me how to compare it to your world, I never took Comparative Civilizations at the Academy."

Terence paused to let the small murmur of laughter die down before he continued.

"We're also handing the Neuralians a variety of information which appeared at different times in various civilizations. In some ways, they're now equal to an Industrial Age society on Earth, in other ways, they're more advanced. Our best bet, I think, is to aim for a system that's still functional ten thousand years from now. That way, if something goes wrong, and they have several regressions, there's still a defense system protecting them.

"Which raises two big problems for us," he continued. "The first is that it has to have enough power and be reliable enough to last that long. The second is that in ten thousand years, or even a dozen, the power of the weapons won't be enough to defeat the shields of a starship. Thankfully, the limitations of Klingon technology have given us a solution to these problems.

"Since Klingons would rather be out there dying in battle, than fixing their equipment, they've made it dead simple, for greater reliability. Which means there's tons of redundancy in the parts they use. Even with taking their main computer system and data banks, combined with the fact that the bulk of the ones used in the defense system are going to be idle for most of their operational life. We can provide an incredible amount of back up systems, and our estimates are, with even the normal failure rate of a ship that often sees combat, we'll have enough functioning systems at the end of ten thousand years to ensure that Neural will be protected for a thousand more, if they need it.

"Next, because unlike us, the Klingons aren't nearly as skilled at building micro-containment vessels for anti-matter, their photon torpedoes are stored without warheads and with their containment vessels empty. The anti-matter needed for them is kept in large vessels in the weapons bay, and when they ready for combat, it is flash-pumped into the torpedoes, providing both power and the warhead.

"So, we're going to program the system to fire torpedoes at any targets which enter orbit around Neural. We're also going to adjust the storage capacity of the vessels so that they can hold millions of times more anti-matter than they do now. Once the torpedoes are gone, the defense system's computer will use that anti-matter to power the disrupter banks. It will be able to pump enough juice through those banks that the disrupters can cut through pure neutronium in pico-seconds. That should protect them against any meddlers for a long time to come."

"Where's that anti-matter going to come from?" A voice asked.

"We're going to construct solar arrays and use the Berry-Rodden Process to create it. It'll produce about a pound a day, which doesn't sound like much, but over the centuries, it'll really start to add up." Terence's reply had all the ease of someone who'd thought a problem out completely. "I'll let Stamper take it from here."

Terence stepped back and away from the screen, allowing Stamper to move forward.

"Besides the issues that Terence raised, we have a couple of other problems." Stamper began. "The first is that nobody knows what Klingon starships are going to look like in the future, and there's an almost infinite number of designs for ships that unscrupulous folks like Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones might use when they decide to stop by and exploit the natives. There's really only one solution that's secure, and that's to program the system to fire upon any ship that doesn't come from Neural. This means, once we leave this system, nobody comes back, until the Neuralians have developed the technology to travel to their moon. Upon detecting the presence of Neuralian DNA, the system will automatically shutdown.

"Now, to prevent anyone from accidentally entering the system and getting blown to bits, we'll place warning beacons at the edges of their solar system informing anyone approaching that their ship will be destroyed if they travel to Neural. After that, if they decide to enter the system, well, they're screwed.

"Our next problem is the most critical: What happens if the containment vessels fail? The Neuralians will be left defenseless, but that's not necessarily the big worry. A few hundred years from now, if the vessels fail, they'll release enough energy to shift the moon in its orbit, which would be disastrous for Neural. In a few thousand years, it'll be enough to shatter the moon, sending massive amounts of debris raining down on Neural.

"Here is our solution," behind Stamper on the screen appeared a graphic of Neural's moon, showing a cross section of the moon, with a large hollow space where the core once was and four large tunnels extending to the surface. "We're going to construct tunnels leading to the center of the moon, which we will then hollow out. The containment vessels will be located in what used to be the core, if they blow, then the path of the explosions will be through the tunnels, which will keep the moon intact, and make minimal changes to its orbit, if any."

"How the hell are we going to get all that shit out of there?" A voice shouted. "It'll take ages to cut through that with the ship's phasers! Even if we use the Klingon's disrupters, it won't be quick!"

"We're going to use the mining technique developed by our own Chief Engineer, Mr. Aphroodle." Stamper smiled. "By using the ship's transporters, along with the ones on the Klingon ship, we'll simply beam the material out. If the tunnels seem unstable, we can seal the walls using the ship's phasers. Our estimate is that it'll take no more than a week to do this."

"What're we going to do with all the left over material? Just pile it up on the surface? That moon's got a gravity field lumpier than our moon. It'll be a bitch trying to land on there with chemical rockets. You can't expect the Neuralians to wait until they develop nuclear power to go to their own moon." Another voice asked.

"Some of the material will be distributed over the moon's surface to give it a smoother gravity field, some of it we'll scatter on the surface of Neural, and some of it we'll place in orbit around the moon."

"Why?" The first voice asked.

"For much of human history, we thought that everything revolved around the Earth because we couldn't see any moons orbiting the other planets out there. Hopefully, by having a moon orbiting their moon, the Neuralians won't make the same mistake, even if something happens and they lose all the knowledge we're giving them."

"Its a nice idea, but it won't work." Someone else said. "You can't have a stable orbit around that moon for very long unless you plan on making periodic adjustments to the orbit."

"It doesn't have to stay up there forever," Stamper replied. "We only need it to be visible for a few thousand years. That should be long enough to deeply embed it into their culture, no matter what happens. Its sudden appearance will no doubt inspire a great number of stories, and if it one day disappears, or crashes on the side of the moon visible to Neural, it'll make a huge impression. On Earth, it took centuries for Western astronomers to have the courage to defy Church beliefs about the unchanging nature of the cosmos and mention events in the skies. Even if there's an unwavering belief amongst the people that the skies do not change, having a small moon disappear, potentially in a great explosion, will be cause for comment. Doz will now explain the construction of the defense system."

Doz stepped forward, and behind him, on the screen, appeared the image of a tall, knobby looking tower on the moon's surface, with a round opening near the center of the spiked dome that capped the tower.

"Ok, I won't spend too much time describing what the tower looks like, as you can see the illustration of it there." He began. "The base of it will be ten meters in diameter, and the tower itself will be eight hundred meters tall. Located on the equator of the moon, it will be able fire upon any target entering orbit around Neural, regardless if that orbit is polar, equatorial, or some other.

"We're going to strip the armor plating from the wrecked Klingon ship and use it to re-enforce the Nixon's armor. The remaining superstructure of the ship will serve as the basis of the framework of the tower. We'll use some of the material we've mined from the moon to make thick walls for the tower, to protect it from meteor impacts.

"To the south of the tower will be located two large, circular solar arrays, each eighty meters in diameter. These will provide power for the Berry-Rodden process, and will be protected from impacts by the deflector screens cannibalized from the Klingon ship."

"Why don't we use them to protect the Nix'? We could just build larger solar arrays for the defense system to compensate for any damage." T'shaani, the Andorian asked.

"We don't know if they'll be compatible with our systems, and it'll save a large amount of time by not building the extra arrays. We will be bringing the auxiliary systems with us, to turn over to Starfleet, and if one of them 'just happens' to be compatible with our systems we might keep it for, um 'field testing' if you know what I mean.

"Now, if there's no further questions?" There were none. "Good, then we'll begin handing out the assignments. Each one of you will be in charge of a group of ten members of the regular crew. We've tried to break the crew up so that the more technically savvy members will be assigned to the harder operations, but there's always at least one idiot in every group, so be prepared to babysit someone. When you get your assignments, grab your gear and your assigned crew members.

"Once you're down on the moon, you're going to be there for a while, as the transporters are going to be tied up in mining operations, so if you need something, you'll have to wait for one of the shuttles to show up at your base camp to take you back to the ship, assuming it has room. My advice is pack everything you think there's a remote chance you might need, and be prepared to stay there until we're done."

The meeting broke up into groups as people got their assignments and began going off to get the things they needed.


Apella was trying to sleep, but someone kept slapping him, lightly, on the face, while calling his name. It was annoying and he wished it would stop, he was enjoying his nap. Of course, now that he thought about it, he wasn't terribly comfortable. His arms seemed to be pinned to his side, and it felt like he was standing up, not laying down. What was going on? If he wanted to find out, he was going to have to open his eyes, which would mean that his nap would be over, and he very much wanted the nap to continue. It was so enjoyable.

Still, it wasn't nearly as pleasant as it once was, what with all the face slapping and the calling of his name. Maybe if he opened his eyes and told the person to go away, he could go back to his nap in peace. Yes, that's what he would do. Hopefully, he wouldn't be awake so long that he was unable to return to sleep. He was, after all, the leader of the village, and people would obey him if he told them to leave him alone.

He opened his eyes and began screaming. Before him stood, not one of his villagers, nor even one of the Hill People, but a man unlike any he'd ever seen before. The man's skin was a dark brown, almost black, color, with tight, curly hair. He was clearly not one of the Dark Skinned Ones, like Krell. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Apella realized that the reason why he was so uncomfortable during his nap was because he'd been tied to a tree.

"Captain! He's awake!" Brigman shouted in the direction of the bushes where Lincoln had gone to relieve himself.

"I thought that might be what all the screaming was about." Lincoln responded while Apella was drawing a breath to commence screaming again. "If you can get him to shut up, ask him if the rule about leaving leaves of three be applies here as well. Never mind, I found something with four leaves. I'll wipe with that."

Lincoln emerged a few minutes later, fastening his pants. Apella was no longer screaming, not because he'd calmed down, but because Brigman had stuffed a piece of cloth in Apella's mouth. Lincoln approached Apella, hoping that his smile wouldn't seem menacing.

"I tell you what," Lincoln stood just in front of Apella. "I'll take the gag out of your mouth, if you promise to stop screaming. Do we have a deal?"

Apella mumbled something through the cloth. Lincoln took that as a "yes" and removed it.

"My apologies for all this, but I wasn't sure that you'd be willing to talk to us, and I'm here to make you an offer."

"Who are you? What do you want? Why have you tied me up?" Apella's voice trembled with fear.

"My name is Henry Lincoln, what I want is to talk to you, and the reason I've tied you up is because you kept trying to run away."

"I've nothing to say to you."

"That's too bad, because while my people will do you no harm, I'm certain that the Hill People will kill the lot of you, once we let you go, if you don't agree to talk with me."

"Untie me then, and I'll talk."

Lincoln pulled out his phaser, made sure it was still set to stun, and nodded his head at Brigman, who stepped behind the tree Apella was bound to, and began untying the ropes.

"If you run, I'll stun you, tie you back up, and we'll start all over again." Lincoln pointed his phaser at Apella. "I don't have a lot of time, and if you want your people to live, I suggest you keep your word."

"I always keep my word, Henry Lincoln." Apella, his arms free, began rubbing spots where the ropes had dug into his skin. "What is it that you have to say to me? I warn you, when Krell returns, he'll not be happy to hear what you've done."

"Were Krell to return, I think he'd be as likely to kill you for being a coward, as he would kill me for being Federation. Of course, there's no danger of that happening. Krell's dead."

"Impossible! Krell told me that his people are the greatest warriors to ever live! They've never been defeated!" Apella jutted his chin skyward.

"Did you see that fire on the moon some nights ago?" A wry smile traced itself along Lincoln's lips.

"Yes."

"That was Krell's ship. It crashed into the moon, killing everyone on board. He's not coming back."

"I don't believe you."

"Of course not. That'd be too easy." Lincoln ignored Apella's quizzical look. "Here's what I'm offering you, right now, we're teaching Tyree's people our most powerful magic, and we're giving them tools to use that magic in ways you can't even imagine. My people will teach your people that same magic, and give you the same tools, if you agree to stop killing Tyree's people. Refuse, and only Tyree's people will get it, and by the time we leave, they will be able to kill every one of your people."

"But, if you give us your magic, will Tyree's people continue to kill our people?"

"Tyree has given me his word that if you do not harm his people, he will not harm yours."

"Tell me about this magic of yours."

Lincoln explained, as best he could, about books, printing presses, heliographs, proper medical proceedures, and the various philosophies that they had given Tyree's people. He carefully chose his words, in order to not reveal that Tyree was tired of killing, and that much of the philosophies were related to non-violence. Apella was clearly a timid man at heart, and had been goaded into killing by Krell. If Lincoln could make Apella think that Tyree was a bloodthirsty warrior, eager to wipe out the village people unless they accepted what Lincoln was offering them, then there was a good chance that a truce might hold between the two groups long enough for Lincoln and his people to get some sense knocked into the natives.

For his part, Apella listened objectively to what Lincoln told him, and became excited when he saw a demonstration of the heliograph and the printing press. He was further impressed when the men who'd been captured on the raid assured him that they had been treated well, and that the others were unharmed.

"I am amazed by these things that you've shown and told me, Henry Lincoln." Apella began. "But-"

"Of course, there's a but." Lincoln muttered, dryly.

"But Krell has promised me that if I listen to him, I will be the ruler of this world. Can you promise me the same?"

"You know, for someone who grew up in a pacifist society, you're sure are a power hungry fuckstick." Lincoln spoke without thinking, and immediately regretted his words.

"A what?"

"Uh, a person who has unique passions." Lincoln hoped that would cover his previous comments.

"Thank you, but Krell promised me I'd rule this world, and that is what I want to do. So, unless you can say the same, I see no reason why I should listen to you."

"I can promise you this, if you do not listen to me, it will be Tyree who rules this world. Not you. If you listen to me, you might get to rule this world, that will be up to your people to decide. Tyree's people have taken the gifts we've offered them, and they are learning the magic as we speak. You and your people still have time to catch up to them, and can even learn faster, if you try hard enough. We will help you as much as we can, until we have to leave, but if you don't want our help, then the gifts we were going to give to you, and the help in learning how to use them will be given to Tyree.

"That means in less than a year, they will have thundersticks that will be able to kill many people with one shot. They will also know how to heal many of their people that you shoot. And they will know how to use the talking lights and that will enable them to bring their allies here, to kill you, without you knowing anything about it. It is your choice. Peace with Tyree's people, and much wisdom and magic, will be your reward. Continue your war with his people, and they will wipe you out in a year or two."

"But I want to be ruler of the world!" Apella stamped his foot, childishly. "Krell promised me I'd be the ruler of the world!"

"Listen, you primitive screwhead," Lincoln sighed. "I can promise you that if you don't accept our help, you'll all be dead. If you do accept our help, and I can promise you that there's a good chance you'll rule the world, if you're a wise and noble man."

"That sounds like work! I don't want to have to do work if I'm the ruler of the world! I want to be ruler so I can make other people do the work!"

"If that's the case, then the last thing you want to be is the ruler." Lincoln's tone turned confident. He believed he'd finally found the right hook with which to land Apella.

"What do you mean? As the ruler, if I tell someone to do something, they'll do it! Its as simple as that!"

"And, if you tell them something that doesn't work, they'll blame you. Do that enough times, and they'll kill you. What you want to be is the Advisor to the ruler."

"Advisor? What good is that? I don't want to be some useless cunt who just stands around, waiting for the ruler to ask me a question, I want to be giving orders to people!"

"Come here," A sly smile shown on Lincoln's face, and he drew Apella away from the others. "Only stupid Advisors stand around waiting to be asked questions. A smart Advisor knows to offer his ruler advice before he's asked for it. He also knows how to play the field."

"Play the field?" The phrase meant absolutely nothing to Apella.

"Oh, yeah," Lincoln made a show of looking around to see if anyone was within earshot. "You see, a good Advisor is someone people will talk to, before they talk to the ruler. If they're at all worried that the ruler will tell them something they don't want to hear, they'll ask his Advisor first, because they know that the ruler listens to his Advisor, and if they can get the Advisor on their side before they speak to the ruler, then they know the ruler is more likely to want to help them. Plus, an exceptional Advisor, and I think you might just be able to be one, will know just how popular his ruler is.

"Let's say, for example, that Tyree becomes ruler, and you're his Advisor. Now, if he fails to listen to your good advice and the people become angry with him, they'll probably want to kill him. You could explain things to him, and get him to understand the mistakes he's made, or, if its obvious to you that he'll never learn, you'll know who among the people would make a good ruler. You can approach that person, explain the situation to them, and enable them to become the ruler. Naturally, since you helped them become ruler, they'll want to reward you generously, and they'll also need your help, because you'll know more about being ruler than they do. Unlike a ruler, a good Advisor knows he has nothing to worry about, he will always have a job."

"I don't believe you."

"Tell me," Lincoln thought he smelled blood. "Was Krell a smart man?"

"Oh, very!" Apella was excited. "He knows so many things. He's the one who told me how to get my people to kill the Hill People!"

"So, what Krell was, then, was your Advisor."

A wave of realization washed over Apella's face. At that moment, Lincoln knew he'd sold Apella on the idea. He'd have to explain a few things to Tyree, but there was no question, now, that the two groups would be able to co-exist peacefully once more. Kirk may have thought that handing both sides weapons was a practical solution to the problem, but had he been willing to exert a little more thought, he'd have seen the better option. Of course, if Kirk could have seen a better option, then he wouldn't need Section 7G following him around, fixing his mistakes.

"I'll do it!" Apella's face shown radiantly. "You may tell Tyree that I agree to his terms."

"Excellent!" Lincoln turned to face where the others were, and shouted. "Brigman! Sybok! Let 'em go! Apella's agreed to our terms!"

"My people," Apella spoke as he rejoined the group. "Henry Lincoln has offered us many gifts if we cease killing the Hill People. I have agreed to this, for he is giving us much more than Krell ever promised us."

"What happens when Krell returns?" One of Apella's men shouted.

"Henry Lincoln says that Krell is dead, and is never coming back. I do not know if this is true or not, but if Krell does return, then I will demand that he give us gifts equal to those that Henry Lincoln is offering us. If he does not, I will send him away, for Henry Lincoln has demonstrated to me that he is the greater man than Krell."

Once all of Apella's men were freed, they helped the members of Lincoln's party gather up the items they'd brought and began heading towards the village. Lincoln pulled both Sybok and Hatfield to the side.

"Gentlemen, I'm leaving you two in charge, while I go talk to Tyree and get him to release the rest of Apella's people." Lincoln told them. "Until I rejoin you, I authorize you to take whatever steps you feel are necessary--"

Sybok's arched eyebrow stopped Lincoln, he sighed.

"Yes, Sybok, even that." Lincoln unsuccessfully tried to conceal his frustration with Sybok's seemingly one track mind. "Do whatever you feel is necessary to ensure the success of this mission. If you feel your lives are in danger, don't hesitate to stun anyone, but only kill as a last resort. I want check-ins from you every hour. Apella says that he's willing to work with us, but who knows the kind of things the Klingons have filled their heads with. This could still be a trap. On your way."

The three parted ways, and Lincoln began a fast jog back towards the Hill People's camp, his mind running over the possibilities of what could happen. He hated leaving his people with the villagers, with the ship now in orbit around Neural's moon, there was no way he could order the stunning of the entire village if he thought that things were going badly. There were times when Kirk's "Shoot first, and fuck asking questions" attitude made sense, but this really wasn't one of them. These people needed some kind of protection, and simply handing them weapons wasn't enough to ensure that both cultures would be able to survive. His "Just give them weapons and walk away" solution, if you could call it a "solution," was the same kind of short-sighted solution that led to the various wars of the early 21st Century. While its better to not muck about in the affairs of other people, if you're going to do it, then you'd better be prepared to do it for the long haul.

The men who rebuilt Europe after the second global war understood that, but it seemed like everyone else forgot that in the generations afterwards. They'd show up, and either hand the locals a bunch of weapons then leave, or they'd blow the shit out of a country, do a half-assed job of fixing things, and then leave. Even after this bit them on the ass repeatedly, they continued to do it, and the problems only became worse after the various major powers came to be wholly controlled entities of multi-national corporations. Only after the Resource Wars did humanity find the proper methods of restraining both governments and corporations, though the solution was far from perfect, as it so locked up certain technological innovations that even centuries later people were still suing one another over who had the rights to what. It was a wonder that humanity hadn't been outpaced by the rest of the galaxy.

Reaching the camp, Lincoln found Tyree studiously trying to follow the instructions being given by one of the Nixon's crew on how to write. Lincoln indicated to Tyree that he had something important to discuss with him, and Tyree quickly came over to where Lincoln was standing.

"How did it go?" Tyree asked.

"Mostly it went well. It took some time before I could get Apella to listen to me, but he has agreed to stop killing your people, provided you agree to a few things."

"What are those?"

"The first is that you release his people that you're holding."

"Done. I will see to it that they are returned to their people as soon as we're finished talking. What else?"

"This one's a bit more complicated." Lincoln hoped that he'd be able to explain things so that Tyree would understand that Lincoln hadn't committed Tyree to this possibility, but that there was a chance it could happen, and that Tyree had best be prepared for the worst. "Krell had promised Apella that one day Apella would be the ruler of the planet. I made no such promise to Apella, and explained to him that that could still happen if Apella was a decent man."

"And he was happy with this?"

"No." Lincoln sighed. "I tried making him think that you were willing to go on killing his people if you thought it was necessary, hoping he'd agree to peace. But it didn't work. He was insistent that he wanted to be the ruler and that he wouldn't lay down his arms until I made such a promise. I finally convinced him that being the ruler wasn't as good a job as he thought it was, and that being an Advisor to the ruler was a better job."

"So, he expects me to rule and he will be my Advisor?"

"Probably, but I never said that you would agree to the idea. I plan on letting you and the village people decide all of that. I will say, however, that if you decide to make Apella your Advisor, that you keep a close eye on him. He may serve you well, then again, he may decide that you're not listening to him enough and try to have you killed."

"This is not good. I do not want to continue the killing for any reason."

"I understand, and believe me, if I could have gotten Apella to agree to peace any other way, I certainly would have. There is a way for you to minimize any threat he might pose to you, though."

"What is that?"

"Amongst my people, we have a form of leadership known as 'democracy.' Sybok's prepared books on it, so don't feel you have to understand it fully now. The general idea is fairly simple. Every so many years, say four, for example, my people get together and pick a new leader. That leader rules for four years, then another is chosen to rule for four more. We sometimes pick the same leader more than once, but never more than twice.

"It is not a perfect solution, but it does solve a number of problems. If your people adopt such a system, then there is less of a chance that Apella, or some other Advisor would want to kill you, since you'd only be a leader for a short period of time."

"And when a person is no longer a leader, what happens to them?"

"Some of them go on to do great works, others sit around and grow fat, and others become Advisors to the new leader. Its really up to them."

"If I wanted to sit around and smoke narito and sleep with women, could I do that?"

"Yes, in fact, it'd probably be better for everyone if that's all you did."

"I like this idea!"

Captain's Log: Stardate 4255.5 We've been on this planet for over three weeks now, and outside of a few minor problems caused by Sybok's "teaching methods" we have been successful restoring the peaceful balance to this world. We've also managed to start both the Hill People and the villagers on the path of democracy, I'm pleased to say. Our efforts to teach the natives to read have gone well, but there is only so much you can teach someone in the brief amount of time we've been here. Several of the crew have volunteered to remain behind to continue the process after we leave. They know that by doing so, they will be trapped on this world for the rest of their lives, but they figure that this offers them greater opportunities than if they were to remain with Section 7G. I have granted their requests, and we have even found a way to aid them after we're gone.

It seems that unlike Federation starships, Klingons do not have a central computer which runs everything on board their ships. Instead, they have a number of individual computers, each one dedicated to running one part of the ship, or installed in each crew member's cabin, along with multiple backups. This has allowed us to transport a few of them down to the planet, where they will be used as teaching aids, to accelerate the process of advancing Neuralian society. An unexpected bonus of doing this is that the Klingon computers do not recognize Federation DRM, enabling us to provide them with even more teaching material.

Myself, and the other members of the crew who're not remaining behind on Neural, have returned to the ship, and are in orbit around Neural's moon. We're here to pick up the last of the engineering teams, before heading out to place the warning beacons at the edge of the solar system, and then on to find out what Kirk's managed to fuck up in our absence.

The Turbolift doors opened and Lincoln, Sybok, and Dr. Hatfield stepped out onto the bridge. Sybok took his place at the science station, and Aphroodle stood up from the captain's chair, turning to face Lincoln and Hatfield.

"Mr. Aphroodle," Lincoln said. "I cannot commend you enough for the excellent job you've done. Not only have you managed to accomplish an impossible task, but you've done it in record time.

"The same goes for the rest of you," Lincoln looked at the others on the bridge. "There's not a crew in Starfleet that could have done a better job. It's an honor to serve with you, and I will be recommending all of you for promotions and commendations."

There was a burst of applause. Lincoln waited a moment, and then held up his hand to indicate he had more to say.

"Of course," he continued. "Starfleet will ignore my recommendations, and you'll all still be stuck on this ship at your current ranks and pay. I will find a way to make this up to you. Perhaps if Kirk doesn't fuck things up too badly, we can sneak off and pay a visit to that shore leave planet again.

"Now, while we're waiting for word from the engineering teams that they're ready to go, I want to take a look at this defense system you've built. Could someone put it up on screen?"

Cornrows pushed a few buttons on her console, and an image of the tower appeared on the screen.

"Why does that look familiar to me?" Hatfield said softly.

"Oh, myyyy!" Chi-Chi exclaimed upon seeing the image. "I've had a few Klingon dicks in my day, but none of them were quite so big!"

"For chrissakes, Henry!" Hatfield snapped. "We've just built the galaxy's largest dildo!"

"Speaking from experience, captain." Chi-Chi was almost purring as he spoke. "There's nothing quite like the kind of fucking you get from a good, hard, Klingon cock. So I, for one, think its quite an appropriate design."

"Um, yes," Lincoln cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'll just have to make sure I don't include a full image of it my report."

"Captains," Cornrows interrupted. "I's gots a message froms the engineers. Theys says its gonna takes longer than theys thought to get everything done. Theys suggest thats if yous in a hurries, we's should proceed with deployings the beacons, and they'll catch up to us with the shuttles oncets theys got it finished and activated."

"Inform them that we'll be moving out." Lincoln sank slowly into his chair. "Have them contact us when they're ready to leave, with coordinates for a rendezvous point. Helm, lay in a course for the first deployment point, full impulse, and can someone get that giant dick off my screen?"

"Farewell, my lovely." Chi-Chi sighed as the image vanished from the screen. He punched in the necessary coordinates and engaged the impulse engines at full power.


"How's it coming, Terence?" Doz asked.

"It'd be coming a lot faster if I didn't have to wear this suit, or if it didn't have this stupid cheese grater over the faceplate. I told you we should have pressurized this thing so we could work on the insides without suits." Terence's reply was filled with frustration.

"Ok, so besides the fact that you're stuck in a spacesuit clearly designed by someone who had no idea what the hell they were doing, how's it going?" Doz rested his head on the control panel of the shuttle. He was tired, they all were tired. Weeks of working 20 hour days in spacesuits had taken their toll on everyone. All Doz wanted to do was go back to the Nixon, crawl into his bunk, and sleep for two months. Unfortunately, however, he and the crews of the other three shuttles were stuck waiting on the moon until Terence had finished up.

Most of the crew had returned to the ship, and all that were left on the moon were the engineering team members. Because they'd been pushing the shuttles pretty hard, it was decided that all of them would remain on the moon until everything was done. That way, if one of the shuttles had a critical failure, rescue would be close at hand. The defense system couldn't be activated remotely, since that offered the possibility that someone would later be able to hack it from a distance and deactivate it. So, they had installed a timer that would turn the system on after an hour had passed. That should give them not only enough time to get out of range of its weapons, but also ample cushion if something went wrong, and they had to attempt a rescue of one or more of the crews.

"I'm running the final checks now." This time, Terence's voice was heavy with fatigue. "I'm so fucking tired that I'm having trouble reading the gauges. I don't think we're having any troubles, but I need to wait a little more before I'm ready to set the timer, just to be sure."

The solar arrays were operating at maximum efficiency, the deflector screens protecting the arrays were at full strength. The containment field for the anti-matter located in the center of the moon was in no danger of collapsing, and new anti-matter was being produced at the expected rate. The disrupter banks were charged, and the automated photon torpedo filling and loading systems all reported that their systems were happy. The sensors could spot the pucker on a flea's bunghole an A.U. away, so that was essentially everything. Unless he'd misread something, but by now, he was so damned tired he didn't care.

"I'm setting the timer, get 'em warmed up." Terence was already pushing himself towards the exit as he spoke. Once outside, he bounced towards his shuttle, the Edsel, slightly drifting off to sleep on his upwards bounce, then rousting himself momentarily when he touched down, before nodding off as he rose back up. This seemed to work well, until he slammed into the side of the Edsel, because he hadn't paid attention to the distance before his last bounce.

It briefly woke him from the haze he found himself in, and he stumbled along the side of the shuttle until he found the door and tumbled through it. As soon as it had closed behind him, he ripped his helmet off and tossed it somewhere to the back of the shuttle before falling into the co-pilot's seat. A quick glance at everything told him that whomever it was that was in the pilot's seat, Terence couldn't think of her name at the moment, had the rendezvous point programmed into the nav computer.

"This is Edsel," he said as he fastened the newly added seatbelts. "We're 'GO' for flight."

"Roger," Doz's voice was almost as fatigued sounding as Terence's. "This is Pinto, we're 'GO' for flight."

"Yugo, is 'GO' for flight." A voice over the comm system said.

"Vega is 'GO' for flight." Another comm voice said.

"See you guys at the rendezvous point." Doz forced out through tired lips. "Five, four, three, two, launch!"

The four shuttles lifted off simultaneously and orientated themselves in the proper direction as they headed to where they planned to meet up with the Nixon.

"Hey," Terence couldn't tell where the voice was coming from, but it sounded like Stamper's, which meant it was coming from the Yugo. "Did anybody remember to tell the Nix' we're coming?"

"Aw, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Did Terence say that? He didn't know, it sounded like his voice, but he didn't feel his mouth moving. "On it, now."


"Ready for final beacon deployment." Hussein said.

"Deploy beacon." Lincoln replied.

"Beacon away!"

"Captain!" There was panic in Sybok's voice. "I'm picking up three Klingon ships decloaking 10 kilometers away, off the starboard bow!"

"Shit! Helm, get us the fuck out of here, but don't leave the neighborhood!" Lincoln snapped. "Africa! Tell the shuttles to hurry it up! Aphroodle! Raise the shields and ready all weapons!"

"I canst, captain! They be jammin' us!" Cornrows informed Lincoln in response to his order to her.

"Fuck! What's the status on the Klingons, Sybok?"

"One's following us, the other two appear to be heading towards Neural."

"Damn. Tactical."

On the screen appeared a map of their section of the solar system. Two the Klingon ships were almost certainly heading for Neural, the third was sticking to their tail, despite Chi-Chi's efforts to shake them, or even put significant distance between the two ships. Lincoln began scanning the image, looking for something that they might be able to use to their advantage. They might be able to handle the Klingon in a fair fight, if the crew of the Nixon hadn't been working so many hours in the past month, but most of the crew was tired, and much of the routine maintenance on the ship had been neglected in order to speed up their work on Neural's moon. Even if they managed to beat the one ship, there were still two others to worry about. No way could the Nixon handle that many with a fully rested crew and a well maintained ship.

"Chi-Chi!" Lincoln had an idea. "That gas giant. Take us around it, and when we get the planet between us and the Klingon ship, drop us into the atmosphere."

"Captain," Chi-Chi's eyes and fingers never left the controls as he spoke. "I'm not sure I can drop our speed, and entering the atmosphere like that is going to be hard on the ship's structure."

"I don't want you to drop our speed when we hit the atmosphere. Cut all power to everything but the weapons, forward shields, and reduce the power to the inertial dampeners by a quarter. Use it to boost the forward shields and I want to you bring us out of the atmosphere when we're at the closest possible point to the projected course of that Klingon ship."

"Henry!" Sybok's voice was loud with agitation. "We could be killed! There'll be a massive plasma field around the ship, and the vacuum created in our wake will draw part of the atmosphere out with us."

"Aye, aye, captain!" Chi-Chi's fingers began an intricate dance over the controls.

"If we don't do something out of the ordinary, we will be killed. This ship's no match for three Klingon ships." Lincoln retorted as the lights went out and the Nixon plunged into the gas giant's atmosphere.

The plasma field formed almost instantly around the Nixon as it hit the thin wisps of the planet's atmosphere, and grew larger and brighter, as the ship dove deeper. There was a sharp shock on the crew as the ship transitioned out of vacuum, and a shuddering vibration set up in the ship almost immediately. The Klingon ship in pursuit, didn't see the entry of the Nixon into the gas giant's atmosphere, and the crew assumed that the Nixon was simply going to loop around the planet in a gravity assist maneuver. Since their ship was newer than the Nixon, her captain decided that they'd skip swinging around the planet and head to the point where the Nixon was most likely to reappear from behind it.

"These Federation puchpa' are such fools," Kerla chuckled. "We're almost directly behind them, and they think that they can hide behind a planet! That ship is at least fifty years old! I wouldn't send a puq out in a ship like that! Helm, hold our current position, and when those puchpa' show themselves, I want their ship crippled, not destroyed! This is the last known location of Krell's ship, they may know what happened to him."

"You don't think they had anything to do with it?" Ho'Ka asked.

"Of course not!" Kerla bellowed. "Krell might have been a fool, but even he could defeat such a ship as this."


"Captain," Chi-Chi said. "This plasma field is blocking our sensor readings. I can't tell where the Klingons are."

"Best guess, Mr. Chi-Chi," Lincoln replied. The bridge had an eerie glow, being lit solely by the image of the swirling plasma on the screen. "Ready to fire phasers and a full spread of photon torpedoes as soon as we're in space. Don't wait for the field to clear, and don't worry about getting a lock on the Klingons."


"I am picking up a strange plasma reading from the planet, captain." Ho'Ka said.

"Its a gas giant, all of them are strange, worthless things." Kerla replied.

"This one is moving too fast to be a natural phenomena, I think."

"Did our Federation 'friends' hit the atmosphere by mistake?" Kerla leaned forward in his seat, excitedly. "Take us in, closer. See if you can detect any signs of debris."

As the ship approached the planet, the mass of plasma erupted from the atmosphere and headed almost directly towards them. It quickly took on the shape of something out of Gre'Thor, to Kerla's eyes. He realized that the Federation ship hadn't been destroyed, but had deliberately flown through the upper atmosphere in order to lessen the time around the planet. It was a risky maneuver, one that nobody in their right mind would have undertaken, since it was so likely to be fatal.

"By Kahless! They're mad! Hard to port!" Kerla fell back in his seat, stunned at what he was seeing.


Chi-Chi fired the phasers, in a full sweep pattern. He had no idea where the Klingon ship might be, their sensors were still overloaded by the plasma field, and he figured that by doing the sweep, there was a chance that he'd at least wing the Klingon ship. Assuming they didn't collide into it. Seconds later, he fired the torpedoes, aiming them half a degree below the path of the phasers. This would better their odds of hitting something, if the phasers missed.

The charged nature of the plasma field was attracted to the energy of the phasers, wrapped itself around the beams and began following the course of the beams. Chi-Chi's aim had been close to where the Klingon ship was, and the beams clipped the edge of the deflector shield, which seethed with energy as it tried to dissipate the blast. This drew the plasma towards it, and the shield quickly collapsed, allowing the plasma to reach the hull. Crew members on the inside of the hull were electrocuted, and equipment which was closest to the point of impact that had been grounded to the hull had its safeties overloaded and exploded.

Alarms sounded all over the ship, and crew members raced to put out fires, or restore power to the shields. For a moment, it seemed as if they were going to gain the upper hand on the disaster, then one of the Nixon's torpedoes detonated close to the ship. The portion of the blast inside of the remaining deflector shields was reflected back upon the ship, tearing through the hull, and taking out the main power. They were dead in space and drifting.

Terence stared at the light blinking at him on the console. He knew it meant something, but his tired brain was so fogged that he couldn't remember what it might be. What had he been doing before that light came on? Let's see, they had just taken off, he'd sent a message to the Nix', telling them that they were on their way, and then the light came on. Wait! The light was tied in with the message, somehow! That was it! Still didn't tell him what it meant, though. The light was red, that usually meant something bad, so something about the message was bad. Oh, it was the "Delivery Failure" light, that's what it was. So, did he screw up the message somehow? No, everything looked okay. Well, why would they get a "Delivery Failure" light, then?

If it wasn't something he'd done, or any of the shuttle's systems, then it would have to be something wrong with the Nix's system. But text messages almost always went through, and if there was a failure, he wouldn't necessarily know about it. So, why was the light on? The only other reason it could be on, would be if they were being jammed. For that to happen, that would have to mean ---

"Fuck!" Terence shouted. "We're being jammed! There's goddamned Klingons in the system! Get us out of here!"

T'ocha, Terence remembered her name now, jabbed at the controls, activating the evasive maneuvers subroutines in the shuttle's systems. The shuttle veered up sharply in response to the program.

"Tell the others." T'ocha said.

"How?" Terence was wide awake, adrenalin having kicked in as he scanned the instruments for information as to where the Klingons might be. "We just have to hope that they've noticed we've changed course."

"How many Klingons? And what's their heading?"

"Looks like two ships, and they're heading in our direction. It might just be that they're on their way to Neural and haven't noticed us yet."

"We can't take that chance. How long 'til the defense system goes operational?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes."

"What are the other shuttles doing? Have they figured out what's going on?"

"Looks like it. They've each peeled off in a different direction."

"Good. Now, let's hope we can make it to Neural's moon before the Klingons can catch us!"



"Shit! hard to port!" Lincoln cried out as image of the drifting Klingon ship filled the viewscreen as the plasma began to dissipate.

Chi-Chi's fingers did the appropriate dance, and the crew felt themselves jerked as the ship rapidly changed direction and the underpowered dampeners failed to keep up with the demand placed on them. Lincoln's mind raced as he tried to plot their next move. He hadn't expected that they would be within collision distance of the Klingon ship when they emerged. If that ship was still operational, there was little the Nixon could do to successfully outrun it, and no chance that they could successfully repeat their surprise maneuver again.

"Sybok, status of the Klingon ship." Lincoln said.

"They might be fucked, captain. Their shields are down, and they appear to have lost main power."

"Chi-Chi, back off to a safe distance, and then blow them out of space."

"Captain?" Chi-Chi's voice was shocked, with no hint of a double entendre.

"Dat's murder!" Cornrows shouted.

"That's an order, Chi-Chi." Lincoln turned his chair to face Cornrows. "Its survival. Klingons don't believe in surrender. If they can't repair their ship, they'll try and lure us in to approaching their vessel, then self-destruct once we get close enough that they can be certain they'll take us out.

"If we leave them here, they'll do whatever they can to get their ship operational again and come after us. There's two more Klingon ships in this system that we have to deal with, and we have four shuttles with crew members out there, somewhere, just sitting ducks.

"Those Klingons," Lincoln gestured towards the screen. "Are dead already, its merely a question of who kills them. I vote that we do it, and we do it now. Fire, Chi-Chi."

"Where's the Klingons now?" T'ocha asked, her fingers still rapidly moving over the controls.

"They've split up. One's following the Yugo, and the other one's after us." Terence replied.

"Shit!" T'ocha said. "I don't know who's bright idea it was to have keyboard controls for a small ship like this, but if we make it out of this, I'm going to kill the bastard. Goddamned hard to fly this thing using just arrow keys. Fucking joysticks are good enough for airplanes for hundreds of years, but some asshole at Starfleet thinks that shuttles should be flown by keyboard! How far are we from Neural's moon?"

"About a million kilometers. While you're at it, kill whomever decided not to arm this thing. Even a gravitic mine would be handy right about now."


Chi-Chi fired a spread of torpedoes at the Klingon ship. They struck in rapid succession, ripping the ship to pieces. Most of the crew died in seconds, the rest struggled valiantly to get to spacesuits, with many failing to make it as the ship's artificial gravity disappeared. Those that successfully managed to suit up, quickly began to wonder if they hadn't chosen the more dishonorable way of dying. They had no way of knowing when, or if, they would be rescued, and there was no honor dying adrift in space.

"Sybok," Lincoln said as the glow of the exploding Klingon ship faded on the screen. "What's the status of the two other ships?"

"Both of them seem to be in pursuit of our shuttles. One of the shuttles is heading towards Neural, the rest are heading in different directions away from Neural. The shuttle heading to Neural is being pursued, as is the one headed towards Galactic North. Its not entirely clear what the other two shuttles are doing. They might be circling back around, or they could be heading out of the system."

"Are any of them outside of jamming range?"

"The Vega and the Pinto are."

"Lieutenant," Lincoln swiveled to face Cornrows. "Tell those two shuttles to head to the location of the last beacon we deployed and to wait for us there. If they don't hear from us in 30 minutes, or their long range sensors pick up Klingon vessels coming towards them, they're to get the hell out of here, and inform Starfleet command as soon as they think its safe to send a signal.

"Helm, lay in an intercept course for the Klingon ship headed towards Galactic North."


"Damned Klingons!" T'ocha snapped. "Fuckers are just toying with us! That ship's got the speed and the range that they could have taken us out by now, if they wanted to."

"They're probably just waiting to see where we go. Neural's moon is dead ahead."

"How long until the defense system's operational?"

"Any time now, if it's not already live."

"Okay, I just have to figure out how to get them in range of the defense system without getting us killed in the process."

T'ocha stabbed at the controls and the shuttle dove down to almost the surface of the moon. The terrain hugging algorithm kept them a few meters above the ground, as T'ocha kept them barely on the far side hemisphere, which was just outside the sensor range of the defense system. The Klingon ship remained several thousand kilometers behind and above the Edsel.

"Where's that opening? Where's that opening?" T'ocha muttered absentmindedly to herself as she scanned the view out the windows. The Klingons wouldn't calmly pursue them forever, and either they would have to find a way to escape the Klingons, or hope that the Nixon would come to their rescue. T'ocha wasn't about to rely on the Nix' coming to save them at the last minute. She knew that there was a better chance of the Nix' breaking down, than being useful at this moment. That meant if she couldn't find the opening, they were probably dead. No way was she going to allow the Edsel to be captured by those bastards. She'd blow up the shuttle first.

"Mr. Aphroodle," Lincoln pivoted his chair to face the Chief Engineer. "We're going to need something to take out that Klingon ship quickly. Right now, they're toying with our shuttle, but we get close, and the Klingons will use it as a bargaining chip against us. Unless we can take them out with our first shot, they'll open up on the shuttle, and her shields are no match for Klingon weapons."

"Aphroodle have idea!" He was nodding his head excitedly. "Dangerous, but will work!"

"Can you explain it to me, or is it just easier for you to do?"

"Easier me do. Need full control."

"Okay, everyone, turn over control of your stations to Mr. Aphroodle."

Aphroodle's fat fingers began a surprisingly delicate dance over the buttons at his station. He first set the ship's computer to calculating a projected course for the shuttle and her pursuer, then he began slowing the Nixon. He would need the distance between the ships to be relatively wide for his plan to work. This had the additional benefit in that it wouldn't spook the Klingons into doing something rash, like blowing up the shuttle, and then turning on the Nixon. Then he began working on some subroutines for the engines necessary for his plan to work.


"There's the opening!" T'ocha shouted. "Now, let's see if I can manage to get this bitch inside!"

The opening T'ocha was referring to was one of the tunnels they'd made. It was just barely wide enough for the shuttle to fit in, assuming that she could finagle the controls properly. It would have been so much easier to do this if she'd had a flight yoke to work with, instead of keyboard controls. The tunnel would afford them considerable safety. It was far too small for the Klingon ship to follow, and by the time the Klingons were able to angle their ship into position to fire a shot down the tunnel, the Edsel would be either out in space or hiding in the cavernous space which used to be the moon's core. T'ocha hadn't made up her mind what she was going to do, all she could think about right now, was getting the Klingon ship off her ass.

T'ocha began seemingly slapping the controls in rapid fire motion as they got closer to the opening. The Edsel arced up, and then dove bow first into the tunnel, her roof grazing the tunnel walls slightly as T'ocha and the automatic controls fought to get the shuttle into the center of the tunnel.

"So, now what?" Terence asked.

"I dunno," T'ocha replied. "Up until now, I was mainly worried about getting into the tunnel."

"Well, we can't just stay here for the rest of our lives! I'm supposed to be getting my legs waxed next week!"

T'ocha gave Terence the hairy eyeball.

"I'm kidding!" He said and T'ocha relaxed slightly. "I had my legs waxed a couple of days ago, so there's plenty of time before I have to worry about waxing them again."

T'ocha would have glared at Terence again, but they'd emerged into the center of the moon, and she wanted to move the shuttle out of the direct path of the tunnel, in case the Klingons decided they wanted to drop a torpedo or two down it. Once they were safely away from the opening, an idea began forming in her head. It was risky, but they really didn't have much choice. They had no idea what the status of the Nixon was. All they knew for certain was that there was a Klingon ship out there, somewhere, and that they had very limited rations if they wanted to stay down here in the depths of the moon before trying to escape.

Aphroodle finished entering the last of the commands into his console and turned to face Lincoln.

"Ready. Should grab before we go."

"Okay, folks," Lincoln said. "Everybody grab hold of something. Mr. Aphroodle, do your thing."

Aphroodle turned back to his console, punched a button, and the sound of the warp engines engaging filled the bridge. Lincoln was immediately concerned. One had to be very careful about how they engaged the warp drive within a system. Done wrong, and you could shift the orbit of planets or other bodies with disastrous effects. Then there was the matter of Cherenkov radiation. Go too fast, and the collisions caused by particles being moved around by the distortion of space, would emit enough radiation to kill all life within a system. Did Aphroodle really know what he was doing? Or had Lincoln made a mistake? If he had, it was certainly too late to do anything about it now. He wished that Aphroodle had installed seatbelts on the bridge, and not just the shuttles. Aphroodle promised him that they'd have the seatbelts installed soon, but didn't offer a good explanation as to why they'd done the shuttles first. Then again, Pakleds weren't known for their logic. Or much of anything at all, so the fact that Aphroodle had accomplished so much was rather remarkable in and of itself.

Almost immediately after the warp engines had engaged, they cut out. Lincoln might have wondered what the point of such a short trip was, if the collision alarms hadn't started going off.


"Okay, I've got a plan." T'ocha after they'd spent several minutes floating in the center of the moon. "If we're lucky, the Klingons are still above the North Pole's entrance."

"You do realize that being in Section 7G makes us very unlucky by default, don't you?" Terence's voice shifted upwards with nervousness as he spoke.

"Yeah," T'ocha spoke as she turned the shuttle to take them out the East tunnel. "But I figure if even you can manage to get laid every once and a while, we stand a chance of making it out of this alive."

"Hey!" Terence's tone was hurt.

"Shut it!" T'ocha snapped as they entered the East tunnel. "I need to be able to concentrate!"

The shuttle pushed towards its maximum speed as it flew through the tunnel. Upon exiting, T'ocha rolled the shuttle, and then dropped it down to within a few meters of the moon's surface, heading back towards the moon's North Pole.

"Let me know if you pick up the Klingons." She said.

"They're still over the North entrance." Terence said after a few moments.

"Good." T'ocha then ordered the shuttle into a vertical climb. "Have they spotted us?"

"Looks like it."

"Right then, down we go!" T'ocha jabbed the controls and the shuttle immediately dipped down, heading towards the moon's South Pole. There wasn't much gravity on the moon, but T'ocha wanted the boost to try and keep them just out of sight of the Klingon's sensors. "Let's hope they still want to keep at this cat and mouse game."

Flying a shuttle is technically not terribly difficult to do. The Federation generally thought of them as the 23rd Century version of pilot boats. They weren't designed to be anything more than a simple way of getting from one place to another, at modest speeds. They had minimal shielding, and were generally considered mostly useless in a society that had transporters. Starship crews often considered them excess baggage, until the transporters failed, or they needed to impress some silly diplomat or planetary leader. Much better to take a recalcitrant leader on a slow ride around a group of starships, so that he could get a good look at their imposing appearance, than to beam him directly aboard one, and hope that he comes to his senses about joining the Federation, after getting a tour through the non-secure areas of a starship.

Smart crews, like those aboard the Nixon, recognized that their lives might one day depend upon the shuttles, and enhanced their capabilities. Unfortunately, for the Nixon, they were unable to do the kinds of modifications that they really wanted. Not only could they not get the parts they needed, but unlike ships like the Enterprise, if during an admiral's inspection of the ship, it was discovered that they had significantly modified the shuttles, they got a black mark on their record. Never mind that these modifications might mean the difference between people surviving a mission or not, if it wasn't in the regs, they got blasted for it. Terrain hugging software could be easily hidden, and it was that which was allowing the Edsel to hopefully escape the Klingons.

"Klingon ship, 5 kilometers to port!" Sybok shouted. "They're headed directly for us!"

"Aphroodle!" Lincoln screamed.

"Wait. Sorry!" Aphroodle ducked his head repeatedly as he spoke.

"We've got a tractor beam lock on the shuttle!" Sybok said a second before the sound of the warp engines kicking in again was audible.

Lincoln looked at Aphroodle, concerned. Aphroodle smiled to indicate that this was all part of Aphroodle's plan. There were numerous jerks, as the Nixon dropped in and out of warp rapidly, each time they dropped out, the ship changed course, slightly.

"Tractor beam off!" Sybok said after about the fifth time they'd dropped out of warp, and then they found themselves thrown into warp again.


"South Pole entrance coming up!" Terence said.

"No shit, Greebowitcz!" T'ocha snapped. "Any sign of the Klingons?"

"Nope."

"Well, let's hope that means they're still following us just out of sensor range." T'ocha sent the shuttle into the opening. This time, instead of pausing in the core of the moon, they continued on up the tunnel to the North Pole entrance and then arced high on a course which would put them passing over Neural's northern pole by millions of kilometers. That was safely above the area covered by the defense systems on the moon. "Give me a view of the moon."

Terence switched the display to the aft view. The Klingons had failed to notice that the Edsel had gone into the southern tunnel and were heading northward up the face of the near side of Neural's moon. The defense system had detected the Klingon ship the moment it had crossed over to the hemisphere facing Neural. It soon let loose with a brace of photon torpedoes that headed directly towards the Klingon ship.

As soon as the ship detected the torpedoes, it attempted to evade them, something which was essentially pointless, since the torpedoes had been programmed with the standard Klingon evasive maneuvers and could anticipate every move of the Klingons. The torpedoes were enough to wipe out the Klingon's deflector screens, and as the screens collapsed, the defense system fired its disruptor cannon.

Onboard the Edsel, both Terence and T'ocha watched as the disruptor beam blasted the Klingon ship to pieces. Sections of debris blown towards Neural quickly became visible fireballs in the planet's atmosphere, while other portions rained down on the moon's surface.

"Okay," T'ocha said as she programmed the coordinates for the rendezvous point in the shuttle's computer. "At least we know it works. Let's hope that the Nix is still around and waiting for us."


The Nixon cycled in and out of warp in two rapid successions and then returned to sub-light speed.

"Klingons dead ahead!" Sybok shouted as the viewscreen was filled with the aft section of the Klingon ship.

"Shit!" Lincoln gasped. "Chi-Chi, all weapons fire on that ship now!"

Chi-Chi's quicksilver fingers alternated between launching torpedoes and firing the phasers. The Klingons barely had time to notice that the Nixon was behind them before the first barrage hit. While they were attempting to get a weapons lock, the second barrage overloaded their shields, the third barrage tore the nacelles off the ship. The fourth and final barrage penetrated the hull and destroyed the control system for the warp core. The liberated particles of matter and anti-matter began annihilating one another at a furious rate, and the Klingon ship quickly decomposed into high energy particles.

"Congratulations, Mr. Aphroodle," Lincoln relaxed back into his seat. "It seems your plan worked flawlessly. That's twice on a single mission. Quite impressive."

Aphroodle ducked his head bashfully.

"Now, let's see about finding that other Klingon ship." Lincoln was fairly beaming with pride as he spoke. "Sybok, any sign of it?"

"Nope." Replied Sybok. "Judging from the readings I'm picking up on the long range sensors, I'd say they got their ass fried by the defense system we installed on Neural's moon."

"Excellent. If the shuttle's are all on their way to the rendezvous point, then I suggest we go join them." Lincoln said.

"All but one, captain." Sybok replied.

"What happened to it?"

"Judging by its current course and direction, it appears to be the one we picked up and dropped off before we attacked the Klingon ship."

"Lieutenant," Lincoln turned to Cornrows. "Try contacting them."

"They ain't answering." Cornrows replied after a few minutes.

"Sybok, any signs of life inside the shuttle?"

"Nope."

"Helm, lay in an intercept course, full impulse."

"Aye, aye, captain." Chi-Chi and Hussein said simultaneously.

"Oaks, snokes, poke!" Chi-Chi quickly added as he affectionately jabbed Hussein. "You owe me a Coke!"

"May Allah send a thousand camel spiders to feast upon your testicles." Hussein replied. "That was a stupid saying when my great-great-grandmother was alive."

"Get a room, you two!" Lincoln snapped and then turned back to Sybok. "Analysis, Sybok."

"You got me, captain. I've remotely shutdown their engines, so we can safely bring it aboard when we get to it. But there's no signs of life, and I don't detect any indications of a booby trap. I tried tapping into the interior cameras, but they don't seem to be working. Until we get it onboard and have a team examine it, we've no way of knowing what happened to the crew."

"How long to intercept, Mr. Chi-Chi?"

"I'm bringing it into the shuttle bay now, captain."

"Lieutenant," Lincoln said to Cornrows. "Have the shuttle bay crew contact me as soon as the get a look inside that shuttle. Chi-Chi, as soon as you get that shuttle in the bay, head for the rendezvous point at full impulse power. Mr. Aphroodle, any ideas of what might have happened?"

"Uh, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Aphroodle shook his head rapidly, but there was a hint of a guilty expression on his face.

"Damn!" Lincoln muttered. "If they abandoned the shuttle, where could they be?"

"Heading to the rendezvous point now, captain." Chi-Chi said.

Lincoln thanked Chi-Chi and returned to his chair. His mind whirling over what might have happened to the missing crew members. They lost enough crew members as it was, what with them having substandard equipment and having to make jerry rigged repairs on everything.

"I gots the lead shuttle tech on the comm for you, Cap'n." Cornrows interrupted his thoughts.

"Talk to me," Lincoln said after punching the button on his armrest.

"Yeah, this is Bukowski," the voice spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. "We got inside the shuttle, and it appears to be a classic case of what's known as 'liquefaction.' You see, the shuttle's inertial dampeners weren't up to handling the forces put upon it when we were jerking it around, so the crew got to experience probably several hundred gees every time we changed direction with them in tow. Frankly, I'm surprised the shuttle survived at all. We won't know if there's any internal damage to the thing until we can get a hazmat team in there to hose it all out. I think that we might be able to save it, though you'll probably want to have the carpets replaced and the seats reupholstered. Some folks like to claim you can shampoo that stuff out, but I don't know. I ain't never had much luck with that."

"Thank you, Mr. Bukowski." Lincoln buried his face in his hands.

"Hey, no problem, captain. Anything else you need? I want to get out of the bay proper before the hazmat guys start spraying things down. Stuff has a tendency to go flying all over the place, and the last thing I want is to wind up with some guy's brains all over me. I have enough trouble holding on to my own, without worrying about somebody else's. Ya know what I mean?"

"That will be all, Mr. Bukowski. Thank you." Lincoln cut the connection with his elbow and breathed heavily for several minutes.

"Mr. Aphroodle!" Lincoln rose to his feet, shouting. "You killed those people on that shuttle! If I had known that's what you were going to do, I never have allowed you to do your plan! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Me sorry! Me sorry!" Aphroodle was bowing deeply and repeatedly as he spoke. "Me fix! Me fix!"

"How, Mr. Aphroodle?"

"Need list who died and need to be in beamer room." Aphroodle continued to bow.

"How can I trust you? Your last plan got members of my crew killed!"

"Didn't know that would happen, but can fix. If I fail, you can kill me."

Lincoln stood silently for several moments as he weighed his options.

"Okay, Mr. Aphroodle. You'll get your chance." He said finally. "Sybok, you have the conn. Doctor, Mr. Aphroodle, let's go to the transporter room. Cornrows, see if you can't figure out who was on that shuttle, and then get the information to us in the transporter room."

The three of them stepped into the Turbolift and rode in silence to the transporter room. There was a patchwork of panels laid across the hole in the floor, where the Klingons had cut their way through to get to the lower deck. Aphroodle had chosen to do only minimal repairs to the transporter room in order that they could devote most of their time to building the defense system for Neural. Now that they were underway again, Aphroodle and his crew would be working nearly as hard at doing correct repairs on everything that had been damaged during the fight. For the engineering department, it was going to be a while longer before they could relax.

"All right, Mister," Lincoln's voice was cold. "Show me how you're going to 'fix' the problem of the dead crew on that shuttle."

"I show. Follow me." Aphroodle gestured for Lincoln to join him at the controls of the transporter. Lincoln watched as Aphroodle pulled up the list of names that Cornrows had found of crew members on the shuttle. Aphroodle then cross-referenced it with the transporter logs, and pulled up the files associated with the deceased's most recent trip via the transporter. Next, Aphroodle tricked the system into thinking that it had just dematerialized those people by loading those files into the pattern buffer. He then started the process to materialize them on the transporter pad.

The crew members were confused by the site of Lincoln, Hatfield, and Aphroodle standing at the transporter controls. All of them had stepped into the transporter at different times, but none of them had done so when the captain and Hatfield were in the room. Each one of them stood silently, trying to figure out what had happened.

"Now, I understand why McCoy hates transporters so much!" Hatfield exclaimed. "An old quack like him would be quickly out of business if other people knew how to do this! There's an old saying, 'Doctors get to bury their mistakes.' Well, not any more McCoy!"

"Aphroodle," Lincoln was amazed. "These are really the crew members who died?"

"Ah uh!" Aphroodle nodded enthusiastically.

Lincoln quickly grabbed Aphroodle's face in his hands and kissed him on the forehead.

"I think I love you!" Lincoln said, and then turned to face the bewildered crew still on the transporter pad. "Good news! You're no longer dead!"

"What do you mean, sir? And why aren't you still down on the planet? What's happened to us?" One of them asked.

"Its a bit difficult to explain, but the short answer is that all of you were killed fleeing from a Klingon ship. Mr. Aphroodle, was very cleverly able to use the data from the last time you were transported to bring you back. For some of you, its weeks, or days, since you last used the transporter, so you'll need to be brought up to speed on what's happened, and how you died. Dr. Hatfield will take you to sickbay to help you get adjusted."

"Follow me," Hatfield said, stepping through the door. The puzzled crew members stepped off the transporter pad and began to follow him out.

Captain's Log: Stardate 4257.5 All is well. The crew members Aphroodle restored are adjusting to the changes that happened during the time that they were "dead." We've commenced repairs on the Nixon as we race to catch up with Kirk and the Enterprise, based on his transmissions to Starfleet, he doesn't have appeared to have screwed up too badly, so hopefully our next mission will go better. Once we've checked out Triskelion, we'll be heading to the nearest Starbase and turning over the Klingon components we pulled from the wrecked ship to Starfleet Intelligence. I recommend full commendations for everyone involved with this mission, every member of this crew has done a remarkable job, and I don't think that there's a finer crew in the fleet, even if we are in Section 7G.

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? I apologize for the length. I had no idea going into this that it would wind up being quite so long. Has to be one of the longest "fuck you's" ever written, I think. I hope that it didn't drag too much in spots, and that I didn't screw up continuity. Writing in ~600 word blocks is harder than I thought.