Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 02:09:33 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jay P Hailey" Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 37/342(?) Rating:[PG] Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com The Kliges'chee: Episode 37 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn (Stardate 45718) The Kliges'chee came on screen and I stared for a moment. It would take some work to imagine a creature more ugly. He had about a dozen eyes. Each was different. Some were multifaceted insectoid eyes. Some were bulging sacks of goo that pulsated. Some were almost human. They were the worst, a piece of normalcy transplanted into something horrible. The Kliges'chee's body was an indistinct mottled green blob. Several tentacles waved around it, almost as though they were separate creatures. Some of the tentacles even had tiny eyes of their own. The whole body was covered in a layer of thick, slimy mucous. The mucous formed thick spots and thin spots, and from some locations it dripped off the Kliges'chee's body. The air visible behind the creature was a sickly green mist that hid the details of the bridge of the Kliges'chee starship. I knew that the green fog was actually a mix of methane and ammonia, at a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. With effort I restrained my urge to scream and hide. Instead I said "I am Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Federation starship Harrier. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. Will you communicate with us?" The Kliges'chee seemed to think about this for a moment, squishing idly in his mucous. "You are the Federation?" "Yes, we are from the United Federation of Planets." "Do you fight the Romulans?" It asked. This was a difficult question to answer. I didn't want to describe the Federation on the basis of our hostilities. The Federation was more a statement of principles than another generic player of galactic politics. On the other hand, the truth was less than idyllic. "Yes, when we must." I allowed. "We are the Kliges'chee! We wish an alliance with the Federation against the Romulans!" The creature seemed excited, but I couldn't say why I thought so. "Err, that's a little abrupt. Let's talk about it for a while first and see if our aims are compatible." "What's to discuss? If you fight the Romulans then you regard them as enough of a threat to take up arms against them. If we win against the Romulans, then they will not threaten either you, or me." "I am not authorized to make such a treaty." I lied. "I will have to report back to my High Command, and get guidance back from them." "Non Sequitur." "I'm sorry. We seem to be having a communications problem. I must report back to my superiors." "Please do so, and tell us what they say, immediately." "Err, that's not practical at this point. The message carrying my report will take about six weeks to arrive, and then the Federation will have to consider the issue. Then their reply will take another six weeks to return to us." "What method of communications are you using?" "Err, we call it subspace radio." I wasn't giving away anything here. The Kliges'chee were using subspace signals to probe the USS Harrier. "You are not now in contact with your high command?" I didn't like the way this was going. "Not in real time, no." "Then you are Rihannsu!" The channel was cut. I stood for a moment as the questions bounced around in my mind. "Rihannsu" is a word in an old Romulan dialect. It means, roughly, "Romulan". He had called us Romulans. If he was surprised that I was not in contact with Starfleet Command, did that imply that he was in direct contact with the Kliges'chee high command? My attention returned to the Bridge of the Harrier as I heard the report from Stephanie Anderson, my chief of Security and senior tactical officer. "They have raised shields! They are coming about!" "Red Alert! Shields up!" Barked Li'ira, my first officer. "His weapons are armed. I am reading a strange energy build up in an unknown device on the Kliges'chee ship." A Romulan derelict that we had explored six months ago had held records of a device that had stripped the Romulans defensive screens away. It had been fired at them by the Kliges'chee. "Rotate shield nutation!" I ordered. This tactic had been improvised as a defense against the Borg. The Borg had a tractor beam that drained the force fields of Federation starships in a matter of seconds. The shields of the Harrier operated in certain electromagnetic frequencies like any energy. It was prohibitively expensive to block the entire electromagnetic spectrum at once, so the shields were stronger in some frequencies than others. These frequencies also had certain ranges in which they liked to vibrate. The frequency of the electromagnetic waves could be subtly changed to avoid having enemy ships tune their weapons against the weak spot in your shields. By constantly changing the frequencies generated by the Harrier's shields, I hoped that the Kliges'chee "Shield Disruptor" would either not work at all, or for a greatly reduced effect. The tactic had been mildly successful against the Borg, changing the failure rate of the shields from fifteen seconds to three minutes. "Begin evasive pattern kappa!" Li'ira instructed Spaat, our Vulcan Helm Officer. He obliged and the Harrier began to dodge the incoming fire. We were at a dead stop relative to the other ship, and so did not move as quickly as I would have liked. "Arm Phasers!" I said. I hoped that the sight of our weapons arming would give the Kliges'chee pause while he thought about it. "He's come about! He firing!" Stephanie said. A strange blue globe of energy formed at the forwards tip of the Kliges'chee starship. It had a coruscating nimbus of energy around it. The blue globe detached itself from the tip of the Kliges'chee ship and flew over to us. It was certainly going to hit us. I gripped the sides of my chair as the projectile hit us. The lights on the bridge flickered ominously and some began flashing or otherwise malfunctioning. "A direct hit, Captain. Shields are down by eighty percent." "Fire Phasers!" I said. We couldn't take another hit like that. The phasers of the Harrier lashed out. Destructive beams struck the Kliges'chee, and coruscated off his force screens. "Direct hits. He's showing light damage to his forward sections. His shields are down to seventy-five percent." "Continue evasive maneuvers, Mr. Spaat." I said. I was acutely aware of how badly our own shields had been weakened at that point. "He's lining up for another shot. Sensors show a large disruptor like weapon mounted along his X axis, facing forwards." Harksain Varupuchu reported. "Evade that!" I told Mr. Spaat. There was a reason that Federation Starships usually don't mount huge axial cannons. They can be difficult to line up in close combat. The Harrier groaned and the deck seemed to tilt, as Mr. Spaat pushed my starship to her limits, trying to avoid the arc of the Kliges'chee weapon. An annoying beep sounded from Stephanie's board and then the Harrier shuddered. "We've been hit. It was a glancing blow." Stephanie reported. "Shields down to sixteen percent. They are about to collapse." "Phasers fire at will!" Again the phasers of the Harrier spit at the Kliges'chee. There were several hits. "His shields are at sixty seven percent. He's got a plasma leak, but otherwise light damage." Varupuchu said. "Mr. Spaat, get us out of here." I had an idea of how this was going to turn out, and I didn't want to be there to see it. "Aye Captain, energy to warp drive." The Harrier leaped into subspace ahead of the Kliges'chee. -*- The plasma leak kept the Kliges'chee from pursuing us until it was too late. We watched on long range sensors as the Kliges'chee ship failed to follow an evasive turn, and continued into space away from us. With relief we went to yellow alert and began to repair our damage. We were fortunate that no one on the Harrier was killed. None of the damage was too severe. We snuck away. -*- "It seems that we have just recently entered Kliges'chee space." Ensign Zuma said. He was the tactical expert on the Harrier. Stephanie Anderson's training as a police officer didn't give her a lot of experience at starship combat. Ensign Zuma on the other hand was natural talent in the field. He was a thin, unimpressive man, with a nasal and annoying voice. I didn't hold it against him. His talents gave the Harrier an advantage in combat that she might not otherwise have. "The ship seems roughly the same size as the Kliges'chee ship in the Et-Tu records, but the design has been significantly upgraded. It has several features that suggest its attack patterns and functions." He went to a screen and called up a technical readout based on the ship we had seen. "The main weapon is an axial disruptor cannon. From the energy signature you can see that it is nearly identical to a Romulan unit, except that the Kliges'chee model is much bigger and isn't fired with the same density of energy. It's as if it's a Romulan Disruptor unit that was built ten times larger and then fired at only twenty percent power." That confused me. An energy weapon is only as good as the energy you can channel through it. Why build such a huge weapon and then only fire it with partial power? "The rest of the armament is arranged along the two outrider pods. two mounts of two each of weapons that are similar to Romulan disruptor units. These are on a much more conventional scale and energy curve." He hesitated. "Except that they are too small. They would be of some value against shielded targets, but not as much as we might expect." He looked around the table nervously wiping his palms on the legs of his pants. "Given the capabilities of the Kliges'chee shield disruptor weapon, I speculate that these outrider pod disruptors are weapons designed to chop the weapons and engines off a target ship once its shields are neutralized." That was kind of reaching. "What possible point might there be in that?" I asked. "Remember that Commander Zadask of the Et-Tu said that the Kliges'chee might beam his crew aboard and eat them?" Zuma looked nervous. "If you take that literally, them the function of the Kliges'chee ship becomes clear. It is designed to approach an enemy, knock down their shields with the shield disruptor. Then it closes in and takes their engines and weapons off with the outrider pod weapons. Then the Kliges'chee beam the survivors off and eat them. The axial weapon might be for planetary bombardment. I don't know that it would be all that useful in ship-to-ship combat." I wanted to argue. On one level it made no sense. However, Zuma had a point about the design of the Kliges?chee ship that was too accurate to ignore. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.611 / Virus Database: 391 - Release Date: 3/3/2004 -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! 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