Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:03:32 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: 43/342(?) 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 Zantree: Episode 43 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn (Stardate 46632) There were five Kliges'chee Type-B cruisers facing us. Our shields were still up and the Harrier was still at red alert. This saved me the time. "Get us out of here! Full evasive!" The Harrier began to swoop and dodge away from the Kliges'chee cruisers. I knew that it was essentially all over at that point. Our starship was in sad shape from long time of hard use with no refits, repairs or spare parts. Our shields were weakened, our main power plant was only giving us half power, and the Harrier had been at red alert, doing evasive maneuvers for the entire previous afternoon. "Captain, we're being hailed." What could it hurt?" On screen." The face that appeared on screen was not a Kliges'chee. It was a male humanoid. He had an aquiline look, enhanced by a wider, flatter nose. He looked as though he had been designed for life on the beach, in and out of the water. The alien man was short and wiry looking. He said "Bleeg mork wadle Poong meetful." Very earnestly, and slowly. "I am Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Federation starship Harrier. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. We seek peaceful contact with other races." "Zladae, wop-wop." I made the signal to cut audio from our end. "What's the tactical stance of the Kliges'chee ships?" Stephanie read her panel. "They are shadowing us, but not closely. Their shields are up, but their weapons are not armed. They would seem to be at yellow alert." Tillean spoke up. "Captain. Two of the five ships are maintaining a class M atmosphere. I'm reading various humanoid life forms in them. The other three have the class F atmosphere and Kliges'chee life forms in them." "That's weird. Reopen the channel." The universal translator beeped to let us know that it had locked on to the transmissions of the humanoid man. "Ah, that's better." He said "I am representative Poong of the Zantree Alliance. Please identify yourselves." "I am Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Federation starship Harrier. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. We seek friendly contact with other civilizations and cultures." I responded. "Well, that's a pleasant change. Captain, by `Federation', do you mean The United Federation of Planets?" "Yes, that's us. Have you heard of it?" "Nothing substantial. I couldn't help but notice that you have been ejected from Harmon territory." "Uh, they should really be left alone." I said. "We have had our own run in with them. The fact that they brought you here says something about you. Would you care to return to our starbase and meet with more of our representatives?" "Yes, please. I have some information about the Federation here that might prove helpful." "Please send it to me. We will escort you to the base. Please set your course accordingly." "Thank you. Mr. Poong." As soon as the channel was closed, Li'ira said "Captain are you sure that this is wise?" "No, but I'm sure that we don't have many other options. How far does the Zantree Alliance extend around us? How many ships do they have? If we respectfully decline, what will that battle group do to us? We will play along until we find out more about what's going on." Li'ira gave a resigned nod. She understood my logic. I stood us down from red alert. We returned to cruise mode and followed the Zantree ships. We transmitted the information packet about the Federation to the Zantree ships. It was a collection of public access information about the UFP. It was honest and truthful as far as it went. It was obviously pro-Federation in its' bias. It didn't talk about embarrassing incidents or things that hadn't worked out in a simple, cheerful way. Some Captains added information from other points of view. Many called it a sales brochure and joked about the complimentary T-shirts, mugs and pens to hand out with it. I left it alone. The trip back to the Zantree starbase was a couple of uneventful weeks. I took the chance to recover from my encounter with the Harmon. -*- We arrived at the Zantree starbase and docked. The base was a small space station with dozens of auxiliary modules plugged into it. There were also dozens of warships at the base. Ninety percent of them were Kliges'chee built ships. The crew of the Harrier was allowed to wander the more public areas of the space station. They reported that it was rough. There were a few restaurants serving strange foods, and a couple of slapdash casinos or brothels. There were none of the features of a more established cross roads or transshipment point. Lt. Colonel Flagg reported that it looked more like a forward fire-base than a regular starbase. I was meeting regularly with Poong and the base commander, Freen. They asked me a lot of penetrating questions about the packet I had sent them. They had read it thoroughly. I hadn't read it as well as they had, and so I had to query the Harrier's computer banks and my officers on many points. I was also getting an education myself, about the Zantree Alliance and the Kliges'chee. The Zantree Alliance was similar in many ways to the Federation. They were a looser group though. In this they resembled the early United Federation of Planets more than the modern one that I was familiar with. They had five founding worlds. These worlds banded together for mutual protection and exploration of the surrounding areas. They had grown to encompass about seventy-five worlds all together. Then the Kliges'chee had found the Zantree. The Kliges'chee were said to have been trying to out flank their long time opponents, the Romulans. The Zantree learned of the Romulans and tried to establish an alliance against the Kliges'chee. The Romulans had given the Zantree a lot of knowledge, including data about the Romulan's neighbors, the hated dictatorships the Klingons and the Federation. Then the two had attempted a combined operation. The Zantree attacked, only to find that the Romulans had held off. The Zantree forces were decimated, and the Kliges'chee decided to focus on getting rid of them first. The Romulans had sold the Zantree out in order to gain time to rebuild their own fleet. Just as all looked lost for the Zantree, the Kliges'chee held a civil war. I was told that the Kliges'chee are a mass mind, controlled by telepathic comptrollers well behind the lines. No individual Kliges'chee has a mind or will of its own. All ideas, thoughts, desires and instructions are relayed to them from a distance by the comptrollers. Since all ships and units are controlled by a small group of comptrollers, each time a Kliges'chee ship was lost the commanding mind was still safe and they learned from each defeat. The Kliges'chee were devilishly good tacticians. Young Kliges'chee are independent. They are trained in a variety of support and maintenance skills. As they age and become adolescents, they are then dominated by the comptrollers. A group of adolescent Kliges'chee had avoided the domination of the comptrollers. They had freed others, and soon began to fight for control of the Kliges'chee. I learned that the war took over thirty years to resolve and that in the end, the Free Kliges'chee lost. They had retreated to the Zantree Alliance, requesting asylum. The fact that they had brought half the Kliges'chee star fleet with them didn't hurt. Now, the Zantree were able to fight the Kliges'chee with nearly three hundred thousand starships. I was floored. The Federation Starfleet had something over forty thousand active ships. All of known space could probably put together one hundred thousand front line combat units. It wasn't quite as bad as all that, though. The Kliges'chee and the Free Kliges'chee/Zantree could only operate about one percent of their ships effectively at any one time The Free Kliges'chee had arrived in the Zantree Alliance about three years ago. That coincided with the reappearance of the Romulans in galactic affairs in known space. The Kliges'chee had concentrated their full efforts on recapturing their lost members and their lost ships. The Zantree now had a fighting chance. They had not sought out the Klingons or the Federation as allies because of the stories the Romulans had told of us. Worse, these stories were not as exaggerated about the Klingons. The Zantree Alliance was only one hundred light years away from the Klingon border. If the Klingons decide to attack the Zantree, then the Zantree could not hold the border. They would be crushed between the Klingons and the Kliges'chee. When asked, I couldn't honestly say that I knew what the Klingons would do. I thought that it was good bet that they would act honorably. Klingon notions of honor were slippery sometimes. They might choose to "Liberate" the Zantree Alliance from the Kliges'chee, which would be about the same thing as crushing it between the two. I knew for a fact that overwhelming hordes of cannibalistic monsters were a Klingon's wet dream. Once the word was out, then there would be no stopping a certain number of younger sons and glory hounds from coming to the Zantree Alliance in an attempt to fight in the great battles that would make their reputations. In the end we agreed to a friendly relationship between the Federation and the Zantree Alliance. I agreed to try to keep knowledge of the Zantree away from the Klingons. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.634 / Virus Database: 406 - Release Date: 3/18/2004 -- 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! 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