o.com Received: from [66.218.66.96] by n29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Mar 2004 05:55:26 -0000 X-Sender: stephen@trekiverse.org X-Apparently-To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 28595 invoked from network); 20 Mar 2004 05:55:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m13.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 20 Mar 2004 05:55:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO turkey.mail.pas.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.126) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 20 Mar 2004 05:55:24 -0000 Received: from sdn-ap-022dcwashp0413.dialsprint.net ([63.191.161.159]) by turkey.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1B4ZS6-0006Pj-00 for ascl@yahoogroups.com; Fri, 19 Mar 2004 21:55:22 -0800 To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Organization: Alt.StarTrek.Creative Virtual Staff Office Message-ID: X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.92/32.572 X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 207.217.120.126 X-eGroups-From: Stephen From: Stephen X-Yahoo-Profile: oldmanasc MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCL@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ASCL@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 00:55:10 -0500 Subject: [ASC] REP Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 40/342(?) [PG] TNG-OC (Misc, OCs) Reply-To: ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 07:38:26 -0800 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: 40/342(?) 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 Harmon: Episode 40 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn "Captain's Log, Stardate 48234.5" "The Harrier has been lost in space for four hundred and forty-four days. We are still under way for the area named in Murachi legends as the location of the Harmon. We have made seven long range sensor contacts with Kliges'chee starships. The Harrier's condition is good, and the crews morale is good, considering the circumstances. Our main problem at this point-" "Captain." Spaat reported urgently. "Deflectors have just snapped on." "Log off." I said. "Tillean, scan please." Tillean turned on her scanners and directed them at the target. She gasped and put it on the screen. I turned to see the largest subspace shock wave that I had ever encountered bearing down on us. "Red Alert!" I yelled. "Shields to full power! Sound collision alert!" The wave loomed on the screen. The Harrier's alarms whooped and screamed. A moment later the wave struck us. The Harrier lurched. It felt as though the ship leaned way over to the port side. I could see Ensign Zuma flung across the bridge by the impact. I looked at the Engineering station. The readouts showed the main power taxed to its limit by the shields. The internal force fields that held the Harrier together hit the red line. I knew that if they failed the Harrier would fall apart like a house of cards. The inertial dampeners caught up to the forces and the Harrier seemed to lurch all the way over in the other direction. I could feel the deck shuddering. Other alarms started going off and I heard the computer talking. I couldn't make out exactly what it was saying, but the engineering station showed hull damage. "Turn her into the wave!" I screamed, hoping that Spaat could somehow hear. The Harrier had been launched with oversized navigational deflectors. This was considered necessary for the original mission that I had commanded. When the experimental "Holly-Hop Drive" failed, the Harrier's navigational deflectors were left alone. The decision was made to leave them when it was discovered that replacing them with weaker ones would cost more money. I was thankful for that piece of bureaucratic inertia now. The over sized navigational deflectors might be able to blunt most of the shock waves' impact. I could see Spaat clinging resolutely to his station with one hand while entered the commands with the other. His Vulcan hearing enabled him to hear my shout. The Harrier turned slowly and uncertainly to bring her nose into the wave. The floor swayed drunkenly. I could see the power readouts. The main reactor was dangerously overloaded. It was heating up rapidly. As the Harrier swung around and fed power into the navigational deflectors the ride seemed to smooth out. I could hear people yelling and the alarms whooping. "Computer! Alarms off!" I shouted. A certain amount of the caterwauling quit. "Tillean!" The Science Officer had both hands free. I could see her legs curled around the underside of her chair. She was holding herself in her chair with her calves. She was scanning. She looked back at me and screamed something. "What?" "It's a supernova!" I cringed. There was now way to tell how long the buffeting and pounding would go on. I clung to my seat while the Harrier seemed to be thrown up and down by the shock wave. The incredible turbulence seemed to go on forever. I watched as the temperature of the Harrier's warp core climbed steadily higher. Eventually the shock wave passed us. As soon as the deck regained stability, the main power cut out. -*- "The phase inducers have failed." Ruezre' was telling us. The briefing room had a palpable sense of stress. The Harrier had been without main power for most of the day. Without main power, the Harrier was unable to get to warp speed. We were stuck and helpless. "Without those components, the warp core is crippled." "Can you reroute power?" Li'ira asked. "Yes, but it's a purely temporary solution. It won't hold forever." "How about the rest of the damage?" I asked. "The structural integrity field generators were badly overloaded. I can get them back up to sixty-five percent, right now. With a little work I may be able to get eighty or eighty-five percent hull integrity back. But that will be all." She continued "There was some hull buckling along sections twenty to twenty-five and sections forty to forty-five. This can be repaired fairly easily. However, the support systems in that section were impacted. The shields over that area will be weak until we can rebuild the plasma conduits there." "Okay, thank you." I dismissed her. She left the briefing to get back to work. "Tillean, what do you have for us?" "The shock wave came from a supernova about three hundred light years away at heading 343 mark 355, relative to the Harrier." She said. Tillean was subdued by the bad news for the Harrier, but her enthusiasm for the stellar event was catchy. "It was the closest that any Federation starship has ever been to a supernova. We got excellent readings." Tillean grinned. "Our readings, if properly analyzed could reveal much about the inner workings of a supernova, especially in the area of subspace. The subspace function of the insides of stars is not well understood." "Great." Stephanie Anderson growled. She was not impressed by the science potential of the kicking around that we had just received. "Dr. Flynn, your report?" "We had twenty-one injuries, but there is nothing that we can't deal with. Everyone should be back on duty within the week." "Thank you." I said "Stephanie how is our tactical stance?" Stephanie, the Chief of Security shook her head ruefully. "Pretty crappy, to be blunt. Our shields are weak and we're stuck at fifty percent of main power. I don't think that we could fight off one of the Kliges'chee Type-A scouts without suffering heavy damage ourselves." "Anyone else?" "I just hope that Harmon space is pretty close, Captain." Li'ira said. "Amen." It was all that I could say. -*- It was another month before we realized what we were heading for. The large blue star that the Murachi said was the gateway to Harmon space was a blue super-giant. It was big enough so that if you put Earth's sun at the center, then Pluto's orbit would still be inside the blue super-giant. The Earth orbited its sun at a distance of roughly ninety-three million miles. If the Harrier got that close to the blue super-giant star then we would be baked instantly by the extreme heat and radiation pouring out of the star. Our shields would not hold for even a whole second. A blue super-giant pays for its strength. They only last a few million years before exploding into a supernova, and splattering themselves all over the sector. While we watched the giant burn, I had a chill. I realized that every atom in my body had been cooked by a giant star before it had come to be me. Hydrogen was the most common element in the universe. The giant stars transmuted hydrogen into heavier elements, and then spit the heavy elements out in the supernova explosion. I was watching the civilizations and people of a billion years from now, cooking in a giant star. There were a pair of even stranger objects in orbit around the blue super-giant. They were a pair of black dwarf stars. Tillean thought that this was very important and significant. She explained it to us. A star the size of Earth's sun is too small to have a supernova explosion. When the lifetime of Sol is done, the spent fuel will simply compact down into a ball of extremely dense material. The act of compacting will heat up the spent stellar fuel and material. The little compacted ball will glow like a small star of its own. This will be called a white dwarf. In time a white dwarf will radiate away all of its heat and cool off, becoming a black dwarf. The estimated time for this to happen is something like thirty-five or thirty-six billion years. The universe was simply too young to have black dwarfs in it yet. Moreover, there they were, in orbit around the blue super-giant. The blue super-giant was destined to explode in another six or eight million years. It never had time to capture these exotic objects nor would it be around long enough to enjoy them, on a cosmic scale. As we closed in to a safe distance to take readings, our sensors read gravitic anomalies all over the area of these three objects. That settled me. If creatures could build an energy bubble one hundred light years across, then perhaps they could build this strange collection as a sign post. We moved on. It was almost an anticlimax, when we lost the warp core again. Ruzere was able to get it back, but our speed was severely reduced. -*- We crawled along for another twenty-five days. We were now nearing the halfway point of the year 2370. We had been lost near the end of 2367. The Harrier was showing the results of two and a half years of cruising with no spare parts. On the bridge, everything was clean and shipshape, but the master environmental systems monitor was dark. It had been stripped of processors to replace the ones in Tillean's science station. The Harrier was crawling along at warp four. At this rate we were making one light year every two and a half days. We weren't going to make it very far at this rate, while the Harrier's critical systems were aging to death around us. Other systems weren't doing very badly at all. The main computers and the impulse power systems were still nearly at factory specs. The life support system was robust, and threatened to keep us breathing for another century, at least. --- 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! 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! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? Sat Mar 20 00:56:19 2004 X-Persona: Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n2.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.75]) by skylark (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1b4zsh3HJ3NZFjw0 for ; Fri, 19 Mar 2004 21:55:33 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13312-1079762132-stephenbratliffasc=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yah oo.com Received: from [66.218.66.95] by n10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Mar 2004 05:19:57 -0000 X-Sender: stephen@trekiverse.org X-Apparently-To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 5080 invoked from network); 24 Mar 2004 05:19:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Mar 2004 05:19:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.232) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Mar 2004 05:19:54 -0000 Received: from sdn-ap-006dcwashp0317.dialsprint.net ([63.188.49.63]) by flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1B60nv-0005C6-00 for ascl@yahoogroups.com; Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:19:52 -0800 To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Organization: Alt.StarTrek.Creative Virtual Staff Office Message-ID: X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.92/32.572 X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 207.217.120.232 X-eGroups-From: Stephen From: Stephen X-Yahoo-Profile: oldmanasc MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCL@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ASCL@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 00:19:35 -0500 Subject: [ASC] REP Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 41/342(?) [PG] TNG-OC (Misc, OCs) Reply-To: ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:45:17 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: 41/342(?) 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 Harmon: Episode 41 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn I had plans on my terminal for cold-sleep tubes. If all else failed I would turn the Harrier into a sleeper ship and try to await rescue. I was nervous about it. We would be out of control. If something got us, we would die never knowing what hit us. I didn't like that idea. I was determined to wait until hibernation was the last option before I tried it. "Captain to the Bridge!" Li'ira's voice called on my intercom. I keyed the Bridge. "Report!" "Contact at relative bearing 010 mark 005, Captain, Unknown configuration." Had the Kliges'chee found us? I dropped everything and ran to the Bridge. Arriving on the bridge I saw the intruder on the main screen. It was a point of light. "What is that?" "Scans just bounce off, Captain." Tillean said. "It's on an intercept course, sir, at warp four point three." "Open hailing frequencies." "Hailing frequencies open." "This Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Federation starship Harrier. We are on a mission of peaceful exploration. Will you communicate with us?" We waited. "The unknown is now within weapons range." Stephanie reported. "Is it still on an intercept course?" "Yes, Sir." "Hail them again." "Aye, Sir. Hailing." We waited "No response. The unknown is now at three hundred thousand kilometers." "Mr. Spaat, begin evasive maneuvers." "Aye, Sir. " The screen started to wobble around dizzily. "Report." "No effect, Captain, the unknown is still closing with us." "Yellow alert. Hail them again." "Aye, Sir." "The unknown is now at close range." Harksain Varupuchu reported. "Raise shields." "Shields up, Captain." "Any response to the hail?" "None, Captain." "Red alert. Open the channel, please." The alarms of the Harrier summoned the crew to battle stations. "Channel open, Captain." "This is Captain Hailey of the Harrier. Your actions might be misinterpreted as hostile. I am prepared to act to defend my ship. Please respond." We waited. The point of light could be seen now as a globe in the main view screen. "The unknown is now at point blank range." That was less than five kilometers. The Harrier strained through a turn trying to avoid the thing. "Arm weapons." I said "Weapons arming." "Impact in fifteen seconds." "Phasers armed." "Twelve, eleven..." "Phasers fire." The phasers of the Harrier lashed out and touched the globe. Nothing happened. "No effect, Captain." "Four, three, two..." "Brace for impact." We all grabbed something. The alert klaxon took on a more strident tone. A large face appeared floating in the air near the main view screen. It looked like a mask. One of those masks used as the symbols for drama. It started out blank, but then took on an angry expression. I stood up in front of it. Even with empty eyes, I had the feeling that it was looking at me. "I am Captain Jay P. Hailey. I welcome you to the Harrier." I spread my arms slowly. It looked at me. "Are you the Harmon?" For a brief moment the angry scowl was replaced by a cheerful grin. Then the angry scowl returned. "Can you understand us?" Again the scowl was briefly replaced with a grin, which quickly faded. I noticed just then that the Harrier was still turning and dodging in response to her evasive maneuvers program. "Mr. Spaat, All stop." The Harrier came to a halt and the face showed another grin. "Do you have a spoken language?" I asked. The face showed a moment of a sad frown and then returned to an angry scowl. Was it my imagination that the angry scowl wasn't quite as resentful? "We are in distress. We would like your aid." The face showed a moment of sad frown. "Could you tell us the location of your space?" The face grinned and then the science station lit up. A stellar chart was called up and then the exact areas of Harmon space were delineated. It wasn't very big, about one hundred and eighty light years across. I saw that notations were added to the chart. Harmon space was marked by a series of bizarre stellar phenomenon. As long as you steered clear of those, you wouldn't run into Harmon space. "Thank you." The face grinned. "Do you know the locations of Kliges'chee space?" The sad frown returned. It was replaced by an even angrier scowl. "I apologize. The Kliges'chee pose a serious threat to us. We don't want to be eaten." The face went slowly blank. "Ah, Hello?" I was desperate "Please don't give up! I'm sure that we can communicate!" The eyes of the mask flashed brightly. -*- I was a Harmon. I was floating in the air of the Harrier's bridge, while I watched my own body crumple to the floor like a sack of potatoes. It was awful. I could see every minute flaw in the Harrier. She was an aesthetic nightmare. All the angles are subtly wrong. All the colors just slightly off, and the effect was horrid. As I watched my body crumple to the floor I noticed that it was really not a great design. There were so many ways to do the things that my body did, only better. As form followed function, I realized that aesthetically the poor functioning of my body made it pretty sad from an artistic point of view too. Worse the same basic flaws were repeated with a certain amount of variety by every living being on the Harrier. As my mind encompassed each being on the Harrier, his every minuscule imperfection stood out to me, and it was very irritating. I saw the Harrier as whole object and she was pretty sad. The whole basic concept of matter/anti-matter annihilation leading to plasma energy transfer was flawed, but even if I was willing to accept the idea for the sake of argument, we simply hadn't put the whole thing together very well. Then my mind turn turned to society and the Federation, and what a botched up mess we had made of things there. I was half tempted to shut the whole thing away before it hurt anyone else with its inept fumblings. Then I realized that I was mad. It was a painful realization, but I immediately came to understand the inherent flaw in me. As a Harmon I had given thousands of years to the pursuit of perfection. The act of perfecting myself had given me vast powers and perceptions. However, my own obsession with perfection led me to critically analyze everything in the minutest detail. Imperfection annoyed me. To perceive an imperfection was to admit that such a thing was possible, even in me. I saw the entire galaxy as an imperfect thing that I needed to correct piece by individual piece. I knew that this was madness. Even with my perfected powers and perceptions I couldn't change the entire galaxy enough to make it perfect. Worse, the more I fought with it the more it would seem to deteriorate. My own perceptions would magnify the imperfect areas out of proportion. I had to review myself. I could not make the Galaxy perfect, therefore I had to make myself perfectly suited to the galaxy as it was. Or, imperfect. This was big step and I was afraid. I needed to hide, I needed to be alone. I needed to be quite inside and let my perfect spirit grapple with these problems. Choosing a place that wasn't quite perfect, I set myself to contemplate the nature of perfection and imperfection. But I was continuously interrupted. Bugs in little starships came to me calling for my attention. Bugs shouldn't build starships. They don't really know how. In leaky, crappy death traps they came by the hordes. I set warning signs and traps to send them away, but they were really thicker than mosquitoes on a river. I could kill them out right with my perfected powers, but my perfected ethics restrained me. To do so would make me the exact opposite of perfect. Some bugs were even less perfect than others, and these, the Kliges'chee actually tried to eat me. With exasperation I turned their swarm aside again and again until they got the point and left. Even so, the bugs and their aggressive imperfection continued to intrude. The bugs were friendly or angry or fearful or awed and worshipful. Their little imperfect emotions didn't matter. Each one was about as annoying as any other. My meditations were interrupted time and again. They were important. I must end my own madness and adjust myself to be harmonious with an imperfect world. If my madness grew, then bugs and bigger animals and maybe even other people might be in danger of being hurt. The thought pained me. I needed to heal myself. If only the bugs would leave me alone. --- 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! 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! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? Wed Mar 24 00:20:05 2004 X-Persona: Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n19.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.74]) by killdeer (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1b60O94VN3NZFlr0 for ; Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:20:05 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13316-1080105604-stephenbratliffasc=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yah o.com Received: from [66.218.67.194] by n34.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Mar 2004 05:20:10 -0000 X-Sender: stephen@trekiverse.org X-Apparently-To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 67337 invoked from network); 24 Mar 2004 05:20:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Mar 2004 05:20:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.232) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Mar 2004 05:20:08 -0000 Received: from sdn-ap-006dcwashp0317.dialsprint.net ([63.188.49.63]) by flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1B60oB-0005C6-00 for ascl@yahoogroups.com; Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:20:07 -0800 To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Organization: Alt.StarTrek.Creative Virtual Staff Office Message-ID: X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.92/32.572 X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 207.217.120.232 X-eGroups-From: Stephen From: Stephen X-Yahoo-Profile: oldmanasc MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCL@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ASCL@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 00:19:50 -0500 Subject: [ASC] REP Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 42/342(?) [PG] TNG-OC (Misc, OCs) Reply-To: ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark & Cana Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US da. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/5x3olB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 18:36:00 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: 42/342(?) 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 Harmon: Episode 42 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn I rolled over and puked. Then the pain hit me and I curled into a ball. I think I whimpered, but I can't be sure. Hands were grabbing me and pulling me flat on the deck. Voices were saying things, but I hurt to badly to pay attention. Then my stomach heaved again. I was a mess. Things got a little vague and then I was in sickbay. Dr. Flynn was scanning me. For a moment I just looked. When I was the Harmon, I could have told you exactly what was wrong with her whole design and aesthetics. I couldn't see it, now, but I remembered what it felt like. We had to give these guys room! I rolled over and scrabbled for the floor. I was in a hospital gown. It was drafty and embarrassing, except that I didn't have time. "Hold it, Captain." Patricia moved over and held me, to keep me from leaving. "Patricia, please. I have to get to the bridge. It's important." "No. You've had your brain altered. I can't tell exactly what's going on with you, but I know it wasn't good." I felt the deck vibrate as the Harrier started to move. "Listen, I promise to come right back, but it's important! I can't tell you right now, but I'll come back. I promise!" "Don't you trust Li'ira?" "It's not that! She just doesn't know!" Dr. Flynn rolled her eyes and reached for my pants. "All right, but I'm coming along to keep an eye on you." "Fine. Glad to have you." It didn't hurt as much now and walking was only a slightly imperfect way to move myself. I got to the bridge to find Li'ira in control, and the Harrier fiercely evading the ball of light. I was struck by a blast of lust. Li'ira must have been scared out of her mind. Besides the immediate rush, I was struck by what an inappropriate and imperfect reaction that was. "Report." I meant to bark, but my head hurt and my voice was hoarse. Li'ira did a double take at me "Captain! You're back!" She grinned merrily. I knew how she must feel. Now she didn't have to lug the Harrier home on her back. "When you were attacked, the face disappeared. I reinstated evasive maneuvers. The Harmon has been shadowing us at a distance of 5373.1 kilometers. I was preparing to fire on them." "All stop." I said. "Stand down weapons." The Harrier came to a stop, the weapons were disarmed. "But, Captain..." Li'ira said. Now she back on the other side of it, where no one knew what the crazy captain was thinking. It was good see her reevaluating her opinions. She gave Patricia a significant look. The Doctor just shrugged and watched to see what I would do next. "Open a channel." "Channel open, Captain." Stephanie reported crisply. "This is Captain Hailey. We apologize for the unwarranted intrusion. We meant no harm. If there is ever a way for us to help you, please let us know. Until then, The Harrier will leave your territory immediately. I beg you to remember the Kurr Association. You englobed them in an energy bubble some time ago. They will soon die unless released-" The point of light streaked off. "Huh?" I said "The Harmon has moved off at a high warp speed, Captain." "How high?" "We lost them as they reached warp nine point nine nine eight, Sir." "Whoa." I sat back down in my command chair. My legs felt distant and I was a little woozy. Patricia had given me something and I was really beginning to feel it. "Mr. Spaat, best speed directly out of Harmon space." "Back into Kliges'chee space, Captain?" Li'ira said, unhappily. "You don't know what sort of harm we risked by coming here. Lives all over the galaxy could be threatened if the Harmon lose it." Li'ira looked at me confused and upset. "Lose it?" "They are hurting pretty badly." "Contact, Captain." Harksain Varupuchu reported. Stephanie started cursing under her breath as the information was transferred to her screen. "Tactical on screen." I said. The main view screen switched to its tactical mode and I saw what Stephanie was cursing about. Twenty-five ships had surrounded us and were now screaming down on us at full impulse acceleration. "Begin evasive!" I order. Spaat hit a button and the Harrier again ran her evasive program. "What are they?" I dreaded the answer, but felt that I knew already. The Kliges'chee's sensors must have been better than we thought. "Unknown type and configuration, Captain. I can't identify them." "On screen." The main screen again switched and I saw what was coming at us. It was a flattened ellipsoid. It wriggled through space. It looked for all the world like a space going manta ray. The thing that really caught my eye were the energy readings and the weapons/shields reading. Nothing. They had no shields, or weapons or energy that we could detect. "Ah, hell." I said "Can we go to warp?" Li'ira asked. "Negative." Spaat reported. "The aliens are too close to us and too close to each other. To go to warp now would ensure a collision." "Permission to re-arm the weapons, Captain?" Stephanie asked. She wanted to go down fighting, at least. "Denied. We have no idea what we're dealing with here. Hail them." "Aye, Sir. Hailing frequencies open." Stephanie sounded resigned. "This is the Federation starship Harrier. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. Will you communicate with us?" We waited while the Harrier evaded, looking for an opening. The aliens had superior speed and maneuverability. We couldn't find a gap before they moved to close it. They swarmed closer and closer. The Harrier was running out of room and time. "Hail them again." "Aye, sir." The globe closed in further. It seemed as though all we could see were swooping manta rays. "Mr. Varupuchu, any ideas of what these are?" "No, Captain. We can detect no energy or weapons signatures. I can't even give you an idea of how they are propelling themselves. It does seem fairly obvious that they are herding us in." The aliens closed in. The Harrier had to curtail her evasive maneuvers or risk a collision. I knew that I should fire. The Harrier was almost completely trapped and out of options. The order to arm weapons and fire sat on the tip of my tongue. I couldn't bring myself to give the order. Our inability to scan anything except the basic existence of these creatures argued that they were some sort of technologically advanced ships. While that made me afraid, that wasn't the only factor in my decision. The simple fact was that I didn't know what they were doing. I didn't want to risk making them angry when they could be doing anything. Was it some sort of mating flight? I just didn't know. The aliens closed to within five hundred meters, and the stopped, joining to form a globe with the Harrier in the middle. There was a lurch. The aliens broke up their globe and swooped away, seeming to cavort in open space. The stars outside the Harrier were different. Two things were reported to me at about the same time. First, we were located in a sector about one hundred and eighty light years away from our previous location. We had been carried to the far side of Harmon space in an instant. Secondly, there were five Kliges'chee Type-B cruisers facing us. --- 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! 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! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? 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