What does God need with a starship?

Posted on Mon Dec 10th, 2018 @ 11:01pm by The One & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Seregon French & Emergency Medical Hologram (Adam Power) Mk X
Edited on on Sat Jan 5th, 2019 @ 4:03pm

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: USS Hera, Deck 6, Transporter room 1
Timeline: 2395, docked with the Worldship

Chief McCormack and Security Officer Waititi beamed down onto what was presumed to be the promenade of the Worldship. Science wanted some readings, so it was Security's job to make sure they survived long enough to report in. There didn't seem to be much beaming action, although the Hera's sensors were recording literally dozens of personal teleportations at any given moment. Thus they just beamed into an unoccupied spot in the promenade, as a somewhat gaudily-dressed local took a sudden interest in them.

Surveying the area as Wiatiti scanned for readings, McCormack tapped his comm badge. "Chief McCormack to Transporter Room 1. We're down safely- maintain lock until we give the all-clear."

=^= Roger wilco, Chief. =^= came the reply from the badge.

The dapperly-dressed local stepped toward the Starfleet security chief with one hand extended and the hint of a smile on his almost ridiculously handsome face.



"My dear fellow, I'm in a bit of a spot and I was rather hoping you could help me. You see, I've a friend who's in need of a starship. You just came from one, didn't you? I recognize the twinkly lights you people like to flit about with." The humanoid male who seemed like a dandy or a fop moved in on the chief slowly and breezily, even as the chief held out his hand to keep the stranger at a distance while his free hand dropped to his holstered phaser.

"Easy friend. How about you give me a little room here, huh?"

Reasonably sure he wasn't reading the tricorder correctly, Waititi the redshirt turned to the security chief. "Ah, Chief? According to what the tricorder's reading, that's actually some sort of multidimensional being, like a-"

The security officer never finished his statement, because the fist of the aristocratically-coutured dandy lashed out, snapping quite suddenly into the young man's jaw, rendering him unconscious with one sharp precision blow.

Already in motion, McCormack had his phaser out and had grabbed the cape of the dandy, only to find it unattached- it had been perched on his shoulders by immaculate inhuman tailoring. But now freed of the cape, the grinning buffoon presented himself broadly, even as the phaser was squarely leveled in his direction.

"Sir, you try to toreador today twixt the terrific Trelane, the very Squire of Gothos himself! But you shall not prevail, for I have need of thee, and that marvelous starship nearby just awaiting a newly-minted master and commander. I've a friend, you see- a god. And he needs a starship, so, since I get to captain it, this works out for all involved. So," Trelane stopped flouncing his hands about and making delighted proclamations long enough to fix his gaze on the security chief. "I don't suppose you'd be a lamb and have us both beamed back to your ship, would you?"

Protocol was clear here- and it was to bug out. The landing zone was hot. "McCormack to Transporter Room 1, beam us out, emergency, man down!"

"Oh, you will, thanks ever so much!" Trelane declared, as he stepped into the security chief's space, then into McCormack's body as he transformed into energy. As a miniature blue sun flared into incandescence overhead, all four of them beamed up together. As they dematierialized Trelane giggled. “Oooooh, this is going to be so much fun!"



=^= Engineering, we have a lack of materialization alert in transporter room 1- Commander Paris didn't try to beam up, did she? =^=

In the secured workshop she had set aside for working on the god artifacts, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi was working when the message came through. She was out of the lab and standing at the Main Engineering island center console within seconds taking a look at the alert. Her blue eyes looked at the data her mind already trying to work out what was happening. Something had tried to rematerialize, but it wasn't the transporter accident-prone Rita Paris.

=^= We have what looks like Chief McCormack and Security Officer Waititi beamed back, but something.=^= Thex had begun before she began furiously typing commands. There was streaming data unspooling itself from the transporter beam, threatening to overload the buffers.

Something else had been beamed over along with the two personnel.

"We have an unregistered beam over, can't identify." Thex began, before her eyes widened. The unidentified energy was trying to escape the transport beam's holding pattern. "$%$£, we have a virus! Seal off all systems and bring all emergency firewalls online," Thex yelled out as she grabbed one of her crewmen. "Get to the backup transporter, and try and get our two crewmen back." Her crewmate nodded before he hurried off.

That was when the beam materialized, and both Chief McCormack and Mr. Waititi dropped quite thoroughly unconscious to the pads of Transporter Room 1. Which would be remarkable without the spectacle of the gaudily-dressed peacock materializing, grinning broadly ear to ear as he stood over the unconscious security chief. “Splendid! Now, if you would be so kind…?”

There was a pause as the dandy cocked his ear, as if listening to a voice that only he could hear. “Sealed you in, you say? Well, that simply won’t do, that won’t do at all.” Picking up the tricorder off the transporter pad, the immaculately attired annoyance smiled gaily.

“But I’ve a perfectly delightful idea that's practically foolproof…”

The transporter chief tabbed the comms to report the intruder, but in an instant, he no longer existed.


“Chief, the emergency backup transporter is registering both targets on the pad in Transporter Room 1, but they appear to be unconscious. And there’s… wait, now I’m not reading Transporter Room 1 at all- it looks like a blind spot on the sensors. Is that a null zone…?” the engineering crewman reported, sounding more confused by the moment.

The blue-blooded engineer frowned as her own scans came to the same result as her crewmates. What the hell was... She got her answer as the sensors in the corridor outside of the transporter room went dead. Someone was switching them off. Great. “Red alert. Security to transporter room one, we have an intruder." Thex said into her console as she began typing, trying to get the sensors back online.

Less than a moment later, a security team arrived on the scene on Deck 6. While they cleared the area, two security officers overrode the security lock on the door, then they opened it to reveal a gaudily-attired fop in lacey embroidered brocade and finery that might be more at home in the Artan pirate fleet than on the deck of a starship. Phasers leveled, the security officers barked commands.

“Stay where you are! Hands where we can see them! Do not move or we will fire!”

The subject of their instructions giggled cheerfully as he held his hands aloft- one holding a tricorder. “Well, aren’t you the forceful bunch. I daresay I’d be shivering in my boots right now if I didn’t have my little friend here.”

“Whatever it is in your hand, put it down on the deck, slowly! No sudden moves!” the security officers barked, stepping back and keeping their phasers leveled at the gaudily clothed cock of the walk. That ear to ear grin shrank down to a subtle little smile as he slowly and dramatically lowered himself to the deck… then vanished.

“We have a situation here,” the security officer muttered as the officer in charge tapped his comm badge. “This is security, red alert! Intruder just vanished from deck 6, all teams scramble and locate subject!”

"Great." Thex though to herself as she furiously tried to use the scanners to find this intruder. She began throwing up more defenses around the auxiliary bridge, engines and outside of engineering. He wasn't going to be getting near anything sensitive. Whoever this guy was, he clearly had some idea what he was doing.


"I have NO idea what I'm doing," Trelane muttered as he popped up in Science Lab 14, much to the surprise of the two scientists working on a hydrodynamic theory of inverting proton flow in a stable warp field. While they were surprised, both were scientists, so they turned to begin scanning the entity that had just popped up. As one reached over to tap her comm badge, the cerulean waistcoated wanderer hissed and waved his hand, and the comm badges were rendered inert, turned to lead. "Enough of all that."

Bringing the tricorder in his had to he eye, he addressed it. "All right, you're supposed to be so smart and adaptable, why don't you start being smart and adapt, hmmm? Because I'm ready to go have some fun!" With that, he snapped the tricorder open. For a few seconds, energy began coruscating out of the small palm tricorder, whirling and building as blue energies crackled to become a miniature star hovering over the tricorder.

At no point did Dr. Kvortke or Lieutenant Junior Grade Lieslthrex ever stop scanning. Instead they began to message to run complementary scans, to better study both of the manifestations before them. Which took on new meaning when the blazing blue dwarf star echoed forth in a mighty voice,

"DO YOU DOUBT ME?"

Without a care in the world, Trelane smiled paternally. "Of COURSE not, my dear, dear friend! We're on this adventure together, you and I! So all you need is some sort of system to access, right? Like one of these whosiflages here?" Trelane pointed at one of the terminals. Which was when Lieutenant Junior Grade Lieslthrex set down his tricorder to attempt to seal the room's data access. Whatever the entity whose quantum energy readings were so sublime yet potentially powerful, he was pretty sure it was his duty to prevent that. Which he might have accomplished, had not the first thing The One did was to cause a feedback surge in the Lieutenant's terminal, electrocuting him with crackling blue electrical energy.

"Ugh, that smells beastly!" Trelane waved his hankie beneath his nose, the made a shooing motion, and the Bismollian officer was simply gone. As if he had never been. His body would never be recovered, and he would be listed as MIA on the rolls of Starfleet.


Thex stared blankly at the screen which now appeared to be showing a dwarf star had appeared inside Science Lab 14. Looks like their intruder was one of the god creatures. " Security, arm yourselves with the anti-god weaponry and look for the intruder on Deck 6, in Science Lab 14." She yelled into the comms as she furiously locked down the science lab. Someone was attempting to break through the firewalls and access the ship's data. Throwing up more firewalls with one hand the andorian opened a second channel to sickbay. They had the tech to trap these intruders; it was a question of how she could trap the two in Hera's old sealed goddess quarters that was the question.

"Thex to medbay, get me the EMH. We have two intruders that appear to be of are god friends species. I need all the information we have on them, so we can find some way of getting them into Hera's old cell." She explained calmly.

"Uh, Commander? Isn't Hera's old cell currently off limits by order of the Commander, according to the manifest?" came the response from the security team. "We just going to corral them in there?"

That was when an alarm sounded on the panel, and the ship's engineer realized that life support was still connected to the science lab, and something was using that to spread to other systems. Life support touched every space on the starship- if this virus spread through that, it could have the entire starship infected in moments.

Thex resisted the urge to swear as she furiously threw up more defenses around life support. "Scratch that idea, security, just you're distance for now…" she called as she looked at her team looking for any ideas to get them out of this mess. Her eyes shot back to the computer as an alert went off.

The scans by the science team in Science lab 14 had matched at least one of the entities, but it wasn't good news. Trelane had been encountered by Kirk’s Enterprise, the 1701, back in 2267. He was apparently a Q-like entity that could alter or rearrange matter or reality seemingly at will. She'd read of the mission back at the Academy, and knew how the Enterprise crew had only escaped from the being when it's 'parents' had shown up to take him 'home'. Still, it did give her an idea.

With a few swift moves, the andorian opened up a coms channel to the science bay. "General Trelane, didn't anyone teach you it's rude to steal a girl’s starship?" She taunted, hoping she could distract the being until she thought of something.

As The One found itself encountering resistance in the systems, it was multiplying its attacks at an exponential speed, overloading the processing limits of the individual systems and mimicking their functions to elude the firewalls the ship’s engineer was frantically erecting in an effort to contain them. The starship was large and mighty and complex, and there were a considerable number of systems, backup systems, subsystems and auxiliary systems that were all working in a concert of synchronized activity that The One found pleasing. When all of these systems answered to it, then The One would be quite pleased with their new home.

For now, there was an inkling of the direction to the ship’s computer core. While it was well defended and quite the bulwark of security, The One recognized it as its final goal. Now it needed to get there. Reaching out through the plasma conduits, The One raced through subsidiary systems of the starship, seeking out the control panel of the orders-issuing pest who was stymieing them.

“DRAW IT’S ATTENTION.” The One boomed from the overhead in the Science lab.

“Oh, I rather think I can do that quite handily!” the colorful cavalier countered, rubbing his hands together briskly before disappearing from the lab. "Call me a thief, will she..."

Working furiously the Hera's chief engineer did her best to defeat the entity that was trying to infect her ship. Her hands danced as she opened up new firewalls and defenses as she tried to reclaim various systems of the Hera. A grin spread over her face as she took back a system, sealing part of the entirety in the universal transference matrix before with a flick of a switch she rebooted the system, causing the entirety to retreat out of the program. It was now trying to seep into the plasma conduits, for which she flung up multiple defenses as an idea began to form in her head.

Which was when there was a tap on her shoulder, from a rather fancy fencing blade.

“I say, did you happen to call me a thief, little missy…?” the Squire of Gothos asked, his wrist turning the shiny steel blade on the shoulder of the Andorian engineer as he stood in Engineering. “I believe I must challenge you to a duel over those most cutting words of yours, in order to properly satisfy my honor!”

Around the chief engineers, a half dozen engineering crewmen and one ensign all grabbed random nearby tools, even as the ensign moved in on the emergency armory cache where he could lay hands on a phaser. Nobody threatened the chief in Main Engineering.

"Easy boys and girls- lower your weapons and keep his friend out of the ship. Plan swordfish," Thex said calmly as she finished inputting something into the computer. "Very well. I don't suppose you could tell your friend to stop his hacking while we settle this?" She asked politely as she could, despite the current situation.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen. After all, he needs a starship, and he’s chosen yours. So what shall it be? Blades or muskets?” The cheery Squire’s grin turned slightly malicious. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t duel a member of the fairer sex, but seeing how you’ve assaulted my honor, clearly that equality thing seems to have caught on.” As Thex reached for another console, the shiny steel blade nicked out, drawing a line across her forearm that sliced through her uniform to leave a superficial thin slash on her wrist.

“Ah ah ah, no more playing. I will run you through if you won’t defend yourself!” While the words were spoken with almost childish glee, the menace underlying the words was evident, even as an elaborate fencing sword appeared in Thex’s right hand.

In truth, Thex had never used blades other than the heavy machete that was part of all Starfleet away kits. Even still, she brought up the sword to block a thrust from the intruder. "Tell me... why does he need a starship? Can't you just teleport around?" she said as she blocked another strike.

"Oh, of course I can be anywhere I like. But I can't just carry all of my stuff with me or have people around to order about if it's just me." Through all of the casual conversation Trelane's sword continued wagging and fighting even as he considered his words. As Thex leapt over him and brought in a slash to bring him down, although Trelane wasn't facing her, the sword still interposed. As he shoved her off him with an alarming strength, his eyes twinkled a bit, as if the cosmos were hidden within them. "Oh my, you're quite agile, aren't you? Ah, but it's a duel, and I must continue until I win to maintain my honor. Unless... I've already won...?"

The 'chunt' sound of life support going offline was accompanied by the emergency lights. Glancing at her terminal, Thex could see her own defensive programs being corrupted. Trelane had been the distraction, while the being composed of pure energy had shifted their assault to her specific terminal. Despite all precaution and adherence to procedure, The One had gotten through.

=^= WHO IS THIS CREATURE? =^= the comms echoed, the voice booming so loudly everyone standing in the chief's locale could feel their carapaces and skeletons reverberate with the bass.

Which was when the EMH materialized. "Please state the nature of the..." Looking up at the ceiling and glancing around, the EMH made a few observations digitally. "I believe the ship is the one that needs medical attention. My counter-virus subroutines are detecting quite the nasty system. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes, we have a child and his pet trying to steal our ship," Thex yelled out as she sprang up, grabbing a large heavy wrench and charged back at the smug god creature. "A child and his pet who both need a smack to the face. Activate swordfish protocol now!" She yelled out as she flung the wrench as hard as she could at the god creature before charging straight at him. Trelane's sword parried the wrench, but her tackle caught him round the midsection.

"Swordfish program?" The EMH looked entirely confused at the program name, but apparently it meant something as a rapier appeared in his hand and he suddenly found the knowledge of several swordsmen and fencing masters being downloaded into his matrix. "Ah! Well then, have at thee!" Placing himself opposite Trelane, the EMH whipped the rapier around almost like he was Zorro, fending off the gaudily dressed intruder's advances as best he could.

Growling, Trelane grabbed a handful of the golden uniform of the chief engineer. Then the aristocratic assclown in the greatcoat pitched the Andorian arse over teakettle across the bay, into her own station no less. His sword immediately game up en garde facing off against The Doctor.

"Wait... you're just one of these clever machines," Trelane squinted as his flashing blade whipped about expertly. Turning to regard Thex's station as his sword expertly wove a bold attacking defense, against an opponent likely unschooled in his Agrippa, he called out. "Can't you do something about this? What do you mean, isolated program, he's right here... oh, never mind." Turning his attention fully on The Doctor, the pupils of the eyes of Trelane sparkled like the milky way as he stepped up his technique, moving faster than any human could match.

The EMH was no human, and had the skill of a surgeon to boot so every strike that Trelane made was quickly and precisely paired with exacting Bonetti's Defense. "The way you move is amazing. You're attacking with Capo Ferro, I assume? Unfortunately for you, I'm now well studied in my Agrippa." Suddenly, the EMH shifted stances and switched to the offense, using Thibault.

"What... wait, that's not fair!" Trelane whined as the dueling Doctor drove the bombastic blusterer back further and faster.

A groan escaped Thex as she began to pull herself up. Her back hurt, but she still had a job to do. "Get out of my ship!" she yelled, as she furiously started blocking the creature inside her ship's systems as she brought out the antivirus big guns. Now systems it was in suddenly began going offline as she began to funnel the creature towards a certain program.

It might have been a flash of intuition, some unreliable sixth sense alerting the cold warrior to imminent peril. It might have been the warning of how her display flashed to black a few milliseconds before it happened, enough time for her to realize her imminent peril. In truth, it was only because she'd snatched up another heavy spanner and was going to wing it at the head of Trelane when her panel, her PaDD and a few of the nearby panels crackled with many varied strands of forked arcing electrical energy, of a particular shade of blue that lit up Thex's skin quite alluringly- and from the smell of ozone and the cooked panel flimsies, would have electrocuted her to death, had she still been at her post.

Meanwhile, the duel between Trelane and The Doctor was running at a fever pitch, as both bladesmen's weapons moved with inhuman speed and accuracy, a blur of steel to the naked eye.

"Stop that! You're cheating!" Trelane huffed as he pushed his own speed faster to make the contest less evenly matched, as the holographic healer was giving as well as he got.

The EMH may have been starting to lose ground, but he was grinning like he had another ace up his sleeve. "I have not yet begun to cheat, good sir!" Suddenly, he lashed out with his left arm, letting the emitters drop his consistency to that of normal light long enough for Trelane's sword to pass right through it like it wasn't even there, but halfway through he kicked in the full emitters so that it was as if the sword was embedded in a block of concrete and jerked it right out of the dandy's hand.

"NOW! I have begun to cheat!" With that, the EMH pressed the top of his rapier to the nape of Trelane's neck. "Your move, Monsieur."

Hands raised in slow surrender, sweat beaded on the fop's forehead. "You, ah, appear to have me at a disadvantage sirrah..." Trelane started before he was interrupted by a booming voice that echoed throughout the USS Hera.

=^= THE CORE. I HAVE BYPASSED THE FINAL SEAL. THIS VESSEL IS MINE. ALL WILL KNOW OF THE ONE. =^=

" No, you don't..." Thex said as she pulled herself up and weakly tried to move towards one of the other consoles.

Then came a sharp feedback squeal, worse on those with sensitive ears. 'Seeing' in the electromagnetic spectrum as she did, Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zourhi felt and saw the miniature sun with a penchant for hurling lightning emit a squeal of panic and terror as it breached the core. It reverberated throughout the Hera for thirteen seconds, then was still.

All around them, systems began rebooting. Auxiliary systems carried the load while system wide reboots began, with systems all showing situation normal. As for Trelane, he wrinkled his nose and wagged his fingers in their direction.

"It's no fun if the ship won't obey me. Hmff!" And with his minor hissy fit thrown, the Squire of Gothos vanished, as if he'd never been there.

" Okay." Thex said weakly as she leaned on one of the consoles as she looked through the ship's data. It appeared to show that the entities had completely vanished. " Anyone have any idea what happened?"

“It looks like the entity managed to breach the central computer core, Chief,” one of her engineers piped up, reviewing the data at her console. “But as soon as it managed to gain access to the core, it appears to have immediately withdrawn from all systems and it seems as though it withdrew to the core. I know it sounds crazy, but the central ship’s computer core is responding normally and shows no change on status whatsoever.”

"Don't take any chances. I want three checks to see if it's left anything behind. Both by the computer and manually." Thex said from her position, grinding her teeth slightly as the adrenaline had begun to wear off. "Doc, can you take a look at me?" She asked the EMH.

Arriving on the scene with a security team, the Security Chief was bewildered. The only thing she could think to do was dispatch teams to make sure that no stowaways were still on board. So she issued the orders as she kept her eyes and ears open.

Setting aside the sword that he had trapped inside his arm and letting his own rapier fade away, the EMH grabbed a medkit off the wall and popped out the tricorder to scan the chief engineer. "You have some bruising and some minor cuts, but nothing too major. You're lucky you're not worse off than you look. Like all good senior officers, I'm sure you'll resist my urgings to come to sickbay to be treated, so I'll just do what I can here." Pulling out a hypo with a minor pain killer and a dermal regenerator, the EMH got to work treating the banged up Andorian.

"Thanks, doc. Sorry for not telling you about swordfish- the program's still rather experimental. Lieutenant French, did our pests bring any more pals?" The andorian asked the security chief.

The EMH just mumbled something about needing a hobby anyway, as he treated Thex's injuries with a hint of a smile, while the frustrated security chief threw her hands up in frustration

"Can anyone explain what just happened? Because now I have to write up an incident report, and I have no idea what just happened!"




No trace of The One were ever found in the Here's ship's computers or any adjacent technology.

 

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