Chapter 1
Leianni was sat on the floor trying to save the Captain of the Starship Reginal.
"Its ok Captain." she told him. The Captain had suffered third degree plasma burns over his face and chest and was having difficulty breathing. She injected him with a stimulant and placed an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. Their ship had been attacked by a strange alien ship, most of the crew had escaped in pods. Only the senior officers remained aboard and Leianni was the only medical officer left alive.
"Lei.. Lei.." the Captain tried to speak but as he spoke he began to cough up blood.
"No Captain, don't speak. I've managed to stabilize the alveoli in your lungs but your burns are causing you problems." she told him and injected him with painkillers. Leianni couldn't stand what she was sensing, she could hear everyone's pain and fear on the ship as they were slowly dying. Tears were rolling down her cheeks as the emotion of fear filled the ship and soon it was getting too much for her to handle. She moved away from the Captain and cupped her hands over her ears to try and make the feels and noise go away,
"No! Stop! Please!" she shouted and began to sob. It was getting louder and louder!
Meanwhile, the Enterprise was nearby.
"Hail the vessel." James Kirk said to Lieutenant Uhura.
"They're not responding to hails sir." she replied.
"Life signs?" James asked.
"Five humanoid life signs, four critical." Spock answered.
"Mr. Spock, you and Doctor Mccoy take a medical team onto the vessel and bring back any survivors." Kirk ordered.
"Yes sir. Spock to Doctor Mccoy, meet me in transporters room 1 with a medical team." Spock said into his communicator before he left the bridge. Mccoy was in the transporters room when Spock arrived, they walked onto the pad and transported to the ship. The ship was in a bad way, the corridors were dark as none of the lights were working. There were bodies lying on the ground. Mccoy got out his medical tricorder and began scanning the bodies as he walked past them and declared them as dead or if they were still alive he would give orders to the medical team.
"Doctor, do you hear that?" Spock asked.
"No."
"It.. Sounds like crying." Spock replied and walked off ahead.
"Spock wait!" Mccoy shouted and ran after him. As they walked through the long corridors they found a young woman sat up against a wall sobbing.
"Excuse me, miss." Mccoy said. The woman looked up, she was pale and had wet eyes.
"You are not part of this crew. Identify yourself." she ordered and stood up, for a moment she didn't hear or sense anything but then it came flooding back and she fell to her knees from the impact of the noise.
"What is wrong?" Mccoy asked.
"Too many… too many thoughts! Too much emotion! Make it stop!" she shouted and covered her ears again.
"She is a Betazoid, they are capable of reading most species thoughts and sensing emotion." Spock stated. "I believe the death of her crew has become overwhelming and she is hearing her crews last thoughts and emotions. Fear and death are quite powerful Doctor."
"Thanks Mr. Spock. That was truly helpful. What's your name?"
"Leianni Lon. I am the head nurse of this ship." she managed to reply but was getting plagued by images and emotions. She began to shout in pain and fell onto her back, Mccoy quickly prepared a hypospray of psilosynine and injected her with it. Leianni's breathing rate slowly calmed down till she was breathing properly. She wasn't getting any images any more or feeling or hearing her crews thoughts or emotions.
"Thank you Doctor." she replied and stood up without assistance. "Stated your identity." she ordered.
"I am Doctor Mccoy, this is Commander Spock. We're from the Starship Enterprise."
"We received your distress call but when you failed to answer our hails we came aboard." Spock explained.
"I am much obliged. We were attacked by strange aliens but we did not know what they wanted. I am the only medical officer remaining on my ship." she replied and then walked over to the Captain who she had temporarily forgotten about, but he was dead.
Spock's communicator then bleeped, he flipped it open.
"Spock here." he said.
"Sir, we have recovered the remaining alive crewmen."
"Every good Ensign. Me, Doctor Mccoy and one of the remaining crew will meet you at the transporter co-ordinates." Spock said and closed his communicator.
Leianni followed the Doctor and the Vulcan down the corridors and was teleported up to their ship where she was taken straight to sickbay for an examination by Doctor Mccoy. Leianni watched as two of the remaining crew died from their injuries, she and Lieutenant Jack were the only ones that had survived and she hardly had a scratch on her body.
The Captain had come into sickbay and talked to the pair of them, Leianni was unsure about what she wanted to do. The Captain offered to drop them at the nearest Federation star base but only minutes before the Captain had come in Doctor Mccoy had talked to Leianni about becoming his new Head Nurse.
"Jim. I need a top nurse and I believe she's the woman for the job." Mccoy said to the Captain. Jim briefly gazed at Leianni before he looked back at Mccoy,
"What does she want to do?"
"We've talked and I would like to offer her a job."
"I'll inform Star Command." The Captain answered and left to go back to the bridge where Spock was in charge till his returned. Lieutenant Jack had requested to be taken to the nearest star base.
Leianni left sickbay whilst accompanied by two officers who were taking her to her new quarters, her quarters were bigger on this ship then the Reginal and some Betazoid artefacts had been put in her room such as paintings and candles. She first sorted out her room and replicated more Betazoid items to make her feel more at home and then she began to fill in a report about what happened on the Reginal and about the strange aliens that attacked them. Leianni barely knew anything about the aliens, when they first attacked the Reginal they targeted the ship's weapons and aft shields before they boarded the ship and slowly moved through deck by deck destroying the ship from inside. Leianni couldn't understand their battle plan as it was chaotic and unpredictable.
She reported to the Captain's ready room an hour later with her report,
"Sir, I apologise as I don't know how helpful I can be against these aliens. I do not understand them." she stated.
"Thank you Miss Lon. But any information you can give is greatly appreciated." he replied and briefly scanned the report "So tell me, what happened when they attacked your ship?"
"They targeted our weapons and shields. Once our shields were down they boarded and began sabotaging the ship and attacking the crew. Their intention wasn't clear and I couldn't feel anything from them, no emotion. Nothing." she answered.
"Thank you, Miss Lon. Do you like your new quarters?"
"Yes. Thank you, sir."
"I'm glad. I'll have your ID card and uniform sent to your room."
"Thank you Captain." she smiled and then left his ready room to return to her quarters, she was tired and needed a good night sleep.
The next morning, Leianni went to her first shift in sickbay and assisted Doctor Mccoy with the crews monthly physical examinations, she ran scans and made notes. As Leianni was writing notes on the crew the ship sudden jolted side-ways making her fall over.
"What was that?" she asked as Doctor Mccoy helped her stand up and then moved over to his consol and pressed a button to open a comm link to the bridge.
"Sickbay to the bridge. What's going on?" he asked.
"We're being attacked Bones!" the Captain answered.
"Doctor, there are a number of reports of casualties on all decks." Leianni reported as the ship jerked again.
Meanwhile, on the bridge the Captain was giving orders to fire on the ship.
"Target its weapon systems and engines." the Captain ordered "Lieutenant Uhura. Get Leianni on the bridge, perhaps she can help!"
"Yes sir." she replied and opened a comm channel "Uhura to Nurse Lon, report to the bridge immediately."
"I'm on my way." Leianni answered. She left sickbay but as she walked down the corridor she passed someone and didn't feel anything, as she slowly turned to look at them they pulled out a phaser and shot her in the chest.
"Arg!" she groaned as she fell backwards on the ground, her vision had gone blurry as drifted in and out of consciousness. The intruder put away his phaser and continued down the corridor, his goal was to destroy the ships internal computer.
"Where's Leianni?" The Captain demanded.
"I don't know sir. She's not answering her communicator." Lieutenant Uhura replied.
"The ships internal sensors reveal that she is on deck 6 Captain." Spock answered "Captain, I have also discovered a weakness in the enemy ship's shields. Their shields are weakest at their starbot side."
"Spock, go find Nurse Leianni. Mr Sulu, fire at the shields weakness with everything we've got."
"Yes Captain." Spock and Sulu answered. Spock left the bridge and entered the turbo lift, when he got to deck 6 he walked down the corridor and found Miss Lon unconscious on the ground.
"Miss Lon." he said firmly and gently shook her.
"Oh.." she moaned as she opened her eyes. "Mr. Spock! We have an.. Intruder aboard." she said as he helped her stand up.
"You must go to sickbay. You are injured." he replied and helped her to walk.
"I think he's after the ship's main computer." she said as they got to sickbay.
"I will stop the intruder." Spock stated and left. Mccoy helped Leianni onto a bio-bed, she only had second degree plasma burns to her chest, it wasn't too painful but it was causing her problems in breathing.
Meanwhile, Spock activated the ship's internal security alert before he proceeded to engineering where the main computer core was stationed. He ran most of the way and when he entered Engineering he found Mr. Scotty unconscious on the floor with a similar wound to Miss Lon but Spock couldn't stop. He carried on and saw an unfamiliar alien by a consol dressed in Starfleet uniform.
"Step away from the consol." Spock ordered, the alien went to grab his phaser but Spock fired and hit him in the chest stunning him.
"Spock to the bridge, I have the alien intruder. Orders, Captain." he said in his communicator.
"Take him straight to the brig Spock. I'll meet you there when I'm done."
"Aye Captain." Spock replied and closed his communicator. He put his phaser away before he grabbed the alien and dragged him to the brig.
Meanwhile,
"Lieutenant Uhura. Hail the alien vessel." the Captain ordered "Tell them we have one of their crew members and will return him once they've retreated."
"Aye sir." Lieutenant Uhura replied and obeyed but the alien ship continued firing.
"Mr Sulu, continue firing!" the Captain ordered.
The second from last shot deactivated the alien's ship shields and the last shot destroyed their weapon's array.
"Report!" the Captain ordered.
"Hull breaches deck 7 through 10, casualties on all decks." Uhura answered.
"The alien ship's shields and weapons have been disabled." Sulu also replied.
The Captain headed straight to the brig where Spock and the alien was waiting.
"What is your purpose here?" the Captain asked.
"We.. Steal technology.." the alien replied. It had a green lizard type skin and had a hissy voice. "What have you done to my ship?"
"Its been disabled. We're taking you and your ship to be court-martialled by Star fleet." the Captain replied.
"You.. Will never hold us!" the alien hissed.
"That's a matter of opinion. We'll reach the star base in approximately 5 hours. Anything to say in your defence?"
"No." the alien hissed and retreated to the corner of his cage. Spock and the Captain left the brig,
"Tell me Mr. Spock. What do you think of the alien?"
"He is.. An interesting creature. They don't seem to be very intelligent, they can only focus on one goal at a time and find it hard to adapt." Spock answered.