Chapter 3
Having utilized a teleportation system similar to what was in use via starships, only larger so as to accommodate more numbers in a common beaming...
"Who are you?" courageously challenged the truly golden-haired Commander Brehk as two dozen androids now crowded spacedock's Deck One, brandishing makeshift phasers of their own singular design. "What do you want?"
"My name," came the merry reply, "is Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Formerly: Mudd the First. Now...and pretty much forever more...Mudd the Immortal. Hahahahaha!"
"That is not logical," succinctly stated Ensign T'Sora, with a slight lifting of a single slanted brow to outwardly express the closest thing to righteous irascibility that a passionless Vulcan could come. "Our most recent records, transmitted to Starfleet by the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE, duly denotes that Harcourt Fenton Mudd was...is...a mere Human. Save for the irrefutable fact that you have an uncanny knack for 'fooling' fellow Humans and similarly gullible humanoids. Last known to have been 'paroled', as it were, by Captain James T. Kirk to a race of androids on a K-type planet situated in Sector..."
"Do you happen to have a brother, dear lady?" impertinently interrupted Mudd the Immortal as his fleshy face, black handlebar mustache accentuated a humorous mix on a half-bald Human male ridiculously dressed in royal blues-and-purples. "Because you, my Vulcan lovely, sound exactly like a pointy-eared lad I've had the distinct displeasure of meeting more than once."
Before T'Sora, slanted brows knitted in cold analytical wonderment, came to comment in regards to her Vulcan lineage, a broadly grinning Mudd directed his next comically bemused statement to the resident representative of Dreadar Prime and current CO of Earth Spacedock...
"Now, uh, Commander, if you would be so kind as to surrender yourself and these others...not to mention making it easier to elicit the same from the remainder of spacedock...my androids and I shall see to it that your continued existence under my regal rule is as pleasant as possible."
Brehk's snake-eyes narrowed and his angelic appearance promptly formed a frown that seemed much more unnerving than that of a mere Human's facial features. His dual-toned, multi-octave voice delivering an underlying vindictiveness even worse than that of an ice-planet born-and-bred Andorian.
"You must be mad, Mudd, if you believe I would openly participate in anything that could place this spacedock or Earth and, by extension, Starfleet and the Federation, in such a decidedly dangerous..."
"'Dangerous'?" gregariously laughed Mudd as his teddy-bear eyes went wide. "Have I given you the impression we wish to harm you...or Earth...or Starfleet and the UFP? My dear Commander...I simply wished to sidestep the incontestable certitude that, by the end of the day...Mudd the Immortal shall most assuredly...be in total control. Hahahahahaha!"
"Captain's log, Stardate: 4521.4. Thanks to Mr. Scott's constant 'nurturing' down in engineering, plus a plot as perfect as what I would expect of Mr. Spock, himself, laid in by Ensign Chekov...and, undoubtedly, a hell of a lot of luck!...the ENTERPRISE has just reached the outer edge of Earth-space. Swiftly passing the outer planets, as well as Pluto, which had been erroneously regarded as a planet for centuries prior to proving to be a Kuiper Belt object. Proceeding now at near-maximum impulse speeds that would have us closing on Earth Spacedock in approximately fourteen minutes. I can only hope that we're not too late."
"Anything, Spock?" again asked Captain Kirk for the third time since dropping out of Warp 8.7 into space-normal Impulse.
Spock, being the emotionless half-Human/half-Vulcan Kirk had come to know so well, simply stood, once more time, to promptly peer down into his scanner hood. Blue illumination, within which was all the sensor data deemed necessary for a response, cast its soothing glow onto slanted-browed eyes. Spock's hand deftly adjusting the data-variant control on the side of said scanner hood to more readily clarify certain specifics.
"As has already been reported previously, upon our space-normal entry ever-deeper into Earth space," came the couched-in-calm logic comments from Commander Spock to the anxious-for-action, centrally-located Captain Kirk. "There is, indeed, an approximated-by-computers total of some seven thousand androids within the huge ship, presently sitting some sixteen hundred seventy-seven point eight-three-two kilometers from spacedock. I have also ascertained, again as nearly accurate as the computers can be under the present set of circumstances, that some two dozen androids have beamed over and are now in the midst of commandeering Deck One of spacedock. There also appears to be a probability of 99.9-percent that the androids will also soon start the process of securing the remaining Humans and humanoids on the remainder of decks via the use of self-simulated 'phasers'."
"And Mudd?" Captain Kirk asked tersely as he propped his right elbow on the right armrest of his center seat and concernedly stroked his heroic chin, lightly playing with his lower lip while looking over to the starboard station where stood Spock.
Seconds passed syrupy slow, as the passionless Science Officer/First Officer took further readings, then Spock stood stock straight and half-turned to tell his superior and secretly-held friend...
"No sign of Mr. Mudd, Captain. Neither on the vast vessel nor on spacedock. In fact, it would definitely denote that androids, alone, currently occupy both."
Casting a quick look at the bridge's rectangular viewscreen, thus far still showing planets passing by the still streaking in via Impulse-engaged ENTERPRISE, Kirk stood and stepped slowly to starboard. Staying on the lower of two tiers prior to pensively leaning against the red railing so perfectly separating the slightly lower level from upper.
"But that doesn't make sense. The androids were incapable of such self-devised 'deviousness'. When we left there...weeks earlier...they seemed motivated totally to continuing their original programming in regards to constructing habitable domes about the K-type planet."
"Indeed," Spock said as he neatly folded his hands behind a board-straight back, while logically-yet-annoyingly knitting his slanted brows. "And considering the propensity for pomposity associated with a Human of Mr. Mudd's nauseatingly obnoxious nature, it seems completely illogical that he would opt to remain on said K-type planet, while allowing only androids to discharge whatever worrisome stratagem he, himself, would have inevitably invented."
After Captain Kirk cast a smirking upward peek at the perfect, on the surface at least, mix of Human emotion 'neath avaricious Vulcan control...
"Mr. Spock, it appears you bear some personal 'grudge' against Harcourt Fenton Mudd."
Allowing his external expression to falter for the briefest of instants, Spock stiffened and not-so-stoically-as-usual said, "Such could not be further from the truth, Captain. I am merely, quite logically, 'unsettled' by the insulting deceptiveness used by Mr. Mudd to so handily dupe androids as perfectly logical as those on..."
"Why, Mr. Spock," cut in Kirk with a full-blown look of comicality to his handsome mien, "if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were jealous."
Leaving Spock speechless, something seemingly impossible!, Captain Kirk returned to his center seat even as Lt. Sulu proclaimed, "Passing Mars orbit, Captain. ETA to Earth: eighty-two seconds."
"Bring up shields and place weapons on line, Mr. Sulu. Ensign Chekov...take us in from the moon's dark side. No need in alerting the androids to our approach any sooner than necessary."
"Aye, Captain."
"Aye, Keptin."
"Let's just hope," Kirk commented mostly to himself, "that the androids haven't improved upon ship's weapons the way they did Warp Drive."
END OF CHAPTER 3
