(How to bore an Immortal or three or; Don't you hate it when a shrink tries to psychoanalyze you everytime you offer to kill for money?)
"Well, that was not *my* idea of fun!" exclaimed Dana, yelling at Riker from across the table in the ready-room.
Riker just opened his mouth to reply, when Picard cut him off.
"Squabbling won't get us to this place any faster. It's obvious we've been 'selected' by Q to help in this leg of their quest-- whether we like it or not. We might as well grin and bear it, because our guests will be here a while."
"Do any of you have special talents? We may be able to find things for you to do in the meantime between here and your stop," suggested counselor Troi, who was starring curiously at Percevul, from whom she was receiving some rather... dark impressions.
"Umm..." said Dana looking at her three counterparts. "I used to be a forensic scientist for the FBI... Then I was a terrorist.... Now I'm a.... Well... 'Traveler.' Nothing special there."
"I'm a private investigator," was all Angel could say. ((Hell, if he'd of come out and said: "I'm a vampire" Troi would've had him locked up for close investigation!))
"I'm am assassin." Came from Percevul who was still fuming and simultaneously trying to look intimidating to Riker for yelling at Dana. (())
"Percevul," Dana said through her teeth at the recalcitrant halfling. "I don't think that was an intelligent thing to say!"
Percevul gave her an incredulous look.
Dana sighed. "We'll be here a month. Surely you don't want to spend that time under lock and key?"
Rolling his eyes, Percevul turned to face the shocked expressions of the ship's senior staff. With a shrug, he told them: "I only kill for money."
Dana's head hit the tabletop. Repeatedly.
After about the tenth dull thud rebounded through the room, Dana's head stopped, midmotion. Scully opened her eyes to find Data's hand on her forehead.
"I do not believe you really wish to hurt yourself," he told her, his expression one of curiosity. Humans confused him daily.
"Naw," whispered Angel, not knowing the android could hear him, "She'll only hurt the table top."
"You're a psychopath." Somebody said from the back of the room.
"Incorrect." Percevul responded gleefully. He'd been waiting for a chance to say this. "A crazy person kill's and doesn't know that it is wrong. They live in a fantasy world--they don't understand what they do. I kill for MONEY-as a JOB-and I know that what I do is wrong. I just don't care."
"He's more of a sociopath." Dana added.
"I don't think so." Deanna Troi said. "As far as I can tell he's is perfectly sane. I sense nothing wrong with his mind that would indicate a fantasy-world or insanity. I DO detect a sense of right from wrong" --Dana looked hard at Percy when she heard that-- "but as far as I can tell it doesn't extend to murder."
"So what your saying…" Riker replied, "is that Percevul here is…selectively moral? He suffers from selective morality?"
"Close enough."
"At least he's unarmed." Geordi LaForge said.
"Trust me on this." Dana replied. "If Percy wanted to kill somebody here he could do it with his bare hands almost as easily as with a gun. Hell, he's had enough years to learn."
"Then how do we protect our people from him?" Picard asked her.
"Simple." She responded. "As long as nobody pay's him… and nobody pisses him off TOO badly…and, of course, there are no vampires aboard, you should be safe."
At the mention of vampires, everybody's head turned to her.
"Shit." Percevul said.
Chapter Seventeen: Screw-ups in the Communications Systems
(Borg cubes and the asses who fly them; or How do you say: "Screw you" in Romulan? and other language lessons.)
After the grueling psychological examinations each of our "heroes" received, they were deemed okay to walk around the Enterprise, though not okay enough to hold a position of importance... Or a job at all. Therefore, our trio spent the next five weeks doing nothing. Even Percy got bored killing things with the safety protocols off in the holo-deck.
So needless to say when the first ship-rocking blast came, these three were bored and ready for action. Even if they still weren't "allowed" weapons. ((We say it this way because.. well.. just cause somebody says he can't, it doesn't mean that Percy won't get a weapon. And Dana still had Loyalty...)) On board the Holodeck, the three travelers were engaged in a raging holographic battle of their own, but when the rocking came Angel and Dana stopped…Percy, though, continued fighting.
"What the hell?" Angel said.
"I think we've just been attacked" Percevul replied calmly, slaughtering another holographic Klingon. "Level 5, please. This is too easy."
"What are we going to do?" Angel asked again.
"Nothing." Replied Dana. "Unless we are actually boarded. We would only get in the way. If we get boarded, however, we shall kill anything that doesn't look Federation."
"And how would we do that," Angel asked, "considering that you have no long-distance weapons and Percevul is completely unarmed?"
"I'm more than fast enough to compensate for that." Dana replied, "and knowing Percy, he's got something deadly under his belt."
"Damn straight." Percy said absentmindedly, decapitating an attacking holographic-Romulan. "I stole that weird looking 3-bladed sword-thing from Worf's quarters. And if he want's to make something of it he can go right ahead." He punctuated this by slicing open a Jem 'Hadar's stomach and cutting out it's spine.
Dana glared at him.
Glancing at her, he replied. "Hey. It looked cool…and it was a weapon."
Dana groaned and rolled her eyes. "Only you, Percy, only you."
"Only I what?" he asked, inadvertently getting distracted and getting smacked upside da head by another person.
"Whoops, sorry!" called Angel looking halfway sheepish.
Percevul looked annoyed. He opened his mouth to reply, but was knocked over into Dana as the ship was rocked by another blast.
"Why Percevul!" whispered Dana in her best Scarlet O'Hara voice. "I didn't know you cared!"
"Frankly Scully, I don't give a damn!" he replied in kind with a grin.
The red-alert siren drowned Dana's answer out. "Dammit." she mouthed.
"I guess," Percevul replied, "the shit has hit the fan."
"Preach on, brother." Angel replied, grinning.
Suddenly, the holo-deck cut off. A female computer voice said "Emergency power has been routed from holodecks to forward shields. Civilians using holodecks should report to their quarters."
The computer voice stopped and was interrupted by the voice of Captain Picard. "Percevul, Chase, Angel-would you please come to the Bridge? There's something you should see."
***
5 minutes later, all 3 of them were on the bridge. On the viewscreen was a hazy picture of a blue-green planet, apparently thriving with life. Hazy because it was seen through a bluish-white cloud sparking with thunderbolts.
"That," Riker said, "is the Calamarain. They're blocking us.."
"Who pissed in their Cheerios?" was the first thing out of Dana's mouth.
Percevul feigned shock and Angel sniggered.
Riker looked pissed and Picard answered her with a small smile.
"The Calamarain are a race that strongly dislike Q.--"
"Welcome to the club," mumbled Percevul with a malevolent look.
"The Calamarain must have gotten word that Q was to be here, and came to retrieve him."
"Very good! Mon Capitan!" came a voice following a flash of light and clapping. "Now the big thing is to get these three down there--" he pointed to the planet on the screen, "Without me getting taken, or them getting intercepted."
"Why do I get the feeling he has a plan?" Dana asked Percy and Angel in a falsetto stage whisper.
Q scowled at her before continuing. "I have taken the liberty of getting us out of this problem, with a minimal cost to any of us."
The entire crew looked at Q with a skeptic's eye. He returned a confused "what?" look.
"Okay, call me masochistic," said Dana as the ship was rocked with anther barrage. "but what's your plan, Q?"
"Isn't that the captain's decision?" asked Riker angrily.
"Somebody needs to act before we're ripped apart, personally, I don't want to die this way!" replied Dana, falling to the floor with another barrage.
"We can send a subspace beacon for help, making the Calamarain think we're almost goner's. Hopefully they'll leave us alone. Then, we can get out of here." he replied, looking rather smug.
His gaze was met with blank stares.
Till Dana acted up. "That's it?!?!?!?!?!?!?! That's all? You're a six billion year old being with powers and experience I can't even IMAGINE, and that's your ENTIRE plan?! Oh gods! We're gonna die!" She threw herself on the floor, only to be picked back up by Percevul.
"It could work if we rig the sensors or something so it looks like our warp core melted. If that's gone, a ship's pretty much dead, right?" he looked to Data who nodded.
"It just might work, sir," Data said, looking at Captain Picard.
"Make it so, then. Make it so," he replied with a sigh, nodding to the three perpetrators: Data, Percevul, and…Q.
"Sir", came a gruff voice from behind them, "we have other problems. A Romulan vessel has been detected approaching. This is not unexpected-we are, after all, on their side of the Neutral Zone."
Picard grimaced. "Great. Can you patch communication's through the ion cloud the Calamarain live in?"
"Affirmative."
"Then hurry up and do it!" Percevul cried. In the many weeks' they'd been here, he had made it a point to study alien species as much as possible, while keeping up on his fighting skills. He knew much of the history between Romulans and humans; consequently, he knew this wasn't a good thing.
On the viewscreen, there appeared a fuzzy, staticy image of a Romulan commander. It was female…and blond. Percy did a doubletake-Romulans were genetically unable to be anything other than black-haired!
"You are aware that your presence at this planet can be construed as an act of war, are you not? We demand that you leave the Neutral Zone at once or we open fire."
"Excuse me," Percy blurted, "but we're currently getting our asses kicked by the Calamarain. Take a number."
The blond Romulan glanced at him dismissively before returning her gaze to Captain Picard. "We will give you 10 minutes to disengage from the alien species, leave this planet's area, and return towards your own territory."
"Are you stupid?" Dana said. "Percevul here's pretty much right-we're getting our asses handed to us." This was punctuated by another blast, making the ship rock and Dana nearly lose her feet. "If you wait long enough, in all likelihood they'll take care of us FOR you! And if they don't, we'll likely be weak enough for you to finish the job with minimal effort. But at the moment, we're too concerned with saving our lives to give a rat's ass about you."
The Romulans looked angry and shocked. "Prepare to die then!" the leader cried and made to disconnect.
"Wait!" cried Picard. "GET HER OFF THE BRIDGE!" He almost screamed, pointing to Dana.
A startled Q and Angel helped Data and Percy escort the sheepish Dana off the bridge and down to Engineering to complete their project.
***
"I really don't see why I need to be down here," sighed Dana, leaning against a wall in engineering.
"Moral support?" replied LaForge with a smirk, looking up at her from his post looking over Percevul's shoulder.
"Riiight..." Dana replied, bracing as another blast shook the ship.
"It's because she can't keep her mouth shut," mumbled Angel from his post by the door.
"And... I HAVE IT!" Data suddenly exclaimed, keying in a few more commends at the station he was manipulating diligently.
"Just in time," responded LaForge, as the ship shook again. "Mr. Percevul, how goes the beacon?"
"Just finishing,' Percevul mumbled, so deep in his programming, he didn't even deign to look up at them.
//Talk about a crash course in programming.// Dana thought, scowling as the ship shook again in the continually escalating frequency.
"How do we send this?" Percevul asked, looking up as he typed in one final command with an air of smugness and an evil grin.
LaForge and Data converged on his console immediately. "First we upload it to a Subspace frequency... then set it on continuous run...." Geordi mumbled distractedly, attention on his work as he went the through the motions he named. "The we notify the Captain and begin the countdown to our 'Warp-Core Meltdown'!" finishing, he looked up and grinned before tapping his communication badge. "LaForge to Picard."
"Mr. LaForge. Please tell me you have good news," responded the Captain immediately.
"Yes Sir, I believe we do. The distress signal has been sent and we're ready for your word on the countdown."
"Make it so Mr. LaForge. Make it so." was the satisfied response for a job well done before the connection was severed. LaForge immediately tapped some key's and the countdown began.
"Make it so." Dana mouthed silently along with Picard, grinning.
"Really, Dana." Percy said. "Mockery is beneath you."
"Guys, don't get comfortable yet." LaForge replied. "We still have work to do."
"What's left? We got this stuff done."
"Yeah, but we don't know if it'll work. But, given that it does, we still have that planet below us."
Dana, Angel, and Q all let out a collective groan. Percevul just rolled his eyes and didn't deign to respond.
"We have attempted to scan it with our sensors." Data added. "I have also taken the liberty of searching our databanks for information on this area."
Curious, Dana, Percy, and Angel followed the pale-skinned android to another console station and watched as he called up some information about the planet.
"This is the third planet in the solar system, orbiting a fairly large yellow star. The solar system has 7 natural planets and an 8th planet--on an orbit that brings it very close to this planet--that is most likely a captured comet of some type. This 8th planet also passes within the Ort Cloud on the outside of the solar system, gaining a trailing silver cloud as it does so."
"Our information," Data continued, "is somewhat more spotty as far as the planet is concerned. The Calamarain make scanning difficult. We do know that it is an M-class planet, with an environment reasonably close to Earth's. Its gravity is 7/8ths of Earth normal--a difference large enough to be noticed, but not to have any major effect. It's air is breathable to human beings and, in fact, probably far cleaner that that which you're used to."
Percevul grimaced and muttered "Don't count on that."
Dana glanced at him and was about to say something when LaForge interrupted the little scene with a good-humored smile and the words "All right, we're all set here. None of you can really do anything more, so you have my permission to leave. Go to Ten Forward, relax, and wait. It's really all you can do at this point."
As they left, the ship was rocked by another blast.
Percy had a hard time not laughing.
Chapter Eighteen: The Rain in Spain falls Mainly on the Plains
(Synthetic booze and why it sucks ass; or, how wasted can you get on "green stuff"?)
Ginan watched the 3 "traveler's" and the being known as Q as they entered Ten Forward. Although resembling a black woman of about 40, Ginan was not in the least human…and was probably closer to 4,000 than 40. In addition, the powers granted Ginan as an Elorian were many and varied. One of these powers allowed her to know what these people were up to. Gathering up the strange Tarot cards she had sat out on the counter, Ginan walked over to face the newcomers.
"What'll I do you for?" she asked.
"Red wine, chilled." Dana replied.
"Jack Daniel's." Percy answered.
Angel looked sheepish and waved his hand negatively.
"What was that you picked up when we came in?" Percevul asked--part of his training had been in constant observation of his surroundings, and his eyes were sharp.
"A psuedo-Tarot deck." She replied. "Given to me a long, long time ago, in another world and another time."
Percevul nodded appreciatively. "Who gave it to you?"
"The man in black." Ginan answered, and refused to elaborate.
"Think you could see my future?" Percevul asked, grinning mischievously.
"Sure." Ginan replied. "But I refuse to be held accountable for what the cards say. I read them, but I don't set them."
Ginan dealed 5 cards facedown. Once card was set near him, two cards were set on the other side of that (one on the upper part of each side), and so on until all 5 cards were used up.
She turned up the first card, saying "This card represents the essence of who you are."
It showed a mummified man, with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, it's eyes opened. It was climbing out of its sarcophagus. The swords handle was recognizable as a human leg bone, and the dagger dripped with blood. The picture was realistically detailed and extremely gruesome.
"The Mummy." Ginan said softly. "Bringer of death and destruction. Creator of pain."
Moving right along, Ginan flipped the card on the upper left of the Mummy. This was a shadowy picture of a man in a cowl, his face hidden completely by the deep hood. He stood in a dark alleyway, hidden by the darkness. Little could be seen except the vague shape of a man. It was not as gruesome as the picture of the Mummy, but somehow infinitely more disturbing.
"This," Ginan said, "is the Man in the Shadows. He signifies hidden events, secrets kept."
Moving her hand to the other side of the Mummy, Ginan flipped the card there. This showed a picture of an eagle, photorealistic in detail, flying up to a glorious sun and an infinitely blue sky.
"Life," Ginan murmured, "but not for you, Assassin of Assassins." How strange, Ginan thought, that she should say something so close to what her old benefactor had said.
The next card was a picture of a beach, white as bone, with a tropical sky and palm trees. The waves were frozen in a crest, and the beach itself seemed to go on forever and ever, to the horizon and beyond.
"Fate," Ginan said. "For like the beach, Fate is ever changing and yet always eternal. You were caught in events not of your making. Do not fight it…for it is your destiny."
The last card was a drawing of a single sword. Its blade was roughly 3 feet long, a strange silver-golden color like no metal they had ever seen before. The handle was black as deepest midnight. In the center of it's silver crossgaurd was a single red marble-like jewel, casting off a reddish glow. It's blade gleamed with a suggestion of incredible sharpness, and it's shape spoke of perfect balance.
Immediately upon turning it over, Ginan crumpled the card in her hand and tossed it away.
"That is not for you to know." Ginan replied to there blank looks. "When the time comes, the answer will be there."
"Dana, Angel, Percevul!" Riker's voice suddenly came over the computer, startling them all out of the strange, trance-like state they had been in. "The trick seems to have worked…the Calamarain and the Romulans have both backed off. If we're gonna try to get you out, it's gotta be now or never. Report to shuttle bay, immediately!"
As the 3 interlopers got up and left, Dana whispered to Percy "Well, that was…strange."
Percy looked at her for a second, and replied musingly "I'd say it was more…enlightening."
Neither of them was worried about the drinks they hadn't touched.
Synthehol sucked anyways.
Watching the group leave, Ginan shook her head gravely. She had misgivings about the one called Percevul… especially after what the cards had said…but she couldn't deny her wish for them to succeed. She hated to leave them only half-informed, but Fate had decreed they not be told.
She tossed one more card onto the table after they left. The card she had palmed.
The grinning half-rotted zombie clawed it's way out of the picture's grave.
Death.