DINNER AT TEN-FORWARD

by ardavenport

- - - Part 6: Make It Soooooooo

"You cook, too?" Shantoya M'Baro lowered her eyes and looked sideways at her commanding officer. Riker's grin grew even more.

"I set a very full table," he murmured suggestively. Shantoya looked down at the readouts at the bridge science station, as if she might be interested in the automatic star-mapping routines playing across it.

They stood at the back of the bridge. He was near enough for her to touch him, but not so close that they bumped into each other. The closest person to them was Lieutenant Worf a couple meters away and he had only glanced once toward Riker when he'd returned from Engineering five minutes ago.

M'Baro glanced back at Will Riker. She boldly looked back at his inviting blue eyes before letting her gaze drift downward...past his broad shoulders and chest...and lower.

It would have been unthinkable for M'Baro to have fraternized with her superior officers at her last assignment on Starbase 37. The Admiral had been a prickly old bastard who didn't like to have any member of his staff to have a life outside their duty to Starfleet. But her assignment to the Enterprise had brought her greener pastures. She'd heard that Riker was quite athletic. Much greener pastures.

At first, she'd thought Picard would have the same attitude as her former superior; he certainly looked like that type of older, dedicated Starfleet officer. But the word was that Captain Picard didn't care about what he didn't see, and he wasn't going to go looking for anything that didn't interfere with your duties. That certainly seemed to be the case. He was sitting in the command chair while his first officer was making a date with her three meters behind him.

M'Baro named a time.

"1600 tomorrow," Riker agreed. He started to say something else when Commander Data's voice caught their attention.

"Sensors are picking up something unusual ahead, coming toward us."

Riker straightened automatically, he turned toward the fore bridge.

"Report," Picard asked.

Riker gave M'Baro the briefest of nods before striding away to his post.

"Sensor readings are unclear, Sir. We are not actually detecting something that is there, but rather something that is not there," the android state enigmatically.

"Sensor malfunction?" Riker asked, taking his seat at Picard's right and keying in the sensor output to the display at his right.

Data shook his head. His board showed that the sensor maintenance staff had already thought of that and the 'all clear' light flashed the results of their diagnostic. "No, Sir. All sensors are operating within design parameters."

"Put it on the screen, " Picard ordered. Data pressed a control. The stars on the main view screen shifted and changed. An uneven, perfectly black blob now marred the center of the screen.

Picard and Riker straightened in their seats. Wesley Crusher at the helm nervously glanced back at them. Data swiftly punched up comparison records at his station. Worf's back stiffened.

"Mr Data, is that...?" Picard half asked.

"Yes, Sir." He turned to look back at them. "It is Nagilum."

Picard's face hardened. "Red alert."

The red alert sounded, red lights flashed on the bridge and throughout the ship.

"All stop. Shields up," Riker ordered.

Lieutenant M'Baro almost jumped when a purple-haired figure suddenly appeared next to her at the secondary science station. Commander Riker had warned her about Ensign Ikainet's red alert post, but she hadn't been expecting her sudden appearance. Nobody else acknowledged Ikainet's silent arrival except for a hostile glance from Worf.

"Nagilum is still approaching us."

The black blob suddenly grew in size on the screen.

"Reverse course!" Picard ordered. Ensign Crusher quickly complied.

The screen went completely black. The ship shuddered. The blackness receded. A blackness half the size of the view screen wavered around the edges for a few seconds before it stabilized.

"It had us," Worf's deep voice carried a rarely heard tone of surprise. "A force shield has appeared around the ship, over our own shields." The Klingon stared at the impossible readings at his station for a moment before he realized their source. He turned around. Mouth agape, Ensign Ikainet smiled back at him.

Picard and Riker stood and turned to see what Worf was looking at.

"Ensign," Picard addressed her, "is that your force shield?"

"Yeeeeeeeesss," she answered happily, stepping forward.

Picard frowned, displeased. He looked at Riker.

"What do we do?" Riker asked. "Tell her not to?"

"Sir!" Commander Data brought their attention back to their immediate problem.

Parts of a face had appeared on the view screen. Two large eyes and under them, a mouth had formed out of the darkness, their edges blended into the background as if they had poked out of an oily black film.

"Curious," it said in a deceptively pleasant voice.

"Nagilum," Picard addressed it. It had been nearly two years since the Enterprise had encountered this dangerous entity, but no one on the bridge who recognized it had forgotten the merciless cat-and-mouse game it had played on them. "What do you want?"

"I was about to renew our acquaintance." Nagilum's eyes scanned the persons on the bridge. "But it seems that something," Nagilum's large, liquid eyes travelled to Ikainet and then back to Picard, "is in the way." Ikainet didn't move; her huge indigo eyes stayed eagerly pointed toward the view screen; her body tilted slightly forward, her sciences uniform hanging rigidly from her torso.

"We have nothing to discuss," Picard told it. In their previous encounter, Picard had told it that they would meet among the stars, instead of the black, sub-world within Nagilum's undefinable boundaries where it had tested them and threatened to kill as many as half the crew in order satisfy its curiosity about Humans.

But now the captain felt no desire to learn more about the strange entity that blocked his ship's path. Not if he needed to rely on Ensign Ikainet to protect them.

"Oh, but we have much to discuss," Nagilum replied in its low, melodious voice. "For example." The liquid eyes turned again to Ikainet. "Why would an obviously superior creature," Picard heard a couple of people on the bridge cough and mutter, "associate with Humans such as you?" Nagilum addressed Picard again as it finished.

"That depends on how you define superior," Riker grumbled quietly, but Nagilum heard anyway.

"You do not consider this creature superior." This was not a question. Picard quickly held up his hand, cutting off any further reply from Riker, or anyone else. A conversation was developing and he wanted to stop it and get his ship away from this dangerous being.

"Nagilum, we have nothing to say to you. So, either let us pass-"

"Or?" The being's eyes narrowed.

Picard didn't answer. If Nagilum didn't let them go, what would he do? Order Ensign Ikainet to push it aside? Attack it?

Ikainet still stood, waiting. Or maybe she was just standing there, ready to react, but not cognizant of the danger to the Enterprise. Picard was now certain that Nagilum wasn't a threat to her. But he had no idea what would happen if the confrontation escalated. Might she accidentally damage the ship or even kill somebody if she did something? The uncertainty angered the captain. It disgusted him that a member of his crew would even cause him to delay his decision so he might evaluate what her natural unpredictability could produce.

Nagilum settled the dilemma for him. "I will leave," it announced. "But before I leave." It's eyes drifted toward the H'car. "You at least owe me an answer to my question." Picard didn't think he owed Nagilum anything, but if it would end this situation quicker, he was willing to comply. He nodded curtly. They all looked at Ikainet.

"Well?" Nagilum finally prompted.

"Weeeeeeell?" Ikainet replied. Picard lowered his head and rubbed his forehead. Worf, behind and above him rolled his eyes in a pained expression. Ikainet obviously hadn't realized she was being addressed.

Actually it had occurred to Ikainet that Nagilum might want her to tell it why she was associated with humans. But it had also occurred to her that Picard or Riker might answer, or that Nagilum might ask again or that it had a different question, or thousands of other variations. None of the possibilities stood out from the others to prompt her, so she'd simply waited for something else to happen to trigger a suitable response.

Nagilum seemed puzzled, but rephrased his question anyway.

"Why would a creature such as yourself choose to," Nagilum's gaze seemed to scan up and down her uniform, "hinder yourself with beings of such a limited nature?"

Ikainet used the shortest answer she had.

"Why not?"

"I have found," Nagilum replied rationally, "that these humans are arrogant, argumentative and contradictory in the extreme." It added a slight laugh to this last statement, as if it were stating the obvious.

"Soooooooooo." Ikainet leaned a little more forward as she answered.

Nagilum's "face" tilted, as if it were cocking its head.

"They live for shockingly limited periods of time, which they waste struggling against their own natures, forever unsatisfied with the inevitable."

"Soooooooooooooooooooo." Ikainet shrugged her shoulders in a quick, mechanical, up-and-down jerk. Picard and Riker looked at each other. Data, at Ops, looked back towards his commanders and then at the ensign. It seemed to Picard that this wasn't such a bad answer. That or Ikainet just didn't understand the question.

It seemed to satisfy Nagilum.

"A point well taken." It sounded amused.

Then it vanished.

Picard sat forward in his seat. "Mr. Data?"

The android had already checked the readouts. "I am not picking up Nagilum on any of the ships sensors."

"Long range scanners show that the entity has disappeared," Worf reported after making a thorough search. Reluctantly, Picard turned.

"Ensign?"

"Yeeeeeeeesss?"

"Do you," he paused, uncertain how to phrase it, "sense Nagilum anywhere?"

Ikainet did register that he was asking her about the being that was no longer there. "It's gone."

"Cancel red alert," Picard ordered, sitting back down in his seat. "Resume previous heading." Then he and Riker looked to the side again. Ikainet was still standing there.

"You may return to your post, Ensign," Riker ordered crossly. Behind him Lieutenant Worf growled that the undefined force field around the ship had disappeared.

"Riiiiiiiiight," she answered, swung around and marched up the ramp to a one of the rear exits. Riker scowled.

Picard sighed. "You have the con, Number One." He got up and went to his ready room.

*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*

"Subspace link reestablished," the computer announced.

Ploonet reappeared on the screen; Ensign Redhawk couldn't remember the Caroomadi materials scientist's title.

"What happened? Where did you go?" Her large dark eyes were curious. Ploonet had dark, dark blue hair and long mustaches and very purple skin.

"Uh, we had a little emergency here. But it's over now," Redhawk answered a bit vaguely. She didn't really want to go through a whole explanation of what had almost happened.

When the red alert had signalled, they had cleared the entire room, the computer automatically terminating the communications. Thirty seconds after the alert had sounded, Redhawk had been sitting at her red alert station at one of the secondary sensor posts along with three other people. So she'd had a direct view of the thing that had threatened the ship, and of the mysterious force field which the bridge said belonged to Ensign Ikainet.

The emergency had vanished without explanation and the complete details of the incident wouldn't be available until Command logged what had happened. Redhawk wasn't worried about that. One didn't get much sleep at night on a starship spending time getting upset about every life-threatening emergency that came by. But it did make her wonder about Ensign Ikainet. She'd been hearing about the H'car ensign for days. Reporting to Captain Picard's ready room in a green fright wig. Getting phasered by Lieutenant Worf. Using the Ten Forward replicators to make plates of spaghetti that turned out to be composed of one immensely long strand of pasta topped with a tomato based sauce. Redhawk decided to stop by Ten Forward that night and get a look at what everyone was talking about.

She proceeded where she'd left off with her interview. Around her, the six other people in the communications room did the same, their voices a subdued background murmur.

"I just do what they tell me, and I don't ask questions. And all I know or care about is crystalline formations in vacuum. I'm not directly involved in the Roocaroom problem at all. Most of us here had our work suspended when the Roocaroom came into the inner system anyway," Ploonet finally concluded. Redhawk acknowledged her and was about to go to the next name on her list when Ploonet stopped her.

"What are you doing?" the Caroomadi asked, leaning toward her monitor, making her big eyes seem even larger.

"What?"

"I know two other people here who have been contacted by your ship. Are you going to interview everyone about this?"

"We're just verifying some details." Ensign Redhawk repeated the official line. The captain had spoken with the Caro representatives the previous evening, but so far the Roocaroom research project leaders hadn't changed their methods, and were just as unavailable to their inquiries as ever. So that morning, Gillan had expanded the team to eight and had taken personal charge of the Caro communications matter. He sat at a terminal at the opposite end of the room. The people around him and in another communications area were collecting information from as many low-level Caroomadi researchers as they could contact. To Redhawk, it seemed that he was treating the whole thing as some kind of mystery. He was piecing together a visual map of the Roocaroom project organization with big white areas showing where information was being held back.

Ploonet smiled back at Redhawk. The Caroomadii's mouth hung open with her teeth exposed in an oddly innocent looking grim.

"If you do figure out who's really running things on this project, please tell us down here."

- - - Part 6 continues . . .