TERMINUS

by Soledad

Notes: Yes, I know the technobabble in this chapter doesn't make any real sense. To my defence, neither did the version in the rejected plot idea. I just tried to patch together something that would drive the events towards the end.

Alfonse Pacelli is a canon character. So are Wallace, Bennett and Youngblood.

Beta read by my good friend Linda Hoyland whom I cannot thank often enough for her help.


Chapter 09 – The Monster Bait

The news, when not entirely unexpected, filled everyone with tense anticipation.

"We must beam everyone up immediately," Picard said. "How many people do we still have on the surface?"

"Too many," Geordi replied grimly. "We can't transport more than ten people at the same time. That means forty people, if we use all four personal transporters. We'll need at least three transports; that is, if the object doesn't disrupt the transporter beam."

"Can it do so?" Picard looked at the avatar questioningly.

"Unknown," it replied. "The Builders did not have transporter technology; I cannot tell how the device will react to it."

"How does the object track its victims down?" Commander Ford asked.

"By analyzing respiration, biochemistry, and body temperature within rather narrow margins," explained the avatar.

"Fascinating," Captain Saavik commented. "That must be why the Saurian engineer was passed over by the death beams. Saurians are a cold-blooded species, with a body temperature much lower than the human norm."

"Why were the Rigelians affected then?" Worf asked. "Vulcanoid species have a higher body temperature than humans."

"Not high enough to make a significant difference," Saavik said. "We do not throw off heat like a furnace; like Klingons do."

"Does it mean that Klingons may be passed over, too?" Picard asked Dr Crusher.

"It is possible," she allowed, a little uncertainly. "I wouldn't base my life on that hope, though, if I were Worf."

"The most important thing is to beam the people still down on the planet to safety," Commodore Norsen interrupted the discussion. "Tell your executive officer to use our site-to-site transporter and take everyone underground till we've dealt with the threat."

"That might work," Picard agreed and called Riker. "Number One, the alien object has returned. Take everyone to the bunker Commodore Norsen has prepared for his people and wait until further orders."

"Aye, sir," Riker acknowledged his orders and signed off.

"Well," Picard took a deep breath. "That is one problem dealt with. The smaller one. How are we going to deal with the actual threat, though? Is it true that the… the device won't attack starships, just planet-bound colonies?"

"It would try to track down humans on the planet first," the avatar replied. "It has scanned the planet previously and knows that there ought to be hundreds of… of targets. Once it has scanned the entire planet for eventual survivors, though, and realizes that they are gone, it will widen its search radius… and ultimately find you. We need to act before that happens."

"We must somehow come up with a way to draw the object back, so that we can destroy it," Geordi said thoughtfully. "But how?"

"We need a bait," Worf growled. "One that would lure the object close enough for our photon torpedoes to be effective."

Data and Geordi exchanged questioning looks – and shook their heads in unison.

"We would need a great number of objects that the device could mistake for humans," the android thought out loud.

"We can't replicate so much biomatter that would mimic hundreds of human bodies in such a short time," Geordi said worriedly. "How long would that thing need to scan the entire planet anyway?"

"Approximately two hours and four minutes," the avatar replied.

Geordi shook his head again. "Rerouting enough energy and programming the replicators to produce actual biomatter, not just the holographic equivalent of it, would take twice that time. We need another solution."

"Then find one!" Worf snarled.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Geordi snapped at him. "I'm an engineer, not Doctor Frankenstein, and besides, I doubt that the volatile atmosphere of Bynax II would provide us with the crucial lightning stroke at the right moment."

Picard looked at Doctor Crusher but she, too, shook her head apologetically. "Not really my area, Jean-Luc. I'm sorry."

Data cleared his throat. "If I may make a suggestion, sir…"

"Any suggestions are welcome, Data," Picard replied. "What do you have in mind?"

"The Bridrani have developed a technology that allows inanimate objects to mimic organic life forms. Only for a short time, but it might be enough to fool the… the device long enough for us to destroy it."

"You mean we should ask Ensign Rina to come up with something?" Geordi asked.

The android nodded.

"That could be a problem," Doctor Crusher said. "Ensign Rina is still confined to the biohazard isolation unit because hir pheromones are completely out of control. Counselor Troi is working with hir and trying to calm hir down, but it will take time."

"How much time?" Picard asked.

Doctor Crusher shrugged. "That I can't say. It takes as long as it takes. We don't know enough of the Bridrani to be sure."

"So s/he won't be able to return to work for a while?" Geordi clarified.

Doctor Crusher shook her head. "It would be too dangerous – for hir and for the rest of the crew."

"But s/he could work inside the isolation ward," Geordi said. "We can give hir the problem and whatever s/he needs to solve it."

"Make it so," Picard said. "Data, you and your doppelganger start working with Lieutenant Worf to recalibrate our photon torpedoes for maximum effect on the object's shielding. And make haste; you've got less than two hours."


The session with Counselor Troi had helped Rina to get hir panic under control. Doctor Selar had been satisfied with hir progress and with the gradual decrease of hir hormone levels and blood pressure. But s/he was still confined to the isolation ward and it was steadily driving hir mad.

S/he was therefore greatly relieved when Geordi, hir immediate superior and only true friend on board, showed up in front of the observation window of the ward.

"Geordi!" s/he cried happily. "You're back!"

"Yeah, they needed me to deal with Data," he smiled at hir briefly. "How are you doing, short stuff?"

This was an ongoing joke between them, s/he being one of the few people who were actually shorter than he was.

"I'm getting better, s/he admitted. "I'm just going crazy in this hole. Can you get me out of here?"

"Afraid not," he said apologetically. "The doctors have the final word on that. I've come for a different reason: I need your help with the alien object."

"Mine?" s/he was clearly taken aback.

"Well, it turns out the object tracks its victims down by sensing respiration and body temperature and human biochemistry," Geordi explained. "We can't replicate the amount of biomatter that would fool the alien device. So we need…"

"… inanimate objects that can mimic organic beings," Rina interrupted, hir eyes sparkling with excitement already.

Geordi grinned. "You're picking up some bad habits; but yes, you took the words right out of my mouth. Can you teach us how to build such things?"

"Of course!" s/he beamed at him happy and full of relief that s/he would finally have something to do. "That is fairly old technology; my people used it to mislead would-be conquerors before we acquired space flight ourselves."

"What do you need for it?"

"I'll have to consult my personal database, but I can give you a list in, say, ten minutes," s/he offered.

"That would be good," Geordi said. "We have less than two hours to fabricate a convincing bait for the object – and we won't get a second chance."

"I'll do my best," s/he promised. "Just get me access to the computer terminal in my quarters."

If not in ten, but rather fifteen minutes later Geordi returned to Engineering, carrying a PADD with odd diagrams and detailed instructions on it. He handed it to Alfonse Pacelli, one of the enlisted specialists that nominally belonged to the science division but actually worked for Engineering most of the time.

"Here," he said. "I want lots of these things, preferably yesterday, or the day before. As many as you and your team can churn out within the next hour and a half."

Pacelli studied the PADD with interest. "What are these things?"

"According to Ensign Rina, and I quote, they're 98.6-degree objects within a carbon dioxide shell that can mimic organic life for a limited time," Geordi replied. "We have to fool that alien killing machine somehow, and these little gizmos are supposed to do the trick."

"Wow!" Pacelli's eyes grew bigger and bigger as he read the instructions. "I've never seen this kind of technology before."

"It's Bridrani," Geordi explained. "They're damn good engineers and Ensign Rina is a certified genius, so I trust that it's doable."

"Oh, absolutely!" Pacelli agreed. "It will be a bit tricky, but we can do this."

He graduated the Starfleet Technical Services Academy with honours, so his confidence was well-grounded.

"Great," Geordi said. "Take Wallace, Bennett, and Youngblood and start working on it. We're running out of time."

Pacelli nodded and hurried off to gather his team and start working on the monster bait as he inwardly named the things he was supposed to build. Geordi checked on the shield generators, discussed with Liz Clancy how they could make sure they would work at full capacity, and then went up to the Bridge again to see how Worf and the two Datas were progressing with the modifications on the photon torpedoes.


To Geordi's relief, Data and his doppelganger turned out to have finished their work on the torpedo systems.

"We've started building the baits," he told them. "Hopefully they'll be ready in time. Pacelli and his tem are smart people but they're not familiar with Bridrani technology."

"Could Ensign Rina not be released to help them?" Data asked.

Geordi shook his head. "According to Doctor Selar s/he would be more of a distraction than a help. In Selar's estimate hir presence would raise our error rate nearly forty per cent."

"The error rate has gone up nearly forty per cent since s/he came aboard," Worf growled.

Geordi gave him an unfriendly look. "That's hardly hir fault. S/he has done nothing to encourage people's interest in hir."

"S/he still represents an unnecessary risk," Worf retorted. "There was a reason why Starfleet didn't accept Bridrani for permanent duty aboard Starfleet vessels."

"If I remember correctly, there were people who said the same about Klingons," Data commented innocently.

"Yeah, perhaps Starfleet will see the change of its policies justified when we save the Starbase due to hir knowledge," Geordi said hurriedly before Worf would lose his temper.

Picard, who had been listening to their debate with interest, turned to Geordi.

"You seem to have absolute faith in the ensign's work," he said.

Geordi shrugged. "The fact is, Captain, s/he's never wrong. Not when it's about technology, at least."

Picard raised an eyebrow. "I really hope your faith in hir is well-founded, Lieutenant. Because if we don't start beaming down those things to the surface within the hour, it might be too late."

"Captain," the avatar interrupted. "I do not believe that simply beaming the devices down would be enough."

Picard turned to it with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"I understand that the devices need to be activated in the last possible moment because they cannot work for a long period of time," the avatar explained. "I was created to follow through such an action. Beaming down with the devices will ensure that the terraforming machine can home in on to me. It will identify me as the avatar of its fellow device on the planet and logically assume that I have tracked down its targets to help its mission along. Therefore it will stop looking for other humans."

"But won't you be destroyed together with the targets?" Wesley Crusher asked anxiously.

"Of course not," the avatar replied. "The death beam can only harm organics. I do not have any organic parts. I'm just a machine."

"If I've learned anything due to my friendship with Data, it is that there's no such thing as just a machine," Geordi said seriously. "I hope you're right. I'd hate to see you damaged or destroyed. You've done us a great service."

"Not me; the device that created me," the avatar corrected. "I am but its voice. But I am – we both are – also content that we have come to an understanding with your people."

"Pacelli to LaForge," the comm system interrupted them.

"Go on," Geordi said.

"Lieutenant, we've built the first batch of devices," Pacelli reported. "Chief O'Brien says he'd prefer to beam them directly to their final destination on the surface, as they're somewhat fragile."

Geordi looked at Picard who nodded.

"Do it then," Geordi said. "How many of the things have you already made?"

"Six dozens, so far," Pacelli replied. "I know it's not much but we can't replicate them. Well, we can replicate the parts but they have to be put together manually. I've already drafted half the maintenance crew to help us… with your permission, sir."

"Good thinking," Geordi said. "Keep working and have O'Brien beam the things down as soon as they're finished."

"I had better return to the planet's surface, too," the avatar said. "Can you have me sent to where the baits are, Captain?"

"Of course, Mister… do you actually have a name?"

"As I am not an independent entity, I do not need one." There was almost a wishful undertone in that artificial voice. "Do you think I could be called Data, too? It is only fitting."

Geordi grinned. "Data Two," he said, deliberately misinterpreting the avatar's words. "I like it. What do you think, Data?"

"It is only fitting," Data deadpanned, and everyone laughed, although he might have meant it seriously. He did not truly have a sense of humour, after all.

"Very well," Picard said, suppressing a smile himself. He contacted Transporter Room Three. "Mister O'Brien, lock on to our new friend, Data II, and beam him down next to Mister Pacelli's devices."

"Aye, Captain," came O'Brien's voice from the loudspeaker. "Locked on target. Energizing now."

In the next moment, the transporter beam carried Data II off the Bridge and the duty crew and the command staff started preparing themselves for the inevitable confrontation with the malfunctioning alien machine.


Pacelli and his team were in the process of finishing the last batch of bait devices when the alien object returned. It still had what had to be its battle configuration: curled around itself, all extremities focused in the same direction, ready to open fire on the planet.

"Captain," Worf growled, somewhat unnecessarily. "Target has reappeared."

"I see it, Mr Worf," Picard replied.; then he activated the comm. "Bridge to engineering."

"LaForge here," Geordi replied; he had returned to Engineering shortly before.

"Mr LaForge, our 'friend' is back. What is the status of the shield generators?"

"I can give you one hundred and twenty per cent, Captain, but for no longer than twenty minutes. After that, the shields will simply drop on their own."

Picard looked at Worf. "Will that suffice?"

The Klingon shrugged his massive shoulders. "If we can't destroy the target within twenty minutes, we won't survive the encounter in any case. It will have to do."

"Fair enough," Picard said. "Raise shields to maximum and go to Red alert. Mr Data, give your doppelganger the nod."

"Aye, sir," the android opened a channel to his counterpart on the surface. "Data to Data II – activate the bait."

"Acknowledged," came the avatar's clipped answer and Data swivelled his chair to look at Picard.

"Sir, the devices are activated. I can read the close equivalent of one hundred and thirty-nine humanoid life signs."

"How close is the likeness?" Picard asked.

"It would not mislead me – or a Vulcan scientist well-acquainted with humans – but it would be convincing to anyone with only a passing familiarity with your species, sir," the android replied. "It is reasonable to expect that the alien object would believe it."

"Captain, I'm reading a massive energy build-up in the core of the object," Worf reported. "A great amount of power is being transferred from the central tower to the claws."

"Put it onscreen," Picard ordered. Wait until it opens fire at the surface – according to Data II that is the moment when its shields are the weakest."

Worf carried out his orders and they all watched on the big screen with morbid fascination as the alien object built up so much destructive power that its entire structure became translucent with it.

It could have been a beautiful sight if it had not been so deadly.

"It must have been amazing in actual terraforming mode," Troi said quietly. "It's a shame that we will have to destroy it."

Picard nodded in agreement. "It is. But we cannot allow that to happen anywhere else," he gestured at the big screen, where the alien object had just opened fire.

The thick, bright beams of deadly radiation coming from all extremities of the ship were bundled with the one coming from the control tower, and the lethal column hit the surface of Bynax II with the force of a miniature nova. Even with the planet's gaseous ring absorbing a small percent of the lethal energy, it was now a device of pure, unstoppable destruction.

"Power output has reached maximum level," Worf reported; they had received the specifics from the avatar before it would beam down to the planet.

"Very well," Picard said grimly. "Let's do this. Arm photon torpedoes and lock on to the weakest point of the structure."

"Photon torpedoes armed and ready," Worf replied almost immediately. "Targeting scanners locked."

"Fire torpedoes," Picard gave the order in a calm, even voice. "Full spread. Keep firing at will until target is destroyed."

"Forward torpedo launchers firing," Worf touched the respective controls. "Direct hit on the enemy ship's control tower. Its shielding has dropped to sixty per cent." He touched another row of controls. "Saucer module launchers firing. Direct hit. The shielding of the enemy ship is down to forty per cent." He went on to the next row of controls. "Aft torpedo launchers firing. Direct hit. The shields of the enemy ship have collapsed."

"Finish it," Picard said in a deadly cold voice that made everyone freeze for a moment.. No-one had ever heard him speak in that tone before.

Of course, Worf was the first one to recover from his surprise.

"Forward launchers reloaded and firing," he said with a savage grin that showed the full row of his sharp teeth.

The bridge crew watched on the big screen their photon torpedoes slam into the control tower of the alien object with brutal force. Without its shields to protect it, the fragile structure shattered under the onslaught like glass – or like a crystal bowl under a sledgehammer – into a billion shards.

Many of those pieces were hurled against the Enterprise by the shockwave and burned up on the reinforced shields in a spectacular firework. Others suffered the same fate in the gaseous rings of Bynax II, filling the night sky of the planet with a beautiful albeit deadly spectacle of multicoloured lights.

"This was the most beautiful destruction I've ever seen," Troi said quietly. "It's still destruction, though… and a waste above all that."

"It is," Picard agreed. "But we had no other choice," he looked at Worf. "Stand down from red alert, Lieutenant, and initiate quarantine procedure Alpha before bringing back Data II and those devices from the surface. I don't want this ship contaminated by Gamma radiation doctored to kill humans specifically.


"There's one thing I still don't understand," Worf mused, lengthening his strides to catch up with Geordi, who was heading back to Engineering.

Data II and the devices serving as the monster bait had gone through decontamination and they wanted to study the latter before dismantling them, in case they needed to use them again in future.

"Just one? You're a lucky man," Geordi commented. "What is it?"

"How did Data manage to escape from his quarters and why would he attack Ensign Rina?" Worf asked. "He says he can't remember."

""And he tells the truth," Geordi said. "His memory engrams have been completely erased, from the moment we were hit by the energy field of the alien object till the time when he woke up in that airlock by the Battle Bridge."

"How is that possible? Doesn't he have failsafes and backup systems to prevent exactly this kind of damage?"

"He does; and theoretically, that shouldn't be possible," Geordi admitted. "My theory is, and remember that I'm not a cyberneticist, that the planet-bound device knocked him out and remotely controlled him until it could get him in touch with the avatar. I'll have to discuss with Starfleet's leading experts how we can prevent something like that happening again. If we can."

"Why shouldn't we?"

"There are no guarantees, Worf. We could always run into ancient civilizations that are technically much more advanced than we are. That's the beauty of space exploration: there's so much to discover. So much to learn, even after all those centuries we've already spent in space."

Worf gave that aspect some thought and made a reluctant grunt of agreement.

"That still doesn't explain the how," he then said. "Or why is Ensign Burke still out like a light from an overdosis of Bridrani pheromones."

"According to Doctor Selar he had an allergic reaction to them," Geordi explained. "It's rare but known to happen sometimes. And when a Bridrani is panicking, they can't control their pheromone output."

"It still doesn't explain the how," Worf insisted. "My instinct tells me there's more behind Data's escape than what meets the eye. Ensign Rina must have been part of it somehow."

"Probably," Geordi allowed. "But that's the captain's job to find out. He is the one s/he answers to, not you or me."

"I thought the two of you were… close," Worf said delicately.

Well, delicately for a Klingon.

"We are," Geordi agreed. "But not like that. As Doctor Selar has repeatedly told Commander Riker, no human would ever survive an encounter with a Bridrani in heat."

"That doesn't mean you can't have something with hir outside hir heat," pointed out Worf reasonably. "S/he likes you. You'd be a fool to let this chance slip through your fingers."


At the same time Data, Data II and Rina were sitting in the captain's ready room, trying to put together the events of which Data had no memory of. Learning what he had done during that time made the android very uncomfortable.

"Did I truly ask you to use your pheromones to distract Ensign Burke, so that he would allow me to go to the observation lounge," he asked in disbelief.

Rina nodded glumly. "Yes, Commander. You told me that the alien ship was adapting to the situation and would soon attack both the Enterprise and the Cairo, unless you did something against it."

"That was basically correct," the avatar said.

"But how could Data have known it?" Picard wondered.

"He did not," the avatar replied. "It was the knowledge of the device that created me. It has knocked Data's personality out, so that it could act through him."

"By why did it not send you right away?" Rina asked.

"I needed physical contact to Data to become fully active," the avatar explained. "Only through such contact was I able to download the personality protocols that enabled me to interact with you organics."

"I assume, Captain, that the planet-bound object was trying to get me back down to Bynax II, so that my doppelganger could be activated," Data added. "Unfortunately, my previous attempts to shut myself down weakened my systems to an extent that it led to a temporary failure in that airlock."

"What were you doing in the dratted airlock anyway?" Riker, newly returned from the planet, asked.

"I do not remember," Data confessed. "But I assume I must have tried to reach the transporter chamber near the Battle Bridge. My sense of orientation must have failed due to the previous malfunctions."

"There's one thing I still don't understand," Troi said. "Why the guilt? Why did you believe that the attack and the deaths on the planet surface were your fault?"

"Those were the thoughts of the device," the avatar explained. "Data was simply channelling them while his own personality was dormant. The device had indeed come to the conclusion that the attack was a result of its inability to communicate with its spaceborn counterpart."

"I thought those things could communicate with each other over parsecs," Picard said. "That is what you told us."

"And it is correct… under normal circumstances," the avatar replied. "However, the planet-bound device had taken heavy damage when it crashed onto Bynax II. It can accept messages but it cannot answer them."

"I hope it doesn't choose to self-destruct," Riker muttered darkly. "Our people have suffered enough."

"It will not," the avatar promised. "Data and I have explained it that it would be more… practical if it stayed on Bynax II and continued its terraforming mission. We have programmed the new parameters – Data found a way to tap into the database that I could not have done alone – so it would be actual terraforming from now on, the way you understand it."

"Commodore Norsen was delighted to hear it," Data added. "That way Bynax II can eventually become a real colony, not just a Starbase terminal."

"Starfleet would like that," Picard nodded. "Assuming the device will be able to communicate with Ty Norsen more directly."

"That is what I am here for," the avatar said. "Normally I would be re-absorbed into the device, now that my task is completed. It seems, though, that it will need me to be its voice for a while yet."

"That is good," Picard said. "This is a distant outpost on the edge of Federation space, facing the great unknown. We can use any help we get."

"And I can use every help to learn how to co-exist with organics," the avatar rose. "If you would excuse me, Captain; I have promised Panun'E'Ni to show her some of the functions of the device. We are trying to find a way to repair at least part of the damage, for the sake of energy preservation."

Picard nodded. "Of course. We are done here anyway. I'll do a full analysis for Starfleet once I've read everyone's reports."

His officers recognized the dismissal and rose to leave.

"Not you, Ensign Rina," Picard said. "I'd like a word with you."


Rina collapsed back into hir chair. It was a known fact throughout the Enterprise that having a word with the captain usually meant trouble. Not that s/he hadn't known s/he was in trouble, but still…

Picard waited until everyone left. Only then did he sit down behind his desk and gave the young Bridrani a piercing look. Rina tried hir best not to squirm. For a long time they were both silent. In the end, Rina couldn't bear it any longer.

"Am I about to lose my officer's commission, Captain?"

"No," Picard replied slowly. "Technically, you were acting under a superior officer's orders; and I do not doubt that you meant well." Rina practically deflated in relief.

"It was still wrong what you've done," Picard continued evenly and s/he tensed up again. "Doctor Selar reassured me that Ensign Burke will not have any lasting consequences, but I can't and won't tolerate such behaviour on my ship."

"I understand, sir," s/he whispered, devastated. This was the end of hir Starfleet career. No other captain had wanted hir on board; after this, they wouldn't even consider accepting hir.

"However, Lieutenant LaForge tells me that you're an excellent engineer and devoted to your work," Picard went on. "I think Starfleet can't afford to lose someone with your talent. We just need you an environment where you won't endanger yourself – or your shipmates."

Rina shook hir head. "My people don't explore space. As you know, Briria doesn't even have any ships in the Fleet."

"No; but the Deltans do," Picard said. "Not many, but they do have a few deep-space survey ships. They rarely serve in mixed crew, for the same reason as you; but they will be able to handle your nature… and you theirs. It will be a good match."

Rina knew it was true. S/he would miss being among humans, despite their bumpy start, but s/he would be safer on a Deltan ship. There she would be accepted and understood.

"But will they take me as a member of their crew?"

Picard nodded. "I've spoken to Captain Veraii Kirim-Rall of the A-khanton. They could use a good engineer. I told her that I have one for them," he smiled at hir surprise. "You are a good engineer, Ensign. You just need a place where you can unfold your talent without distraction."

He stood and held out his hand. "Good luck. We'll drop you off at the nearest Starbase where you can board a personnel transport to Deep Space Six where the A-khanton is docked right now. The rest depends on you; but I'm sure you'll grow with the challenge."

~TBC~