Chapter Thirteen: Replicate

The women met with the 'friend of a friend of a friend' of a former SI officer. The young man had given them all the information SI had about the kidnapping of four Starfleet officers, including an Admiral, and that was huge. It seemed their ship had been attacked by Osarian marauders, hired to do so. Apparently, the men were taken to a space station near a deserted planet known as Capella Prime. But the trail had ended there.

T'Pol and her team were encouraged, but very wary. Why would someone kidnap the men and take them to some remote outpost near a radiation-riddled, deserted planet? Only one person that they were aware of knew about Capella Prime, and she was dead. Nevertheless, the team headed for the small planet with all its hidden dangers.

Hoshi had a lot of anxiety about returning to the place that had proven to be where one of her greatest nightmares had unfolded. But she'd gathered herself together and insisted on being part of the away team.

They had detected only seven bio-signs on the tropical side of the planet, inside the compound where she had been held prisoner, so long ago. But for her, it seemed as fresh as ever.

When the team confronted the seven individuals left behind almost two years ago, they told them of the sister planet Capella Prime II and that V'Shele had known about it as well. That it had dangerous indigenous creatures, but that it was not nearly as dangerous as this planet. That it had once been the site of a intergalactic prison colony. In the end, T'Pol learned that the small band of survivors had been V'Shele's prisoners and that after the last confrontation, they had been left there to die.

Perceiving that they were not a threat, T'Pol brought them along, to help explore the mysterious Capella Prime II.

Upon arrival at Capella Prime II, T'Pol, Erika, Hoshi and the weapons experts Jackson and Wesley set out to find the kidnapped officers.

=/\=

The away team trekked through the forest, keenly aware of the dangers it presented but determined to reach the compound before nightfall. After travelling all day, they determined that they were at least a half a days journey to their destination. They decided that it was best to camp in a cave nearby and try to figure how to get onto the grounds and inside the compound at first light.

They broke into the compound and set out to find the men. It wasn't long before they encountered none other than Captain Malcolm Reed himself.

"Malcolm!" Hoshi shouted and ran toward her husband. He was dressed in black fatigues and boots and looked really pale; his hair was disheveled and his eyes looked glazed. As soon as Hoshi threw her arms around him, he made an odd sound and she was immediately tossed to the ground as if she had been shocked.

She screamed as she hit the floor. T'Pol hurried over to assist her as Erika stepped closer to their colleague.

"Malcolm! What the hell!" she said. "What just happened?"

But he didn't answer. He just cocked his head and looked at the woman in front of him.

"Malcolm? Captain Reed?" she asked.

"Are you alright?" T'Pol asked Hoshi as she helped her from the floor.

"I- I think so," the stunned woman gasped. She was rubbing her arms as if in pain. Then she looked at her husband and started toward him again. "Malcolm, what was that?" she asked miserably. "What have they done to you?"

"M-ma…Ma…com," he stammered hoarsely.

"Wait a minute," Erika said holding Hoshi back with her arm. "Something's not right."

With that T'Pol whipped out a scanner and ran a quick check.

"This is not Captain Reed," she replied.

Wesley and Jackson quickly took out their weapons and held them at the man standing before them.

"You want us to take him out?" Wesley asked.

"No!" Hoshi shouted. "Don't hurt him!"

"This is not your husband, lieutenant," T'Pol replied.

"Then who is he?" the frustrated woman demanded in return.

"The more accurate question would be, 'what is it?'" the Vulcan answered.

"What do you mean, T'Pol?" Erika asked, still holding Hoshi back.

"Must be a clone," Jackson suggested.

Suddenly, Hoshi broke free from Erika's grip and rushed toward the man again. This time he seemed startled and let out a loud screeching sound. He immediately grabbed Hoshi and held her face. Some type of electrical charge seemed to burst from his hands as she screamed and struck him hard across the mouth and then used her elbows to dislodge his grip from her face.

Wesley then fired a shot at him, hurling him backwards; he hit the floor, unconscious. T'Pol and Erika ran toward him and began examining him.

"You sure this isn't Captain Reed?" Erika asked as T'Pol ran her scanner over the unconscious individual again.

"Whatever this is, it is not human," the Vulcan replied. "These readings do not reflect human bio-signs."

"What the hell is he then?" Hoshi shouted, holding her red, blistered face that had started to swell.

"Oh man," Jackson replied as he tried to comfort the linguist. "The markings on your face look really familiar."

"Yeah," Wesley interjected. "You look like, like you've been stung! Jack! What the hell!"

"Can't be," he replied to his brother.

"You gentlemen want to share?" Erika said impatiently.

"They are referring to the markings left by creatures we encountered on Capella Prime over two years ago. They were called kai-yas."

"But, but, they were like these blobs, crystal-like blobs with these tentacles!" Wesley exclaimed. "They stung the hell out of me, I almost died!"

"If this is one of the creatures you're talking about," Erika began, "why does he look like Captain Reed?"

"Damn!" Wesley shouted as everyone turned and looked at the man who had started to regain consciousness, and was turning dark as he writhed around on the floor.

"What's happening to him!" Hoshi cried out, moving closer to him; she obviously couldn't let go of the hope that he might be her husband after all.

"Don't," T'Pol said, and grabbed her by the arm. "He's dying."

The creature screeched loudly, then right before their eyes, withered up into a pile of what looked like ashes.

The group stood there staring a moment. "It was just set on stun," Wesley finally said weakly.

"Apparently, the stun was too much for the creature." She then placed her scanner back on her belt and stood straight. "We should proceed."

Slowly, they moved on through the corridor of what seemed like a completely deserted building, phase weapons drawn. Wesley kept looking over at Hoshi to see if she was okay. If she was in the kind of pain he knew she had to be in, she didn't let it show.

"Any bio-signs?" Erika asked.

"No," T'Pol replied as she read the scanner. "Perhaps we should…"

But suddenly they came into contact with four more lookalikes who came barreling around the corner; somehow their bio-signs must have been hidden from the scanner. They immediately attacked the away team, hurling Wesley and Erika to the floor.

'Trip' attacked Erika, whose phase pistol flew out of her hand, and for a moment they engaged in a wrestling match on the floor as he electrocuted her with every other touch. Erika screamed but continued to try and fight off her attacker.

Another Malcolm had pounced on Jackson, but he had managed to hold onto his weapon. He immediately stunned the lookalike. Jackson then turned his weapon toward what appeared to be the woman known as Gannet Brooks, who was busy trying to get a grip on Hoshi, who wasn't about to be fooled again. She didn't know if this was Gannet or not, but the woman had attacked her and she was fighting back. Jackson shot the imposter and she fell to the floor as T'Pol struggled with what looked like her former husband, Koss.

Wesley had been rendered temporarily unconscious and was just coming to when he realized T'Pol was in trouble. He quickly looked around for his weapon, scrambled for it, then fired it at the big Vulcan. He let out a screeching sound and fell to the floor.

The team tried to re-group, but couldn't ignore the pain of the burns from having been stung up by these creatures.

"There're just like those goddamned kai-yas I tell you!" Jackson winced as he held his swelling hand.

"Maybe we should get back to the ship and get treated for these stings," Erika suggested. "And maybe we should have worn some protective gear."

"We had no way of knowing we would be encountering anything of this nature," T'Pol replied as she held her throat, already beginning to sound hoarse.

"You…alright…Commander?" Hoshi gasped.

"No, she's not," Wesley quickly replied. "She was stung in the neck, she's gonna need treatment like now!"

"He's right," Jackson agreed. "These stings hurt like hell and cause grotesque swelling and temporary paralysis. It goes away after a few hours. But if it's in the throat or chest, or heart…"

"Then they're deadly!" Wesley interrupted.

"Mr. Smith is correct," T'Pol rasped. "And anyone stung in the arm, will not be able to use it soon. We should go."

"Hey," Erika said touching her left eye. "My eye feels really funny." Little did she know, it was already red and starting to bulge.

T'Pol whipped out her communicator, but suddenly could not speak. Hoshi grabbed it with her left hand as her right one was already double its normal size, and placed it close to her red, puffy face. "Five to beam up," she said to the comm officer.

Suddenly, another Trip, a Koss and what looked like two Admiral Archers this time, and if they weren't mistaken, a Kaitaama, came running at the team, screeching and ready to attack with their horrible stings. But before they could, the rescue team disappeared in a haze of light.

=/\=

Later.

Phlox and Cutler treated their colleagues in sick bay of Excalibur as Erika tried to make sense of what had happened to them. T'Pol was still unable to speak. Erika had summoned two of the seven aliens they had rescued on Capella Prime. They explained about the giant kay-yas, how they could take the form of some species, and that they were not sentient, only living a few days.

Meeting the replicas of their friends, husbands, and colleagues had been unsettling. T'Pol was even more perplexed about her encounter with Koss' duplicate. What was he doing here and what did he have to do with the disappearance of Trip and the other men? She wondered if they were even still alive.

=/\=

Back at the Compound.

Gannett screamed as she was whipped across the back by V'Shelle's stooge. How she'd been exposed, she didn't know. But she was now a prisoner. She was a trained operative and refused to talk, so she was being systematically tortured as the other women looked on from the large viewing window on the other side of the room.

Rajiin wanted to scream with Gannet every time she cried out, but remained stoic; the last thing they needed was for her cover to be blown too. She had thought that perhaps she should have revealed herself to help her friend, that she could take the torture, but she knew if Gannet stood a chance, she and Dr. Yuris had to continue to play along.

=/\=

In Another Building on the Grounds.

"Hey! Hey!" Trip screamed at a man in a blue uniform. "I know you hear me, you idiot! I know you hear me!

"I'm gonna break someone's goddamned neck when I get out of here!

"Hey! Listen to me! Open this friggin' door!" Someone had locked him away and he didn't know why. All he knew was that his head hurt violently. Maybe that's why he couldn't remember anything. He had woken up a short time ago and realized that he didn't know where he was, what he was doing there, or how he'd come to be there. He had really become frightened when he realized he couldn't remember his own name.

He had managed to rip a chair up, which was bolted to the floor with some type of mechanism; he couldn't figure out how it worked. So had just grabbed the chair by its metal leg and pulled it loose with strength he couldn't explain he had. Maybe this was the reason he was locked up.

He had made such a fuss that several people wearing blue uniforms had finally come running. He'd struggled with them and finally been injected with something that made him go limp.

"What the hell are you doing to me?" he screamed as they partly released him and he clapped a hand to his neck. "Where am I? Who are you fuckin' people and why are you tryin' to kill me?"

"We are not trying to kill you," the young woman said. "We are trying to help you." The men then lifted him up and carried him over to the bed, and although he still tried to resist, whatever was in that hypo had caused him to already feel the effects of it as he was too woozy to shake them off. They then fastened restraints to his wrists and ankles.

"Why are you doing this?" he yelled frantically. "What is this place and why am I here? This…this is a crazy house, isn't it! What am I doing here? I – I wanna talk to somebody in authority! If this is some kinda hospital I wanna talk to a doctor or an administrator or somebody!"

"Certainly," the young woman replied. "I will have to summons your wife first, however. She will want to be consulted."

"My wife?" he asked, staring wide-eyed at the young woman.

"What do you remember today?" the woman asked. "I am your personal nurse and care-giver, Drakely. Do you remember me today sir?"

When the patient did not answer, but just stared at her, she went on, "Do you know who you are?"

He closed his eyes for a second. He didn't even know that much. "Just … just get the damned doctor!" he yelled out of frustration.

"Right away, Your Majesty," the woman stated, and then bowed slightly. The men followed suit.

"Who – just who the hell am I…and why are you referring to me as royalty?" he demanded to know.

"Your Majesty, unfortunately you have been quite ill for some time, requiring your hospitalization off-world due to a unique set of circumstances. Your mind is rather impaired, and your wife had you brought to this fine facility for treatment.

"As to who you are, you are Sir Charles the Third, Prince Consort of Her Majesty Kaitaama, First Monarch of Krios Prime."

=/\=

Kaitamma and Dr. Yuris viewed the incident from the tape the Nurse had given her. "Just how long is he going to be like this?" she sneered at the doctor.

"Your Grace," the Vulcan began, "there is no way to be certain. This could well be a temporary condition. There is simply no way to be sure."

"He doesn't know who I am!" she shouted. "He doesn't even know who he is! I thought you said this new strand was not going to harm him!""

"If you will recall madam, what I intimated was that the creatures would not cause the subjects to become aggressive and violent as they did before. As I warned, memory loss was a potential side effect. That, coupled with the fact that I was forced to administer the final treatment before it was time, has no doubt affected Captain Tucker's memory."

"Well how can he love me if he doesn't even know who I am?" Kaitaama whined. "Put him back the way he was you crock, now!"

"I assure you, I cannot," the doctor replied blandly. "However, as I have shared with the Mistress and with Ms. Rajinn, I believe it is possible to re-program his mind. It is as a blank slate right now. Therefore, shape it to your liking. Continue to plant the memories you want him to access, then you can simply fill in the blanks as you desire."

"Yeah well, that shit better work!" Kaitaama said as she rolled her eyes at Dr. Yuris before she turned to exit the room.

"We'll see," she snapped, looking over her shoulder. "We'll see!" Then she left in a huff."

=/\=

V'Shele sat across from her patient.

"Why do you bother coming here every day?" Number One said to the doctor. "I'm obviously a lost cause."

"I don't believe that," the petite doctor with the glasses and the long, red pony-tail replied. "The mind is very powerful. If it can be broken, as yours has been, it can be repaired. I won't stop until yours is."

Number One laughed a bit at that. His doctor, Allison Wells, had been so kind to him, why he didn't know. She had said that he was a fascinating subject and a challenge. She had had him moved from the criminal ward to the plush ward where the elite patients resided. There she had visited him, every day, at least three times.

She had told him that if she could restore his mind, his skills, could buy him a ticket off this rock and into the Romulan fleet, to help her people reclaim the world stolen from them by the Vulcans, and that she was determined to make that happen. He knew that he was human and likely from the planet Earth, but he had no idea how he had come to be out in space. Dr. Wells had promised to help him figure all that out, if he cooperated with the treatment she had prescribed for him.

He had been grateful that she took enough interest in him to try and help him. He had even worked out that she was maybe even attracted to him. But, something wasn't right and he knew it. Nevertheless, being on a less restricted unit meant he was presented with clean clothing, a soft bed, good food and other opportunities. Therefore, he had decided to play along.

"So we will continue our work then," the doctor said. "Will you allow me to restore your mind?"

"Of course," Malcolm replied with a wry smile as he sat across from the very attractive psychiatrist. "I'm indebted to you."

Then she rose up and walked over to him facing him where he sat. She stared down at him as he gazed up at her. "Really?" she said, with her hands on her hips.

Malcolm looked at her shapely body, perfectly accented by the short, tight black skirt she wore, the red Triaxian-silk blouse along with the sexy high-heeled shoes. "You got me out of that hell hole," he replied. "I'd do anything for you."

"Then you know what I want," she whispered and bent down and kissed him. He slowly unzipped the trousers he was wearing, revealing what he knew she was referring to. He then raised her skirt over her hips, under which she wore no underwear, and pulled her down on top of him.

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