The Dog Blob
"Spock," Kirk called over his shoulder, "what... is it?"
"It appears to be an amorphous blob, Captain," his science officer, Vulcan friend, and second in command informed him.
"I can see that Spock, but an amorphous blob of what?"
"I am unsure. Sensors are unable to penetrate much of its structure. At the most I can see, it appears to be some kind of metal."
Kirk glanced back at Spock, to the widescreen upon which the shiny gray blob floated in the middle of space, then back to Spock. He raised his eyebrows with a look of disbelief on his face.
"Appearances can be deceiving, Captain," he patiently explained.
"Clearly," Kirk fired back, once more turning to the viewscreen. "Well, it followed us here on our tail and at our warp speed, just like a dog, so let's see if it barks."
He turned to Uhura and shot her a pair of finger guns. "Hail them, Lieutenant!"
Uhura rolled her eyes and smiled at his antics. "Yes, sir." She manipulated the controls on her console and opened a channel to the blob. "Hailing frequencies open, Captain."
Kirk nodded to her and then stood straight up, facing the widescreen with his hands on his hips.
Sulu discreetly lowered his head so the Captain couldn't see him snickering. Everyone else except Chekhov had it easy, they weren't directly within his field of view.
Said weapons officer was doing an admirable job of making it look like he wasn't laughing on the inside about their Captain's... uniqueness.
"Unknown ...Blob!" Kirk announced, barely keeping a straight face himself due to the absurdity of what he said, "this is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation Starship Enterprise. Please share your identity and explain why you are... riding us."
Uhura broke out in a smile and abruptly schooled her features to stone, but not before Spock noticed and gave her a knowing nod and trademark Vulcan eyebrow raise.
The bridge was silent except for Sulu's badly muted snickering for several moments.
Then the blob began to move.
"Captain!" Chekhov announced, rapidly adjusting his console to keep the ship's weapons sensors in the general vicinity of the... blob. "The blob is moving!"
"I can see that Ensign, where is it going?"
"I... I am not sure! It has begun accelerating towards us, but whether it intends to ram us or miss us I cannot tell! It seems to be... shwifting its vectors so that our sensors cannot track it accuwately!"
Kirk grew serious all of a sudden. "That sounds like active countermeasures," he declared.
Spock spoke up. "Captain there is no reason to believe this being's intentions are hostile-" he began to explain, but was cut off.
"Yeah, yeah, eeexcept the active countermeasures of our tracking systems, Spock," Kirk fired back, then whirled on Chekhov. "Lieutenant, lock on and fire a warning shot."
"It is not possible, Captain, the system cannot keep track of it!" Chekhov protested.
Kirk moved towards him and put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. "Do it manually Chekhov, I don't want to know what that thing will do when it hits us," he commanded.
Chekhov drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and nodded. "Y-Yes Captain I will try."
"Good man!" Kirk commended him, slapping his shoulder. He moved to the left and put his hand on Sulu's shoulder, ignoring or not noticing the uncomfortable fidget of his conn officer. "Alright Sulu, can you keep that thing off of us?"
"I can try Captain but I don't put our manoeuvring abilities at good odds against something that seemed to have no issues keeping up with us at warp."
"Do what you can," Kirk said, slapping his shoulder and almost dancing back to his chair.
Uhura and Spock quickly schooled their faces into mirror stone images of each other, both obviously fake.
"Uhura keep trying to get them to reply. Spock, give me anything you can collect on it."
"Yes sir."
"Yes, Captain."
"Alright crew, let's give this metal dog a show." Kirk landed in his chair, then pointed finger guns at the viewscreen. "Execute Pattern Kirk Alpha."
"Of course he names it that," Uhura muttered under her breath even as everyone leapt into action.
Spock smirked to show he'd heard her but didn't otherwise react.
Sulu abruptly fired the lower maneuvering jets and began flipping the ship over, only barely keeping within tolerances of the internal dampening systems.
Everyone found themselves pressed into their seats. Chekhov sent the man next to him a look like he was crazy, but his console started beeping to alert him to his own problems.
"Haha Sulu what are you doing?!" Kirk asked, gripping his chair.
"What you said Captain, keeping it off of us."
"Yeah-hahah," Kirk fired back, wide eyed.
""It vould be nice if you could leave me any charged phaser banks to work with, Sulu!"" Chekhov barked, rapidly opening and closing windows in an attempt to find one array both pointed at the rapidly swiveling away from his combat horizon metallic blob.
Sulu, grinning wide, laughed out loud. "Can't do that Chekhov I've got a ship to fly!"
Chekhov let out a muttered Russian curse at the conn officer next to him. "безрассудный маньяк!"
That of course only made the crazy Asian man smile more.
Finally the ship flipped around and Sulu fired the opposite thrusters, punching the impulse engines to maximum at the same time.
"Aaand we're flipped!" Sulu announced. He let go of the controls momentarily to grin at Chekhov. "You should use the rear phasers."
Chekhov pursed his lips and glared at him even as he opened the control windows for those very phasers.
Kirk blinked, having watched the entire byplay. "Right," he coughed, standing up brushing off his uniform. "Thank you for your excellent flying, Lieutenant Sulu."
"Anytime Captain."
Kirk scowled at him and turned to a slightly sick Uhura and a thoroughly amused Spock. "Anything?" he demanded.
"The blob continues to be amorphous and defy our scanners, Captain," Spock succinctly informed him.
Uhura barely kept herself from throwing up. "No response yet."
Kirk raised an eyebrow at the lack of a Captain in her tone but ignored it due to how she looked like she was about to hurl. "Okay."
"Captain it's accelerating!" Sulu warned him, once more looking at the viewscreen.
Kirk spun around and saw the steadily growing blob. It almost filled the view between the warp nacelles. "Chekhov!"
"Almost Captain!" the weapons officer pleaded.
"Chekov I can see my life flashing before my eyes!"
The ship hummed as a bright burst of orange tinted exotic particles leapt out from the hull of the ship in between the nacelle pylons, directly towards the blob.
"Got it, Captain!" Chekhov celebrated.
"Good job Chekhov, excellent shoo-" Kirk began to compliment him.
Then the phaser blast missed the blob. By what looked like the entire length of the ship.
It was silent on the bridge except for Chekhov allowing his head to drop to the console.
"Chekhov," Kirk began again, but this time was interrupted by Spock.
"Captain, Commander Chekhov did not miss. The blob moved out of the way."
"Oh great!" Kirk yelled. "So it can dodge too!"
"It is not an unheard of capability for amorphous beings to dodge harmful blasts of particles aimed at them."
"Not now Spock, I don't need a science lecture!"
"Captain, the blob is stopping!" Sulu said, cutting off the argument.
Everyone on the bridge as one turned to the viewscreen to see that the blob was indeed falling away from the ship.
"Sulu," Kirk cautiously said, "bring us to a stop too."
"Aye Captain," Sulu said, immediately punching the reverse impulse engines.
"Slowly!"
Sulu pouted, but he did lower the engines down a few notches.
Chekhov rolled his eyes and muttered 'speed demon' into his console.
Sulu went from pout to unrepentant grin so fast it looked unnatural. But that was Sulu for you.
The ship slowed to a stop roughly the same distance away from the Enterprise as it had been when they started this escape attempt.
Nobody said anything for several moments.
"Now what?" Kirk asked.
As if in reply to him, the blob began moving. But not towards them, it was fluctuating and changing shape.
"Captain, it appears to be growing some kind of structures inside and on itself," Spock announced.
Chekhov shot straight up and gulped. He looked down at his sensors and his face paled even further than it normally was due to his Russian lineage. "Captain, those are phaser cannons!"
"Oh come on!" Kirk yelled. "Sulu, punch it!"
"Yes Captain," Sulu gleefully acknowledged, slamming the impulse engine lever all the way down to the floor.
The Enterprise jumped into full thrust, inertial dampeners maxed. Kirk found himself bowled over his chair. It was only as he got up that he saw the unrepentant smile of his conn officer.
"Very good," Kirk coughed. "Exactly what I asked for."
Sulu just grinned at him and shrugged. He had been prepared for the abrupt velocity change and didn't even seem to have a hair out of place.
Kirk groaned, hugging his sides. "Gonna feel that in the morning."
Chekhov recovered quickly and checked his console. "CAPTAIN!" he yelled. "IT IS FIWING!"
Kirk groaned again and pulled himself into his chair. "Evasive maneuvers, Sulu!"
Sulu spun around and obliged him, proceeding to do executions of movement with the Enterprise that only two very kinky lovers would attempt. Just in time too, as the blob proceeded to rain phaser bolts in their direction faster than the Enterprise and six of her sisters could.
To the detriment of everyone's stomachs.
"Captain," Spock said after about a minute of that, "It is missing us on purpose."
Kirk groggily looked at him. "What?"
"Not a single one of its blasts has actually been on course to hit us." Spock was taking the crazy shit Sulu was putting the entire ship through better than everyone else, but even he looked a little green. Well, greener.
Kirk stared at him for a couple of seconds. "Chekhov can you confirm?"
The Russian and previously actively swearing out Sulu weapons officer started, then examined his console. His eyebrows rose. "Aye, Captain. Not a one."
Kirk groaned, massaging his head. "Sulu, lessen your maneuvers, let's see what it does."
Sulu acknowledged the command, though he sounded slightly put out. "Yes Captain."
The ship ceased performing movements more fitted to a frigate and instead settled into calmer evasive maneuvers under Sulu's skilled hands. Everyone's stomachs were thankful.
"Oka- urp," Kirk began, barely keeping himself from throwing up, "status?"
"Still missing us Captain," Chekhov announced.
Spock nodded. "It appears to have adjusted its firing patterns in anticipation of us lowering our rate of maneuvers," he concurred.
Kirk threw up his hands and glared at the brilliantly orange bolts flashing by the ship, but never hitting it. "Fine! Sulu, drop us to minimum speed."
"Are you sure, Captain?" he asked.
"Yes. But if it does start hitting us, do what you have to do."
"Yes, Captain," Sulu acknowledged. He pulled back on the impulse engine lever until they were only barely running and stopped manipulating the maneuvering thrusters.
"It has changed its firing patterns again, Captain," Spock announced.
Kirk scowled. "So it grows phasers after we fire at it and fires back, but intentionally misses?" he asked, growling. "It's like it's playing with us!"
Nobody said anything for several moments, once more, as they contemplated that.
"Maybe it is," Uhura mused.
Kirk raised an eyebrow and turned to her. "How?"
Uhura met his eyes and smiled. "Well you did call it a dog, Captain."
Suddenly the channel which had been listening for the blob's response received a transmission. It was already set up to pipe to the bridge speakers, so the content of the transmission immediately played out loud.
It was a dog barking. In a friendly, playful way.
The pulses of phaser particles faded away as the thing stopped shooting and it began moving towards them again, aiming for pulling alongside them.
Rapid happy dog pants filled the bridge.
Kirk slumped down in his chair and groaned, hiding his head in his hands, even as the bridge crew erupted into snickering and laughter. Spock's smirk was there too, somehow audible even though it was quieter than breathing.
He was too sick from Sulu's maneuvers to deal with a dog blob.