Disclaimer: If I owned any of this I would be much richer than I am right now.

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MIND AND BODY

Chapter 5: Ill Intents

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"I don't understand it," said Dr. Phlox, staring down at his patient with a baffled look on his face. "Scans show nothing at all wrong. And her brainwave patterns behave as if she were awake."

"Yet there she lies," said Hoshi, shaking her head. She sat perched on the other biobed, leaning her head on her hands. "There is something very funny going on around here, Doctor."

"I agree," said Phlox, sorting through the items on the counter until he found a medical scanner. "Now, you said you've been feeling odd?"

"I think I'm just not getting enough sleep, or something," replied the ensign as Phlox ran the scanner over her head. "Odd things have been happening all day but when I think back on it, really it's just me being strange."

"Well, Ensign, you do seem a little tired, but beyond that nothing seems to be wrong. I can give you a sleep aid if you like. I would suggest getting some rest. When is your next shift?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'm done for the day," she told him, taking the pills he gave her.

"Go get some food and then go to bed, Ensign," he said. "And if you don't feel better tomorrow come see me again."

"Will do, Doctor, thank you," Hoshi said, hopping off the bed. She nodded to him, cast a last sympathetic look at the still and silent Vulcan, and left Sickbay, the doors swooshing behind her.

She looked at the bottle of pills in her hand and clenched it angrily. Something was wrong, and she knew it was more than simple exhaustion on her part. But her mind simply refused to pin it down, and that scared Hoshi more, really, than anything else that had happened today. She was not stupid, by any meaning of the word, and she did not like her mind playing tricks on her. And when her mind, her most reliable tool, could not be counted on, that meant very little else could either.

Skipping dinner, Hoshi went to her quarters and accessed the communications logs. There had been a message, she was sure of it. What that message said, she did not know but she remembered that it had been important. Something about Jolas that the captain, and Malcolm, needed to know.... But what it was refused to surface.

The logs were just as she remembered from this morning, no messages incoming or outgoing---wait! There had been an outgoing message.... She had sent one out to the Halparens---but it had stopped.... Hoshi sighed and smacked the desktop, furious that her mind seemed to be working against her. She scrolled through the communications logs from the rest of the day, finding nothing out of the ordinary until she reached a message received only ten minutes ago and not answered by the officer on duty. Looking over her shoulder, as if she expected someone to be standing there, she accessed the message.

The Universal Translator had automatically translated it already, so Hoshi did not have to waste any time with that. A golden-skinned Halparen who looked vaguely familiar---she supposed he must be from the phantom message that morning---spoke quickly and urgently into the screen.

"Enterprise, we demand that you respond! You are carrying a highly dangerous fugitive aboard your ship. Do not allow the device near your computer systems and if the fugitive requests any modifications to the thought-saver, refuse immediately. I repeat, the fugitive is highly dangerous. Please respond, Enterprise!"

Hoshi jumped to her feet and swore so loudly that Crewman Hollis in the next room pounded on the wall. Shouting an apology, she sat back down and immediately sent a message back, routing it through the lesser-used channels. This was the thing she had forgotten, and now the memories came struggling back in bits and pieces. Telepathy, computer control---all these could be easily done through the thought-saver, and they had suspected none of it!

No wonder those messages disappeared, she thought furiously as a new transmission, this one live, came through on the same little-used channel. The picture was fuzzy and the words blurred, but it worked well enough for her purposes. "Are you Ensign Sato?" said the Halparen on the screen. "I am Constable Hamisis. We believed Jolas to be dead, since we could find no trace of him."

"Oh, he is most certainly not dead," Hoshi snapped, wishing dearly that she could wring Malcolm's neck. "I believe that he is taking over our computer systems and messing with our minds. Can you help us?"

"We may be able to help---" The screen fuzzed and went blank.

"Ah, the beautiful Ensign Sato," said a soft voice behind her. "Ever- resourceful, I see."

Hoshi whirled around and stared in horror at the transparent golden figure standing in the middle of her room. She reached for the comm unit, memories of T'Pol's cry for help suddenly flooding back into her mind (she'd forgotten that, too), but it sparked and exploded with a puff of smoke just as her fingers touched it. Hoshi dropped back into her chair with a cry, her hand painfully singed. "What do you want?" she cried.

"What I want at the moment is not possible," Jolas sighed. His golden fingers reached out to her cheek and ran slowly along her jaw. Hoshi shuddered, even though she could not actually feel his touch at all.

"Get away from me," she said, leaning backwards away from his hand.

He removed the offending appendage and smiled gently, looking sickeningly innocent. Hoshi nearly gagged at the sight. Her eyes swept across the room, but what could she do to hurt an intangible hologram?

"I did not expect that it would be so difficult to fool your species," said Jolas, idly pacing back and forth before her. Hoshi sat frozen, her hands clutching the arms of the chair. "And in truth, it has not been. The hardest thing was changing the course so that the helmsman believed he was still on a different one." He stopped and grinned at her, sadistic and sneering. "Your security officer was difficult, but he was curious too, and stayed in close enough proximity that I could fool him completely."

"What did you do to T'Pol?" Hoshi spat. Her head pounded, and she gripped the chair even harder. No doubt Jolas was doing the same thing to her that he had done to the Sub-commander.

"The Vulcan? She would have felt my presence immediately," Jolas said smoothly. "I could not allow that to happen. She is alive, but she is unable to move or speak." He put bent down and looked directly into Hoshi's eyes, smiling still. "She hears everything, though. Her own mind is her prison, my dear Ensign Sato." He moved in closer still; Hoshi was frozen, unable to move, mind burning. "And so shall yours be, my intrepid little Hoshi." He touched her cheek again, and this time Hoshi felt cold fingers. A tear slipped from her eye and ran along the side of her nose. She could not move, could not cry out---Jolas laughed and took her chin in his hand, forcing her head backwards and up to his own.

"I am most interested to discover the meaning of your human customs," he whispered. Hoshi closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks..... And then her skin tingled curiously, and she looked up to see Jolas' surprised face and the room all dissolving away into nothingness.

She materialized again in thin air and fell to the floor, crying out as the hard tile met her elbows with a crunch. A golden face, reminiscent of Jolas but much more alien, swam before her eyes, hands lifting her from the floor and onto something softer.

"The effects will wear off in a few minutes," said Constable Hamisis gently, beckoning over his shoulder to a waiting Halparen, who came forward. They moved away and spoke in low voices while Hoshi struggled to regain control of her muscles, tears still running down her face. After a few moments feeling spread through her limbs again and she began to relax, breathing in and out and desperately trying to stop crying. Hamisis came back in a few minutes.

"See? He cannot reach you here," said the Constable. "Now, I want you to tell me everything you know about Jolas, and we will see what we can do to get your ship away from him." The alien face smiled down at her, very like the hologram of Jolas but with true kindness showing in his eyes. Hoshi managed a weak smile and with a deep breath told him everything that had happened, from finding the ship to Jolas' appearance in her quarters.

And oh, was Malcolm going to be in trouble when she got back....

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Malcolm, at that very moment, was pacing around the armory, trying to figure out why the targeting scanners refused to realign when all his calculations showed that they should be aligning perfectly. Jolas watched him meander back and forth, a bored look on the alien's face.

"Perhaps, my friend, a rest and reevaluation of the problem might help?" suggested the golden alien. Reed turned and looked at him quizzically.

"I suppose that would be a good idea," said Reed. "I don't understand it, though. Everything checks out normally---but it just won't align the way I want it to." He looked at the phase correlator in his hand and chuckled. "Trip's right, I am always working on these bloody things. A break's a good idea, Jolas."

The alien nodded. "Let it settle," he said and then furrowed his brow, looking down quickly at the thought-saver, sitting on the console. "Would you mind adjusting the settings? One of the instruments was slightly damaged and it is not integrating as it should."

"Neither of us are having much luck aligning things, eh?" said Reed as he examined the little machine where Jolas pointed. "Right here---aahh!"

Without warning wires erupted from the machine and shot towards his neck and head. Reed threw himself backwards, but was too late---the wires yanked him towards the thought-saver and pulled him facedown onto the console. He struggled but his muscles refused to obey his commands and went limp. Jolas' face, shimmering golden, appeared next to his, scowling.

"Your communications officer is a little too resourceful. I need full telepathic control of this ship immediately, and the only way I can do it is biologically. You should be pleased to know your brain, Lieutenant Reed, is absolutely essential in the next stage of my plan."

Malcolm felt red-hot wires snaking into his skin and up through his neck. A scream built up in his mind until he thought he would explode, but his mouth refused to release the agony. Jolas' hand gripped his neck---he felt it, oh God, why did he feel a holographic hand?---and suddenly he was flying out of his body into along the wires, electricity crisping his skin and burning his face and hands.

Everything blacked out for an instant. Then he felt a great thump and found himself staring at himself.

"Enjoy eternity, Lieutenant Reed," said his own mouth. A little silver implant protruded form the side of his neck. "I don't need the thought- saver anymore. I have complete control over the ship"---his smile grew wider---"and now every person in it. Thank you, Lieutenant Reed."

Malcolm looked down at his hands and found to his great surprise that he could see through them to the floor below. He tried to speak but found that his voice would not work. His body---or rather Jolas' body now---reached forward and detached the original little silver box from the mass of wires protruding from it. Reed looked around in dismay as Jolas walked out of the armory, pulling Malcolm-the-hologram along with him.

They passed a few crewmen in the hallways, but despite Reed's exaggerated waves and gestures, no one seemed to see him. His own face smiled back at him, the corners of his mouth cruelly turned up into a malicious smirk. "Thank you again, Lieutenant," said Jolas in Reed's own softly accented voice, and tapped the controls to the F-Deck airlock. He tossed the thought- saver in, leering all the while, and as Reed stared in horror, sealed the airlock and then opened the outer hatch, sucking the little silver machine out into the blackness of space.

Watch and learn, came Jolas' voice in Reed's mind as he tumbled away from Enterprise, helpless to do anything at all. Space was silent and cold, but the holographic body felt none of it as he tumbled away into nothingness.

One last comment from Jolas reached his mind, making Malcolm scream silently into the emptiness around him: Enjoy eternity, Lieutenant.

You're not dead---it's more of a chance than most people get.

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Again, chapter courtesy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and no school. Hurray!