Author's Note: I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing. Special thanks to grayangle who did more than just breathe and is my first R&R-er. Thank you for reading, all the rest of you out there. Please keep doing so.

Chapter Two: Extra Passengers

The transporter effect was nearly blinding as fifty people beamed in at once. Standing a little way off, Dr. Crusher slitted her eyes to avoid being blinded. Beside her, Deanna Troi raised one arm involuntarily.

"Bright, isn't it," she murmured to her red-haired companion.

"Cargo transporters aren't meant to transport people," the doctor replied as the first party finished having their molecules reassembled.

Moments after she'd finished her sentence, the light and the ringing sound died away, leaving behind fifty people who had, moments ago, been kilometers away on the starbase.

"Welcome to the Enterprise," Dr. Crusher called as they shifted. "Please stay where you are for just a moment."

The majority of the party obeyed instantly, except for one man, who worked his way through the crowd and stepped down to join them.

"I'm Gunthar; I'm in charge of this group," he said brusquely, not giving a last name.

"Good to meet you. I'm Dr. Crusher; this is Counselor Troi."

He shook hands with them hastily; then his face abruptly broke into a smile.

"Sorry. I don't like being transported. It wreaks havoc with my nerves and makes me a little jumpy for a few seconds. Where—oh, hang on a second."

Both women watched, puzzled, as he turned back to the transporter platform. Rejoining his people, he waded through them without so much as a by-your-leave. Shoving two squabbling teenage boys to one side, he appeared to find what or who he was after. He returned to the doctor and the counselor with a vaguely smiling boy with ragged strawberry-blond hair. Gunthar stopped in front of them, but the boy kept walking aimlessly. With a sigh, he put one hand on the child's shoulder, stopping him. Looking rather confused, but still with that slight smile, he stopped moving and stared with apparent fascination at the transporter console.

Gunthar apologized again. "The kid's a simpleton, and mute with it. I've been making sure he doesn't get into any trouble for the last few days. If I let him out of my sight for any length of time, he'll wander off and never be seen again."

Out of curiosity, Deanna stretched her empathic senses out towards the boy. She found, in that strange way, one-dimensional perceptions of the world but no true understanding or even really thought. "It's like shallow water over glass," she murmured.

Gunthar shot her an odd look. "Why would you say that?" he asked warily.

"I'm half-Betazoid," she said mildly, hoping that didn't offend him too greatly—not that she could do anything about it if it did offend him.

To her relief, he merely nodded slightly. "So, Doctor, where do you want us?"

The doctor pulled out her medical tricorder from one of her voluminous pockets, addressing the whole group. "We would ask you to please remain in this bay as we travel to Lima Sierra. We have made every provision for your comfort, but if there's anything we can do, there will be officers stationed outside the double doors at every hour. For the moment, please step from the platform one at a time so I can scan you," she addressed the colonists. To her slight surprise, there was only a minimum of trouble in getting fifty people into one line.

"Security officers?" Gunthar said with slight disapproval in his voice.

"We have a very cautious chief of security," Deanna placated him. "It's nothing against you and yours.'

"I understand."

The colonists began to slowly file off the transporter pads, stopping in front of Dr. Crusher and waiting for her nod before dispersing one by one. Engrossed in her scans, she only partially listened to the conversation between Gunthar and Deanna Troi.

"Tell me, why would a boy like this be sent on a colonization mission? Shouldn't he be in a mental hospital?"

"Who, Sean?" Gunthar asked, finishing a brief conversation with one of his people.

"Is that his name?" the counselor asked, watching Sean watch Beverly—or, upon further observation, just her tricorder. Next to the doctor's copper-red hair, his hair looked positively blond. Abruptly, she double-taked slightly. For a moment, she could have sworn that he looked different, but an instant later there was only a vacant blue-eyed boy watching a tricorder with clueless fascination.

"Yes," Gunthar continued without noticing her momentary surprise. "And from what I can make out, his mother and father were signed up for this trip, and decided to take him along. They were probably after a quiet place to look after him."

"So where are they now?"

"His records say transporter accident. Both parents killed," he snapped his fingers, "like that! I don't think he has any other family, so the social services decided he was coming with us. He's harmless really. He needs precise instruction and patience, but he's no danger to anyone. Besides, he's a direct contrast to those two," he added with a scowl, pointing at the two teenagers who had been arguing before. It had now escalated to the beginning stages of an out-and-out punching match. "Excuse me." He headed towards them with grim purpose. "Hey! You two! You've been warned…" His voice faded away, covered by other voices as the cargo bay filled steadily.

Her tricorder bleeped steadily as person after person filed past at her nod. Upon reflection, she thought wryly, this really wasn't necessary. Everyone she'd scanned so far seemed in perfect health, and remarkably patient.

As the end of the line drew near, however, she got a surprise. Keeping her gaze on her tricorder, not having looked up in quite a while, she literally jumped as the readings—and the volume—jumped abruptly. She looked up in shock to find the person currently in front of her smiling tolerantly and the simpleton standing beside her tricorder, waving his hand at randomly varying paces in front of it and listening and watching its reaction with delight.

The doctor put one hand over her heart in the hope of calming it. "You gave me a real fright there, you know," she told the boy. He didn't seem to hear her and merely moved his hand closer and farther to the business end of the scanning device.

Deciding to take the simple alternative, she put one hand on his wrist and gently pushed his hand down. He looked up at her with vacant, half-closed eyes and moved to just behind her elbow. He put his hands behind his back, smiling again.

"That's better," she told him.

"Sean!" Gunthar bellowed, rounding on him from a large group of people. "Leave the doctor alone!"

"It's all right!" she called back. "He's not bothering me; he can stay if he wants to!"

Gunthar shook his head silently and turned back to his people as the last of this group of passengers trooped past. Beverly closed her tricorder with a relieved sigh, and then groaned as she remembered that this was only a fifth of their passengers.

A slim hand reached out to touch the closed tricorder's silver case curiously. "All done," she told Sean with a smile. "Oh, I haven't scanned you yet, have I?" She flipped it open and pointed it at him. However, the combination of the sudden movement and the flashing tool currently pointed at him startled the boy, and he moved away. She closed the tricorder with no readings to speak of and smiled at him to apologize, but he was already distracted by the play of light and shadow across the bulkhead on the opposite side of the cargo bay, and was wandering toward it to study it.

She shook her head, sorry for the young man, and pocketed her tricorder. "Deanna!" she called. "Ready to move on?"

"I'm coming," Deanna replied, and fell into step beside her as they exited the cargo bay, doors swishing closed and cutting off the chatter from within. The two guards in yellow-gold uniforms nodded respectfully to them as they walked by.

"Do you have a copy of the report on Alameda?" Deanna asked. "I'm ashamed to say I fell asleep in the middle of it last night. I'd like to finish it."

"Of course," Beverly assured her, fishing in one of the pockets of her lab coat. "Or at least, I thought I had it with me…It's not here! That's odd. I was sure I put it in my pocket before I left sickbay." She shrugged. "I'll find a spare PADD and download it from the computer core for you when I have the time."

"No, don't bother, Beverly, I can do it. I was just wondering."

"Still," the doctor said irritably. "I was sure I had it just before we entered the cargo bay…"

Hours later during the night shift, long after the ship had taken off, he settled comfortably into a corner, hidden from the rest of the sleeping people by several large containers, a blanket, and the simple fact that the lights were at 25 percent of their former power all over the ship. Comfortable—ha! he thought with a sarcastic mental laugh. Listening carefully for a few seconds, he could hear nothing but the sleeping colonists. With a sigh of relief, he shed the tailored illusion that hid his real appearance.

"Much better," he said aloud, barely above a whisper. Shoving the illusion to one side—it had been created with much the texture and qualities as thin cloth—he pulled Beverly Crusher's missing PADD from one pocket. Idly, he paged through it, skim-reading it for anything useful.

Pocketing the PADD quietly, he leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking. You there?

No. was the one word reply.

You're hilarious. I could read you this whole report I got my hands on, but there's nothing here we don't already know, and a lot we really don't need to.

Like what?

Way too much technical information on infernium. I'm mildly interested, but I know you don't care.

Not really. Summarize for me. I'm listening.

Good, he teased, unable to resist. I hate talking to myself.

He could hear the silent mutters about the quality of those conversations, but ignored them. So. They know that Alameda is currently haunting the Sierra sector with a cargo of captured infernium. They know that Fenell is captaining it and think that he's planning to sell the infernium to the highest bidder. There's a lot in here about how infernium is a recently developed experimental medicine that has potential threats to the ecology of multiple and varied worlds, et cetera. We know that. Basically, they know everything we do with a few omissions.

Like what he's planning to do with it?

Hmm, and its effect on more than just 'the ecology of multiple and varied worlds.' Are you hidden?

There was a long pause, followed by, A stupid question…fool.

Now that you've got that out of your system, would you care to tell me where you are? he replied cheerfully.

Deck 16. No one's been one the Captain's Yacht in a little while, and they're not planning on using it anytime soon. So I've commandeered it.

Commandeered is such a careful word. You stole it.

Nothing is stolen until you get away with it. I haven't moved it.

He smiled to himself. Thieves' logic?

What else?

Good. Stay low; let me know when you're ready to move out. Or can you get into-

He was cut off as the entire ship shook hard, both automatically severing the telepathic link as danger threatened. It shook again and again, and he winced as red alert lights began to flash and the captain's voice boomed over the intercom;

"Red alert! All hands to battle stations. Repeat, all hands to battle stations!"

Author's Note: The plot is now here- that didn't take too long. Tune in in about a week for a space battle- that's about how long it'll take me to get the next chapter off the ground, assuming I work on Yellow Submarine for a day or two.