Part Nine

Moments when Ezra Standish could truly consider himself happy were rare.

He was not someone who felt elation easily, not one of those people that became giddy with the exhilaration of some milestone crossed, some accomplishment achieved. He had realized with some sadness that he was jaded, that nothing could ever really feel fresh and new. He understood that it was this cynicism that made him so good at what he did but sometimes, inside himself he wished he was able to keep a little idealism tucked away amidst all that sardonic perspective.

When he had met Julia Pemberton, what struck him most about her was her unfailing ability to see a solution through any calamity. There was no such thing as impossible when she set her mind to it and the tenacity upon which she attacked whatever was thrown at her with that damnable optimism touched something in him he had long thought forgotten. Ezra was in love with her before he was even before that first date and though he tried not to get swept away in the thrall of what poets and artists dreamed about through the ages, once again, the security chief had little choice in the matter.

Now she had come to him and with the most heated session of lovemaking he had ever experienced in his life still behind him, he could feel the heat they had generated still sizzling off his skin. She lay in her arms, arms around him, fiery red hair against his chest as he breathed her into his lungs yet again, Ezra found his head swooning with pleasure and knew that he was well and truly happy. It was not the intimacy that had created this euphoric feeling that was presently running rife through his sense but the fact that he had no wish to slip away quietly, which was his usual practice after such dalliances.

No, he wanted to stay. He wanted to watch her sleep and dream her dreams. He wanted to run his fingers through her silky hair and tell her when she awoke that he lover her and had from the beginning. He wanted to spend the next hours, drowning in the sight of her while composing odes to their love in sonnets to rival the great Bard himself. He was lost, and he knew it but for once in his life, he did not mind and whatever came after this day, he knew that he could face it with her.

Julia Pemberton was not asleep.

She was not even in the room. While her lover painted his beautiful thoughts in his mind, reveling in he afterglow of their passion, the entity who had taken possession of Julia's body remained still, considering the next course of their plan to take the ship. The stage was set, and the players were almost al in place by now. She knew that it was time to set things in motion, begin the juggernaut that had been lumbering to this point. She had no feeling for the human behind her, aware that he was satisfied as his kind always were and cared for little else but further sexual gratification. Strange how helpless they were to the needs of their body that their judgment became so impaired.

She watched the clock, feeling it tick inside her head as audibly as it might have. It was not long now and soon the call would come. She had no wish to hurt he who had partaken of her body. It was not their intention to hurt anyone but like any soldier, she recognized that wars were seldom won without casualties. She would do what was necessary and nothing more. The objective here was to return home, to feel the sands of the home world beneath her feet one last time and perhaps see what it was that had happened to their race after their exile. After so many years of mortality, the concept of death was not all frightening to the Many. In fact, she considered it the prize at the end of this last quest.

After two hundred and fifty years of life trapped in a prison in space, she had lost her taste for immortality.

Right on cue, the com badge tucked amongst her discarded clothes sounded with a soft trill, giving her the excuse she needed to wake up. She heard him wince slightly; perhaps expressing some annoyance at her slumber being interrupted so abruptly. A stray thought crossed her mind then, more like puzzlement really at why he ought to care what she felt when he had what he needed from her. There was something odd about the feelings he had for the owner of this body, something that could almost be described as affection. However, for the creature inside Julia's body to believe that Ezra can feel that emotion for the weaker of the gender, it would require dismantling everything that she knew about his kind and she was not prepared to do that.

Hate had kept her going for so long. Hate for the evil ones who had imprisoned her and all the others. It filled the hours that crawled like the eternity they were, floating in space, flotsam drifting aimless through the stars. For nearly a quarter of million years, they had thought of nothing else but the desperate need for freedom and underlying that, the need for revenge, raw and frenzied with each second of captivity.

"Damn." Julia feigned annoyance as she roused from her sleep, pretending that she had been roused from a fitful slumber when all she had been doing during this heated session of intimate play was the moment when it was over, and she might leave this place and him. The physical coupling had not been unpleasant. Had she indeed been the woman who named he gasped each time he reached crescendo, it might have been mildly amusing. As it was, the physical exchange of fluids did little to move her.

"Ignore it." He said gently, littering her bare back, partially exposed by the sheets with small kisses. "You can say it was malfunctioning." He teased with a smile, shuddering with feeling when he felt his cheek against her smooth skin.

"I have an EPS conduit that really needs looking at," she remarked pulling away from him languidly, continuing the charade that she was anything eager to go. "I couldn't ask anyone else to take care of it because they've been pulling double shifts as it is." Julia said rolling over long enough to plant a kiss on his mouth, her hands running across his jaw the way someone who loved him might do. Being predictably male, he found little difficulty in believing that she was anything but sincere.

"I know," Ezra answered, propping his head on one hand as he watched her shift through her clothes on the floor once she left the bed. Ezra found himself running a hand across the space where she had inhabited, savoring the heat of her presence there and wishing that she would sleep with him every night. "But I must insist that when we go to Pacifica that we leave the accursed things behind. Knowing our captain's propensity for trouble, he would be just inconvenient enough to require my attention."

"Your wish is my command." She said with a smile, starting to dress.

"Julia," Ezra asked after a moment. Now that he was a little less inclined to be thinking with another part of his anatomy and the heat of the moment had calmed the senses a little more for him to be asking questions, as was his nature. "Why now?"

She looked at him. "I don't understand."

"Well if I may point out without being made to look as if I were looking a gift horse in the mouth and please be reminded, that is in no way any physical reflection of you, you have been somewhat reluctant to consummate our relationship. I thought that you were waiting some special moment and while I could have endured waiting for just a little longer, I was somewhat surprised by your change of heart."

Julia considered what she had to say and replied. "Don't you silly," she met his gaze. "I love you and we almost died in that last battle. I don't want to be like Inez and Captain Castille, kept apart waiting for things to get better so they could finally start their lives. I wanted to start ours now, without there needing to be any formal understanding other than how we feel. I asked myself what were the special moments in comparison to just the moments?"

"As always you are wiser than I," Ezra agreed. A dimpled smile crossed his face. "Well I suppose if you are to leave me, I might as well see what is happening on the bridge."

There was little or no expression on her face as she was faced with that statement but that soon changed when she sauntered towards him, finally dressed and ready to leave. Placing herself on the edge of the bed, Julia replied. "Why don't I blow this little detail off on whomever I find down in Engineering and come back here in twenty minutes? That will give you just enough time to replicate something truly creative for dinner by the time I get back. Besides," she said leaning over and delivering upon him another kiss. "I'm starving, and I'll need to keep my strength up for the rest of the night." A wicked gleam sparked in her emerald colored eyes.

"When you put it that way," Ezra joined her salacious bit of planning. "How can I say no?"

It was said that nothing could penetrate a Level 10 force field and if it could, a force field would most likely to have saved you anyway from a creature capable of that. Fortunately, no such entity made its appearance now, which was good to know because three of the four people presently confined in the device were particularly nervous of visitors entering the premises at present. When they had arrived, SickBay was deserted which did not surprise anyone of them when they brought the unconscious Lieutenant Richmond into the medical complex.

Nathan had suspected as much, believing correctly that no one was concerned with their health when the ship was being invaded by creatures that were using female bodies to manipulate their male counterparts. No doubt, every male on ship was presently experiencing one heated encounter or being dispatched effectively if they failed to be swayed by such a simple form of coercion. However, while Sick Bay seemed safe enough, Nathan had this ominous feeling that time was catching up to them and the chess pieces that had been slowly shifting into place all day across the ship, would soon be able to issue a checkmate.

Thus, the first thing he had done upon entering his bastion on board the Maverick as to see to it that both Rain and Josiah were armed. Sick Bay had a small supply of small weapons, kept there in case of attack since it would be the most vulnerable place in the unlikely event that the vessel was boarded. He was the only person who had the authority to remove the weapons for their locker and was glad to see that much of his access to the ship remained. Handing them out, he felt odd handling such weapon but knew it was a necessary evil at this time. While Rain was comfortable with the weapon, Josiah was not. Nathan suspected that at best, Josiah had Class 5 weapons training, which was rather average. However, a Counselor was seldom required to have such skills and Josiah could be forgiven for his lack of it.

Once they were armed, he erected the force field and ensured that he and those with him were safely protected in case the aliens decided to subdue the threat that the three of them now posed. For the moment however, he took advantage of the quiet with the presence of the specimen that Rain had acquired for him when she had gone hand to hand with Lieutenant Richmond. Charlotte Richmond lay unconscious on the table as Nathan began running his neurological tests, hoping that they would some how reveal what strange power had infected all the females on the ship.

Nathan knew for certain that it was no virus that was at work here. It was something with intentions far more insidious, not to mention sinister, than the normal replicative cravings of a microorganism. Beside he had known of no virus whose pathology was so non-specific as to make the jump from species to species and then chose to attack only one gender. No, whatever this malaise that was running loose across his ship, Nathan knew one thing for certain; there was purpose in the invasion that was only possible by higher functioning organism.

While Nathan continued his examinations on the unconscious lieutenant from stellar cartography, he noticed that both Rain and Josiah seemed anxious. The bridge was completely locked out now and Nathan wondered how this was possible. He was unaware that at this moment, Julia Pemberton had scheduled one of the female members of her engineering crew to run a diagnostic on the internal communication system of the Maverick, a procedure that could only be undertaken once the entire array was taken off line. With the rest of the ship capable of reaching the bridge with only their com badges, Nathan, Rain and Josiah found that they were still prevented from alerting the captain of what was transpiring on board his ship.

"Find anything out yet?" Rain asked for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last half an hour.

Nathan gave her look and continued working, poised over his medical scanner, trying to make sense of readings that meant little to anyone else in the room. He could not blame her for her anxiety, not when he was experiencing some of it himself. Their inability to contact the ship and the fact that no one on the bridge knew that the slightest trouble was brewing, was pressing against their spines like a blade about to penetrate skin. It was not possible that they were not affected by the urgency of their situation.

"They will come after us you know," Rain pointed out. "Sooner or later." She said grimly.

"I don't think so," Josiah remarked after a moment. "I think they have us exactly where they want us."

Both Nathan and Rain looked up at the same time in question. "What do you mean?" It was Rain who spoke first because Nathan was still somewhat focused on the idea of finding an answer to all this.

"We're running scared, we're locked in one place, we can't contact the bridge to do anyone any good. I think that as far as they care concerned; the situation is contained. Don't you?"

Rain frowned mostly because he was right. There had been in here for a good twenty minutes now and no one had come charging in attempting to breach the walls of the force field surrounding them. In fact, there was not the slightest hint that anyone was even aware that they were down here of for that matter cared. She seriously doubted that there was immediate danger because the entities that were currently rife across the Maverick were most likely concentrating their efforts on securing the bridge with Josiah, Nathan and Rain were forgotten until that important matter was handled first. Even if they did find out what had taken possession of the female crewmembers, did it mean that a solution would be found as well? Not likely, Rain thought realistically.

"I hate to say it, but I think he's right." Rain glanced at Nathan. "They might have already taken the bridge."

"We can't know anything for certain." Josiah added, not wishing to be so negative but he could not deny that this was a possibility. "However, I don't know how much good we will be to anyone if we do get to the bridge? What if we are forced to shoot? The same people who have invaded the ship are our friends." Josiah posed that very real question because he had no will to shoot Audrey if he were faced that horrifying situation.

"Well there are other ways of incapacitating them," Rain suggested, feeling the same distaste about shooting people she knew and worked with daily, especially when what was happening to them was through no fault of their own. "Anesthetic gas in all the decks for starters."

"That would knock out everyone," Josiah retorted. "Not just the women."

Suddenly, their conversation came to a halt when the door slid open and Vin Tanner walked into the Sick Bay, his hand holding a small towel to the back of his head. The towel was stained with green splotches that Nathan could tell immediately was Vulcan blood. Vin was out of uniform, wearing sweats that were more appropriate for off duty hours. He staggered into the room somewhat, a little unsteady on his feet since he had yet to recover from the blow that had given him his injury.

"What the hell is going on in this ship? Where is everyone?" Vin demanded as he strode in and saw the faces before him. He had not taken more than a few steps into the room when he suddenly halted and realized that they were secured behind a force field. "Why are you behind a force field?" He asked, annoyance by his injury having faded into concern as he saw them armed with phasers.

"Haven't you seen what's going on in the ship?" Rain exclaimed.

"I haven't seen anything," Vin grumbled as he came to the edge of the force field. "Mary came to my quarters and..." he paused a moment as he searched a way to describe the incident. Apart of him was still reeling from the incredible sensations she had forced upon him but another part of him was furious that she would dare intrude upon him this way. For the first time, Vin had some idea of how invasive a meld could be when one did not wish to partake in the coupling. Its no wonder Alex was so incensed when he had forced the meld between them.

"She hit me over the head. I don't know how long I've been out." He confessed reluctantly and prayed they would ask no more details about it than that.

"I think its safe to let down the force field," Nathan glanced at the other two occupants in the sealed area, the fear of the forces that presently had control of most of the ship giving way to Vin's injury. "Besides, I can always put it back up when Vin's inside with us."

"Can you please tell me what's with the force field?" The helmsman asked as he waited patiently for the energy field to disperse.

"There's something loose on the ship," Rain blurted out, seeing no reason to hide anything when Vin had not the chromosomes to be affected. "Something that came with the artifact."

Vin's eyes widened. "Does Chris know?"

"No," Josiah shook his head. "We haven't been able to get contact to the bridge. Whatever it is that came from the artifact has taken over every woman in the ship, including Alex."

"Actually," Rain added. "It would have started with Alex."

"Alex!" Vin exclaimed, feeling his chest constrict with worry when he thought about the science officer. "What about Alex?" He demanded as he heard Nathan instruct the force field in front of him to be disabled. As soon as the slight shimmers before him dissipated, an indication at the deactivation of the protection grid around the healer and his companions, Vin stepped into their sphere quickly.

"We think that whatever is happening started with that artifact." Rain spokes. Although technically, Nathan and Josiah both outranked Vin, he was the command officer amongst all of them and most likely the one to give them some clear ideas of what they ought to do now. "It must have transferred something to Alex, who passed it onto the rest of the women on board. I don't know why but I wasn't affected. Nathan thinks it has to do with the symbiote inside me, being Trill and all."

That made sense to Vin, but he still felt himself floundering in the dark.

"A mob of them tried to capture Nathan and me." She continued, seeing that it required a little more explanation before he could allow himself to believe how dire things really were. Being a senior command officer, Vin was still lost in the unreality of any of this, especially when he was hit with it so suddenly. "They were led by Inez and Lieutenant Richmond over there." Rain gestured to the unconscious woman on the medical examination bed.

"Has anyone tried to contact the bridge or Ezra?" Vin stammered unable to believe all this could take place on Chris Larabee's ship without the captain having the slightest clue.

"We tried," Josiah answered somberly. "The bridge is locked out and so are all three of us. The computer is not responding to our attempts to try and contact anybody."

"That makes sense," Vin's mind was a steel trap set into motion and it was now working at full pace. "If something has taken over the women on board the ship, that would mean Julia too and she's chief engineer. She has a Class 1 rating in computer programming, she'd have no trouble locking all of you out if she thinks that you might cause trouble. And so far, I haven't seen anything that might make anyone suspicious, except the fact that it's quiet."

"And every woman on the ship seems to be hornier than hell." Rain quipped.

All three men gave Rain a look and Vin did not even want to comment on that subject, especially after what he had been through with Mary Travis. As it was, Vin had no idea how he was ever going to look Chris in the eye again, after what he had seen in the lady's mind.

"Still," Josiah frowned shaking Rain's comment out of his head and getting back to the subject at hand, why Chris had not reacted yet. "If Chris is on the bridge, how could he not know that there's a communications failure?"

"It ain't that hard," Vin revealed as Nathan left Charlotte alone for a moment. The lieutenant was still unconscious, thanks to Nathan reinforcing her present state with a sedative to carry out his examinations. The physician gestured the Vulcan over to treat the wounds to the back of his neck, delivered when Mary had attacked. Vin had settled comfortably onto the examination table before he started speaking again when Nathan went to work on his injury. "We sometimes shut down internal communications for diagnostics, debugging and simple maintenance. We're not in a combat situation and our present status doesn't indicate any sign of danger. When things are quiet like this, its not usual for engineering to take this off line to run sweeps that we normally wouldn't have time for. We have back ups in place of course but if the Chief Engineer has deactivated them all, then we have to get to the bridge ourselves."

"How do we propose we do that?" Josiah inquired, feeling like a novice and wished he had more to impart upon their situation then just more questions proving his ignorance. Fortunately, none of the others were treating him that way and he was glad that at least, they knew what they were doing.

"Any way we can," Vin said grimly. "Anyway, we can."

Julia Pemberton and Mary Travis started towards the bridge.

Alex was already on the bridge, keeping pace with the Captain and the First Office and making certain that neither suspected what was about to happen when Julia and Mary arrived.

The helm officer was out of commission in his quarters as assured by Mary when she had joined Julia at the armory. The Doctor and the female who was not susceptible to the Many were contained in the physician's Sick Bay as he attempted in vain hope to understand the malaise that had taken over his crewmates. The Security Chief was at his quarters, no doubt waiting for Julia's return for another session of lovemaking. By the time he had some idea of what was happening, it would be too late. The Many would be in control of the bridge. Their people had already moved into position and were waiting for the signal to fulfill their parts of the silent invasion of the Maverick. While no one had any inkling of any danger to the ship, Julia did not wish to waste any time. While the absence of danger continued to go unnoticed, some were starting to realize that something was going on and it would not be too long before that concern reached the bridge.

The leader had given her orders. It was time to move.