CHASE

Catalog Star System HB22147
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
Stardate 2261.28

- 1231 hours -

Even a shape-shifting reaver could experience bewilderment, and this Miri was counting on most of all. In the guise of Ensign Ayala it wasn't equipped to understand what was happening to it, and even less so when it abandoned that guise and resorted again to its natural instincts. Ceasing to imitate the mind of its victim was the first step of the transformation; the rest would take a bit longer, and that also was what Miri was counting on.

Leila, Nabi, Samir and Michael were on the ground floor, positioned to stay out of each other's line of fire, instructed to aim for the creature's legs, as many legs as it was likely to sprout. Their first salvo from RPK machineguns did the trick well enough, shattering the duplicate Ayala below the knees. Peter the Rabbit and the Jasmines aimed for its head, because even a Reaver required a physical organ to think with. And in the first few seconds of this, once she was sure it was properly immobilized, Miri set her phaser rifle on maximum disruptor setting and a long, punishing beam into the thing that looked like Ensign Ayala. Two other beams joined hers from opposite directions as Moshe and Forrest-Forrest-Gump added the hand phasers she'd given them, and between the three of them the Chickenhead started to smolder like a hotdog on a bonfire.

It was already beginning to transform; the legs that Leila's team had shattered now parted at the knees, each becoming extended tripods flailing around trying to get a foothold on something. Its arms were growing longer and thicker, shielding itself from the relentless phaser fire as best it could, and yet even these efforts were wasted as Miri walked the phaser beam down to its "stomach" and burned it from the waist down. Loosing balance, it collapsed in an enraged howl, and the rain of bullets and phaser beams tore at it until it could withstand no more, and the combined power from three phaser beams finally incinerated its expanding bulk.

"Hurry! We don't have much time!" From this point, Miri had no idea what more was needed; in Cyprus, the combination of firepower and a dozen molotov cocktails had brought an end to the argument, but here on a starship there was something more to be done. Sensing her options, she took a running jump right down to the bottom of the staircase, hit the deck and shoulder-rolled to keep moving. The other children did the same and vaulted over the balcony railing, though not all landed as gracefully; several of them broke legs and ankles on the way down. The Other Jasmine caught her foot on the rail as she jumped over it; she landed on her neck and shoulders, dying instantly. Somehow, they all ignored their injuries, crowded around the obliterated mass of the Chickenhead and began shoveling its remains into a pile as dense as they could in the middle of the courtyard.

The pile was already beginning to move again. It only took a small amount of living tissue for the creature to reconstitute itself, and that would be enough - in a few more minutes - to resume the hunt for more prey. "Hold it down!" Miri said, "Tighter! Tighter!"

They all complied, pressing with elbows and fists and knees and legs, stomping it into a tighter and tighter pile until it was almost too solid to be compacted any more. The creature tried to fight back the only way it could; bits of still-living flesh projected out like barbs, stabbing at anything nearby. Miri felt one of those barb suddenly form next to her thumb, and before she could pull her hand away it pieced her through the palm and then impaled her through her chest. She actually felt her heart stop beating, and somehow this only prompted her to push down harder.

When it seemed they could compress it no further than this, a tingling sensation interrupted them and the air around the creature began to sparkle like a fireworks display in miniature. The same surrounded the Onlies too, gripping them all in the force of what even Miri recognized as some type of transporter beam. As the beam began to dissolve her into a cloud of phased matter, she found herself overwhelmed by a sense of warm satisfaction, as if she had just accomplished the very thing for which she had always been destined in the first place. How right that sensation turned out to be, as the alien transporter beam reduced her existence - permanently - into the abstractions from which it had been created, like desktop computer terminating an un-needed program.

Terminated, but not destroyed. As Miri felt the glimmer of consciousness dissolve, she felt a new one taking shape all around. True, the alien transporter beam hadn't properly re-materialized her, but it hadn't exactly left her floating in oblivion either. She had become something new, something more pure; Peter the Rabbit was with her, so were the Jasmines and Samir and Leila and Nabi, and all the others she had ever known, all the ones she had lost, and all the ones she had never thought she would see again. Gideon was here, so was her mother, her comrades on the Calypso, her squadron mates from the Eugenics Wars. Even Big John was here, still quietly in love with her and still too proud to admit it. She realized now they had never gone anywhere, that they had simply been moved off the game board like spent pieces in a chess game... but not even a game as such, as this board had no players and no rules, no objective. "Reenactment" would be the better word, or maybe "simulation."

In any case, she felt herself finally granted the liberty to break from a character she never knew she had been playing. Several characters, actually; internally she sensed the wonder and bewilderment of Peter the Rabbit having discovered the truth of his own existence, little more than projected aspect of someone else's mind. As to just who that "someone else" might be... Miri briefly allowed herself the conceit that perhaps the Onlies were just dissociative elements of her own psyche, but that was impossible, since obviously she too was just another component of the thing - whatever it really was - that presently watched the passage of the starship Enterprise from a safe distance, observed as Enterprise vanished into a radiation burst, hurtled into the cosmos as its main engines propelled it to warp speed. And from her new perspective, Miri watched through the alien's eyes as other vessels she had been only scarcely aware of made similarly dramatic movements; as the Cardassian survey ship powered up its engines and raced away at surprisingly high speed, as a very confused Romulan commander ordered his helm to do the same, and as both the Enterprise and a Klingon warbird jumped to warp in pursuit of the Romulan ship. Moments later, the Gorn trawler Francium vanished from the universe is its star drive peeled the space time continuum like an orange, folding reality back on itself and enclosing its entire bulk in an artificial wormhole. And far off in the distance, the two Tholian vessels that had been hiding in the moon's shadow for weeks already, totally unnoticed and uninvolved, quietly gathered their orbiting sensor probes and sped off towards their homeworld to deliver their findings.

Last, of course, was the fesarius. In the guise of an innocuous dwarf planet a few million kilometers away, even the Klingons had not suspected its presence. From a safe distance, the aliens' inane competition had been monitored, archived, and ever so gently refereed until the crucial moment that Director Chellik decided that the last of his questions had been answered to his own satisfaction.

As advanced as the Chameloids were as a species, they were content to exist as tools for others' use. The First Federation had many such tests at its disposal, and a great many tools in its ancient arsenal. Some were more expedient, some were more efficient. But even Chellik would admit than none were quite as charming as a Chameloid duplication.

.

- 1231 hours -

"All sections have confirmed, Captain," Lieutenant Rand reported on the intercom, "We have eleven unaccounted for, in addition to Miri and the Onlies. It's not just that, Sir, but Doctor Marcus and Doctor Ayash are both missing, and the computer has their last known coordinates in the isolation lab, a few meters from where we first recorded alien weapons fire."

"Then we'll have to assume the Romulans have grabbed our people," Kirk said, "Assemble a team and standby in the transporter room. I'm authorizing Class-Four loadouts for all personnel."

"EVA equipment, Sir?"

"Got a feeling this is gonna be messy, Janice. Be ready for anything."

"Yes Sir. We'll stand by. Security out."

Kirk had no doubt that Janice could get the job done if he got her within range of the Romulan vessel. The real trick, actually, was getting in range in the first place. For all intents and purposes, the Romulan ship had left the "normal" universe and had entered one of its own, from outside of which it could not be seen and from inside of which it could not see beyond. But it was not quite invisible, not yet; Enterprise's gravitic sensors still possessed the means to track its progress by the gravimetric ripples it created as it moved through space.

"I have the Romulan vessel," Spock reported, "Turning away from us at warp one, bearing zero one three mark four, twenty million kilometers. They're changing course, heading towards..." he trailed off suddenly and squinted at his monitors, "They're on a pursuit course for the Grazine, Captain."

There were a half dozen things wrong with that statement and Kirk had to take them one at a time, starting with the most relevant. "Where's Grazine going?"

"Heading two eight one mark sixteen, out of the system at warp speed."

He wondered briefly why the Romulans, having suddenly captured several human crewmembers and probably countless terabytes of data from Doppelgänger, would suddenly take off in pursuit of a Cardassian vessel they had so far not been engaged with at all. There was only one reason he could think of - a hunch, really - but its implications were far less surprising. "Lay in a pursuit course for the Grazine," Kirk said.

Sulu glanced over his shoulder, making sure he'd heard correctly. Kirk nodded a confirmation and Sulu replied, "Aye, Sir. Laying in new course..."

Spock added, "Grazine has changed its heading towards Planet-A in this system, a large gas giant in close solar orbit. They may be trying to use the planet's radiation belt to obscure their warp signature."

"Alter course to follow, maximum warp. Let's try and close the distance."

Sulu advanced the engine controls, and from far below decks came the sound of energizers beginning to howl. The distorted effect through the main viewer had already transfigured into a hellish vision of swirling madness with only a distant, dark core in the center. It was like flying through a tunnel of blue-white fire, as if every star and every planet for a hundred light years had been stretched into an infinitely long fiber and then woven into a tunnel through which the Enterprise now flew.

"Now at warp two! Coming to pursuit course," Sulu said. The hum of the engines was rising in tone as the field built up, just as fast as it was designed to on a ship of this size as power. Beyond warp one, their exact velocity was impossible to determine for sure, it could only be estimated based on known values for local gravity fields and subspace densities.

"Grazine is definitely accelerating," Spock said, "Field output is approaching warp three."

"Passing warp three now, Sir," Sulu said, "Three point two... three point six..."

"Grazine is now passing warp three."

Kirk smiled, "We're gaining on them."

"But can ve make them stop?" Chekov asked.

"You tell me, Ensign. You're the local wiz kid."

Chekov glanced back at his Captain, just long enough to make eye contact but not long enough to break his concentration on his navigational console, "We might try thumping them, Keptin."

"Thumping?"

"Warp four..." Sulu stared at his console for a long moment and then declared triumphantly, "Warp five..."

The sound of the engines had almost become a high pitched whine, but by now it was already on the verge of human hearing. Soon it would be just a vibration and a barely-noticeable ringing in their ears. "Grazine has passed warp five," Spock reported, "At our present acceleration, we will begin to overtake them in twenty five seconds."

"Thumping, Ensign?" Kirk asked.

Sulu answered, "We overtake them on a parallel course, then chop power and expand our deflectors in their path. They either drop out of warp or they loose much of their velocity in the process."

"Seems a bit drastic..."

"Yes, Sir. We've done this with stunt planes, but I've never tried it with a starship before."

This might be a good time to try, Kirk decided. The only more conventional method would be to sidle up to the fleeing Cardassian ship and take out its warp engines with concentrated phaser fire, something Enterprise was never designed to and until recently wasn't even known to be possible. That would certainly accomplish the desired effect, but only if the Cardassians were stupid enough to hold course so Enterprise could zero in on them. And even then there was the question of the prisoners: the Cardassians weren't supposed to have transporter capabilities, but with everything else they'd tried to conceal it wasn't really surprising. Kirk and Spock both had assumed the transporter beams that scooped up the Romulan boarding party had come from their own ship, but the Romulans clearly had no room for assumptions, and if their recent behavior was any indication, they were furious. "Estimate distance."

"Four million kilometers and closing," Chekov answered excitedly, "We are maintaining parallel course, correcting for turbulence."

"Captain," Spock looked up slowly, "Cardassian vessel is now at warp six point five."

"Sulu?" Kirk left his chair for the first time in almost an hour and leaned over the helm console between them.

"Six point eight..." Sulu pushed the engine leaver again, but it was already at the stops, "Warp seven!"

"Cardassian vessel is passing warp seven." Spock frowned at his sensor readings, "Their engine temperature is rising fast. They will not be able to maintain this acceleration curve for much longer."

"Warp seven point three..." Sulu said, "Seven point four... point five... point six..."

Almost as if to confirm his theory, Spock reported, "Cardassian vessel passing warp eight."

Kirk ran back to his chair and stabbed the engineering intercom, "Scotty, we're falling behind! We need more out of those engines!"

"You've got all I can give ye, Captain! It's hard enough just to keep em in balance!"

"It's not enough! Hook some shuttles up to the drives if you have to, just get me more speed!"

"I'll try ma best, Captain!"

Kirk turned his chair towards the science station and braced for bad news, "Target velocity."

Spock said slowly, "Warp eight point one and holding."

"Sulu?"

"We're at seven point eight..." he pushed the engine leaver again, as if trying to trying to drive the Enterprise faster just by his own sense of urgency. "Seven point nine..."

"We're approaching Planet-A's outer radiation field, Captain," Spock reported, "Contact in seventeen seconds."

Sulu added with alarm, "Grazine's changing course. Yawing starboard fifteen degrees..."

"Heading for the gas giant's largest moon," Chekov said, "Survey shows an E-class 'hothouse' environment similar to conditions on Venus. Totally uninhabitable."

"They may try to loose us in the cloud cover," Spock added from the science console, "The heavy sulfides and hydrocarbons in the atmosphere will severely reduce our sensor effectiveness."

"So much for thumping," Kirk thought out loud. Then a new thought occurred to him as he remembered the face of his adversary. The smiling, double-talking Gul Dulek, like a used-car salesman with a Colt .45. He was all about tricks and misdirection, hiding his real capabilities as well as his real intentions. Dulek wasn't the kind of person who would try to beat the Romulans and Starfleet at their own game. He'd prefer to do an end-run around all of them, use their assumptions against them.

"Suicide run," Kirk said.

Spock looked up thoughtfully.

"They'll drop out of warp with engine trouble and then dive into the atmosphere on impulse power. A few minutes later we'll see an explosion, and we're supposed to think their ship couldn't handle the extreme environment and crashed."

"Their warp engines are superheating..."

"But their ship was designed from the Shofixi dreadnought. They can survive down there and they know it. They also know we can't afford to look for them if they appear to be destroyed. Or even if we do, while we're sending shuttles to pick through that smog..."

"Then they can break loose at warp speed and run for the sun," Sulu added, "We'd loose them in the corona. Clean getaway."

Kirk nodded, "Although I wouldn't be surprised if they had a safehouse down there. These Cardassians are some sneaky bastards."

"Mister Chekov," Spock stood up, "Give me a navigational fix on the Grazine. We will calculate the most likely deceleration point with intent to enter the planet's atmosphere at high speed."

Kirk nodded at this and added, "Sulu, go to manual on main phasers. Be ready to target largest heat source on the Gorn ship, tight concentrated burst."

"Let's try and get a tractor beam on him once we've got him stopped," Spock added.

Kirk half-grinned, "Yeah. Don't want to risk them crashing for real."

"Coming to interception point," Sulu said, "Dropping out of warp in five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

The viewscreen exploded into a completely new vista: the enormous yellow sun of the Doppelgänger system blazing over the horizon of a vast, yellow-white cloudscape on an alien world beneath them. Grazine was there in front of them, a distant sliver of metal glinting in the bright sunlight less than a hundred kilometers away. Already the ship was dipping its bow, starting the descent into the thick poisonous clouds under a rapid but controlled impulse power descent; even now, Sulu had the targeting relays painting the Cardassian warship for a decisive phaser shot.

Kirk ordered without excitement, "Fire," and Sulu did. A single bright red phaser beam reached out into the distance, and then the tiny sliver of the Cardassian ship lit up like a match being struck in a dark room. A fireball was just barely discernible there, plus a few trailing particles of debris scattering off in all directions.

"Direct hit on the engineering section," Spock announced, "Warp propulsion unit has been destroyed, impulse drives heavily damaged."

"I have another wessel approaching at warp speed," Chekov reported, "I read it as the Romulan bird of prey, approaching at... Warp five, Keptin. They'll be on top of us in three minutes. Additional contacts detected more distantly, unable to confirm."

If the Romulans were here looking for their missing crewmen, the Klingons wouldn't be far behind. Kang had probably brought hundreds of his sleepers out of stasis by now in preparation for a boarding action. Once he realized what was happening on the Cardassian ship, he would surely thaw hundreds more. "Can we beam an away team onto their ship?" Kirk asked.

Spock shook his head, "Without knowing the internal arrangement of the Grazine, it would be extremely dangerous. Their jamming devices may also interfere with transporter functions if we attempt to beam out again without a manual lock."

Kirk stabbed the intercom switch for the security center and gave the order he was sure he would come to regret, "Janice, send fire teams to Airlock Four. We're EVA in two minutes."

Lieutenant Uhura spun in her chair in amazement, "You're not actually going over there...?"

The Captain was already on his way to the turbolift by now, talking fast, "I can't risk the Romulans recovering our missing people, and we know what the Gorn do to their prisoners. Spock," he paused just before the turbolift doors, "I'm counting on you. Keep them off us, however you can."

"To whom are you referring?" Spock asked, "The Romulans, the Gorn, or The Klingons?"

Kirk answered simply, "Yup," as the turbolift closed.