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The following story takes place after "Home Again

Forms of Life

Written by Chris Stephenson

4

Skrit sat happily at his desk, the lights dimmed in his quarters. It had been a few hours since the interview and his revelations, but he was still basking in the afterglow. He was on top of the universe again, having traversed the treacherous paths of fame and come out shining. All he wanted to do now was just sit and wait for them to ask for his return to lead the camera crew around the ship. He might even wait for them to beg. No, he wasn't going to put on airs, or try to make himself more important than he should be. Instead he would gratefully take his old position up, and everything would be as it was...except now the producers knew who really called the shots around here.

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. Perhaps now that the truth was known, he could be even more creative with his energy powers. Perhaps even show his true form sometime...thoughts of this sort danced through his brain for some time, and he happily lost himself in thoughts of an ideal future. For a time, he even forgot his duties on the Maximillian, and imagined himself a great star, in holovideos and movies from here to Alpha Centrari, having fans throughout the various quadrants. He imagined aliens in far off systems receiving his images and watching, enthralled at his antics. Skrit closed his eyes and smiled, further disappearing into his fantasies.

He only got to enjoy his possible future for a few more minutes before he heard the familiar chime at his door. He sat up, and slowly rose, and then was surprised to hear an insistent knocking. Skrit reluctantly shook off the last vestiges of his dreams and came back to reality, then spoke the command to open his door. Almost immediately, the lead producer walked quickly into the room, looking angrily at Skrit. Before the energy-being could say anything, the producer stopped at the other side of the desk, and spoke. "We have a real problem here."

"Huh?" Skrit looked as confused as he felt, obviously not expecting the intrusion so soon.

The producer slammed a padd down on Skrit's desk, and after a minute of heavy silence, Skrit looked it up, and started tabbing through the various messages and mails that had been sent. "Go ahead, look at them, they're all the same." The producer said, sounding angrier by the second, and just a small amount worried. Skrit did peruse them, reading a few, his brow narrowed, and after a moment in which the world seemed to completely fall away from beneath him, he looked back at the producer, giving thanks that he couldn't perspire, because he'd be sweating bullets at this point if he could.

"How.....How...?" Skrit stammered, but he just couldn't get the words out.

"I'll tell you how, 'Commander'," The producer said with contempt. "They think you're a murderer! I've been getting thousands and thousands of messages, all telling me what a horrible thing this is, for the Federation to have a killer as a security chief! This is ruining us! Ruining the show!"

"But...I'm not a murderer! How can they think that?" Skrit was backpedaling, trying desperately to think of some way to settle this catastrophe. This had swung out of control so rapidly that he didn't know what to do.

"The doctor! Alexander! When you took over his body, it's not him anymore!"

"But he's alive! I can feel him! He's up here!" Skrit pointed at his head, his brain."

"They don't buy it, Skrit...this could be some real trouble for you."

Skrit sank into his chair, defeated. "I was cleared of any wrongdoing by Starfleet Command, by Admiral Blobbin himself...this shouldn't be an issue." He knew though, that this could happen, that this would come up someday and cause further grief for him. All thoughts of popularity and fame were pushed aside in his mind. All thoughts of his future scattered into the winds...

"Whoa!"

"Now what?"

"You...you just...I don't know, maybe it's something with my eyes, you just kind of...faded."

Skrit shook his head. "What? Never mind, forget it...what can we do?"

The producer stopped for a moment, and thought. "The viewing public are sheep, and easily distracted. We can probably whip up something that will take their minds off of you...but what..?"

Skrit put his head down. "The squirrel."

"Excuse me?"

"The chief engineer...I'll talk to him, you can do where he came from...and he can tell you first so you can make sure there's no problems." Talk about cutting off his nose to save his face, Skrit thought to himself.

"You think he'll do it?"

"...I guess if I'm going to be able to show my face in this galaxy again, he's going to have to."

"I'm a little busy here." Squirrelly wasn't exactly being as agreeable as Skrit hoped he would. He had went immediately to Engineering, despite the late hour, not really expecting to find the bi-pedal animal there, and was in fact hoping he wasn't. But there he stood, working diligently, trying to find an energy leak that was sapping efficiency from the Maximillian's warp drives. Unfortunately, it was becoming a bit of a pain to track down, especially as the hours moved on, and the constant buzzing around of the camera crew, which by now had lessened to one.

Skrit persisted. "This won't take much time, Squirrel. They like the origin thing, they want to hear where you came from..."

"More likely than that is yours didn't exactly meet with their approval, and you want something to take the heat off of you. How's that sound?" Skrit was silent. "I might look like a rodent, Skrit, but I don't act like one. Quit assuming that nobody's as smart as you."

Skrit sighed, shaking his head. He hadn't really expected his ruse to work, but Squirrelly was right, he had underestimated his intelligence. In the future, he'd have to think these things through a little more thoroughly. But there wasn't time for that anymore, so he just went with it. "You're right."

"Say again?"

Skrit cleared his throat. "You're right." He said again, a little louder.

"I don't think they heard you in the back..." Squirrelly motioned for the camera crew to come closer, and quit focusing on the hydrospanner precariously perched on the edge of the core. There had been rumblings lately of lax Engineering sections throughout Starfleet, and at least one ship had famously been damaged due to a lost hydrospanner into a warp core.

"Damn it, Squirrel..."

"Wait, I've got a better idea. I'll do it."

"...You will?"

"With conditions."

Skrit stopped, suddenly wary. "And they are?"

"One. A public apology, from you to me, here in Engineering, after this is over. Two. You finally let me adjust the settings on your emitters."

"You can't get off of that, can you?"

"It's serious, Skrit. They've been operating past safety limits for months now. If they go out, I don't know what effect they'll have on your form."

"I'll be fine." He tapped his chest proudly. "Pure energy, remember?"

"And nobody is immortal."

"Look, whatever you say, all right? I've got to get back to the producer and set this up. You'll tell him the story first, and then he'll air it."

Squirrelly retrieved the hydrospanner. "It's going to happen here then, I still have a lot of work to do."

"Fine." Skrit retreated then, leaving Engineering as quickly as he could. He had gotten what he wanted...but why did it feel like he had just lost?

Squirrelly squinted as he turned the last screw, closing the panel, and wished for the hundredth time that he didn't have to do this. He wasn't even exactly sure why he was doing this. Easier to smooth things over and make sure everything went well than cause more problems. He sighed inwardly as he straightened up, and looked at the expectant camera crew. He knew they were waiting on him, and he willed himself to become ready. He didn't like sharing his life story with anyone, especially strangers, let alone possibly the rest of the galaxy. But it was this, or something that could harm the ship. So, for the Maximillian, he thought, as he sat down, his tail curling up behind him. "I'm ready."

"Thank you Lieutenant." The producer said quietly. "This is just a pre-taping, we can edit it as much as we'd like later on, so take your time." Squirrelly nodded, as he watched the producer count backwards from five, and the little red light blinked on and off twice, and then suddenly, once again, it was showtime. But this time, it seemed more personal, more intimate, than the prior times he had been filmed. He took a deep breath, his tail flicked slightly, and he began.

"This isn't...easy for me to talk about...but it seems like the right thing to do. I don't really know my true origin, family tree, so forth. There wasn't really any need. When it started, I was happy. That was all I really needed to know, or all I cared about.

"At that point, from times I remember, we weren't aware of what planet we were on, or of other places throughout the worlds, or even of other forms of life besides what we were familiar with. We were where we were, and that was enough. An abundant forest of trees, food, water...I guess the closest thing that it could be compared to would be Eden."

His head lowered, and his tail drooped. "It was Betazed, I later learned. You know what happened to Betazed. The Dominion War. Wiped out a good chunk of the forests on that world, the water...I don't blame the soldiers, they were being controlled...but regardless, many of us died during the initial attacks.

"Afterwards, we had a quick lesson in the universe when we were ferried away, kind of smuggled, onto a freight carrier. And it ended up being a trap. There was a man...white hair, long white hair...attacked the freighter over some kind of money dispute, but there was no mistake, he was after us. Some kind of collector of rare lifeforms, you might know some of his allies, one of which went after Enterprise's Data a while before."

"Some of us were taken in the last battle, and then another ship came in. I don't recall the name, but I do know the officer that came aboard. Captain Kelvok, then just a lieutenant, was among the team that fought off the 'collector' and saved us. But there was a lot of damage to our ship, and we were near a warp core breach. There was a lot of radiation, and Lieutenant Kelvok collapsed. I was the last 'fur' left alive on the ship, the others either succumbed to the radiation or taken by the collector. I carried him out, using his badge as I had watched him do to get off the ship before it exploded.

"My life changed, I learned about the Federation. As thanks for me getting him off the ship, Kelvok and a few Admiral acquaintances of his sponsored my admittance into the Academy. As luck would have it, to make a long story short, though it's too late for that, I now serve under him.

"That is...pretty much how I came to be, in a nutshell. If I have any experience I want to impart on anyone, it's that...that there are always different forms of life out there, far far different than any of us can imagine. But where it counts, they're the same as us, and they should be treated as such. On this ship alone, we have androids, energy beings, races of all shapes and sizes...and one fur. And we all work together for a common goal.

"If I have one goal, apart from helping my crewmembers, it is that someday to discover what happened to my friends and family...But that is in the future. And that ends my story."

Squirrelly looked into the camera, a flash of sadness and anger for having to share his personal tale. "Is that good enough for you?"