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The following story takes place after "Home Again

Forms of Life

Written by Chris Stephenson

5

"What the Hell did you think you were doing?" Skrit, to say the least, was angry. The past three days had taken their toll on him.

"What you wanted me to. Tell my story, take the heat off of you. And it worked." Squirrley was trying to keep calm, but Skrit wasn't having any of it.

"Oh yeah, it worked just fine for you, didn't it? Turned out just as you planned it, didn't it?"

The squirrel glanced around the main deck of Engineering, worried that the heated conversation was going to be overheard. Fortunately, nobody had even glanced in their direction…nobody except the ever present cameras, but by this point, he had grown to ignore their presence. "I don't know what you're talking about, and this isn't the time…"

"This was all your idea, wasn't it? Make yourself out to be the big hero, become a show off, thinking you're better than everyone…" Skrit's irrational paranoia was beginning to break through, and Squirrley wondered not for the first time external was affecting him.

"Calm down, I never asked for any of this, and I certainly am not going to take advantage of it. It's…a momentary distraction, that's all. It served its purpose. Now I believe you owe me two things…"

"I'm not apologizing to you! After what you caused? After what you've done?"

Squirrley shook his head, his tail swishing quickly back and forth. "Skrit, look at yourself. Something's affecting your emotions, you're all out of whack, I need to check your emitters…"

"You're not checking anything!" Skrit's face was red, and Squirrley could see sweat forming on his brow, sweat that shouldn't have been there in the first place. "Just stay away from me, Rodent."

"Skrit…"

Skrit was now backing away, glancing all around him anxiously, as though afraid there were attackers coming from every direction. There were none, but the commotion had attracted some onlookers…but no-one was looking at Squirrley or were being curious about the argument. Instead, they were staring at Skrit, and with good reason. His color was changing, going to a sharp blue, to green, to red again, then to his regular self. All of this happening as he was fading in and out, blinking in and out of existence, though his emitters stayed visible and at all times he was only gone half-a-second. Squirrley knew he had waited too long. The signs had been unmistakable…how could he have let this go?

"Just…ah." Skrit backed out the door, and moved quickly down the hall, heading towards a turbolift. He could feel something wrong now, a sharp twinge in his arm and his chest where the emitters sat on his uniform. He needed rest, he decided. This business with the squirrel had got him overly excited, and the events of the last few weeks…rest would solve everything…

This was the thought that was in his head as he made it halfway down the hall, and then collapsed, the pinching feeling that wasn't quite pain but was extremely uncomfortable. There was no-one around, otherwise they would have seen his body seem to become fuzzy, as though there was a lack of resolution. He rolled on his back, desperate to get control of his energy, which now seemed to have taken control of him. His vision faded, and the rest happened as if in a dream…

"Skrit….SKRIT!"

"Lieutenant Commander Skrit has fallen down…he doesn't appear to be breathing…"

"He doesn't need to breathe you idiot! Get back!"

"Lieutenant Squirrley is…He's doing something with the emitters…lets see if we can get a closer look…"

"Hold on, just a little to the left…Damn it, I need space! Get back! I said get BACK!"

There was a scuffling, and a large bump…and all was silent…

When Skrit awoke, he at first thought that it had been a very strange dream, and after he had realized that it had been too vivid, too real to have been a dream, he then thought he had made it to his quarters for the needed rest, until he realized he wasn't in his quarters at all. The beds of sickbay were far too uncomfortable for that to be the case.

Skrit quickly sat up, and realized that he was not alone. Jaydin was there, along with Captain Kelvok. He looked at them. "What happened?"

Jaydin looked at Kelvok. "Not me, you know electronics better than I do." Kelvok appeared to sigh, and looked back at Skrit. "According to the chief, your emitters were interfering with your own energy, resulting in a feedback loop that at first was limited to the emitters themselves. Eventually the loop spread back into your own body, feeding off of the energy found there. Eventually, he believes it started affecting your emotions, and from there your body itself."

"I feel…different…"

"Lieutenant Squirrley managed to correct the problem before it overtook your form…if he hadn't caught it then, the results would have been disastrous."

Skrit gulped. "Disastrous?"

Jaydin finished Kelvok's thought. "It could have shorted out whatever passes as your central nervous system. Not only wiping you out, but probably taking out a good chunk of the ship."

Skrit sighed, suddenly very aware of how close he had come to death, and how much it had been his own fault. "Thank you."

"Don't thank us! You need to thank Squirrley. You need to march down there right now and apologize to him. You caused him a lot of trouble in the last week or so. He's been pretty worried." Jaydin admonished him.

"Me! Apologize to him? But he…" Then it hit him that his feelings had changed. No longer was he wanting a part on the show, or anything to do with the producers and the cameras… now all he felt was shame. He rose quickly. "You're right. You guys coming?"

"We have a new crewmember to meet, Ensign Mela." Kelvok said.

"Mela?"

"Came aboard from Deep Space Nine. Betazoid. Keeps following Critch around." Jaydin shook her head. "I just don't see the appeal. You meet her later…Go!"

"Right." Skrit nodded. This had gone on for long enough.

Skrit entered Engineering slowly, wary of Squirrley's attention, wary even more still of the cameras that he knew would catch his guilty look. He was surprised to find that there were no cameras, no producers, no crew, not even any onlookers. Just Squirrley, as usual, standing in the middle of the bay, doing some tweaking with the warp core. He approached him, but Squirrley took notice of him. "I'm sorry, Commander."

"I…wait, you're sorry?"

"I should have realized earlier what was causing your emotional state. I think I caused you a rather awkward week."

"It wouldn't have happened if there hadn't have been something there to build off of. Now you worked on me, so I have one part of the deal left to take care of. I owe you that apology."

"Water under the bridge, or over the dam, or wherever you like it. It's over with. This past time never happened."

Skrit frowned. "Only if cameras didn't exist…where are they, anyway?"

"They left."

"Oh they…Huh?"

They walked through the Engineering bay talking. "Apparently the Enterprise android learned how to fly the ship or something. You should have seen them take off. At the end of it I don't think they even remembered the Maximillian's name. Even Kelvok was mad, though you couldn't really tell…"

Suddenly friends, the two walked and talked, and the Maximillian, a ship with a crew like no other, sailed through the cosmos, to their next destination….

"Chief Security Officer's log, Only one thing of the last week or so is worth anything, and it's fortunately the only thing that I walk away from this embarrassment with. It's what Squirrley said, that 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. There are many other forms of life out there, far far different than anything we can even imagine. But where it counts, they're the same, and that's all that matters."