How do you harm something that is, at its heart, ambulatory planet skin?
Data, nonetheless, sealed the creature into its hiding place with some carefully placed force fields and monitored the field strength and fluctuations scrupulously to ensure that there was never any danger of damage to their unwilling prisoner. The Hitchcock predator did not test the boundaries of what was now its cell. It lay quiet, moving only in short spurts upon occasion. To the casual observer, it would have been hard to believe that it was actually alive.
However, if there was ever anyone a long way removed from the position of casual observer, it was the Enterprise's second officer. Geordi had told him upon occasion (with that particular modulation to his voice that assured Data he was speaking humorously) that an attention to detail like that was long overdue getting him serious attention in a psych report.
Data filed this away as another step in human relationships - the part where you feel you know somebody sufficiently well to be rude to them - and thought little of it otherwise. Detail was who he was, after all. Stating fact was hardly an insult. It was a constant source of interest to Data how sentient beings attached so many negative emotions to statements of fact.
Now detached from his umbilical to the mainframe, the android tapped his combadge.
"Data to La Forge."
"Here, Data."
"What is the status of the shield fluctuation modification?"
"Almost done."Geordi sounded a little strained. This was undoubtedly due to his being stuck inside one of the Jeffries tubes just off main engineering: Data knew precisely the panel. "I dunno, Data - this is a long way from scraping off interstellar barnacles."
"I know," said Data, and heard Geordi chuckle. It took over sixty individual subroutines (and a further few years of patient observation) to allow the android to respond to a particularly human metaphor such as "interstellar barnacles" appropriately. Only Geordi really ever appreciated that effort. "However, I believe the principle to be sound."
It was. Even taking Starfleet Command's edict into account, it was the duty of the two officers to investigate suitable options to offer, and Geordi, who had been in the direct firing line of Data's grisly discovery outside the turbo lift, had been more than usually insistent on getting started on their posited solution to the creatures on the outer hull.
"Sound. Right."Geordi paused. "That's if we're allowed to test it. That's if we're allowed to defend ourselves against being flayed alive by these critters."
Data didn't have an answer to that. Starfleet loyalty warred with what Noonien Soong would have termed "common sense". Common sense is one of those human qualities that is ridiculously hard to program, rather like ethics and romance. Still, Soong had got enough of it right that Data recognised the reactions in his friend for what they were, and also recognised that in all probability Captain Picard would be experiencing a similar reaction.
"Geordi," he said, after a moment, "I am going to the bridge. Please let me know once you have completed the work."
The doors swished closed on Geordi's "You got it."
As Data was heading toward the bridge, Commander Riker was heading away from it, with Deanna in tow. As ever, Will found himself taking refuge in humour to try and dispel his more negative feelings. He jogged her elbow as they ducked into the lower aft corridors.
"You got your first contact hat on?"
Troi gave him a sidelong, half-smiling look that told him quite clearly his attempts to cover up his true feelings were cutting no ice with a part-Betazoid.
"Sometimes I don't understand why I'm supposed to be any better at first contact with alien races than anyone else," she said. "Even if I can sense the alien emotions, there's no guarantee that I'm interpreting them correctly. It's like being a toddler all over again. You experience the emotions from other people, but they're confusing until you learn the context."
"Well, you know what they say. A beautiful woman's welcome everywhere."
Troi managed to look professionally and serenely dismissive. They turned the corner into the corridor that led to the far aft cargo locker, where the gentle hum and flicker of Data's force field announced that they'd reached their destination.
Riker repeated the same thing he'd said to Picard earlier, when the captain had given the order to attempt communication with their unwelcome visitor. It was protocol. You gave the alien every chance to talk. Theirs was, after all, a mission of peaceful exploration.
"I feel that we've already tried talking to them," he said, as he reached for the door release. "On the planet, that is. All those illusions, they spoke to us."
"But that's exactly right. You spoke to illusions and they were treating you as if you were unaware. You may as well have been speaking to yourself. Here on the Enterprise, they cannot have that luxury."
The door behind the force field opened silently.
"Now we know them for what they are," Troi concluded, staring into the cargo locker, "and they know that we know. I believe I can feel something, but it's like the memory of a dream of a feeling. Nevertheless, I believe…that it knows it is trapped."
Not heartened, Riker cleared his throat. To him, the locker looked empty but for a stack of emergency evacuation supplies in neat sealed crates.
How do you address something that is, at its heart, a killer of your kind?
"I am Commander William Riker," he said loudly, feeling faintly ridiculous and sickened all in one horrible moment, "and I know you're in there…"
Come out, come out, wherever you are…
It sounded weak, even to him. He waited, resisting the urge to glance at Deanna. It would look to any predator like a need for support, and that sort of physical signal he could ill-afford, especially with all this prisoner's little buddies cluttering up the hull like limpet mines.
"I am here on behalf of the United Federation of Planets," he said after an excruciatingly long minute had passed, "and I wish to open discussions between our peoples. Please respond if you can understand me."
The force field rippled like a millpond across which a stiff breeze has blown, the electrons fizzing and sparkling; Deanna drew in a breath.
"I…Will, I think…"
And although Riker was almost expecting it, he still had to clamp iron control down onto the flinch that gripped his shoulders when before them both, out of apparently empty air, a familiar figure appeared in the locker.
It was the form of Ensign Hutchens, and he was smiling through a mask of blood.