They were still the Enterprise bridge crew, still Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu, but their skin was grey and deathly, their eyes bone-white orbs with small black dots where healthy pupils should be. But worse than this was what we could see of the floor of the bridge. It was littered with bones.

Human bones.

The door onto the bridge opened, and two redshirts emerged from the turbolift with a terrified Halkan male between them.

"You probably wondered why we were beaming Halkans aboard, Captain," said other Kirk. "The reason is simple: I have a crew to feed."

The redshirts threw the Halkan on the floor in front of him. Immediately, Kirk and the rest of the bridge crew fell on the man, sinking their teeth into his flesh in a feeding frenzy. His screams were cut short when Spock ripped out his throat in a spray of blood.

"Cut transmission," said our Kirk, finding his voice at last. "Mr Chekov, seal the transporter room doors and try to modulate the deflector beam. We may not be able to turn it off, but let's see if we can get it interfering with ship-to-ship transport again."

"Transporter room doors already sealed by our people before they were overwhelmed, Keptin," he replied. "Working on beam modulation now."

We were all stunned by what we'd just witnessed.

"What...what was that?" said Uhura, visibly shaken. "What are they?"

"Zombies," said Sulu, "it's a ship full of zombies."

"Fascinating," said Spock, "in it's physical manifestation, their condition somewhat resembles that of Vulcans who have been exposed to large amounts of Trellium-D."

"I doubt it's Trellium-D," said Kirk, "and there's no such thing as zombies. Whatever those people may be they're not reanimated corpses. Mr Chekov, do another scan of the Halkan capital for not-quite human life signatures."

"Number now one hundred twenty, no two hundred..."

"They appear to be deliberately spreading their affliction," observed Spock. "It would be helpful if we knew the means of transmission."

"We're in no position to aid the Halkans until the ship is secure. We have to cut our deflector beam. Lawson..."

"On it, Captain," I said, heading for the turbolift. On the way down I called in all those redshirts currently off-duty. I needed everyone. By the time I reached the deck deflector control was on everyone knew what was required of them and were heading to their assigned posts. As the doors opened, I took off at a run, being joined by several redshirts on the way. When we got to deflector control I found Scotty and several of his engineering crew engaged in a gun battle with the...hell, let's call them zombies...who had occupied it and barricaded themselves in. Scotty was pleased to see us.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, lass," he said.

"What's the situation, Mr Scott?"

"We've got four hostiles behind the barricade keeping us out, while a fifth is getting up to who knows what deviltry inside. We've hit them several times with stun beams from our phasers but they have no effect. Unfortunately, the same is not true of us. They've stunned several of my men."

"Have you tried phasers on full power?"

"No, we most certainly have not. The walls and hull will dissipate even a full power beam from a hand phaser, but there's all manner of sensitive systems and devices protruding from those walls that a beam designed to vaporize would destroy. We could end up disabling the ship. And if we start firing off full power beams at them, they're liable to do the same to us."

"Oh, I doubt that," I said. "The last thing they'll do is try to vaporize you."

"And why would that be?"

"Because they want to eat you."

"What?! Are ye joking?"

"I wish I was. Hmmm. Despite their ablative properties, you can still cut through a wall with a focussed beam, right?"

"Aye, that I can - I once had to do so to get into main engineering and stop Riley from driving the crew mad with his singing - but I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"These may not be the zombies of legend," I said, adjusting the beam on my phaser, "but I'm betting they have the same vulnerability."

I took careful aim, and the next time one of the zombies poked his head out I burned a hole through it right between his eyes.

He went down and didn't get up.

"Okay lads," shouted Scotty, "adjust your phasers to cutting beam and let's get them!"

He was the first one to break cover and he led my men and his in storming the barricade. A few of ours were felled by stun beams, but they had the superior numbers. They soon overwhelmed the zombies, but not before one managed to bite one of my men.

"Are you okay, Wilson?" I shouted.

"Yes, ma'am, I'm...I...actually I feel a little strange."

I realized what was happening before anyone else.

"Quick, secure him," I ordered, "and be careful."

By the time they had tied him up, Wilson's skin was already turning grey, his pupils shrinking to tight little circles of darkness.

"Don't let him bite you!" I shouted, as someone realised the danger, tore a sleeve from the uniform of one of the downed zombies, and rammed it into Wilson's mouth.

Leaving them to deal with him, I went into deflector control, where Scotty had already put a hole through the brain of the zombie in there. He was examining the controls and shaking his head.

"Have you turned off the beam?" I asked.

"Och, if only I could," he said, "but I cannae. This wee devil has destroyed the overrides, encrypted the main controls, and somehow routed the power cut-offs through the ship's self destruct, which shouldn't be possible."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"It means that we can't cut off power to the deflector without immediately activating the self-destruct and destroying the Enterprise. If we try and move the dish from outside, same result. The only way to turn it off is by breaking the encryption on the main controls, and that could take days."

"We don't have days, Mr Scott."

"Aye, tell me something I don't know."

"Our ship can't use its shields or phasers while that beam is active so I'm guessing they can't use theirs either."

"That would be my guess as well, lass."

"What about photon torpedoes?"

"Aye, we could fire them, but the ships are so close that we'd destroy ourselves, too."

I left Scotty pondering his dilemma and rejoined my men.

"We let those outside the transporter room know to set their phasers to cutting beam," said one of them, Gupta. "The zombies are burning their way through the door, but now we'll be ready for them when they break out."

"Excellent!" I said. "I went everyone we can spare to get to the transporter room with a phaser. When the zombies do get through the door there need to be enough phasers on them to cut them to ribbons."

"What about Wilson?" asked Gupta.

Wilson was now wholly zombie, and struggling to break free of those holding him.

"Get him into a holding cell," I said, "but he remains tied up and the gag stays in. Also, get one of these corpses to Dr McCoy for autopsy and put the rest in cold storage until the Captain decides what he wants to do with them."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," said Gupta.

I headed back to the turbolift that had brought me from the bridge, trying to figure out what we could do about that beam from the deflector.