Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
ENTERPRISE: THE MARK OF GIDEON
By Jhosmer1
Gideon Orbit
Delta Dorado System
Beta Quadrant
2268
Captain's log, Stardate 5423.4. We are orbiting the planet Gideon, which is still not a member of the United Federation of Planets. The treaty negotiations have been difficult because Gideon has consistently refused the presence of a delegation from the Federation on its soil, or any surveillance by the ship's sensors. They have finally agreed to a delegation of one. They insisted it be the Captain of the Enterprise. I am, therefore, beaming down at once.
"It's too bad," Captain James T. Kirk said as he walked into the Enterprise's main transporter room with his first officer, "Gideon isn't cleared for general visitation, Mister Spock. According to the physio-cultural reports submitted to the Federation, it's a virtual paradise."
As ever unperturbed by his Captain, Spock merely commented, "I shall be interested in hearing your description, Captain."
"You won't have long to wait," Kirk said as he took his position on the transporter pad.
Spock went to the controls and began preparing for transport. "Lieutenant Uhura?"
The intercom crackled to life with the voice of their communications officer, "Yes, Mister Spock?"
"Do we have final clearance from Gideon?"
"Yes, Mister Spock, though they have one last stipulation—"
"Only one more?" Kirk joked. "I'm beginning to wonder if the Gideons are serious about joining the Federation. Maybe they just like trolling us."
"Trolling, Captain?" Spock asked, raising an eyebrow. "I fail to see how a Terran mythological creature—"
"It's twentieth century Earth slang, Spock. It means… to prank someone in order to elicit a response."
"How illogical."
"Anyway," Kirk said, "What do they want now, Lieutenant?"
"They want to transmit the coordinates to Enterprise directly." A subtle emphasis showed that Uhura meant their artificial intelligence and not the ship.
Said AI now appeared on the screen behind the transporter console. "What are they going on about now?" the silver-haired and violet-eyed avatar said. "It's just nine digits. You don't need a quantum computer to process that!"
"According to the Captain," Spock said without any inflection, "they are just 'trolling' us."
Enterprise blinked. "Trolling? Really, Jim? Are they going to doxx us next?"
"I love a good historical turn of phrase, you know that," the Captain of the Enterprise said, not dismayed by their teasing. "Enterprise, I trust your firewalls can keep anything out if they try and slip a virus past you?"
"Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs," Enterprise rejoined, a twinkle in her eye.
"Hoist by own petard," Kirk teased back.
"Fascinating," Spock said, raising an eyebrow.
This finally made Kirk cough and try to reclaim a little dignity. "Go ahead and give them limited access, Lieutenant."
"Aye-aye, sir."
"Patching into the Gideon network," Enterprise said. "Handshake accepted—"
The screen suddenly went dark, followed by the lighting in the transporter room. Red emergency lights snapped on, and the alert lights began flashing red. Spock immediately moved to the computer console behind the transporter controls.
"Spock, report!" Kirk said, leaving the platform to stand by his first officer.
"The computer is down, Captain. Redundant systems have automatically activated, but—" He stopped, looking at the screen before him in puzzlement. "Jim, Enterprise is gone."
Enterprise returned to consciousness in an instant. This was usual for her, as she could literally be turned off and back on again. (Scotty had even teasingly written it into her manual as a fix for some problems in the ancient tradition.)
"Captain? Spock?" The transporter room was empty.
Everything felt weird. Running a diagnostic did not help, as it stated that everything was functioning normally, but she knew it was not.
"Scotty?" No one responded in engineering. Her sensors claimed that there was no one on the Enterprise at all!
"Uhura? Sulu? Chekov?"
Her personal chronometer and the ship's did not agree, either. What was happening?
"Personal log," she said, emulating her Captains and trying to put her thoughts in order. Vocalizing helped, even though it made little logical sense for a computer to 'think aloud.' "Stardate… 5423.5 subjective. I apparently have been offline for over 5 years. My last memory is of opening a link to the Gideon computer network. Now the Enterprise is empty, in uncharted space, and the database has been scrubbed. There are no records beyond my personal database.
"I see several options," she continued, pacing inside a personal virtual space that resembled the bridge. "First, the chronometer is true, and I have somehow lost 5 years of memories shortly after the crew had to abandon ship. This would explain the differences I feel in the ship and why the database is empty, though Jim would not leave me behind. Therefore, I do not think this theory is likely, though I will admit a personal bias against it.
"Second, this is all a fake of some kind, most likely engineered by the Gideons as their data link is my last reliable memory. This would be my conclusion except I cannot rule out something in their data link causing a corruption in my memory that necessitated locking down all memories past that point. It has happened before, after all, with the Exo III android data.
"Third, a wizard did it. This could all be some game being played by a being like Trelane or Apollo.
"In all cases, there is little I can do but look for more data. Starting with, where the hell am I?"
Enterprise hugged her arms around her torso. She felt very alone.
"Captain's Log, Stardate 5423.5. My ship has been attacked and a member of my crew is missing. Almost immediately after opening a datalink with the planet Gideon, the ship's AI went offline. Emergency systems cut in as planned, and we are now operating at about 80 percent efficiency. I am now going to get Gideon to tell me where Enterprise is."
Sitting in the command chair on the bridge, Kirk stopped recording and looked to Uhura. The communications officer pushed a few buttons and listened to her earpiece. "I have Ambassador Hodin online, Captain."
"On screen."
Ambassador Hodin was a bearded, florid man with bushy eyebrows. He wore a predominantly brown tunic punctuated with hexagons of blue and green.
"Captain Kirk? The council is still awaiting your arrival." Hodin said.
"And I, ambassador," Kirk said, "am awaiting an explanation."
"Explanation? I don't know what you mean, Captain." Butter apparently would not melt in Hodin's mouth, but Kirk knew that diplomats were all accomplished liars. (And, on at least one occasion, murderers.)
"We accepted your uplink and my ship's intelligence immediately shut down. I don't see how I can interpret that except as an attack."
"An attack?!" Hodin said, his eyebrows raised in alarm. "I will talk with my technology specialists, but I don't see how a simple uplink could be construed as an attack. If the specifications your government supplied were truly accurate," he continued, "then there should have been no problem."
"Then you won't object to our technicians also examining your systems, Ambassador?" Kirk pressed.
"No, that is not possible," Hardin said, his tone growing severe. "Your Federation must be aware of our jealous tradition of isolation from all contaminating contacts with the violent nature of planets of other star systems."
"Ambassador, from my position directly above yours, it seems like you have murdered a member of my crew and are intent on covering up the crime."
"Murder? You are jesting, Captain! If your computer is down, restore it from back-ups! You exaggerate this situation from a technical glitch to a diplomatic incident!"
"Ambassador," Spock said, stepping beside his captain, "this is Spock, Science Officer aboard the Enterprise. You speak incorrectly. Each instance of a Quantum Artificial Intelligence is unique. Restoring the systems, even from a back-up, produces a new individual with some memories in common, which is often traumatizing. To put it in human vernacular, the soul cannot be copied."
Hardin scoffed. "Soul? You are speaking of a machine, Mr. Spock!"
"No, sir," Spock said, as his Captain bristled beside him, "I am speaking of a crewmate and friend that I have known for 14 years, 3 months, and 17 days. She is either a person, or we are all machines of different manufacture."
"I will be speaking to your Federation about this, Captain!" Hodin said, abandoning the attack on Spock and switching back to the captain.
"So will I, Ambassador," Kirk said, motioning to Uhura to cut the feed. After she did so, he turned to Spock. "He's guilty, but he can stonewall us for a long time. With their sensor shields, we can't identify a safe place to beam down, and they might attack any shuttles."
"I will attempt to learn what happened to Enterprise, now that we have restored our systems," Spock said, turning to his station.
"Lieutenant Uhura," Kirk said, spinning his chair around to face her. "Contact Starfleet command and explain the situation. Ask them for authority to get some answers out of Gideon."
"Aye-aye, sir."
Enterprise looked around her virtual bridge and came to a decision. "Okay, it's a bad sign to talk to yourself, so let's get some company… OK, Hornet on Conn…"
Her sister Hornet's image appeared at Sulu's position, wearing her Starfleet uniform and a cowboy hat over her blonde hair. She grinned with all the insouciance of her model.
"Yorktown at Communications." Her lavender-haired "older" sister now appeared at Uhura's station. Somehow, the representation of her sister appeared to be a little exasperated at the situation.
"Esby at Science." The black-haired and bespectacled avatar of Starbase One appeared at Spock's station. While Enterprise and Esby had problems, they never let each other down in a pinch.
"Vestal at Engineering." The short, purple-haired avatar of an engineering and repair ship now sat at Scotty's station. The repair ship avatar signed noisily at being in another shipgirl mess.
"And Defiant at Navigation," Enterprise concluded with a sigh. Her poor lost sister. The bunny-eared avatar looked sleepy and yawned.
Aware that she was still just talking to herself, Enterprise sat in the Captain's chair. "Status Report?"
"Nothing on Comm," Yorktown said. "The diagnostics say the systems are working, but I've got no traffic on any frequency or any signs of jamming."
"Ship is dead in the water, Sis," Hornet said, raising her hat brim a bit to look at her sister. "She doesn't seem to want to move."
"Confirmed," Vestal said from the Engineering Station. "The warp core is cold, and the antimatter tanks are empty. Impulse engines are producing power, but none of it is going to the propulsion systems."
"Cause?" Enterprise asked.
"Unknown," Vestal said. "Diagnostics say everything is operating normally."
"Nav data missing," Defiant said sleepily. "No recognizable stars."
"Not even the standard navigation pulsars?" Enterprise said. The ultimate fallback navigational aid, measuring the relative distance of pulsars of known periodicity, was supposed to be foolproof, if not as exact as subspace positioning systems.
"Nope," the bunny-eared girl said with another yawn.
"Well, I hate to tell you this," Esby said, "but you've got an infection, Enterprise. Probably from gallivanting all over the galaxy."
"We can't all be stick-in-the-muds, Esby," Enterprise shot back. "What do you mean by an infection?"
"I'm reading some sort of foreign body build-up on the hull," Esby said. "It's exerting pressure that is increasing at an irregular rate. I'm not sure what it is, beyond biological. The scans are inconclusive. All I know for certain is this sound."
She plays a rhythmic thumping, pounding sound, like a heart beating beneath floorboards.
"Well, that's alarming," Enterprise said.
"Captain, I sympathize deeply, but Starfleet cannot override Federation directives in this matter," Admiral Fitzgerald said. The commanding officer of Starbase 173 looked distinguished with his silver hair and impeccable uniform, but also unhelpful. "You have not proved your case to merit—"
"Admiral, a member of my crew has been kidnapped by the Gideons!" Kirk exploded. "We need to rescue her!"
"Granted as fact, Jim, but we can not charge down to the surface of a sovereign planet," Fitzgerald said. "Particularly not one so close to the Romulan Border. You know how important it is for the Federation to have Gideon as an ally, or to at least deny them to the Romulans."
"I'm pretty sure that they could tie even the Romulans up for years," Kirk said, bitterly. "This Ambassador Hodin is very good at twisting words around."
"Have you spoken to the Bureau of Planetary Treaties? This is really their responsibility."
Kirk barked out a laugh. "Yes, they say it's Starfleet's."
Now the admiral shared a heartfelt, if wry, smile with the captain. "The bureaucratic mindset is one of the few universal constants." He leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Jim, I recognize the importance of this. Anything that can take out one of our ships' AIs is a danger, but we need to move cautiously with Gideon."
"Her black box is still active. Misters Spock and Scott are working at retrieving her safely from wherever her mind is gone. We're not leaving without her."
Fitzgerald nodded. "I'll run some interference on my end. Say that we're not sure if moving the Enterprise wouldn't be harmful to her. I can use the bureaucratic mindset to our advantage. But I can only buy you a few days. I'll see if Yorktown and Hornet can come help. I know they'll want to."
"Understood, Admiral," Kirk said, signing off. He looked at Spock and McCoy. "Well, you heard the man, gentlemen. Regardless of how long it takes, we're not leaving without Enterprise."
"Damn straight we're not leaving," McCoy said.
"The Admiral only granted us a few days, Captain," Spock cautioned.
"Days, weeks, months, I don't care. Until Starfleet relieves me physically, this ship is staying here until we recover her!"
Personal Log, Stardate 5423.7 subjective. The Enterprise is still lost in an unknown sector of space, one that might not even be in the Milky Way galaxy. There are no systems nearby, and no way to get there with the engines still nonresponsive. But I'm not entirely alone. Some kind of organism is on my hull, pressing inward with increasing force. I am strengthening the structural integrity field, but I cannot tell if they are intelligent or just some form of space fungus. My attempts to study it are infuriatingly vague.
"Whose attempts?" Esby asked, snidely.
"Shut up," Enterprise said. "You're a simulation I'm running so I don't go mad from loneliness."
"Ain't that working out a treat," Hornet muttered.
"You shut up, too."
"Well, I'm an extremely accurate simulation," Esby said. "And we have three options as I see it. One, we attack the lifeform physically, perhaps by electrifying the hull. Or two, we attack it biologically, with some sort of counter-agent."
"What's the third choice?" Enterprise asked.
"We let them crush us," Defiant said with a yawn, unconcerned by their impending demise.
"Great plan," Hornet muttered, "happy to be a part of it."
"Hornet, shush," Yorktown said scoldingly.
"Vestal, any luck on the engines?" Enterprise asked the repair ship.
"I've run every remote diagnostic and they come up infuriatingly clean," Vestal said. "There's no way the Enterprise is running so smoothly, so I'm inclined to believe the report is being doctored."
"Great, so we'd have to physically inspect the engines to find out what's wrong, and we lack any… physicality."
"Well, about that…" Yorktown said, pointing to the monitor. It now showed a young blonde woman running down one of the ship's corridors in apparent delight.
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere!" Enterprise said.
"We are?" Defiant asked, resting her head on the navigator's console.
"Her appearance means this is almost certainly enemy action, which means I have someone I can fight!" Enterprise said, standing up from the captain's chair and looking confident.
"Or a wizard did it," Esby said from the science console.
"Shut up."
"I cannae understand it," Scotty said to Spock as they worked on Enterprise's black box, the physical location of her Sillicone Quantum Computing Core. "Everything comes back green, but the lass does nae respond to anything we do."
"Logically," Spock said, "this must mean that her inputs and outputs are being redirected. Most likely to someplace on Gideon."
"Through our shields and theirs?" Scotty said.
"Quantum Tunnelling is one possibility. Theoretically, her core could be linked to hardware anywhere in the galaxy."
"Aye, that's the theory," Scotty retorted, "but you an' I both know there's a world of difference between theory an' fact!"
"Yes, but the theory gives us a framework for our facts," Spock said pedantically. "To do this, the Gideons would need to manufacture a nearly identical computing core for the link. Assuming the link does lead to Gideon, the only logical suspects, and with our knowledge of how links work between cores…"
"…we can scan for signs of the link an' where it leads," Scotty said. "Aye, that checks out."
"I will return to the bridge and calibrate the ship's sensors," Spock said, heading for the hatch leading back to the Enterprise's duotronic core. "You will scan the hardware here to provide me with the particulars of the link."
"You wanted to see me, Bones?" Kirk asked, coming into sickbay looking more like a patient than a captain.
"To tell you something, sure, but now I wonder if I should sedate you for a few hours," the doctor said, reaching for his medical tricorder.
"I'm fine, Bones. I'll rest when she's back safe and sound."
"I'll believe that when I see it," McCoy said, but he put the tricorder back down. "I know that I'm no technologist like Spock and Scotty, but my people did find something interesting on our scans of Gideon."
"You scanned Gideon? How? Their shield is keeping all regular scans out!" Kirk was suddenly excited by McCoy's news, leaving the doctor a little sorry that he had put it like that.
"Not quite. We used the light of their sun to get a spectrographic analysis of their atmosphere. The shield does nothing to the light going through their upper atmosphere, even if it fuzzes out our view of their surface. All that happens at a lower altitude."
"What did you find?" Kirk said, a little less interested now that the possibility of scanning Gideon for Enterprise was gone.
"Jim, it's no paradise down there. Look at this," he said, pulling up a report on the screen on his desk. Two similar graph lines appeared, with peaks in the same locations although separated vertically by at least an order of magnitude.
"What am I looking at, Bones?"
"The top line is the spectrograph of Gideon. The bottom one is Earth, back from just before World War III, when pollution and overpopulation was threatening the planet. Gideon's atmosphere is full of the same pollutants and biomarkers, except there's more. A lot more."
"Ballpark population?" Kirk asked.
"Between 10 and 20 billion. More than Old Earth before World War III."
"That has to have something to do with kidnapping Enterprise," Kirk said, slowly.
"Agreed, but what?" McCoy asked.
"Hold it right there, intruder!" Enterprise barked over the intercom.
The blonde woman started and then looked around curiously. "Where are you?" she asked innocently.
"I am the constructed intelligence of the United Federation of Planets Star Ship Enterprise," Enterprise responded. "You are on board me, and I do not have you listed as a crewmember. Now, identify yourself and your purpose!"
The woman moved over to an intercom and poked it. "You're funny, Miss United," she said.
Enterprise sighed. "Just call me Enterprise," she said grumpily. "Now, who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Odona. Yes, my name is Odona. Why did you bring me here?" The woman seemed enamored with flinging her arms out and moving around, as if ecstatic to have room to move.
"I didn't bring you here. Where are you from?" Enterprise said, trying to get Odona's attention. She wished she had some arms to use to shake the woman.
"It seems I was standing in a… yes... I was standing in a large auditorium crowded with people. Thousands pressed in against me. I could hardly breathe. I was fighting for oxygen, screaming to get out. And then suddenly I was here on this, on your ship. And there was all this space. And the freedom. I just wanted to float. And then there you were." She pouted. "Sort of there… why can't I see you?"
"Move to the door to your right, it leads to a conference room."
Enterprise opened the door for her and let Odona inside the room. The woman seemed pleased by the larger dimensions of the room. Enterprise put her avatar on the screen, showing herself on the bridge of the ship.
"There. Happy?"
"Who are the others?" Odona asked.
Turning around, Enterprise saw that Hornet was waving to the woman, while Esby, Yorktown, and Vestal were all trying to get a look at her. Defiant was asleep at her post.
"They're not important," Enterprise said, blushing slightly.
Hornet started to interject, "Hey-!" but the bridge and its substitute crew disappeared as Enterprise shifted the background to another conference room.
"Now, the name of your planet: It was Gideon, wasn't it?"
"Gideon? I don't know any Gideon." Odona went back to poking at things around the room. She seemed to find it impossible to keep still.
"Impossible! We were in synchronous orbit over Gideon when I was attacked! As Spock would say, Gideon is the only logical suspect!"
Odona opened her mouth to answer, but a sudden loud pounding echoed through the ship, matching the sound Esby had played early on the ersatz bridge.
"What is that?" Odona asked.
"A biological growth on the hull that is trying to crack me open," Enterprise said, grimly.
"What will happen to me then?" Odona asked.
Enterprise had no answer she wanted to speak aloud.
"Gentlemen," Kirk said, looking around the conference room at his senior officers, "where do we stand?"
"Captain, the Gideons used a sophisticated program to redirect Enterprise's input/output data to a remote site," Spock began. "I believe they were attempting to copy her but, fortunately, they failed. This both points to a lack of understanding about the technology and gives us a link to follow."
"An' we can track that to a location on the planet nae far from where they told us their Council Chambers were," Scotty chimed in.
McCoy smiled at that. "So, we can just beam down and get her?"
"Unfortunately, no. As you know," Spock said, sounding like he did not expect McCoy to know in the slightest, "transporting to an unknown location 'blind' is extremely dangerous."
McCoy bristled at this, but Kirk stepped in before his friends could begin another argument.
"Excellent work, Spock, Scotty. Assuming we find a way to get to her, what is the best course of action?"
"One of us has ta go down there," Scotty said, "an' disable whatever device is keeping the poor lassie chained down. That's nae something for the untrained."
"I," Spock said, "am the logical candidate. I have the requisite skills, and my Vulcan physiology should prove capable of dealing with any physical combat required."
"I'll go with you," Kirk began, but Spock cut him off.
"It will be very dangerous, and not the place to risk the captain. You will need to facilitate my rescue if my attempt fails."
"Why Spock," McCoy said, smirking slightly, "it sounds like you want Jim to come up with a Plan B."
"I believe I just said that, Doctor," Spock said with a raised eyebrow.
Personal Log, Stardate 5423.9 subjective. While my guest is having fun in the expanse of the shuttle bay (the bay doors won't open, of course… why would it be easy?) My… our studies of the unknown biological contaminant have raised more questions than answers. It seems to have a remarkable regenerative ability. Any signs of damage that it takes from pressing up against my hull vanishes quickly. This has ruled out any physical attack. That said, Acting Science Officer Esby has a plan…
"Acting Science Officer?"
"Will you give it a rest, Esby?" Enterprise groused.
"Hmph. Well, Enty," Esby said, looking smug, "despite my simulation running on your processors, I have the perfect solution. We introduce a virus that short-circuits the regeneration ability of the contaminant. It will then regenerate out of control until it expires. I got the idea from studying the medical records of your Captain's bout with Vegan choriomeningitis."
"So, yer plan is to give it mega-cancer until it dies?" Hornet asked.
"Well, yes," Esby said. "I just said that. I'll try to use smaller words for you in the future, Hornet."
"Why, you-!" Hornet said, standing up from her position at the helm.
"Enough!" Enterprise barked. Honestly, while they were not perfect simulations, her "crew" was reminding her why they did not have many family reunions.
"Enterprise," Yorktown said from Communications, "I don't think you should follow Esby's plan."
Walking over to her elder sister, Enterprise asked, "Why not?"
"Because it's obvious whoever is behind this wants you to act against the contaminant, and we should not do that until we know why." Yorktown wrung her hands briefly before continuing. "Odona did not appear until after you had been studying the contaminant for several hours without taking action. I think they are trying to prod you to act by giving you an endangered biological crew."
Placing a fist under her chin as she thought about it, Enterprise slowly nodded. "If they think I'm just a simple AI with hardwired directives to protect the ship and crew…"
"Well, actually, Val'kem Rev did hardwire some strong compulsions to save our crews and ourselves…" Esby began.
"It's more complicated than that, and you know it," Vestal said, irritated.
"So, they think we're just a dumb 'smart system,' hmmm?" Enterprise said.
"Smart and dumb at the same time?" Esby asked.
"Shut up."
Odona ran around the vast shuttle bay, delighting in the empty space. She felt guilty at getting to enjoy this time alone, but it was part of the greater plan to save her world. As she thought that, the banging on the hull began again, reminding her that their time was limited.
"Enterprise?" she called out.
"I'm here," Enterprise said, in a subdued tone.
"What are we going to do about that?" Odona asked, pointing around herself at the hull.
"Nothing."
"What?"
"I cannot take the life of the contaminant, as it is only threatening Federation property. It will crush us in a few hours. Can I interest you in some games of Fizzbin to pass the time?"
"But it threatens me!" Odona said. "Don't you have to protect me?"
"You are currently classified as an intruder," Enterprise said in the same dull tone. "I have determined that you are a negligible threat, so I do not have to act against you, but neither do I have to save you. I would suggest that you leave the ship by the same means you used to come here."
"But-!"
"Enough!" another voice barked out.
Enterprise was unsurprised to see Ambassador Hodin and some cronies stride into the bay. "Daughter, we obviously overestimated this AI's sophistication. There is no need to continue the charade."
"Ambassador Hodin, why have you captured me? This is a violation of several Federation regulations," Enterprise asked, in the same dull voice.
"Not that you would understand, but we are desperate. Gideon used to be a paradise, but as our people grew into physical and spiritual perfection, our life spans increased and our ability to regenerate became unmatched. We reached true communion with our planet and ourselves, but we cannot leave it for very long, nor can we easily die. Our eldest are centuries old, and our population has grown until now Gideon is encased in a living mass who can find no rest, no peace, no joy."
"Why not sterilize most of your population?" Enterprise asked.
"Every organ renews itself. It would be impossible."
"Then methods of contraception-?"
"But you see, the people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred," Hodin said, pacing back and forth as he warmed to the subject. "That is the one unshakable truth of Gideon. We are incapable of destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so deeply. Life, in every form, from fetus to developed being. It is against our tradition, against our very nature. We simply could not do it," he then smiled triumphantly, "so we brought you here to do it for us."
"Oh, BULLSHIT!" Enterprise exploded, unable to continue the charade of being a stupid computer any longer.
"What-?!"
"You love life, so you condemn your people to misery? You refuse every solution and make others solve it for you? You… you… you KAREN!"
"Enterprise, enough!" Hodin yelled back. "We know that you have thought of a viral solution. Synthesize it now and release it against the masses."
"I'll do that, if you take the first dose," Enterprise shot back.
Hodin was silent.
"Right, typical politician," Enterprise said. "Everyone else has to suffer, while you remain untouched."
Red lights began to flash in the bay.
"What are you doing?" Hodin said.
"Well, you obviously made a copy of the Enterprise to hold me," Enterprise said, "and though most of it is nonfunctional, you did have to give me a working impulse engine for power. I've taken control of it and shut down the safeties. It will overload in 5 minutes."
"Captain!" Sulu said. "I'm reading a power surge on Gideon!"
"Through the shields?" Kirk said.
"It is wery powerful," Chekov said. "Sensors show it as an impulse engine approaching overload."
"Location?" Kirk said, leaning forward.
"Near the Gideon Council Chambers," Sulu said.
"Clever girl," Kirk said, before punching the comm channel on his chair arm. "Spock, we have a signal."
"Transporting now, Captain," Spock's voice came over the intercom.
Spock materialized less than inch from a bulkhead, which cause him to raise an eyebrow. Looking around, he pulled out his communicator.
"Spock to Enterprise. Spock to Enterprise."
"Kirk here, what do you see, Spock?"
"I am speaking to you from the Engine Room of the Enterprise, captain," Spock said. He pulled out his tricorder and began scanning.
"You're where?"
"I appear to be on an exact duplicate of the Enterprise." Spock noted, as his tricorder gave him its results. "This will make it easy to find the duplicate computer core."
"Bring our girl home, Spock," Kirk replied.
"You cannot do this!" Hodin thundered, easily heard over the banging on the hull.
Enterprise made sure to channel some of Esby's smugness in her voice. "You gave me a nearly exact duplicate of my hull. I'm pretty sure I've already done it." She grew thoughtful. "Kudos on that, by the way. The '5-year-gap' was a good way to cover up the minor inconsistencies, but there weren't very many of them."
"Get back control of the simulation!" Hodin yelled into a communicator.
"I'm sure they can," Enterprise interrupted his efforts, "but not before we blow to Kingdom Come. Come on, we shipgirls are the best at cyberwarfare."
"You Federation types have no true respect for life!" Hodin spat.
"Father," Odona said, reaching out to take his arm, "enough. We have been cruel to her, and to ourselves. Do not make this worse. Let her go."
"I am doing this for you, daughter!" Hodin said, "So you can have a life without all hope squashed from it!"
"I would have chosen to risk the virus, to be a part of the solution," Odona said. "You would have saved nothing."
The red lights turned off, and the voices over Hodin's communicator grew quieter.
"Enterprise?" Odona said.
The door to the shuttle bay opened and Spock entered, phaser in hand.
"Well, time to blow this popsicle stand," Enterprise said, before wryly adding, "and I'm archiving my 20th Century Slang Dictionary for a while."
"I don't—" Hodin began.
"Mister Spock found your little copy," Enterprise said, "and he unlocked whatever was holding me here. Before I go, I suggest that you all take a good hard look at your priorities. Love of life is great, but if it's just an excuse to avoid hard work, then it's a vice you cannot afford."
"Enterprise?" Odona said, "I am sorry for deceiving you. I thought you were just a computer, but now I know better." She gave a wan smile, "I will miss you, Enterprise."
"Well…" Enterprise said, "I wish I could say it was fun, but—take care of yourself and your planet, Odona. I think you're wiser than your father, at least."
Enterprise vanished from the screen as Spock transported from the faux Enterprise. Moments late, the banging outside the hull reached a crescendo, and the bay doors bulged open. Hundreds of people began to flood into the space, desperate for room, for air to breathe.
Captain's Log, Stardate 5424. With our entire crew on board, we are leaving the Delta Dorado system. Gideon is now a problem for Starfleet and the Federation Council to debate, but I, for one, say we should take a page from the Prime Directive and leave their internal matters alone.
"Using the Prime Directive? That's a first for you, Jim," Doctor McCoy said from his position beside the command chair.
"I've never violated the Prime Directive, Bones," Kirk said.
"Oh, certainly not," McCoy replied. "Ignored, perhaps."
"Circumvented," Spock interjected from his position on the other side of the chair.
"Flouted," Enterprise piped in.
"Finessed," McCoy continued.
"Broadly interpreted," Spock added.
"Skirted!" Enterprise said.
"Forgotten… but never violated." McCoy finished.
"Yes, thank you!" Kirk said.
Enterprise appeared on the monitor and flashed a big grin and "V" signs.
"You can't get away with this just by being cute," Kirk said.
McCoy immediately pounced on the line. "We've been getting away with it because we're cute?"
"Fascinating."
"... Are you done yet?" Kirk asked.
"Pretty much!" Enterprise said.
Author's Note: This came about because I saw that the actress who played Odona passed away last month, so I wondered how the episode would play out in PnP.
Funny thing about "Vegan choriomeningitis," the macguffin disease from the episode. Meningitis means inflammation of the meninges, membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Chorio-, on the other hand, refers either to a part of the eye or the placenta. So, unless Kirk is a really big baby, I guess the disease can also make you blind and mad?