Unusual Enterprize

She was home. Well... not maybe home as she viewed it any more, because as far as she was concerned the Enterprise was her home now and would hopefully be so for many years. No, she was in her mother's greenhouse on Eden Colony. She'd hidden here a million times as a child, hidden from her father's temper and her mother's innoculations against every disease known to man.

She remembered the amazed look on the face of the doctor during her Academy entry physical. He hadn't been able to name a single illness that she wasn't immunised against. Now that she thought about it, there'd been a bit of concern over that initially...

She realised what the stranger was doing. He was keeping her occupied, locked away while he went searching through her mind for whatever information he needed. Like hell you are, boy! she growled to herself.

She smiled as she remembered that the greenhouse was exactly like she remembered it, down to the bricks propping up a lot of the pots. Her mother had insisted on using a traditional style, never mind that they were on a moon orbiting Saturn.

She snatched a couple of the bricks and hurled them at the glass panes, putting everything she had behind them. The first brick didn't have any effect, but the second one caused a spider web of cracks.

Again and again she threw the bricks, until the pane shatted completely.

Looking through the pane was like looking through her eyes. She could see the bridge, the people... Crewman Denner looked like he was being tortured, his eyes wide with terror and his mouth opening nightmarishly slowly to scream.

STOP IT! She leapt through the hole, only to find herself floating in the dark...

A dark filled with slick tendrils searching for information, working methodically through her every thought and memory for something that the alien wanted... She started to scream as the tendrils turned their attention to her, to her personality...

 

Not knowing that things were getting wild on the bridge, he started a conversation with the slim, light-haired medic. Edward introduced himself and asked her name. She said that her name was Pam, and that she heard about him in the corridors of the Academy.

"Only good things I hope?" He said with a smile.

She said with a great smile "I even heard about the good things, but you can better ask someone else.”

"I shall do that." and smiled back to her.

While they talked about their own past, they both heard a harsh scream, a sudden end to their conversation. The cat heard it as well, and ran away.

Edward pressed the button of communicator, and said, "Here is Edward Duke, is everything okay there?

 

If there had been any breath left in his lungs, Quentin would have used it to scream. Instead all he could do was twitch and whimper as spider-shapes began emerging from the flames and crawling up his legs. One by one the began biting off chunks of his flesh and fishing out the nerve endings, which they used as straws to start syphoning off his life-force. He felt his limbs deaden and his stength fade. Helpless, he watched as the walls of the bridge split open and and he was sucked into space.

Drifting in the void, he saw a figure approaching. It resolved itself into the form of his mother, but she was dressed in black robes and her eyes burned with red fire. Sneering at him, she drove a dagger into his heart.

 

"Here is Edward Duke, is everything okay there?"

The Betazoid leaned carefully over his console, not taking his eyes off the stranger or the two victims of his astonishing mental power. He could feel it coming of the stranger in waves, and all his own talent was set to keeping his shields intact.

"Ensign Duke, get an Engineering team to Mister Spock and get up here," he said quietly, hoping his voice would carry to the Ensign. "Bring the biggest gun you can find."

Crewman Denner arched and convulsed, his mouth still open in that horrific scream despite the fact that he had long since run out of breath.

He felt a change in the mental attack aimed towards Ensign Graham, and shuddered as he realised that her entire 'self' was being assaulted in the stranger's search for knowledge. If he was stronger, better trained, he would have tried to shield her, but he knew that he would just be overwhelmed by the incredible power...

Ensign Graham opened her mouth a little and let out a terrible keening noise, high-pitched and full of pain, causing several crewmembers to cover their ears. He saw Lieutenant Sulu reaching for the folded blade he kept hidden in his uniform, and shuddered. Not again...

Don't do it! he sent desperately. That's how Denner wound up like that!

Sulu let his hand drop, growling in frustration.

 

"Typical Quentin. Can't figure out a thing if the situation gets even slightly complicated. Always running in circles. Why I even bothered trying to teach you anything, I'll never know."

Quentin could barely see through the pain. His mother's voice seemed as if it were being filtering down to him from the top of a mountain. Her mocking laughter sounded like a ship tearing apart in the atmosphere and sent sudders along his spine. He managed to look upward at her through the white edging his vision.

"One little push and your whole mind goes on a joyride. Even when you know what to do, you can't follow through with it."

Abruptly, his mother blurred, and resolved into the form of Janissa. The blood pouring out of his chest was turning into glass, which froze around him.

"Aren't your going to ask me out?" she said sarcasticly. "Oh wait, you're too afraid."

Again the laughter assailed him and left him shaking. His mind had begun to work through the pain, though, and had latched onto one word.

"Circles," he breathed.

"Don't bother trying, you'll only fail," smirked Janissa, toying with the barbed dagger. "Resign yourself to your fate."

My mind is...going in circles.I'm...doing this to myself. He finally managed to form the complete thought.

The smile remained on the specter's face. "Even if you know it's a nightmare, what can you do?"

She began stalking forward, raising the blade as she did so. "Time to lose your eyes, you worthless dog."

Summoning all his willpower, Quentin lashed out with as much anger as he could muster, reinforcing it with his most precious memory of acheivment - the day his custom-modified skimmer had broken the landspeed record on Titan. The ice around him shattered, the sneering figure in front of him vanished, and the desolate spacescape around him faded away to black. Gradually color returned and he found himself staring at the bridge's deck plates.

 

"Ensign Duke, get an Engineering team to Mister Spock and get up here," he said quietly, hoping his voice would carry to the Ensign. "Bring the biggest gun you can find." He heard through the communicator.

"Okay, I shall do that right away." and he told Pam to follow him.

Pam grabbed Edward's arm and said” Wait...Duke...wait...Listen to me, I think it is better, that I will look for the team, and bring them to shuttle bay three. I will only jeopardize, if there is a battle.”

Edward hesitated at first, but concluded that Pam had no chance in a fight.

"Alright, go and find them, quickly!"

"Thanks, and good luck my pirate captain."

While Pam is getting the team, he pressed on the button of the communicator. "Edward Duke here, I have sent someone to get the team, and I am now on my way to the weapon room.

Arriving at the armory, he picked up a heavy weapon. Now it is time to go to the bridge.

“Edward here, is there any way to get on the bridge unseen?”

 

The Betazoid leaned towards the console again. "I'm looking... Jeffries Tube 22 comes up right behind the captain's chair. Your best bet is to get in on Deck Three and come straight up."

Ensign Graham's tortured wail suddenly cut off, and for one sickening moment he thought that her mind was gone. He spun round, in time to see the stranger remove his hand and the unfortunate ensign collapse to the deck and curl into a tight ball, shaking uncontrollably.

"I am the Provider," the stranger said in a bizarre echoing voice that the Betazoid was sure would carry throughout the entire ship. "Your restless wanderings are at an end, for I will give you paradise. You will be cherished and provided for until the end of your days."

"You call zis 'prowiding'?" Ensign Chekov said, his voice full of disdain and his eyes flashing with anger. "Killing our crew and torturing zose who stand in your vay?"

 

"I'm looking... Jeffries Tube 22 comes up right behind the captain's chair. Your best bet is to get in on Deck Three and come straight up." He heard him saying.

While he hurried to Deck Three, Edward said that he is now on his way. He took the turbo lift to the deck where he had to go. Once there, he thought suddenly that it was possible that the person, who had caused all this, can hear him when he came through the tube.

Now to muffle his movements in the tub, he sends a turbo lift to the bridge. It worked perfectly; Edward's movements were softening, caused by the incoming turbo lift.

"I think that they will be surprised, when there is suddenly a turbo lift opens up there empty," he said to himself.

At the end of the tube, he could see through the grate what was happening on the bridge. Edward saw that an older man in the center of the bridge, wearing one of the fleet uniforms that had been in a good style two decades ago. His hair and beard were salt-and-pepper gray and black, and the crew of the bridge looked surprised when a turbo lift opens, and that no one was inside.

Using the distraction, he kicked open the grate, sought cover and fired at the strange man.

 

The stranger roared in a combination of rage and pain, the rifle's charge turning his back into a bizarre mess of pulsing green energy and gold-tinted flesh. The Betazoid felt a strange feeling, and looked at the still-prone Ensign Graham. She was giving him the most pointed look he'd ever felt from a human. Curious, he brushed carefully at her mind.

It was like standing waist-deep in the ocean, feeling the undertow trying to pull him under. But there was something there, something she wanted him to see incredibly badly, despite the trauma the Provider had inflicted.

Vulcan... Her inner voice was weak, broken, but it was audible. The death scream...

He remembered, all too clearly. Six billion telepaths, screaming their last as one. There wasn't a single person on the ship who hadn't felt it on some level or another. Being a telepath himself, he'd felt it so strongly that he didn't remember another thing before waking up in the Sickbay as the heavily damaged Enterprise limped back to Earth.

He understood.

Carefully drawing back from his connection to the Ensign, he gathered his memories of the death scream, every ounce of pain and terror and the horrible knowledge that there was nothing left to be done, and... he pushed.

The Provider started screaming now, the mental assault allowing the physical to cause greater harm.

"Keep firing!" he heard Chekov yell, and he smiled grimly. The Navigator caught on quickly. He just hoped that his strength would hold out long enough for the redshirt to finish the job.

 

"Keep firing!" he heard Chekov yell, and Edward did not stop. Seeing that the stranger roared in a combination of rage and pain, he kept on shooting the stranger. Now the stranger's whole body is now into a bizarre mess of pulsing green energy and gold-tinted flesh.

"How's the condition of Ensign Benner?" Edward yelled to Sulu, because he saw that the others were too busy to answer this.

 

Still rather dazed, Quentin lifted his head and looked around. He was having trouble focusing his eyes and sounds were muted, as if the world's volume had been turned way down. He could see flashes of light that looked like phaser fire hitting some writhing form of greeinsh and gold light that was standing where he last remembered seeing their mysterious visitor.

His eyesight cleared briefly before a wave of nausea caused black to start edging in around his vision, but he used that window to assess the bridge. Nearby, Ensign Graham was supporting heself on a console, looking as if her spirit had almost been ripped from her body, while the Betazoid beyond her was focused entirely on the intruder, sweat pouring off his face. Behind Quentin a security officer was firing pulse after pulse of red energy from the regulation phaser in his hand, and each hit further distorted the alien figure.

Someone's hand found his collar and checked his pluse, dimly he could make out the yellow color of the uniform and dark hair, and figured it must be Lieutenant Sulu.

"He's alive. We'll need a doctor for these two though."

Definatly Sulu. It took more strength than he would have believed but Quentin managed to grab his arm.

"I'll be fine...get it...off...the ship."

He saw Lieutenant Sulu nod and a moment later, heard the distinctive sound of his sabre unfolding. There was a howl of pain from the direction of the gold figure.

777 posts! Shiny.

 

(Yes, shiny. Congrats!)

If she'd had the energy, Amy would have cheered as Sulu's blade unfolded, becoming the deadly razor that half the ship's security lusted after and the other half feared. She was vaguely aware that she was clinging to Navigation without actually remembering how she'd gotten there, but no matter.

The Betazoid had gotten her message. She had no idea how, she only knew that the tendrils had decided to go for more recent memories and come up against the echoes of Vulcan's death scream. The sound of six billion sentient beings screaming their last had shattered his grip on her mind, leaving her with the most profoundly dirty feeling she'd ever experienced and a strange sense of loss.

Sulu's blade bit deeply into the 'Provider', all but severing an arm, and the creature screamed in agony. With a grim look on his face, he shifted his grip and brought the blade around again, neatly severing its head. There was a brilliant green light, and the creature fell to the floor, sickly yellow blood pooling around it.

The Betazoid gasped and fell with it, blood pouring from his nose and ears.

"Sickbay!" Chekov yelled, reaching past her to activate his console's communicator. "Doctor McCoy, we need you here immediately!"

Oh good, he's got a handle on it now, she thought, and the blackness swallowed her.

 

While he kept the body under shot, Edward walked cautiously towards it. On closer inspection, he saw that the golden decapitated humanoid began to decompose.

"You two did some good fighting." Edward said to Sulu and the Betazoid, walked to Amy, and held her in his arms to look after her. The girl was unconscious, and was possibly in shock.

In the meantime, the door of the bridge went open, and Doctor McCoy came in to inspect the wounded. In addition, the communicator of Edward went off.

"Yes, what is it?" Edward said through the communicator.

"Here is Pam, I have some good news, everything is okay, and the team has freed First Officer Spock."

 

Quentin managed to twist his head around in time to watch the creature's head fly off it's shoulders and bounce away across the deck. Then he could not hold his eyes open any longer, he felt as if he'd been awake for days on end, and was not at all lothe to accept the comfortable embrace of unconciousness.

* * *

"Dammit Jim! You shouldn't be on your feet yet, you need at least another four hours of rest!"

"Thanks for your concern Bones, but the crew need me now, they're the ones who took the brunt of this attack," replied Kirk, striding past him to start appraising the damage reports.

"The only reason I didn't strap you to a cot and dose you was because we didn't have any spare cots!" growled Doctor McCoy, checking Esign Graham's vitals. "At least sit down, or you'll faint in a minute. You really lost a lot of blood."

Kirk grudgingly sat down inthe captain's chair while McCoy moved over and checked crewman Denner, then moved on to the twitching Betazoid behind him. Satisfied that they were stable, he gestured for his orderlies to take the unconsious figures down to sickbay.

"It's good to hev you back, captain," said Ensign Checkov, the strain in his voice now fading after the ordeal. Captain Kirk nodded to his remaining bridge crew.

"Alright gentlemen, bring me up to speed. For starters, what's that?" He indicated the green stains and golden decapitated humanoid.

"Well..." began Lieutenant Sulu...

 

She was in Sickbay. There was a vague scent in the air that you only ever got in hospitals and medical facilities, an antiseptic smell that she was overwhelmingly glad to be smelling. Cautiously she opened her eyes, and saw Spock leaning back in a chair with strain evident in his face, McCoy standing by with a hypo at the ready.

"How are you feeling," he asked her gently. Wow, I must have been really sick.

She considered for a long moment. "I'm... I'm hungry and worried about Crewman Denner and Ensign Harris." The Betazoid had saved them all, she was sure of it...

McCoy smiled, and there was more than a little relief on his face. "Denner and Harris are fine," he told her, and the odd little half-knot that had been developing in her stomach disappeared. "I'll have Nurse Chapel bring you something to eat. Now, Spock. Bed. No arguements."

"Agreed, Doctor McCoy. Ensign."

***

Amy looked at the holographic pictures that were scattered across her room and felt sick. She didn't recognize most of the people they were of. She recognised a couple from her time on the U.S.S. Harrington, her grandmother's command and one of the best scientific ships in the fleet, and a few from the academy, but the others... nothing.

For the first time, the reality of her memory loss struck her. She had a family she couldn't remember, childhood friends who would doubtlessly write to her who she wouldn't know, a massive chunk of past that was just... gone. She couldn't remember a single damn thing before her first day on the Harrington.

She couldn't let it overwhelm her. She had to stay strong and work past it. She was on the Enterprise, and she would be damned if she was going to let anyone force her off the ship or out of Starfleet.

She sat down at her terminal and typed up two requests. One for the recreational department, asking for simulator time, and the other to the Captain, asking to transfer to Operations.

 

Captain's Log, Stardate 2675.42.

Our encounter with the being calling itself the Provider has left twelve men dead, fourty-five wounded, and three severely traumatised from their mental contact with the being.

McCoy's analysis of what little remains of the corpse has led us to believe that the Provider was a midway form of evolution from physical form to a being of pure energy. What few details we've been able to confirm have been sent back to Starfleet Command, and we have been assured that the information will be circulated throughout the fleet, in case another such being exists.

We will be stopping at Starbase 12 tomorrow, to pick up replacement crewmembers, repair the ship, and to grant the crew some badly needed Shore Leave. We will sadly be losing a member of our crew, as Ensign Harris has tendered his resignation in order to return to Betazed and pursue a slightly less dangerous career. Our best wishes go with him.

On the recommendation of Doctor McCoy and First Officer Spock, we will be picking up a psychiatrist to join our medical team. Considering the strain that recent events have put upon the crew, I'm only too happy to have her aboard.

Kirk leaned back in his chair and groaned. What a mess the last few days had been. Thanks to the Provider, the ship was now home to six cats, four dogs, a cranky ferret and a rabbit, in addition to the two tribbles that he had been studiously ignoring ever since Scotty came aboard. Starfleet had been reluctant to allow the ship the extra supplies needed to keep them, but he couldn't rightly ask the crew to give up the badly needed comfort and companionship that pets gave them.

Speaking of which... "Kirk to Chekov."

"Chekov here, sir."

"Please come to my ready room and retrieve your cat."

 

Personnel Log, Quentin Denner, Stardate 2675.40.

Today was the first day I've felt energetic since the Provider induced a "recursive nightmare state" as Lieutenant Spock calls it. He says that I haven't suffered much permanent damage - apparently I lost about eight months of memories from around age three, but I can't really tell the difference. Ensign Amy Graham came off much worse, she can't remember any of the people she knew as she was growing up - her whole childhood, and with it her family, is gone. I can't even begin to understand that loss but I hope the future offers some compensation for her lost past.

I'm having a drink on the recreation deck tonight with Ensigns Harris and Duke, two crewmembers to whom I am profoundly grateful. They perfomed exceptionally in the line of duty and I owe them my life. I guess I didn't do badly myself, but I would prefer never to end up in that sort of situation again. With our captain's current record though (are we even a year out of drydock yet?) it I would say that it is unlikely, bordering on impossibe, that there won't be more excitement before the end of my career. In fact - yes - I'm sure we'll be neck-deep in antimatter before too long.

I've just remembered - Ensign Graham regained conciousness yesterday but is still confined to sickbay. I think I'll bring her my paper copy of Watership Down - hopefully having something to read will help raise her spirits. This is Quentin, signing off.

 

Personal Log, Amy Louisa Graham, Stardate 2674.42

My career in pure Science is now over. The Captain, after a short visit where he quizzed me about my motives, has approved my transfer to Operations. When I return to duty in a week's time, I will be wearing gold, not blue.

The instant McCoy let me out of sickbay, I started to read my old diaries. As a result, I can trace my earliest memories to a period of about a week, not long after I came aboard the U.S.S. Harrington. Everything before that is a complete blank. More than three quarters of my life is completely gone.

I guess I should just count myself lucky that my knowledge was left intact, or I wouldn't be able to stay aboard or return to duty. I think being forced to leave the Enterprise now would kill me.

Oh, time to sign off. I've got a lot of simulator time over the next week, brushing up my practical knowledge of the helm and operations consoles.

Goodnight.

 

Personal Log, Edward Duke, Stardate 2674.41

Started doing my rounds again. Saw that everybody has returned to their normal duties now that everything had settled down. The damage done by the "Provider" is being repaired. Not an easy job for the engineers. The bridge is ready, still much left to be done. In Sick Bay medics are busy treating the many injured. Morale is high, though somewhat shaken by the recent events.

Tonight I had a drink with Ensign Harris. and Chief of Experimental Technologies Quentin Denner. He lost a month of memories after the mindlink with the being. Denner was grateful for his rescue. I told him it was my task to protect and safe my men. Harris only nodded and said:'You're welcome.'

We talked about Denner's promotion and Ensign Graham. She was less fortunate. She lost all memories of her youth and family.
It was very late when we went our separate ways.

Talking about Ensign Graham, perhaps I should go and pay her a visit and look how she is doing, maybe together with Bluebeard and/ or Pam.

Sleep tight
Edward Duke signing off.