Erratic Nerd Writings

Once they had all gathered at the landing site, Selorus, who had refused to answer questions until everyone was present, leaned forward, shouting above the sound of the wind.

“Enterprise has raised her shields, and has moved to the far side of the planet.  They will be keeping the planet between themselves and the alien ship.”

One of the scientists spoke up.

“Why didn’t they beam us up as soon as those guys dropped out of warp?”

Selorus shook his head.

“There was no time.  They dropped out of warp practically on top of the ship, Enterprise barely had time to get out of what we estimate their weapon’s range to be.”

Munson raised his voice next to Selorus to be heard.

“All of you know Kaz wouldn’t abandon us down here; if Enterprise had been destroyed trying to beam us all aboard, we’d all be dead.  They have to protect the ship first.”

“Is there a reason we’re assuming these people want to destroy us outright?”

“When you witness them obliterate a pirate ship in the blink of an eye, and apparently somehow follow us here, you don’t assume their intentions are peaceful in nature.”

The scientist who had asked the question looked at Kanor with a frown, but apparently seemed mollified by his reply.

“We are to hold our position here.  Enterprise will be sending shuttlecraft down into the planet’s atmosphere to beam us up, but it will ta…”

“Hostiles spotted, from the southwest!”

Selorus was cut off by the Asian officer’s outcry, and Munson immediately issued rapid-fire orders to his security team, including Kanor.  Kanor cursed; the hostiles were coming in fast, charging at full blast across the terrain as if the ruins, rocks, and debris simply weren’t there.  There was no question it wasn’t an attack, not at that speed.  Marcie and the scientists drew back, letting Kanor and the security officers shift forward.  Everyone had drawn their weapons; Kanor, sensing the inevitable close-quarters combat, drew his Mek’leth with his right hand, taking aim with the Varon-T in his left.  Why hadn’t Munson given the order to fire?  He squinted, realizing even as he thought that, he was having difficulty seeing their opponent clearly…

“Open fire!”

Eight lances of light shot out from the away team towards the onrushing mass.  The eight of them were huddled in the shadow of what remained of a building’s wall; Marcie and the scientists pressed up against it, Kanor and the security officers a few yards out in front of them, ostensibly as a protective measure.  Some of their shots hit, but they didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the…

Kanor’s eyes widened in shock.

“Tholians…?!”

He muttered the word as a curse to himself, even as he took aim at another of the four-legged, crystalline-carapaced aliens and fired; again, with no apparent effect.  He hated the skittering aliens with the mantis-like arms, they made his skin crawl.  Their crystalline hides were apparently resistant to disruptor and phaser fire, on top of everything else.  He heard the male security guard cry out on his left, but couldn’t spare his focus to assist the man.  The Tholian closest to him was leaping up in the air right at him…!

Kanor grunted as the Tholian’s body slammed into him at such speed, sending the two of them sprawling in a tangle of legs and arms.  Kanor had simply dropped his disruptor when the Tholian went airborne, gripping his Mek’leth in both hands.  He had attempted to angle the blade so the Tholian would impale itself on it, but the carapace was simply too strong.  The force of the impact had shuddered up Kanor’s arms; he had managed to keep a hold of his blade, but it definitely hadn’t penetrated.  As Kanor dodged his head out of the way of a down-stabbing pointed Tholian arm, he tried to see if he could spot where the alien’s carapace had been impacted. 

There!  A small spiderwebbing of cracks in the crystalline hide, some sort of viscous liquid oozing out slowly.  Kanor swept his legs at one of the Tholian’s, his hands clutching his Mek’leth tightly as he hammered it against another leg on the same side of the alien’s body.  A loud, chittering screech filled his ears as the Tholian’s balance wavered, the leg he had kicked at having been knocked out from under it.  He back swung his Mek’leth, smashing the hilt against the cracked area.  He felt one of the Tholian’s arms (legs?) pass harmlessly near his head, but the alien screeched again as his weapon struck true.  The cracks deepened, spread out; that disgusting orange liquid seeping out even faster.  The thing tried to pull away from Kanor, reassessing the idea to pin him to the ground.  He didn’t have much room to draw his arm back and put a lot of force behind the blow, but Kanor swung the hilt of the Mek’leth against the weakened area again while he could still reach it.

He roared in triumph as his fist burst through the crystalline outer shell, orange alien ichor exploding over his face and upper body.  The Tholian emitted a wail of sheer agony that made Kanor’s ears ring, but a feral grin split his features as, with closed eyes, he shoved the dying quadruped off of him.  He quickly wiped a hand off on his trousers, then swiped off the filth that had splattered over his face, his eyes flying open.  The Tholian’s six limbs were twitching and spasming in the air as it died, two of its legs smacking uselessly against Kanor’s side before growing still.  The glow of the creature’s triangular eyes faded even as Kanor got to his feet, his gaze sweeping around to quickly assess the situation.

The Tholians were everywhere, engaging everyone from the Enterprise.  He ran over to scoop up his Varon-T, the constant wind making that Tholian ichor trickle over the outerwear he had on over his armor, as he tried to find Marcie.  Something was nagging at the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside as he saw the Doctor struggling beneath one of the chittering creatures up ahead.  Holstering the Varon-T, he ran for where Marcie was, withdrawing his D’k tagh as he moved.  The shorter, sturdier blade would be better at piercing the crystalline carapace of the Tholians.

For whatever reason, the Tholian didn’t seem to be hurting Marcie, simply attempting to keep her pinned down.  Though she had lost her phaser somewhere, Kanor was proud to see the Doctor had managed to withdraw her laser scalpel, and was attempting to cut her attacker with the device.  Her aim seemed to be horribly off, but it was still forcing the Tholian to keep moving.  Kanor slammed into the distracted Tholian like a torpedo, roaring at the top of his lungs to keep the thing focused on him, not Marcie.  Marcie’s laser scalpel must have struck true a few times, as a yellow-ish hued liquid dotted the Tholian’s body.  Kanor’s D’k tagh added even more, the momentum of his charge having knocked the Tholian over onto its side and presenting an easy target.  The creature’s mantis-like arm whipped out at Kanor, ripping into the material along his right side; but he used his Mek’leth to parry the flailing limb away.   Eventually, with a weak-sounding harmonic hum of pain, the Tholian’s body sagged under Kanor’s assault, the yellow and orange Tholian “blood” creating a miasma of color all over him.

Leaving the dead Tholian behind, he went over to Marcie, who had recovered her dropped phaser.  He crouched beside her, looking her over for injuries, even as she fired towards a group of Tholians swarming around Selorus and one of the other scientists.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.  For whatever reason, he didn’t really seem interested in attacking me, just…you don’t know them, do you?  Why aren’t you helping the others?!”

The wind shifted, making something on the ground beside Marcie’s left hip shift, catching his eye.  He leaned closer, only to see the crystalline-looking sample Marcie had gathered from the subterranean room.  In her struggle to get the scalpel out, she must have dislodged the sample container and knocked the thing loose.  Kanor frowned, reaching out to pick it up with the hand holding the D’k tagh.  If they made it out of this, they needed to have something important to show for it.  The Tholians were crystalline; maybe there was some sort of connection?

“Had to ensure you were…”

His back stiffened, an involuntary gasp popping from his chest as his eyes widened.  Marcie, intent on trying to help her shipmates and with the moaning of the never-ending wind, didn’t notice.

“I’m fine, go help them!  Scientists can’t fight Klingons!”

Kanor was unable to respond; that poking sensation in his head he had felt before when opening the hidden room was even stronger this time.  Paralyzing.  This wasn’t a poke, it was a STAB.  His jaw worked silently, pain rushing through his skull like nothing he had ever felt before. His focus seemed to abruptly dilate; his brain kicking into some sort of overdrive of processing as everything around him seemed to slow down to a crawl.

Marcie was firing her phaser, her eyes widened in a distraught, tightly wound bundle of fear he hadn’t seen on her face before.

Her phaser was…hitting nothing.  He watched Selorus and one of the other scientists roll and twist on the ground, their fists clenched, their arms outstretched, the cords in their necks straining, their teeth showing in a grimace.  They were fighting no one.

The Tholians were gone.  The two Kanor had personally killed were nowhere to be seen.  The blood, the multi-colored ichor he had felt splash over his fists, his very face, the two blades he had stabbed through those crystalline carapaces of theirs with such force and coated with the stuff-wasn’t there.  The blades practically gleamed in their unstained state, no different than they had been when he had slid them into their sheathes before leaving the Enterprise.

The tear in the outerwear along his right side the Tholian’s arm had created-looked brand new.

He saw Munson flying through the air towards one of his fellow security guards, arms outstretched.  They closed around nothingness, Munson rolling a few yards.  The security officer dodged his head to the left as he scrambled to his knees.  His chest heaving, he threw a brutal punch downwards…and stopped, seemingly of his own volition, in mid-air.  Hitting nothing, fighting…no one.

A shining black…something was stalking towards them.  It was moving casually, slightly hunched over.  Though there were next to no facial features-no nose, no hair, no…no eyes-Kanor felt a malevolent presence seem to shift from Marcie to focus on him.  Felt that change of its gaze, though there was nothing to see actually doing the gazing.  Even as he looked at it, DIRECTLY at it, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.  It stopped in its tracks, and he got the vaguest impression of some sort of tail twitching and whipping around behind the creature, though he never actually SAW one.  The pressure inside his skull suddenly went off the scale; torpedoes seemed to explode within his vision, he felt a jagged tearing in his throat and realized he was screaming at the top of his lungs.  And that thing, the…sentient malevolence, opened its mouth in a hissing snarl he couldn’t hear, even though he could feel it in his body.

It had been meters away when he had first seen it, when he had first touched that crystalline-like sample of Marcie’s, when his brain had become a playground for an army of clumsy, infantile giants wearing cleats.  It was closing that distance now, nothing casual in its incredible speed, moving so quickly he had barely registered it was zeroing in on him before it was nearly on top of him with no signs of slowing down.  No time for him to move away, no time to even initiate a bodyslide; he felt like he was moving in slow motion in comparison to this…indefinable force of nature.  He planted his feet, tried to angle his blades across his torso, realized he was still clutching that sample around the grip on his Mek’leth.

Realized that what had been nagging him was the simple fact that Tholians would never, ever be able to survive on this planet; it was far too cold for them.  And that Marcie had referenced the scientists fighting Klingons, when all he had seen were Tholians.

Pain slammed into Kanor’s body and went right through it, leaving its caress from front to back and everywhere in-between.  He felt the wind whipping around his body, across his face, and realized he was airborne.  He felt the tang of blood in his mouth, saw speckles of bluish brown trailing from his lips, realized it was his.  His hands were empty; his blades apparently having been knocked out of his grip, along with Marcie’s sample.  A pair of blocky shuttlecraft was flying by overhead, low in the atmosphere, as if to avoid a dangerous threat from up above in space.

That…thing better not have harmed Marcie.

                                                                           *****

“I don’t like this.  At all.  If it wasn’t for all the biological redundancies Klingons have, he’d probably be dead or paralyzed.  And he’s only half Klingon, if you’ll recall.”

“I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t an emergency.”

He heard Marcie sigh. 

“He should be coming around any second now.”

He tried to say something, move, but found his mouth felt like it was sealed shut, his body unresponsive.  He must have accomplished something, though, because he felt a familiar touch to…well, somewhere.

“Kanor?  It’s Marcie; we’re back aboard Enterprise, in sickbay.”

His entire body was numb, yet he felt like he was immersed in an ocean of pain.  A warp core had exploded in his skull.  When he cracked his eyes, he saw the explosion, felt its agony stab into his head, saw…saw a blurry swish of black hair.

“Don’t try to sit up.  I’ve got you pretty drugged, I need to get you into…”

“Doctor…Marcie…”

“I know, damn you!”

Marcie never cursed.  And the vehemence in her voice was...very uncharacteristic.

“Hurry the hell up so I can take care of him, okay?”

He forced himself to widen the explosion, light pouring into his eyes, making him groan.  How was his head still in one piece?  Or was it?

Had to focus, try to make sense of what was going on.

Marcie stood on his right, her arms crossed over her chest; her jaw was set, making her lips a hard, thin line.  She was glaring across his legs at Skid, on his left.  Skid was biting her lower lip, her eyes gazing down at him.  Her brow was creased, her hands clutching her elbows.  Was that concern on her features?  Her flame-red hair was a mess, her face smudged with who knew what.  She looked amazing.

“Hey, Youngblood.  It’s Skid.”  She cracked a small, half-hearted smile.  “You’re a stubborn ol fart, you know that?”

“Skid!”

Skid shot Marcie a murderous glance, as filled with fire as her own hair.  Marcie returned it with one just as lethal.

“I’ll make this quick; the Doc really needs to help you out, but…we really need your help too.  We’re tryin to figure out what the hell happened down there, boyo.  Nothin makes sense.”

He tried to say something, but was having trouble forming the words.  His tongue felt heavy, thick…awkward.  What was he going to say?  Oh yeah-hot.  Skid was hot.  The way she could hold her own in a fight; that was damn sexy.

“I doubt he even knows where he is…I told you this could wait.  His mouth is all crusted with blood; let me clean it off…”

Marcie reached for something outside of his line of sight, then he felt moisture on his face.  She leaned in close, worry etching her features, her gaze softening as she glanced up into his eyes.  Why was she so worried?  He’d be fine.  She was fine.  That thing hadn’t hurt her; that was good.  Skid was talking.

“…one saw something different, no one seems to be able to agree on what was going on.  Selorus saw Romulans, members of the Tal Shiar.  Munson saw Borg, Ichers saw Gorn, Masuka saw Jem’Hadar.  Hell, even the Doc says she saw bloody Kling…”

“Would you just get to the point?”

Skid shot Marcie another withering look before sighing. 

“The only thing everyone agrees on is you screaming then getting knocked back like a bloody fookin kiddie toy.  No one saw what hit you, and right around the time you took a nosedive into the ground, everything vanished.  What did YOU see, Kanor?”

Marcie had cleaned off the crusted blood over his lips; the moisture felt nice.  Skid’s words brought back the planet’s surface, crystallized it in his mind, at least temporarily.  The way the Tholians had seemed to swarm all over them, how he had killed two of them; how…how?  It hurt to think, but he needed to focus.  He tried to force out words again.

“Tholians.”

“You saw fuckin Tholians?  Why the hell did everyone see...”

He tried to hold up a hand to silence her, only to find he couldn’t.  She must have sensed his desire to interrupt, though; she stopped, the hands she had thrown up into the air returning to her shapely hips.  He was having trouble thinking, verbalizing words.  He needed to make this succinct. 

“Telepathy.  Strong.”

Skid’s eyes narrowed, her expression puzzled.

“Those rocky critters aren’t telepathic…”

“Doughnuts.”

Skid’s eyes widened, taken aback.

“One.  There.”

“But…but there was no transporter activity, no…the shuttlecraft pilots confirmed during their approaches there were no other lifeforms present other than the away team’s…”

“Powerful.  Telepathy.”

“Bloody fookin marvey…”

“Are you done, yet?”

“Why you?  Why did it attack you, how come you could see it, especially after you saw Tholians…?”

“Okay, Skid, you’ve had plenty of time.  I need to get my pat…”

“Sample.  Marcie.”

Marcie, who had been walking around the biobed he was on to force Skid out of her sickbay, froze in her tracks, her gaze shifting to look at Kanor questioningly.  She was still outfitted as she had been on the planet with him; covered in grime and dirt, blood he recognized as his darkening the cloth of her tunic.  The medical kit she had brought down with her was still slung over her shoulder, resting against her hip.

“Sample.” He repeated.

Marcie frowned, looking down at the kit she had on her side startled, as if she had forgotten it was there.  Her fingers moved to open the battered casing.

“What…what does that have to do with anything?  The sample I collected from the walls?”

Kanor didn’t respond as Marcie started rummaging through her kit, her frown deepening. 

“It’s not here…I…I must have…knocked it out when I was fighting that…when I was fighting.  The container is even…”

“Stolen.”

Skid looked from Marcie to Kanor.  He could see the conduits firing in her head.

“If she had it, why didn’t it attack her?  How did it get it from her without her even knowing?  Was that fuckin telepathy too, wiping her memory?”

“Dropped.  Picked up.  Me.”

Skid’s jaw was clenched, her eyes looking at nothing as she processed all of that.  Kanor felt exhausted; that was too many words at once.

“I need to sedate him so I can take care of him.  You got what you needed, now let me do my job.”

Skid nodded, her eyes returning to look at him as she straightened up.

“Hang in there, boyo.  We’re not done with our crew inspections, ya know.”

Skid flashed a smile that was so fake it was painful to see, then looked over at Marcie as she turned from the bed.  Kanor saw a red strobing light set into the wall flashing behind her.

“Thanks, Marcie.  Keep us updated of how he’s doing.”

Kanor’s eyes drifted up towards the ceiling, an involuntary sigh escaping him.  Sedation.  He hated being sedated, but he welcomed the idea of sleep right now.  He felt so…empty.  Marcie’s face swam back into his field of vision, her expression soft.  She looked pained.

“I’m sorry I had to do that.  I need to put you under, you’re a mess.  But I promise I’ll take care of you…”

Somewhere during her diatribe he had closed his eyes, and he heard the hiss of a hypospray. 

Ahhhh.

                                                                           *****

“You know, for some great Klingon warrior, you sure end up in the sickbay quite a lot.”

Kanor’s lips pulled away from his teeth in a weak snarl as he opened his eyes, grunting as he lifted his head up to look at the speaker near his feet.  Kaz was striding into the curtained-off alcove Kanor’s biobed was situated in, the Metron’s hand reaching up to unclasp the maroon uniform flap across his chest, exposing the white undertunic beneath.

“I never said I was a ‘great Klingon warrior’.”

“Isn’t that what all Klingons think?  That they’re some kind of mythical warrior of epic proportions?”

“If that were true, then Klingons would rule the galaxy.  Clearly, we do not.”

Kaz pulled up the chair Marcie had vacated a few minutes ago.  She had told him how she was going to release him today, that he seemed to be recovering rapidly.  Kanor couldn’t be sure, his bouts with consciousness had been sporadic at best, but he was fairly certain she had been in the vicinity of his biobed the majority of the time he had been here.  When she wasn’t, it had been Skid in her place.  Nurses had tended to his care here and there, but Marcie and Skid had seemed to be there to simply be there.

“You know, it could be said you saved my people from being hurt down there.”

Kanor shrugged; his body still ached, but at least he could feel things again.  He was horribly stiff all over, however.  He couldn’t wait to get all of the kinks out of his body with a good workout.  He adjusted the biobed so he could be sitting up as he talked with Kaz.

“There’s no telling whether or not it would have attacked anyone.  I think the only reason it did strike me was because I saw it.”

Kaz had withdrawn one of his cigarettes as he listened, nodding his head.  He didn’t light it, just held it in his hand.

“Possibly.  Still, I’d like to say thank you.  From what the Doc tells me, you probably wouldn’t have survived that tossing about if not for your rather unique constitution.”

There was a silence that hung in the air for a few moments, punctuated only by the sounds of Kanor shifting uncomfortably on the biobed.  Why was everything on this damn ship so soft, so…plush?  He glanced over at Kaz, who seemed to be simply watching him, holding the cigarette between his lips.  Kanor was surprised he hadn’t lit it.

“How’s the ship?  What’s our condition?”

Kaz’s brow twinged slightly as his head tilted to one side, a surprised, pondering look coming over his features.  He finally shrugged, breaking eye contact as he pulled the cigarette from his mouth, holding it between two fingers.

“We left the system, trying to keep our distance from that damn thing.  I’ve had us randomly cruising along at warp six for the past couple of days while we try to go over everything.”  He got to his feet, walking back and forth along the left side of the biobed as he talked, his hands making meaningless gestures occasionally, that unlit cigarette jostling around.  “We’re fairly certain they’re following us; tracking us from that package, I guess, though how we still haven’t been able to figure out.  We’re faster than they are, though we’re not sure by how much.  Skid and Selorus recommend we destroy all the contents of that package since we’ve got all of the hard data copied and stored, but…at least this way, I know where they’re at.”

Kanor had to agree it was a sound strategy, if…a slightly suicidal one.

“Were we able to learn anything from going to that planet?”

Kaz shrugged.

“Not as much as I wanted to.  Based on the reports of the team, what you and Marcie uncovered seems to be the most promising.  But without anything to study, it’s purely conjecture.”

“Why don’t we go back, then?  I’m sure we could find that room again, get another sample.”

Kaz shook his head.

“I’m not sending anyone else down there until we’ve developed some sort of plan to deal with their telepathy.”  He paused, glancing at Kanor.  “You’re positive that’s what it was?”

Kanor shrugged.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.  Selorus and I postulated that the original inhabitants of that planet communicated telepathically, since there were no traces of a written language anywhere.  I know we haven’t run into any hard evidence, but it does seem like the two races are connected.  That massive ship comes around again while we’re planetside; next thing we know we’re under attack, only…we’re not really.  We all see different things, none of us saw that…that thing, at least not at first…”

Kaz nodded.

“And you’re telepathic, so when you…”

“Wait a minute, what do you mean, I’M telepathic?”

Kaz frowned, pausing near the head of the bed as he slipped the cigarette in-between his compressed lips again, talking around it.

“You’re part Vulcan, Vulcans are telepathic.”

Kanor held up a hand, shaking his head.

“Full-blooded Vulcans are TOUCH telepaths, key aspect there on the ‘touch’.  Some who have dedicated their lives to study can surpass that little requirement, but I’m certainly not one of them.  I’m part Vulcan, sure, but I’ve never been…telepathic, in any form.  My mother tried teaching me some Vulcan disciplines.  Unsuccessfully.”

“Marcie stated you were the one that instigated the doorway opening to the secret room; said you had a pain in your head?”

Kanor frowned.

“I just touched the right spot on the floor, that’s all…”

“And it was you, not Marcie, that saw the alien.  You were the one able to see through the illusions, or phantoms, or whatever they were.”

“Not until I had picked up that artifact, the crystal-like material.  Which seems like what the creature was after.”

“Still.  Marcie didn’t feel a damn thing when she collected it.  And you’ve admitted to touching both things that had some sort of reaction from you, so…”

“It still seems…rather circumstantial.”

Kaz reached up to pluck the cigarette from his mouth again, reclaiming his place in the chair.

“Of course it is.  It’s also all I’ve got to go on at the moment.”

Kanor’s eyes couldn’t look away from the cigarette Kaz was waving around in his fingers, still unlit.  The paper at the end was soggy with saliva; Kanor wondered if it had ruined the thing.

“Why aren’t you lighting that?”

Kaz followed Kanor’s gaze to his hand, his eyebrows rising as he eyed the object of Kanor’s question.

“Ahh.  It’s Marcie’s rule; no lit cigarettes in sickbay.”

Kanor arched an eyebrow.

“Isn’t it your ship?”

Kaz grinned, his eyes crinkling in amusement.

“Of course.  Still, she’s been with me a long time; she’s a good physician.”  He looked around the sickbay, gesturing with that unlit cylinder.  “This is her domain, her…command, as it were.  I can respect her wishes while I’m here, and in turn, it earns me more of her respect.  Plus, she can then focus on doing her job better.”  He shrugged.  “Besides, I’m hardly ever down here anyways.”

Kanor was glad he wasn’t having to deal with the cigarette smoke, at least.  The habit bothered him.

“So…telepaths.  As in not me.”

Kaz slipped the cigarette between his lips as he resumed talking.

“I’ve got Drei going through the personnel files to highlight all the telepathic species we have aboard.  Marcie and Selorus have been going over the data the two of you collected from the room, especially what she was able to scan about the crystal thingie before she lost it.  She’s also going over your medical readings from when the shuttle team picked you all up.  You had drastically elevated neurological activity.”

Kanor was stubbornly silent to Kaz’s continued implication.  When he didn’t respond, Kaz continued.

“Blame it on the crystal thing, that you sneezed at just the right time…I don’t care.  We’re exploring the possibility that your Vulcan genes’ propensity for telepathy had something to do with your altercation and interaction with the Benders.”

“Wait, the ‘Benders’?”

Kaz waved a hand dismissively, crossing his left leg over his right as he leaned back in his chair.

“Somebody coined the term for these fuckers after their little display down there; we’ve got nothing else to call them, so it’s the operative name for the time being.  ‘Mind Benders’.”

“That’s…cute.”

Kaz shrugged, plucking the cigarette from his lips and flicking it absentmindedly with his thumb.

“Yeah, well…better than ‘Doughnut Guys’, ya know?”

Kanor couldn’t argue that point, at least.

“Anyways; best we can tell, based off of what you and the rest of the away team described, a single Bender was able to telepathically manipulate the minds of eight individuals into believing eight separate, in-depth, complex illusions.  They were also able to cloak themselves from the minds of all eight individuals, still maintain the ability to move, and even physically attack.  All while maintaining previously mentioned illusions.”

“Skid mentioned everyone stated the illusions all disappeared once I was hit, though.”

Kaz nodded.

“They did.  However, I think that was more convenience than anything else.  It was still able to remain hidden from everyone, including the shuttle pilots, even their sensors.  Not a single person saw what hit you; Marcie said she was looking right at you when you went flying back suddenly, because you started screaming at the top of your lungs right beforehand.”

Kanor felt his flesh prickle as the memory flashed back through his mind.

“I was staring at it, right at it, and I…I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.  All that seemed…solid, clear, was its face.  There was a…impression of a tail, but…”  He shook his head in frustration.  “I never actually saw one.”

Kaz leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing, that cigarette dangling carelessly between his fingers.

“Go on.”

Kanor hadn’t mentioned the appearance of the Mind Bender in detail to Skid or Marcie when they had asked; he felt sure he must have remembered it wrong, blamed it on the drugs, the recovering.  He had to accept the reality of what he had seen, however.

“It didn’t really even have a face, just a mouth.  With sharp teeth.  It didn’t have any eyes, but I could feel it when it turned to look at me; in my mind, in my body.  I felt it when it realized I could see it, it was furious.”

“Hair, flesh, scales…?”

Kanor shook his head, his eyes tightening, trying to describe what he had seen, however briefly. 

“More like…chitin, carapace or something maybe.  It was black, shiny…smooth.”

“Chitin, carapace…like an insect?”

Kanor shook his head again.

“No, it didn’t really seem insectoid at all.  More like armor.  I can’t really say, I mean I couldn’t really see the damn thing well.”

Kaz lifted the unlit cigarette back to his mouth, his lips pursing around the device for a moment, pulling, as if it were lit.

“So it sounds fucking scary-looking, and it has terrifyingly strong mental abilities.  Yeah, no one is setting foot back on that planet until we’ve come up with something that might help us in another encounter.”

“What might that ‘something’ be?”

“Skid’s looking around in the database for some sort of telepathy shielding devices out there; there’s gotta be something we can use.  Though short of…well, a small little planet in the middle of nowhere that time has forgot, I don’t think this neighborhood of the galaxy has encountered telepathy quite like this before.”

“I can’t begin to describe how quickly the thing moved.  It was meters away when I first saw it- twenty, twenty-five or so-and closed the distance before I had a chance to do much of anything.  Granted, I wasn’t…at the top of my game, was a bit distracted.  A physical altercation with the Benders, if they can all move similar to that one…I’d advise against it.”

Kaz snorted, leaving the cigarette in his mouth as he got to his feet.

“Mister Kanor, there aren’t many people aboard this ship that would think engaging in a physical fight against a monster like what you describe would be a good idea.  But I’ll make sure to pass your advisement along to Munson.”

Kaz seemed like he was getting ready to leave; Marcie had insisted he try to stay largely inactive for a couple of more days, but he was ready to climb the walls now, let alone two more days.

“I’d like to discuss some security matters with Munson once I’m out of here, tomorrow if I can.”

Kaz’s eyes narrowed only slightly, but Kanor noticed.

“Pertaining to?”

“Some…concerns I noted down on the planet.”

Kaz studied Kanor’s expression for a few moments before replying.

“I’m sure you’d understand my own concerns with the two of you meeting, given your…history.  I’d have to insist on Skid being present.”

Kanor had figured that would be the case.

“Of course.  I’ll consult with her to set up a convenient time.  I’d also like to be involved in coming up with some innovative methods to counteract the Benders.”

“You’re in a biobed, Kanor.  Didn’t Marcie state she wanted you to remain relatively inactive for a couple of days?”

“I am, as you noted, mostly Klingon, Kaz.  Talking and reading, not fighting, practicing, IS remaining relatively inactive.”

Kaz reached up to pluck the unlit, rather worn-looking cigarette from his mouth, a grin lighting his features as he turned to slip out of the curtain.

“Then by all means, Mister Kanor, involve yourself away.  With Skid’s assistance, of course.”

A few more minutes passed after the Commodore’s departure before Marcie reappeared.  Her eyes swept over him with a critical eye as she glanced at his vital signs on the screen behind his head.

“Are you finally going to clear me to get the hell out of here, or not?”

Marcie’s features became mischievous for a brief moment as she smirked down at him.

“Why Kanor, I’ve never known you to be so eager to leave me behind before.”

“You’ve never confined me to bedrest for three days in a row, either.”

“Fine.  Next time you get knocked around by an alien, suffer multiple lacerations, broken bones, and a concussion, I’ll let you wallow in painful agony and bleed to death.  How’s that sound?”

“Splendid!”

Marcie withdrew the tricorder she had tucked into her belt pouch, pulling the bio-scanner attachment from its top.  Studying the readouts on the tricorder as she ran the separate, more sensitive bio-scanner along Kanor’s length, she shook her head, grinning. 

“You’ve got a great recovery rate, I have to say.”

“One of the few benefits, I suppose.” 

He reached up to run his fingers through his long, loose hair, watching her work.  It had been…somewhat strange, seeing her so much outside of his quarters these past few days.  In her uniform.  In her element, her sickbay.

“Clean bill of health?”

She frowned at him as she finished, putting the scanner back in place and returning the tricorder to its pouch.

“I guess.  No sparring with Skid for the next couple of days, though.  Ease back into it, don’t go leaping.”

Kanor rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been barely moving, let alone leaping.  You keep me in here any longer, I’m going to jump up onto the biobed and start doing calisthenics.”

She snorted, punching a fist against his shoulder without much force at all.

“Yeah, get outta here, then.  Maybe then I won’t have to worry about walking in here to find one of the nurses helping you with your ‘calisthenics’.  I swear, I’ve never seen Ensign Clarke take so much interest in a patient before…EVER.”

“Forget the nurses; if I want help with that, I’m going straight to the top.  Give me the doctor!”

She laughed at his comment as he swiveled his legs off the side of the biobed and stood up.  He couldn’t suppress a grimace, but it wasn’t overwhelming.  All of his previous excursions from the biobed had been with assistance.

“Get out of here before I lodge a formal complaint for harassment, mister!  And don’t forget your personal belongings!”

She leaned over to tap in an entry code on a panel beneath the biobed, the panel sliding aside to reveal a couple of shelves that held all of the belongings he had on him when he’d been admitted.  He was surprised to see not only both of his disruptors, but his Mek’leth and D’k tagh.  His wrist gauntlet, earchit, belt, and a cleaned version of the jumpsuit he had been wearing were also there.

“Munson let you keep my weapons here, too?”

Marcie smiled knowingly. 

“Let’s just say I made sure they were here, under lock and key only accessible to me.  I knew you wouldn’t leave them behind.”

Kanor snorted as he reached down and started pulling everything out.

“So…leverage.  In case I wanted to leave earlier than you were pleased with.”

Marcie shrugged, clasping her hands behind her back and swaying her arms back and forth a bit, a particularly smug look on her face.

“Hmph.  Well, I do appreciate you retrieving them; thought I had lost the blades.”

Marcie’s nose wrinkled a little in disapproval.

“They’re heavier than I like, though surprisingly light.  Was expecting them to weigh a ton.”

Kanor started unfastening the medical trousers and tunic he’d been put in; now that he thought about it, Ensign Clarke had usually been the one involved in changing his clothes every day.

“I wasn’t aware you were…proficient with bladed weapons, that you had a preference.”  He paused as he was pulling off his tunic, looking over at her.  “A little privacy?”

“Pssh…please, nothing I haven’t seen before.  Even from you, specifically.” 

Kanor noted the way her eyes sparkled with mischief as she looked at him, a corner of her mouth tugging upwards with mirth.  He fought back a grin as he shrugged and continued to change in front of her.

“I’m clueless when it comes to weapons, bladed or otherwise.  Just saying I’ll take the weight of my scalpel, tricorder, and hypospray any day.”

Kanor chuckled as he started pulling on his jumpsuit.  He felt a slight tug of disappointment in her answer.

“Ahhh.  Well, the blades are custom-designed for me; so they shouldn’t feel quite right in your hands, I suppose.  I could make some for you specifically, teach you how to use them?”

“I’ll…pass, but thank you.  I’ll use a phaser if I must, but that’s about where I draw the line.”

Kanor shrugged as he fastened his jumpsuit, picking up the earchit and placing it into his ear, where it self-adhered.  He longed to speak to Cypher.

“What’s that for, the ear thingie?”

“Oh…computer access.  It’s…easier to have information relayed to me privately when I’m out in the field.  I usually work alone, you know.”

He hated lying to Marcie, though it was technically true.  Cypher was a computer, and relayed information to him.  Still; he didn’t feel comfortable sharing Cypher’s existence just yet, not even to her.

“Well…you used to.  Not anymore, though.”

He looked up at her questioningly as he refastened the gauntlet, replaced his weapons in their various holsters and sheathes.  She met his inquisitive look with one of those bright smiles of hers.

“I was right about us being great friends, right?  I know what I’m talking about.  And don’t forget what I told you, when we first met.”

Kanor couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“That….I should say ‘yes’, and that you love…chocolate.”

She grinned from ear to ear.

“That you should take it, and MILK chocolate.”

Kanor laughed as he finished up, moving towards her, feeling almost like his normal self now that he had all of his regular accoutrements.

“You never did say what you meant by ‘take it’, how ‘it’ would benefit me so much…”

Marcie’s expression turned sly, incredibly amused.  She moved aside the privacy screen around his biobed as she stepped aside to let him pass.

“Have a good day, Mister Kanor.  Remember, doctor’s orders-no overexerting yourself!”