INTRODUCTION

 

 

As established from 'ASSIGNMENT: INCOMPREHENSIBLE' Part II, since Deltans are alluring to both sexes, and Lilith Cytock is a square peg foil to Darius' cavalier attitude, this can only be profoundly disturbing for Lilith. And inevitably quite amusing for Darius.

There has been conflict on different levels between Lycia and Lilith from the very beginning. Lilith finds herself both enigmatically drawn to and repelled by Lycia. Since Lilith cannot figure this out she rejects all friendly gestures offered by the Deltan, and bristles at her come ons, her probes for a response.  So, Lilith shapes up as Bones to Lycia's Spock. Or, actually, isn't it vice versa? But, similarly, they require some primary distinct Philosophical difference, but a little harder to define:

Lycia represents Kirk-like audacity, and Lilith, subtlety.
More than this, Lycia is the ultimate woman-as-other. Other than man to the point of other than Human, a distorted character.

They are, after all different species. Lilith, an adult, well versed in her field, experienced and proficient in her work. Then comes along this hot little Deltan 15 year old Lolita.

While Lilith is a mature and serious professional struggling with her issues conscientiously, while Lycia seems something of a natural adept in just actingout. Worse, it is Lycia who seems to get results. Especially among men, naturally.

And to make things worse, they become jealous over Lilith's brother Darius. Tension builds all around.

Lilith's work ethic is at odds with Lycia's provocation. The irony is that Lycia's Deltan neuro-sympathetic abilities might be helpful with Lilith's condition. Much as Lycia retreats from all behind her Deltan superiority, and her Oath of Celibacy, she still somehow responds to Darius, and somehow wants to reach out to Lilith, as her only intellectual equal in theoretical XenoMethodology.

Into this triangle come Diotima Mantinea and Sam Lassiter, as supporting cast, observers, to gossip with Lilith about Lycia, and speculate about her background. Lilith disdainfully strives for indifference. But Sam and Diotima egg her on to dig into Lycia's past. Lilith's nascent jealousy also slowly infects Diotima, seeing Sam respond to Lycia as well.

And this fuels the more, Sam and Diotima's insecure bickering.


 

The 34th Rule of Acquisition: "War is good for business."

FADE IN

Captain's log:

"Human children do not answer for the sins of their fathers. And so, the progeny of USS Myriad are to be repatriated to to the Kelvan colony. But her treasonous crew will stand court marshal! That is the pressure I am given to bring to bear. Thumb screws are strictly forbidden. Alas."

Under Captain Khakhor's watchful eye, Lycia interrogates of the renegade crew of the destroyed USS Myriad (See: 'My Name is Mudd'), and bluffs them into revealing that they had, indeed, been tracking USS Anfortas all the way back from the Clouds of Magellan!

But it is fellow Kelvan Lilith who appeals to the crew of Myriad to cooperate and explain why. Myriad tracked Anfortas in hopes of being lead to the whereabouts of the mysterious Apocalypse Fleet  in order to capture the unidentified Starship designated 'War'.

Still, why would anyone expect USS Anfortas to lead them to the Apocalypse Fleet? -muses Sam.

Meanwhile, Freud discretely monitors the rising levels of Lycia's Deltan pheromone musk in the compartment, as Sam's remark escalates the conflict and dysfunctional sexual tension between Lycia and Lilith, that has been building from when they first boarded USS Anfortas.

The former ship's doctor of the destroyed starship Myriad complains of the stress his crewmates are being put through. Khakhor is unsympathetic, but Freud has his medical tricorder returned to the Kelvan doctor by Dr. Ptol from sickbay who first has the readings logged to establish that no one was really endangered unduly.

The Kelvan doctor notices some glitch in his tricorder, when he examines a pregnant Kelvan woman named Pandora. But the Kelvan doctor keeps his own council.

Then the the Kelvan doctor's medikit is returned to a storage drawer in the brig, as Lycia takes a break from interrogation to let the former crew of Myriad stew a bit...

Lilith regards Lycia's virgin cock teasing with dry distain, while Lycia harbors suspicion towards Lilith's clearly mixed sympathies as a Kelvan colonist herself.

nevertheless, Darius observes that Lycia cannot help but actually respect Lilith precisely for the integrity of her dual allegiance, while Lilith is clearly intrigued, despite herself with Lycia's brash intelligence and libido, the very indiscipline that gets under her skin.

Impatient, Brunt abruptly blurts out the answer to Sam's query:

The reason why the renegade crew of Myriad expected USS Anfortas to lead them to the Apocalypse Fleet is because, interception of Apocalypse Fleet is the real mission of USS Anfortas to Rigel! So, crime busting and tax collecting was only a cover story! -realizes Diotima. Much to Liquidator Brunt's chagrin.

 

No sooner said, but USS Anfortas finally intercepts the Apocalypse Fleet! The red alert sounds

The ship rocks under a direct weapons strike!

Fade. Music rises.

END OF TEASER.

CHAPTER ONE

FADE IN:

The crew of USS Anfortas, coming under attack, immediately realize that War, agile, powerful and quick, is clearly a reproductive sapient starship, as first encountered in the Lesser Magellanic Clouds by USS Anfortas and the exploratory diplomatic force.

After a fierce struggle, USS Anfortas barely escapes as War comes under attack from other quarters. A dizzying array of contenders!
 

In the Ready Room, the Senior Staff are finally briefed:

The starship War is not only deadly in combat, but, just as in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, for it's remarkable software as a sapient vessel, War has become an object of contention that all powers fight bitterly to posses exclusively and to deny their rivals, everywhere she goes. And lately, the Tholians and the Orion Pirates have joined the attackers that starship War must continually fend off. The situation already threatens to destabilize the entire space sector. Worse, should the starship War ever actually fall into the wrong hands!
 

Soon afterward, Darius learns from survivors of the battle, beamed aboard Anfortas from their own wrecked vessels, all about the starship Famine, a Breen vessel acquired by Ferengi black marketeers and refurbished into the most lavish and opulent casino starliner!

Brunt confirms for Sam and Darius how the Ferengi black marketeers of the starship that has come to be known, appropriately, as Famine, are driving everyone into bankruptcy by vending and facilitating the unaffordable forbidden technology. Kelvan technology! -auctioned to the highest bidder for use in their desperate struggle and competition to capture the coveted Starship War, so Khakhor surmises.

It's simply because such a steep price is charged for the technology, but mainly it's implementation that tends to be so resource depleting. Lycia confirms that the Orion Syndicate is bleeding Rigel dry to pay, and that the Tholians must be depleting their resources as well.

And so, via a spectacular tractor beam bridge, amid the throngs of eager revelers, Liquidator Brunt arrives with Lycia on his arm, to confront the Daemon of Famine in the opulent VIP lounge aboard the space faring casino where Brunt and Lycia are lavishly plied with comps and bribes, while, in turn, Lycia endeavors to charm and manipulate the ever lecherous Ferengi.

But Brunt and Lycia are preceded by Sigmund Freud, observing and taking notes, quietly. Lilith is with him, waiting for her turn to examine the purloined Kelvan technology on auction.

Brunt reviews the Daemon's tax report with him, and learns all about how Binars, the engineering crew of Famine, make it all possible.

Making an excuse to take them aside, Freud relates to Brunt and Lycia how his patient Diotima, a Borg survivor, is quite convinced that the Binars are actually Borg! (As such a question is mission critical, Freud is not violating a confidence by repeating her opinion.) After all, the Borg are not always hostile. Indeed, the Borg tend to ignore anything or anyone that neither poses a threat nor much opportunity for assimilation pillage. And the Binars are simply not aggressive tactical drones to begin with, but rather, docile and helpful workers and consultants, ideally suited to trading technology. nevertheless, the Binars are Borg. In response, Brunt chastises Freud's naivety in stating the obvious. And it's no secret, much as the Federation spin-doctors downplay the matter.

And, adds Lycia, the Binar are assimilating a very willing Federation, with Borg technology adapted to the demand. The trick of Binar Borg assimilation is that there is no trick. The competitive survival advantages of cybernetic interconnectivity sell themselves. No one can afford to do without.

Thus, Borg evolution is, indeed, futile to resist! -realizes Freud. The Binars are just helping things along, in adapting the Federation to service the needs of the Borg Collective through co-prosperity and cooperation. Which Freud only finds more sensible and sophisticated than the constant pillage that has turned the galaxy against the Borg, and gotten their Collective infested with all manner of Trojan horse viri in acts or terror reprisal. Unless, of course, Diotima is right, and Borg invasion is slated to follow.

Next Lilith informs Brunt and Lycia, that with Captain Khakhor's permission, Commander Gotts has invited the Binar crew representatives to sit in! Yes, that might be interesting, Freud and Brunt agree. But Lycia seems concerned, as Brunt observes to Freud. Freud surmises that Lycia is concerned that she will not be able to influence and misdirect asexual Binars as easily as she does Ferengi.

As it turns out, the Binars on board Famine, docile, helpful, ever the good neighbors within the Federation, experience growing discomfort with the economic devastation left wake of the Starship Famine, and are coming into conflict with their overbearing Ferengi senior partners.

Much to the consternation of the Daemon, the Binars even let slip secret business dealings of the Ferengi, when the Binar representatives complain that they have been prevented by the Ferengi from really being maximally helpful to the crew of the Starship commonly known as Pestilence.

The Daemon admits, evasively, that the Ferengi crew are engaged in tough negotiation for certain medical technologies. Reluctantly, the Ferengi show our heroes to a view of the Starship Pestilence, through the majestic forward observation port. The Starship Pestilence has visibly undergone extensive Borg assimilation! -but piecemeal chaotic patchwork over the original design, ill-fitting, continually disintegrating and regenerating. Lycia observes how Pestilence lies between Famine and the looming starship War, apparently keeping War at bay, fending off the coveted sapient starship eager to destroy it's constant pursuer and source of the expensive technology by which it is constantly hounded by so many competing factions throughout the cosmos!

Lycia, alarmed at the manifest danger of greedy Ferengi playing with fire, signals USS Anfortas for immediate retrieval of the Away Team.

 

Little do our heroes suspect, however, that Pestilence is actually manned by Vidiians desperately attempting to utilize Borg nano-technology to arrest the dreaded Phage. Suddenly, a desperate Vidiian raiding party from Pestilence beams onboard Anfortas, straight into Sickbay to kidnap the nervous and withdrawn Dr. Arsinoe Ptol, USS Anfortas's mysteriously healthy and asymptotic Vidiian ship's surgeon.

Meanwhile, traitorous survivors of USS Myriad take advantage of the Vidiian attack to escape and also beam away. The escape is lead by Pandora. And the Kelvan doctor even manages to recover his medikit before they go. Meanwhile, Freud and Brunt beam back onboard USS Anfortas. But Lycia and Lilith are not with them!

Sam, operating the transporter, explains that he was unable to get a lock on Lilith and Lycia, because they where moving about onboard Famine, amid all of the exotic fields and materials onboard the Ferengi casino starliner, instead of standing still at the beam up point together with Freud and Brunt.

Indeed, On board Famine, Lycia is lost amid the crowds of patrons panicked as, with Pestilence warping away, Ptol their captive, War is left free to attack Famine! Lycia is in pursuit of something or someone that has caught her sight.

Meanwhile, the Ferengi Daemon hails Anfortas in a panic, pleading for rescue!

So, with Lycia and Lilith effectively hostage onboard Famine, Khakhor reluctantly moves Anfortas into position to fend off War and protect Famine. However Anfortas is quickly disabled in combat, by War.

And so, Famine flees, with War in hot pursuit!

Exposition on the Bridge of USS Anfortas ensues, recapitulates how Dr. Arsinoe Ptol had been brought aboard the Chimera, at the time masquerading as USS Anfortas, by holograms of dead Starfleet personnel, who where, so far as she knew, the legitimate crew of what everyone had believed was the real USS Anfortas, which is why the Hologhosts sought to seize the ship from the living crew who they took to be intruders.

But Ptol had hither to been assumed to be Photonic as her simulated crewmates, and de-compiled for good along with them. However, as it turns out, much to everyone's chagrin, she'd been treating patients and hiding out in her cubical, in Sickbay, all along. Gogol, the ships doctor, was glad to have her. And, apparently, didn't ask many questions. Freud protests, in this flying madhouse, how was he to know anything was amiss? But Freud finds himself suspected of misplaced sympathy. Diotima defends him. But she is given pause when reminded by Sam, that Freud tried to save the alternate Diotima at the expense of her own restoration to history! A dispute, renewed, sharply interrupted by, of all people, Ptol, making a hasty distress call from onboard Pestilence. 

Also, Brunt slips in an "I told you so" to Khakhor. He had, after all, urged the crew of Myriad turned over to Starfleet Intelligence ASAP.

The biggest conundrum, however, as it occurs to the shrewd Liquidator Brunt, remains the sheer technological incongruity of why the Vidiians, obviously possessing the technology to clone any body parts and biochemical they'd ever need, at will and with ease, from simple tissue samples or even genetic sensor scans, run around piratically harvesting organs in the first place!

But what are they to do now? Rescue Ptol, a stow away? argues Brunt. Observe the Prime Directive and stay well out of it! Because her own problems have simply caught up with her. And Khakhor agrees, more interested in finding and recapturing the traitorous crew of Myriad.

No stowaway, Freud defends Ptol, reviewing her records. Ptol's civilian commission as ship's surgeon is all in order! She is a crew member! But she was recruited by holograms! object Sam. Yes, but those holograms had correct Starfleet command codes, created as they where, from the engrams of Borg Assimilated Starfleet officers! Freud pleads with Khakhor, in the name of honor, to break off, and go after Pestilence, instead, to mount a rescue mission for his colleague Dr. Ptol.

Khakhor consults Brunt. And, naturally, Brunt wants Famine protected from War, and in one piece when he freezes their assets! So, much to Brunt's infuriation, Khakhor blithely decides exactly the contrary, giving the order to scan for the warp trail of Pestilence and mount the rescue of Dr. Ptol.

After all, Anfortas is clearly no match for War, but Famine stands a chance of outrunning War, at least for a good while. After completing retrieval of the Away Team, good riddance if War blasts Famine, and it’s instigating and profiteering crews, straight to atoms! And good riddance as well to any of the amoral decadent patrons not quick enough to bail out when War first attacked!

Meanwhile, the escaped survivors of Myriad confer onboard a mysterious starship. As they explore the bridge controls, they come to realize that they are onboard the legendary mysterious jet black cloaked silhouette of a vessel known only as Death, the rumored fourth ship of the Apocalypse Fleet!

Indeed, the escaped Kelvans are quite surprised to have received sanctuary onboard Death. They demand of Pandora: how did she accomplish this?

Just then, the Kelvan doctor notices that aboard Death, the unexplained glitch in his tricorder has mysteriously abated. And scanning Pandora, he discovers who and what Pandora really is! An Android. An Android pregnant with a Humanoid fetus!

Meanwhile, onboard Pestilence, the somewhat Borged Vidiian crew, secure in their escape, turn to their terrified captive Arsinoe, casting about her in desperation only to discover the ship's interior a great Vidiian/Borg laboratory chamber of horrors!

Meanwhile, back on board Famine, Lycia fights her way through the panicked casino crowds to catch up with an elderly Deltan male showing Lilith the sophisticated technology for sale by the Ferengi. "Father!" cries Lycia.

Meanwhile, Anfortas, warp engines back online, catches up with Pestilence in hot pursuit at high warp.

[As yet unwritten. You can help!]

Amid a steamy sequence of gregarious Deltans n

aked in micro-gravity at home in their quarters on board Famine where Lycia learns from her long lost father, now in the employ of the Ferengi and how he has just been assisting Lilith as a prospective customer to inspect and test the purloined Kelvan technology on auction by the Ferengi. But Lycia realizes that all this has occurred even as the Vidiian raiders provided the diversion that facilitated the escape of the renegade Kelvan crew of Myriad.

And so, Security Chief Lycia begins to form the suspicion against Lilith of abetting the Vidiian attack and Kelvan escape using the Ferenge's forbidden Kelvan technology to compromise Anfortas's special Kelvan shields.

Lilith, however, only protests that the Vidiian raiding party simply must have beamed onto USS Anfortas when her shields where lowered for the return of the Away Team!

Indeed, Lilith reflects and begins to experience an increasing twinge of resentment at the ongoing suspicion she has been treated with as a Kelvan colonist, and even begins to question and regret all the sacrifice that she has made for the sake of loyalty to the Federation and Starfleet. (As seen in the six part miniseries introduction to 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools')

But suddenly, a Tholian fleet approaches, ensnaring both Famine and War in the famous Tholian web. But, just as suddenly, the Orion Pirates arrive to attack the Tholians, and Famine escapes. However, Famine and War have both been delayed just long enough for Anfortas to begin catching up after being diverited pursuing Plague. War likewise escapes the Tholian web to rejoin the pursuit.

And when War finally attacks Famine, Lilith and Lycia are stripped naked and taken hostage by the panicked Ferengi, demanding and receiving protection from War by Anfortas.

But Lycia manages to hide her dek'tagh in the opulent furnishings.

Meanwhile the rogue Kelvans discover that they are aboard a time ship from the future!

The Kelvan doctor responds that it is whispered that Star Fleet, through Section 31, is said to have established plausibly deniability of dealings with the ominous starship whispered of as Death.

How, then, has Pandora brought them here? How is it that she knows how to operate the timeship?

It is already clear that Pandora is not whom she seemed.

But why has she deceived them?

Pandora explains that she has joined forces against the Borg threat, in a covert black ops enlisting the aid of the most dangerous pariahs in the quadrant in the development and manufacture of the very worst of forbidden weapons.

But while the Orion Syndicate succeeded in reverse engineering the Tholian chroniton missiles into a technology more accessible to Humanoids, the Orion Syndicate reneged upon their contract to deliver the technology to section 31 when the Ferengi Daemon of Famine offered them a more tantalizing proposition, the opportunity to capture the starship Death!

(Of course, the Ferengi black marketeering of the crew of Famine, and indeed their acquisition of a used Breen Starship to begin with, is also only fall out from the Temporal Cold War machinations of the rogue Starship and Section 31 in the first place. For not only has Section 31 supported every outlaw faction they could exploit in their schemes, leading to a surging growth in the armaments black market, but actively instigated the rush to acquisition of the sapient Starship technology.)

So, Pandora herself infiltrated the Kelvan Nationalist Movement to use the renegade Starship Myriad in the ill fated attempt to capture an Orion Syndicate chroniton missile for Section 31!

And, naturally, the former crew of Myriad are incensed to discover themselves pawns of the Federation Section 31!

But Pandora reminds them that she could have escaped on her own, far sooner and more easily.

Would she have brought them here if she was only betraying them?

No, the Kelvan Empire in Andromeda is to have a pivotal rôle in dealing with the Borg. A secret that she has kept even from Section 31...

Meanwhile, onboard Famine, now in hiding from War in a dangerously electric and radioactive debris field from recent conflict, still stalked by the relentless starship War, the Ferengi suspect some relationship between Lycia and their own Deltan sales associate, actually her father, which he and Lycia both offhandedly deny. The manipulative and controlling Sexist Ferengi also feed into Lycia's suspicions and against Lilith, and into Lilith's ambivalence toward Lycia towards whom she is both so drawn and repelled.

The conflict between Lycian and Lilith mounts until finally, Lycia loses her temper and takes her dek'tagh to terrified Lilith's throat!

But in the heat of the moment, with skin contact, Lycia connects to the nervous system and psyche of Lilith.

Thus Lycia has violated her Deltan oath of celibacy to Starfleet in the worst way, because Lilith is Kelvan, and Kelvan colonists are considered particularly sexually immature, having, after all, been seduced by their prisoner James Kirk, despite their own vast superior intelligence!

Which condescension infuriates Lilith!

But Lilith soon discovers the true reason for the Deltan Oath of Celibacy in Starfleet. (Madness, catatonia and death being only the worst case exaggerations.)

For, being held hostage in the seraglio of the Ferengi on board the opulent, decadent and debauched is not without it's compensations, including fabled, rare and exotic sexual opportunities.

However, Lilith finds that she has simply lost all interest. Normal Humanoid sex now seems empty and meaningless. Realizing this, Lycia grows mortified with guilt.

[Numerous scenes and plot developments missing. You can help!]

Eventually, with the help of the Binars, Lycia's father, sensing something amiss, schemes to meet and talk with Lycia, in secret.

Lycia's father then persuades the Binars to engineer Lycia and Lilith's escape, as it turns out, to a planet where Lycia and Lilith detect the escaped crew of Myriad who have beamed down from the cloaked Starship Death in orbit.

[As fate would have it? Not likely! Way to much of a coincidence. Any ideas for plausible rationalization?]

Lycia resolves to apprehend the escaped crew of Myriad, but, instead, Lilith turns upon Lycia and takes her by surprise, to run away and join her fellow Kelvan colonists instead!

Only later on, among the former crew of Myriad, Lilith begins to glean an inkling that her neurological condition has improved because of contact with Lycia, when Lilith has to multitask at the controls of the Starship Death, and discovers somewhat improved coordination and better mastery of her consequent seizures.

                     To be continued?

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