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Text File | 1995-04-09 | 44KB | 786 lines

                     SWEET SAVAGE STAR TREK

                               by
                       Assorted N. Varied



                            PART ONE

     Sultry, sullen, well-muscled, moody, restless, wild,
enigmatic, dark, brooding, somber, mysterious, savage, frenzied,
sensual, impetuous, barbaric, and ruthless, the Captain strode
lithely to his chair, performed the PM and the EG, and intoned,
"Engage!"
     The bridge crew cringed as one, all but cinnamon-haired
Ensign Krista Lovely.  She stood stunned, as the magnetism of
this dynamic and incredibly masculine officer reached out to her.
Couldn't the other women feel it?  Or was this shockwave of
sensuality something only she could sense?  He turned, as if
feeling her response--and she was lost.  Those gray eyes pierced
into her very soul.  The air was charged with passion, the long
slender fingers of her eager soft hand reached out towards the
captain...slowly, shyly, tenderly.  She lightly caressed the torn
fabric of his tunic.
     "Captain...you're...you're hurt."
     "Back to your station, it's nothing!"
     Her eyes locked with his eyes.  She could hardly speak.  In
a voice that was little more than a whisper she replied,
"Captain...Jean Luc!  Don't shut me out again.  Let me help.
Please."
     The captain started to speak.  His mouth moved, but there
was no sound as,  eyes still locked, they moved as one towards
the turbolift.  By the time they reached the doors, the injured
arm was out of the tunic.  Her soft, warm lips were on the
captain's bare shoulder as the doors closed behind them...
     ...then the doors opened again.  Data, intrigued by this
example of human interpersonal interaction, instructed the
computer to keep the turbolift from leaving this level.
     The bridge crew watched in utter fascination.  This was a
side of Picard they had never seen before.  The backside...
     Crusher comes upon Picard and Lovely as they leave the
turbolift.  Naturally, Lovely is upset, as Crusher looks daggers
at her, and Picard draws himself up to full Captainly dignity and
says "Thank you for your assistance, Ensign, I'm sure Dr.
Crusher will help me get to Sickbay."
     The lovely Lovely is crushed--she didn't *mean* to cause him
any trouble.  And Dr.  Crusher is one of the women she admires as
a role model.
     Tears, unbidden, filled her eyes.  Blindly, she stumbled
past the astonished Picard and stern Crusher.  "Ensign!" she
heard, as she turned the corner, desperate for the safe refuge of
her quarters.
     The door to her quarters whisked open.  "Hi, Krista!  Say,
I've got those read-outs we---what's wrong?"
     Stunningly handsome Lance Sterling, her long-time companion,
roommate and "big brother" confidant, enveloped her in a
comforting hug as she sobbed her heart out against his broad
chest.  His heart skipped a beat--didn't she know how it hurt him
to see her like this?  He'd loved her from afar for so many years
now, but she never seemed to think of him as more than a good
friend, someone to borrow money from, someone to patch her up
when she'd been out trolling for rough trade in the shuttle bay,
someone to take care of the injections when her hands shook too
much.
     Sometimes he almost felt that she took him for granted.
Even now, as she writhed in despair in his arms, he could tell it
wasn't him she was thinking of, but another man, or possibly a
dog, or the Horta in engineering who did her monthly skin peels.
     "What is it, my passion flower, my Venusian orchid snake, my
little poodle?" he moaned, almost losing control.
     "Oh, Lance, thank heavens I can talk to you," she husked,
tearing his face with her nails and flinging him across the room.
     "I don't know what I'd do without your friendship," she
cooed, standing on his broad chest and staring down at his manly
face.  "It's the captain again...He's used me and flung me
aside...Lance, tell me what to do!"  And she nudged his jutting
chin with her toe.
     Now's my chance, he thought.  He performed a crossover flip
in midair, tossed Krista lightly to her bunk, and leaped---out
the door...
                                #
     Meanwhile, back in sickbay, Captain Picard was faced with
the knowledge that he had betrayed the fragile bond of trust that
he had worked so carefully to build between himself and the
tempestuous medical officer.  She had been hurt before.  The
death of her husband lay between them like a flaming sword and
his recent dalliance with the ravishing, but shallow, Krista only
added fuel to the fire of their estrangement.
     "Beverly..." he began, his voice choked with emotion.
     "Don't try to explain, Jean-Luc," she said coldly.  "I've
been gone too long.  I should have known better than to expect
that what we had...what we might have had...could withstand that
separation.
     "But Krista means nothing to me," he protested stepping
closer.  Beverly did not move away.  "Neither did Phillipa."
     "Phillipa?"
     "Never mind."  He closed the distance that remained,
gathering her slender reed-like frame into his arms.  "It's you
and only you that I care for.  And I promise you that nothing and
no one, will ever come between us again."
     "Oh, Jean-Luc."  And Beverly melted into his embrace,
pressing the soft pillow of her bosom against his hard, muscled
chest.
     Looking down at the pale ivory of her face and the aurora of
auburn hair which burned like a halo around it, he lost all
control.  He rained kisses down upon her rose-red lips and his
strong hands wandered over the lush contours of her body.  All
thoughts of Jack and Krista and Phillipa were swept away by the
torrent of desire which gathered to a swelling wave, then crashed
down over them.  Again and again...
     ...the communicator sounded.  Again and again it spoke his
name.  Again and again he willed it to stop.  It sounded again.
With a deep, heartfelt, low pitched sigh, he reluctantly made his
way towards the electronic intrusion, wiping the wisps of blood
from Beverly as he moved.
     He began to remember that he was a Starship Captain with the
responsibility for over a thousand lives, and several billion
credits worth of starship.  In a voice barely under control at
the start, but more controlled with every utterance, he
responded:  "Picard here, what's the emergency?"
     "Captain," said Data, "It's Ensign Krista.  She's..."
     "Data, get on with it; what's the problem?"
     "Sir, she's missing.  Yeoman Lance has been taken to sickbay
mumbling her name, one of the shuttle crafts is missing, and a
solitary white rose with two thorns has just materialized on your
command chair with the letter "P" laser engraved on one petal."
      Beverly had been nibbling passionately on his left shoulder
while lightly, gently, tenderly caressing his bleeding arm.
     "Come my precious," she said, "I'll fix all of your hurts.
Come, Jean Luc, I'll...examine you...here.  Sick Bay can wait,
and Data can handle the bridge."
     The Captain's desire expanded.  He felt all of his tightly
bound, pent up, barely controlled, passionate, torrid emotions
begin to get the better of him.  In a tremulous voice that was
filled with despair as he paused to take breath in the musky
cabin air, he said,  "Ack...ack...acknowledged, Mr. Data...go to
yellow alert.  I'll be there as soon as I've checked out a
few...points."
     "Yellow alert, Sir?" questioned Data.  "May I again point
out that the rose was white?"
     "Data!" said Picard, untangling himself from Crusher's
crush, "Just do it!"
     "Aye aye, Sir.  Bridge out"
     Picard knew he was in trouble; Krista was in the shuttle,
and the white rose meant that Phillipa had, against all orders,
returned.  What should he do?  What COULD he do?  He made his
decision.  He activated a secret signal, known only to one
person.  Hungrily, passionately, excitedly, he eyed Crusher, and
waited until....
     ...until Crusher, tired of waiting, finally snapped, "Oh,
for heaven's sake, Jean-Luc," whirled, and stormed into the
turbolift, impatiently pinning up her masses of auburn hair and
glaring at the Captain as the doors closed on her.  On the
bridge, Picard stood subtly flexing his bone structure, betraying
no trace of the relentless tumult within.
     Worf said imperturbably to Geordi, "Jean-Luc?"
     Geordi bared his teeth.
     Crusher strode into sickbay, ignoring Ensign Shaun, who was
waiting for her, clutching a dusty cat to his chest.  Shaun's
heart threatened to burst with happiness.  She had walked so
close to him this time, and the edge of her jacket had even
touched him.  He was content with morsels; he knew she would
never even realize he existed, but he could live with the
occasional touch, glance, or preoccupied reprimand.  Now he dared
to speak to her as she stood waving a generic scanner over the
twitching, shuddering Yeoman Lance.
     "Doctor," he ventured, huskily.
     "Yes, Ensign?" she said in an ominously sweet voice.
     "This cat...It came flying out of an air vent in Transporter
Room 3.  Doctor, I don't know if it's hurt.  Could you...look at
it?"  Some of Shaun's long-concealed passion must have betrayed
itself in his voice, for she gave him a puzzled look, and then a
dazzling smile.
     She reached out for the cat, and he surrendered it to her,
daring to let his hand touch hers.  The cat gave her a puzzled
look, and then a dazzling smile.  Shaun gave the Doctor a dazzled
look, and then a puzzling smile...
     "This be...Thisbe?" muttered Beverly, reading the cat's dog-
tag.
     "This be or not this be," raved Yeoman Lance.
     "Yes, but who dragged whom, how many times, around the walls
of where?" said Shaun impetuously.  She gave him a puddly look,
and a dangling smile.  He gave her his heart.  She gave him
poison ivy.  Yeoman Lance gave an agonizing shriek.  Everybody
melted into everybody else's arms.  (It wasn't the heat, it was
the humidity).
                                #
     Jean-Luc turned to Beverly.  "Beverly, I'd like you to meet
Captain Phillipa Louvois.  Phillipa, this is my Chief Medical
Officer, Beverly Crusher."
     "Hello," said Beverly as she planted a right hook in
Phillipa's jaw.
     After Beverly planted the right hook, she pulled back on the
pole and let out some line.  Phillipa, struggling, fought the
hook and pulled free, snapping the line and...
     S P L O O O O O O O S H!
     ...Ensign Shaun put down the bucket.  Delia, staggering and
weaving, said, "Oh, thank you," and politely left the bridge.
     "Good job, Number Twelve," said Picard.  Ensign Shaun beamed
modestly.
                                #
     Meanwhile on Deck Fourteen, there was a strange disturbance
of the kind that no one would ascertain...but then, few would
want to.
     The doors to the holodeck opened...and closed again.
Silence hung over the sight like a buzzard.  The doors opened
briefly, and the lights inside flickered.  Not the usual flicker
of the yellow grid lights the way it was when the holodeck wasn't
programmed.  Rather, like the lights of a soft amber lamp hanging
from the ceiling.  The low ceiling.  The lights were on a
chandelier, one of many.
     And the band started to play.
     "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown" drawled from the trombone.
The lights flickered softly, and the bartender polished the
marble top of the bar with his white cloth.  The woman, seated at
the bar, twirled the contents of her drink.  Then she heard the
doors open behind her...and knew exactly what was happening.
     My door to the outside, she thought.  Wonderful.  I can see
him again.
     She got halfway to the door and stopped.  Why would she want
HIM again?  HE was the one who confined her here, by his own
inaction.  No, Riker wasn't the one she would pursue.
     Quietly, Minuet started walking again, through the
doorway...and didn't vanish.  Halfway to the bridge, she thought
about the confines of the Bourbon Street Bar she'd just left, and
about whom she would lay her sights on.
     Captain Jean-Luc Picard, here I come!
                                #
     Silence hung over the turbolift like a vulture over a dying
man.  Minuet, resting her predatory shoulders against the wall,
reveled in the experience of real life.  She scratched her back
gently against the railing, and stroked the cat that wriggled out
of the air vent.  Outside the smoky holodeck, sensations were so
exquisite, so harsh, so marvelously mundane.  She thought of
Jean-Luc Picard, the exquisite smoothness of his scalp, the
depthpth (she spat out some cat hairs) of his commanding voice,
his moderately poor French, so like her own.  They were
soulmates, destined to join, and she pondered her tactics.
     Tugged by two sweating men in T-shirts, the turbolift doors
hissed open, and she flickered an appreciative leopard-like
glance at their brawny torsos.  She flung her hips forward,
following a beat behind with her shoulders and knees, and prowled
onto the bridge.
     "Ah, mais non!  Ce n'est pas possible!" she breathed in
dismay.  Her prey was not there.  She clutched at a nearby
Klingon to keep herself from falling.
     "Rrrrrrrr!" he growled, baring his marvelously patinaed
teeth.  She let herself fall after all, seizing the opportunity
to gaze up at him.
     "I presume you are looking for the captain," said a
sprightly tenor voice.  A delectable jewel-like creature with
amber eyes and slicked-back hair was looking at her innocently.
     "Yes.  How did you know?" she breathed.  So many males, so
little time, she thought despairingly.  Those suits...so
inviting, like plastic shrink-wrap around a box of candy, or the
skin of a peach.
     "That would be consistent with the general course of events
so far today," he said.  He opened his mouth to expound further,
and the divinely dark gentleman with the radiator glasses put a
banana in it and sneered cheerfully.
     "He's on the observation deck," said the Klingon in a
guttural voice, and shoved his teeth back behind his lips with
both hands.  He glared down at her and she writhed savagely back
to her feet.
     "Oh, thank you," she breathed knowingly, and flung her hips
back into the turbolift.  She would keep the bridge in mind if
she couldn't find Picard.  It was like a tin of sardines, packed
with delicious morsels.  "Observation deck," she breathed, and
struck an interesting attitude.
                                #
     Captain Jean-Luc Picard stood in the shadows of the
observation deck and gazed intently into the deep black velvet
folds of space that lay draped outside the confines of the
Enterprise, enveloping the sleek metal hull with an icy cold
vacuum.  This massive ship of the starry seas was under his
command and hundreds of people, nay a thousand, trembled at his
every word.  But tonight, that power over his crew offered little
solace to his troubled soul.  His piercing grey eyes darkened
with pain as he pondered the whirlwind which even now was
gathering force, threatening to gust over him and carry away the
tattered remains of his battered peace of mind.
     His had always been a lonely life, the life of the intrepid
explorer always searching farther and farther into the unknown,
uncovering the mysteries of the cosmos, yet the one mystery which
ever eluded him was his own heart.  How had he, so aloof and
austere, so removed from the concerns of ordinary men, become
tangled in the destinies of three women...four, if you counted
the holodeck image of the doe-eyed, soft-voiced Minuet.  Five, if
you counted the bouncing blonde from Paris.  A youthful
indiscretion, yes, but fun while it lasted...  Thank god she was
still stuck on that remote research outpost.  He had far too many
women left to deal with as it was.
     First, of course, there was the willow-thin, red-haired
Beverly Crusher.  He had been drawn to her like a moth to a
flame, destined to burn.  Yet always he had held back from the
fateful conflagration which would consume them both and end the
years of yearning and desire.  The memory of her dead husband,
his best friend, had stood between them until it was too late.
She'd been transferred.  Well, that did happen in Starfleet.
     So, understandably, he had found consolation in the company
of willow-thin, red-haired Phillipa Louvois.  Her tempestuous
nature, her storm-tossed moods, had caught his attention like a
right cross to his jaw.  They went to dinner, then moved on to
the dessert course, and the JAG officer soothed his heart from
the pain of past partings.  She had been generous and giving and
very athletic, but their's was not a meeting that was meant to
last.  At least, he hadn't intended it to last.  But now she was
aboard the Enterprise.  Which would have been fine, except
Beverly had been transferred BACK by now.  Already their one
encounter had been a clash of titian-titans.  And several
security guards had been injured in the fray.
     And Lovey...or Lovely...or whatever her name was, had just
happened to catch him in a weak moment.  After all, he had been
away exploring for so long that he was somewhat naive about
current dating mores.  Fortunately, she was now wandering through
space in a shuttlecraft.  Awkward to explain in the captain's log
but at least she was off the ship and out of the way.
     However, Minuet was another problem entirely.  And he
refused to take any blame for her since she was Riker's fantasy.
Nevertheless, Beverly or Phillipa or both would find her soon,
slinking down the corridors in her evening gown, crooning out
"Jean-Luc!  Jean-Luc!" in that enticingly husky, breathless
voice.  Then, of course, all h*ll would break loose!
     Picard sighed deeply, pierced to the marrow of his being by
the injustice of it all.  If only he could find some way off this
retched vessel, to escape this ongoing series of lust, love,
ruin, and despair.  Oh, but to return to the days of his youth,
to the commands of his past, to a small, secluded cabin somewhere
in the French Alps, preferably in winter, all roads covered by a
crushing blanket of blizzardly snow, all protected by a
confiscated cloaking system.  (Certainly he had friends, nay,
contacts amongst the Klingons who could provide...without wishing
to try his endurance.)
     The hiss of the observation desk doors was like the whisper
of promise, a taste that perhaps dreams can come true.  But there
was an odor to the air, a tinge of Chanel No.  5, and the
nightmare continued.  He turned and beheld the tender countenance
of Ensign Sonya, a frail, petite youth, who only sought his
favor.  Her eyes, like limpid pools, were covered, then revealed,
with the ever-so-slow and tender closing and opening of her
eyelids.  She felt she had much to atone for, that she should at
least be allowed to cook him dinner and breakfast (in that order)
and wash his clothes.
     "Jean-Luc..." she sighed, as though it had taken all her
strength.
     The doors hissed again.  Another woman sighed, again in that
strange, strength-denying manner:  "Jean-Luc..."  It was Beverly.
     "Jean-Luc..." spoke yet a third voice, this of determined
Phillipa, entering behind Beverly.  The two moved in concert,
without sign of their previous battle.  They were one with their
intent.
     "Jean-Luc..."  The fourth was none other than Minuet, much
of her nightgown gone and forgotten, lost in manners best left to
the pages of another scribe.
     The Captain found himself at the center of a four-pointed
diamond, the intents of the women plain, their cooperation
complete.  How to disengage from this without hurting their
souls, without destroying their self-esteem, without suffering
the crushing, decades-old tradition of having his uniform torn.
     "Jean-Luc..."  The five of them turned to the once-more open
doorway.  The woman that stood there was short in stature, but
tall in authority...and in years.  She looked at each in turn,
taking in the loneliness that was Beverly, the companionless that
was Phillipa, the youthliness that was Sonya, and the
artificialness that was Minuet.  Last, she stared at the Captain
and her face hardened.  Her glare transformed her otherwise mild
expression into the countenance of terror...of parenthood.
     "Jean-Luc," his mother said, "how many times have you been
told not to tarry on the holodeck.  Come away."
     He pressed through the foursome, head bowed, tugging lightly
at his tunic.  "I am so very sorry," he said, "but Mama calls,
and she must ever be obeyed."
     "Mama," the captain said, once they were outside, "I wish to
thank you for your timely arrival, but I have duties to perform,
both here and on the bridge.  I cannot deny my sense of
responsibility, my command, my assorted gestures and maneuvers.
I must be the man I was meant to be."
     "I know of this and more, Jean-Luc," the kindly woman said.
"If you must proceed--and indeed you must--then do so at *your*
discretion, not at the whim of a quartet of vivacious vixens."
     "I'll make it so, Mama."
     "Oh, ma'am."  The man's voice was a slow drawl, an accent
that was virtually unknown amongst the stars in the universe.
Long ago it had been thought dead.  Only now, eight decades
later, was it reborn.  Picard and his mother turned and a smile
came ever so gently to the woman's lips.  Here, perhaps, was the
companion that *she* had been seeking...?
     "Ma'am," the Admiral said, "it's been awhile since Ah wahked
the decks o' this ship, but Ah think I can remember my way ta one
o' the lounges.  Y'all care for some Kentucky bourbon?"
                                #
     (Captain Picard has been possessed by one of those bodiless
creatures that _love_ to possess starship captains in order to
experience human sensation.
     The scene is sickbay.  Picard is strapped to an examining
table, clad only in a slouch hat and some scraps of rabbit fur.
His top officers stand around him dolefully.)
                                #
     "Well, Doctor?", said Commander Riker.  "Can you help him?"
     Crusher sighed.  "As you know, this sort of being can only
be driven out of the body it inhabits by being subjected to a
vast overload of sensation.  I don't know what that would do to
the captain, or to this _creature_".
     Commander Troi stepped forward, falling into parade rest and
displaying all her intellectual force.  "Commander, I must remind
you that this is a living being.  We have no moral right to
endanger it".
     Riker looked at his beloved captain, moaning and writhing in
his bonds.  He remembered the scene on the Bridge--the shouts,
the struggle, the beer suds flying everywhere--and he shook his
head decisively.  "Croak it".
     "We all know what form of sensation would be most
effective,"  said Crusher.  "Unfortunately I--my oath..."
     Cinnamon-haired Ensign Krista Lovely shrank back as all eyes
turned to her.  It was all too true.  She looked deep into her
beloved Captain's piercing hazel eyes.  He seemed to recognize
her, to plead with her for help!  Only she could save him!
     But how could she do it?  How could she make this supreme
sacrifice?  How could she surrender to him--reveal to him that
aspect of her that no man had yet touched--her new red and black
lace panties.
     She swooned and when she awoke, she was strapped to the
examining table wearing only a slouch hat and some scraps of
rabbit fur.  Porcelain-skinned Beverly Crusher was staring
meaningfully into Jean-Luc's piercing hazel ears, and fondling
the new red and black lace undergarment that had been made (with
just a few tucks and folds) into a remarkably fetching hat.  It
looked quite rakish on the autocratic hawk-nosed captain, and
cinnamon-haired biscuit-dough-skinned-butter-topped Ensign Krista
Larvae couldn't suppress a small whimper of animal despair...
                                #
     Data started to punch in the new course and speed.  Suddenly
he stopped.  Abruptly his head snapped up and slightly to the
left.  His fingers left the console.  Slowly, ever so slowly, he
rose from his seat.  All eyes on the bridge should have been on
Data, but no one noticed his strange behavior.  No one was ready
as he abruptly turned towards the command section, strode
purposefully towards Deanna and reached deeply with his right
hand into the deep, rich, shining dark tresses which were piled
high atop her delicately structured olive-skinned Betazoid face.
     Diana's startled look softened as she suddenly realized what
was happening.  Data's left hand, which only moments ago was
piloting a mighty starship, was now just below Diana's
exquisitely formed chin, where no hand had gone before.  The ship
was off course.  But Data and Diana were on course towards the
ready room.  A faint smile caressed Diana's ruby red lips.
     Data had never felt this way before.  His very existence was
governed by logic, and not by whim.  Why had he done this?  Why
had he allowed such an impulse to take over his very being?  Was
this what was meant by impulse power?
     There were no more buttons as the door to turbolift opened.
Abruptly the turbolift discharging the captain onto the bridge.
Buttoning his tunic, he quickly surveyed the situation.
     "Where are we going?  Where's Mr. Data?  Where's Counselor
Troi?" he asked.
     "Sir!" said Worf, "Their behavior was strangely
erotic...er...erratic."
     "Well, where are they?"
     "They went to the ready room, sir!"
     "The ready room, eh?  I have a ship going nowhere in a
rhombic transparametric ellipsoid orbit at warp 5 and they're in
the ready room???  What the hell are they doing in **MY** ready
room???"
     Geordi smiled.  "Captain," he said, "It's all right.  It
happens to Data once each season."
     "What does?  I don't understand!!"
     "Why Captain," continued Geordi, "You know that Commander
Data is fully functional; he's merely...well...functioning!"
     "What??"
     "They're...playing a game."
     "A game??  What game?"
     "Captain, it should be obvious...they're playing the new
version of D & D!!!"
     The captain said harshly to his first officer, struggling to
retain his dignity, "You'd better handle this proliferation of
romantic interests, Number One.  It's beyond my control.  Under
NO circumstances will you tell any of these...  people...where I
am, is that understood?"
     The blue-eyed Commander Riker said seriously, "Understood,
Captain," but as the older man turned and strode towards his
ready room, Riker's eyes twinkled and a wide white grin spread
lopsidedly across his face.  As the door hissed shut, he took the
captain's seat, lounged back expansively, and said to the bridge
at large, "Gentlemen, you have your orders.  Engage!"  He turned
to Deanna Troi, seated demurely at his left, and reached out a
beckoning hand.
     Her liquid dark eyes widened in prim shock and a hint of
wicked delight, and she exclaimed, "Will!  Surely not on the
bridge?"
     "Dibs on Minuet," said Geordi enthusiastically, and left for
the observation deck.  At the turbolift door, he called, "Come
on, Data, it's you for Ensign Lovely!"  Data got up pertly and
marched out, looking confused.
     "I don't think that is what the Captain had in mind,"
growled Worf.
     Meanwhile, Picard, seated at his desk, tried to concentrate
on the viewscreen.  Behind him the stars streaked into relentless
infinity, but from where he sat the light was steady and
reassuring.  He had come here because he needed some stability,
but the turmoil in his mind seemed unstoppable.  Wearily, he
propped his forehead on his hand, shielding his eyes against the
ceiling light.  The door chime sounded.
     "Number One, I thought I said...Aahh, what does it matter?
Come!" he said wearily.  He turned his attention back to the
viewscreen, his forehead still resting on his hand, and the door
hissed open.
     [YOUR NAME HERE] stepped quietly into the room and stood
before the desk, resting her fingertips on its polished surface.
For another moment Picard still attempted to look at the
viewscreen, his face shadowed by one capable hand, the bones of
his skull backshadowed in the cold light of the stars.  With an
exasperated sigh, he slammed his hand down on the desk, said,
"All right, what is it that couldn't wait, Number One..."  And,
turning his gaze upward in sudden surprise, "You!"
     "Yes, Captain, I came as soon as I knew.  I'm sorry to
intrude," said [YOUR NAME HERE].
     "YOUR visits are NEVER an intrusion," said Picard, a smile
transforming his autocratic face, even lighting the taut, tired
eyes.  He leaned forward, grasped [YOUR NAME HERE]'s hands in
his, and said, "Please.  Sit down.  We have so much to discuss."
                                #
     [HIS NAME HERE] strode down the corridor, following the
lights of the bleeping comm-panels, several of which needed new
bulbs.  It should be just along here, he thought, steadying his
breathing.  I must not make a fool of myself.  He came to a door,
composed himself, and announced his presence.  He knew [HER NAME
HERE] was expecting him, but what she had in mind he wasn't sure
- surely not what he had hoped for so long.  The door hissed
open, and he stepped in, stumbling over a muttering pogworp and
looking around.  She wasn't in sight.  Her quarters reflected her
personality, and a side of her he hadn't suspected, not in all
the time he'd worked side by side with her on the Enterprise.
Somehow he'd thought that for a woman so relatively young to have
a position so important, she must live, breathe, and dream her
job, but no.  The evidence was here.  Who would have dreamed such
a dedicated woman could be interested in
[PECULIAR/ABSTRUSE/PERVERTED HOBBY]?
     "I'm in here, [HIS NAME HERE]," her voice called through the
far door.  Involuntarily, his hand strayed to his hair, and
impatiently he checked the gesture.  If she cared for him at all,
it would have to be for his brilliance in command situations, his
ability to act quickly, and his subtlety of thought, not his
[COLOR] eyes or his [COLOR/CONSISTENCY/AMOUNT OF] hair.  It was
so confusing living in a liberated society.  At least his makeup
was on straight.  Quickly, he strode through the door, and
stopped abruptly, nearly poleaxed with her stunning beauty.  [HER
NAME HERE] had prepared herself for him, and he was overwhelmed.
     "I've been waiting so long for this," she said languidly.
He rushed to her, knelt by her side, and reached a trembling hand
towards her [ANATOMICAL FEATURE].  Her [COLOR] eyes, her [SHAPE]
lips, her [COLOR/CONSISTENCY/AMOUNT OF] hair, her
[WELCOMING/THREATENING/PUZZLED/BORED/ODD] expression -- it was
all his, all her gift to him.  He seized her [WILD CARD], she
feverishly clutched at his [ITS NAME HERE], and they were soon
utterly lost to reality...
                                #
     Jean Luc heard the door of his quarters hiss shut, and
breathed a sigh of relief as the world outside the door was
similarly shut away.  The awful weight of responsibility never
completely left his well-muscled shoulders, but now its burden
lightened somewhat.  For the next few hours, he could relax, seek
some relief from the sensual tension gripping his taut body.
     "At last," he murmured, as he released the fasteners on his
uniform.  It peeled away and he stepped out of it.  His hands
skimmed down his narrows hips, carrying away the briefs he wore
underneath.  He moved eagerly toward the rendezvous he had been
longing--no, aching for...
     Cinnamon-haired Krista Lovely, her brow furrowed in thought,
stood indecisively before Jean Luc's door.  Would he let her in?
She never meant to come between him and the woman he so obviously
loved; she was too generous and warm-hearted for that.  Her own
deeply sensual nature, a nature she had only barely realized in
her responses to Jean Luc, would simply have to be put on the
back burner.  She would tell him so--tell him she would step out
of his life and leave him free to follow his heart's true
feelings.
     Taking a deep breath, she tapped out the access code Jean
Luc had long ago given her when she had made her first shy
advances to him, advances he had gently--well, that's enough of
that, she thought.  She strode through the door.  And stopped in
shock, stunned by the sight before her.  She never knew!  THIS
was his secret passion!
     Jean Luc looked up, startled, as cinnamon-haired Krista
Lovely stood there, her emerald eyes wide in shock as she stared
at his gleaming body, glistening among the billowy foam of
"Secret Surrender" bubble bath.  Muttering curses in archaic
French, he scooped more bubbles around him in hopes of concealing
the array of toy battleships ranged about the bath tub.  Suddenly
he realized his most vulnerable male secret was still visible, as
Krista's eyes moved downward from his face.  He moved quickly,
but it was too late.
     "Why, Jean Luc--I--I didn't know you were...," she faltered.
His burnished head dropped in embarrassment.  There it was, plain
for all to see, bobbing in the warm, sudsy water.
     His yellow rubber duckie.
     Startled, Jean-Luc looked up from his sybaritic tub full of
bubbles into the equally startled gaze of Ensign Lovely.  A flush
spread from his face, down his neck, and disappeared into the
frothy foam which immediately began to dissipate from the heat.
The captain began making hrrumph-hrrumph noises.  "Ensign!  What
are you doing here?"
     "Isn't it obvious, my Jean-Luc?" the lovely Lovely replied.
She touched the fastenings of her own uniform.
     "I never--" the captain hrrumph-hrrumphed some more and
clutched his rubber duckie firmly as it threatened to skid out of
his water-wrinkled hands-- "I have never indulged in, well, you
know..."
     "Oh, I know, Jean-Luc, my dearest, I know."  The uniform
fell to Lovely's lissome ankles and she kicked it into a corner.
Contrary to StarFleet regulations which prescribed the color and
variety of undergarments to be worn with the uniforms, Lovely had
been wearing none at all.  With that one magnificent gesture, she
stood revealed in all her splendid loveliness.  The captain's
heart implant going *whiz-whir, whiz-whir* was very audible in
the dead silence.  Lovely stepped into the tub, immersing herself
into the rapidly-disintegrating bubbles.  She tapped a few
buttons on the bath console and a fresh infusion of bubbles arose
around her rosy shoulders.
     Lovely smiled her loveliest at the thunderstruck Picard.  "I
never dared hope we would be doing this one day.  My thoughts, my
ambitions, my dreams never went beyond--  Well, no matter.
Relax, my Jean-Luc.  This was meant to be."
     A few more taps on a few more buttons and an object began to
materialize on the servo-unit tray.  Lovely lifted the lid...and
took out another yellow rubber duckie.
     She looked at Picard seductively and submerged inch by
frothy inch into the newly reborn bubbles.  She caressed the
firm, yet pliant, body of the jonquil-hued rubber duckie in her
silken hands, holding Picard's stunned hazel gaze as she...
     ...sank his entire fleet in one swift, passionate action.
After the bubbles cleared, and the flotsam began to surface, she
noticed a particularly sturdy survivor of her attack.
     "Ensign!" barked the Captain, retrieving the shreds of his
dignity from the bathtub drain and leaping out.  "You will
hereafter leave my duckie alone!"
     Krista, woebegone, pleaded with her eyes, but he strode from
the room.  As the door hissed shut, she muttered, "Foiled again,"
and her shape shifted, changed.  The unlovely Krista Lovely,
undercover allasomorph, lurched through the bulkhead, dripping
slime as she waddled off, hooting, "Looking for Love in All the
Wrong Places."  Sue Lieutenant Clark scurried behind, taking
notes and pretending to be bored.
     The Captain, covered with popping bubbles, threw his
discarded uniform into the disposer and ordered another one.  The
unit beeped in a strange yearning tone, but the tiny pile of red-
and-black fabric that materialized looked much as usual.  He
deftly slid it on, not noting the tiny "DSPSG" label at the neck,
and left his quarters with a dangerous gleam in his eye.  Someone
was going to pay for this duckie debacle...
     The uniform had a dangerous gleam in its eye, too.  It
embraced Picard rather too snugly in places, and seemed to creep
even more than he was used to.  He stopped in mid-corridor to
perform the Picard Maneuver, but the fabric crawled
enthusiastically back into position as soon as he started to walk
again.  It snaked along his muscular calf, embraced his elegant
elbows, caressed his finely drawn collarbones, going where no one
had ever gone before and making little eeping noises.  With an
interested crew-member as witness, Picard performed an odd
intoxicated half-hitch step as if to jump out of the
all-embracing uniform.  Nothing worked.
     He leaned against the wall, and wiped his sweating brow with
his sleeve.  The sleeve slurped, and would have licked its lips
if it had them.  He stared at the sleeve, aghast, and the sleeve
stared back with haunted, lovesick eyes (it had those).  With a
horrified roar, Picard dashed for the turbolift, staggering and
weaving as the uniform tugged him this way and that.  He darted
in, said "Sickbay," and the turbolift (beeping in a strange
yearning tone) said, "Yes, Captain," and darted into action,
breathing heavily.
                                #
     Her eyes were the deep blue of the twilight of a distant
planet.  In those eyes he saw all of the mysteries of a summer
evening on Wrigley's Planet.  He couldn't break away from those
large, deep, limpid, liquid eyes that looked at him without fear
and which cascaded over her slender and deeply tanned bare
shoulders and tumbled to her narrow waist.  The yellow and black
dress could not hide the promise of the full and lush figure it
barely covered.
     Who was she?
     Where were they?
     He did not recognize his surroundings.  Where were the
familiar corridors?  Where was his bridge?  Why was nobody in
uniform?  How did he get here?  And what did it matter?  He was
here with the most lovely, most desirable woman he had ever seen.
He would just tell Riker where he was, and it would be alright.
But where was his communicator?
     "Excuse me," he said, "but where am I?"
     And then he heard her voice.  The deep, throaty, almost
musical, husky voice that maddened him with desire.
     Meanwhile, at his console, Data gazed at the screen on which
he had inadvertently picked up the events occurring in the
captain's private quarters.  The android cocked his head
quizzically.  "Interesting," he said.  There was a note of
scarcely-suppressed envy in his voice, a glimmer of longing in
the depths of his jonquil-hued eyes.
     Someone was approaching.  Before he could blank the screen,
that person came up behind him and laid a pale, delicate hand on
his shoulder.  "It is interesting, I agree," a lyric, trilling
voice said.
     Data looked up.  The intruder looked back.  Their eyes
locked--almost literally.  The two went into a feedback loop that
Data could break out of only with the greatest difficulty, and
only by re-focusing his attention on the half-pip on the
intruder's collar.  "You must be--must be--"
     "Lieutenant JG Pixel, reporting for duty, sir."  The female
android smiled.  She had pink lips.  Her skin was a shade less
waxen, but her eyes were the same shade of jonquil as his own.
And she was female.  Oh, yes, she was definitely--almost
defiantly--female.  And beautiful.  Data felt a fresh surge of
joyous interference that threatened to override his logic
circuits.  He mustered all his urbane human mannerisms.
     "Of course.  Lieutenant Pixel.  I had been informed that you
were going to be assigned to the *Enterprise*.  For training."
     "Yes, sir.  For training."  The radiantly beautiful android
glanced back at the screen where Lovely and Picard had turned to
doing very odd things with their rubber duckies.  "Is this part
of the training I shall experience?"
     "Ah, no," Data replied.  "It is not in the manual."
     Pixel cocked her head in an uncanny replication of Data's
cogitative gesture.  "I see no immediate application for the
training procedures these people are demonstrating."
     "I believe this is what is called human interrelationary
extracurricular activity."
     "Is it necessary to immerse the body in water coated with
that white substance to engage in this activity?"
     "I believe that a non-aqueous substitute could be provided
if you were interested in experiencing a similar form of
entertainment."
     Pixel blinked at the screen.  "I am concerned only that full
immersion coupled with the activities shown here might damage
some of my circuitry and thus my fitness for duty."
     "I am certain that we can arrange that neither your nor my
circuitry is damaged.  And, may I add, you look exceptionally fit
for a variety of duties."
     The lovely android smiled again.  Her teeth were like
pearls; in fact, they really were pearls.  "I am yours to
command..."
     Data's head twitched to one side, unaccustomed as his neural
synapses were to hearing such a phrase.  "Yours to command..."
His mind swiftly indexed through several thousand possibilities
before he deliberately shut down that program and shifted to
another, designated only by it's initials, "K-S."  He stood and,
extending his arm towards Lt.  j.g.  Pixel, said, "I believe
liaisons of this fashion are best achieved within the privacy of
one's own quarters.  The standard question, I believe, is 'Your
place or mine?'"
     "I have no other place than by your side," Pixel responded.
Data's head twitched again as he lead her towards the turbolift.
     The doors were just closing as First Officer Riker entered
the bridge.  He stared at the duo and frowned.  Just what was
going on here?  And where was the Captain?
     "Computer," he brayed, "what is Captain Picard?"
     "Working.  Captain Picard is in his bathtub, engaged with a
rubber--Correction, Captain Picard has left his quarters and is
proceeding down corridor J-9, outbound.  Warning, sensors
indicate an allasomorph is in close pursuit, now breaching
bulkhead H-10.  Appropriate clean-up details should be dispatched
to deal with the slime."
     A rubber something? Riker thought.  Then he thought of Data
and whoever that female was.  And where was Geordi?  And Worf?
Swift inquires led to equally swift responses from the computer,
ending with, "I am afraid I cannot process that request at his
time as I am accessing a counter-gender neural bank.  Please try
back in three human-perceived seconds."
     Riker stood in a rigid fashion, as his spine stiffened in a
most dramatic backwards arch.  "Why am I the only one alone?  I
am male, handsome of body and face, rigid in all manners and
ways, yet I find myself alone on the bridge.  COMPUTER!  WHERE IS
COUNSELOR TROI?"
     "I told you, I am unable to process that request at this--"
     Fine."  He slapped his rigid chest, activating his
communicator.  "Deanna, report to the bridge."
     There was a breathless pause, then a breathless voice
replied, "I'm sorry, Imzadi, but I...I'm engaged in...counseling
at this...at this time.  Please...please call me back in...in a
few...few (oh my) minutes."
     There was a pop as the air cleared.  There was a pop as
Riker spine collapsed.  He fell into the captain's chair, alone.
All alone.  The screens around him bleeped and thlthp'd and
pogworped.  His options were few and he turned towards one...
                                #
Middle-aged career military man seeks reed-thin, redheaded prof.
woman, non-smoker, NO CHILDREN, for rich intimate relationship
lush with adjectives and the occasional adverb.
                                #