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Text File | 1995-04-09 | 35KB | 660 lines

                        SWEET SAVAGE STAR TREK  III
                        ===========================
                         The Near Side Of The Zone
                         -------------------------


San Francisco, April 4, 1941.

The Embarcadero, Marina District, about 9:30 P.M.

A cold, dreary day. The rain had dissipated in the past hour, but the clouds
still hung over San Francisco harbor and were still bringing deluges to Angel
Island and points northward. The streets were unusually quiet for a spring
evening; occasionally, a dog barked, or the sound of a motor car rang
throughout the deserted alleys.

The hills, atop which were perched beautiful houses, winding roads and a myriad
of lives and loves, also hid a dark secret.

The alley behind "Sam's Bar and Grille" on Beck Street...

"You have it?" cried the man with the sideburns in the dark black cloak and
silver scarf to the lone occupant of the aging yellow taxi. He couldn't see the
face; the dark interior consumed his features, as did the dark glasses he wore.
The man with the sideburns, whose surname for the record was Darrell, steeled
himself; his shivering body was reacting to the cold... and perhaps much, much
more.

"Of course I do, Mr. Darrell. Keep your pants on." The man in the taxi rolled
the window down a bit more. Darrell tried to find the taxicab driver, but
couldn't. The nameless face in the taxi simply removed his glasses and handed
Darrell a brown-wrapped package. "Guard this with your life. For indeed, it
will be your life if that gets into the wrong hands. Heed my warning. The chase
is on. The Blackheart is the prize." Then the nameless man turned the motor on,
and drove the taxicab away...leaving Darrell standing alone in the alley, with
his package.

It started to rain again...

     CAPTAIN'S LOG; Stardate 43051.6
     The Enterprise has arrived in orbit about Gamma Thiopa II, four
     days ahead of schedule due to our abrupt departure from the
     Amber Nine festivities recorded elsewhere in this log.
     This unscheduled layover has given us the opportunity for shore
     leave and personal relaxation time, during which I've instructed
     Mr. Data to undertake a very unusual challenge...

"The program is working, sir," said Data, picking himself up off the floor from
the Holodeck Four computer programming access panel in Station 704, Deck 7.
"Our original programming only allowed for the situations to progress if the
holodeck were in operation. The adventures themselves would not begin until we
actually entered. By introducing this new algorithm, we are in essence stepping
into a moving exhibition. The entire situation may have already taken place
before we even enter, allowing us the--"

"You're babbling, Mr. Data," said Jean-Luc Picard, who was wearing something
not quite Starfleet regulation. He was decked out in typical 1940's fashion,
brimmed hat, dark jacket, black shoes and a tie. "Once Dr. Crusher and Mr. Worf
have joined us, we shall get underway."

Picard's communicator, which he carried on his lapel briefly until he entered
the holodeck, signalled his attention. "Picard here."

"Commander Riker here, sir. The USS Prometheus is confirmed as arriving at
Gamma Thiopa in four days, three point seven hours, present speed. Enjoy your
leave, sir."

"I will, Number One. Once you're finished with your duties, you might wish to
join us....?"

"I prefer my shore leave on the planet, sir. Mr. O'Brien and I have been
invited to a poker game by some old friends on the planet."

"I see," said Picard, smiling. "Enjoy yourself, Commander. Picard out."

Picard had just cut the circuit closed when he stopped dead in his tracks.
Before him, Worf was decorated in period costume, brandishing a rather large
hat on his head to disguise his intently Klingon appearance. But behind him was
the object of Picard's interest... Beverly Crusher, in a skirt and veil that
he'd seen before when they'd visited this particular program before.

"Why, hello, Mr. Hill," said Beverly in a sweet voice, which only made Picard
smile, remembering the wonderful time they'd had before, and how it had almost
turned tragic with historian Whalen had been shot, and Cyrus Redblock and Felix
Leech discovered the world of the Enterprise. No, not again, that was all over.
Data's program was an amalgamation of a variety of Dixon Hill novels, as he had
done before with the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle during Dr. Pulaski's tenure
on the ship.

"Hello, Miss Crusher..." said Picard, who chuckled. "Sounds so terribly
non-period. But I digress. Shall we enter?"

"Program set and ready," said Data.

"Ready when you are, sir," said Worf. The holodeck doors opened.

Picard grasped Beverly's arm, and led her into the familiar hallway that held
the offices of Dixon Hill, Private Investigator. Worf followed, with Data
behind, looking around himself as he entered.

The doorway behind them vanished into the wall...

...and they were once again in the City by the Bay.

                 ****************************************

...Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher was off duty. As was normal in his off-hours,
Wesley was exercising his brain to the utmost. His mom had once again run off
with Captain Picard, Data, and the others to the holodeck to live out some
deep-seated fantasy about living in ancient times. "Grown-ups." he thought
"Sometimes they have to play at games more than those vacuum-headed geeks at
the Academy. *I* try to act seriously all the time; why can't they?"

Unfortunately for Wes, little did he realize that that very attitude was the
reason for his rejection by his peers. He had fallen into the subconscious
routine of overpowering his less-capable contemporaries with his budding
genius. Typically, this set him apart from them, and he compensated by spending
time with adults and with his experiments and with the computer.  Speaking of
which, since Wesley had some spare time on his hands, maybe he could log on and
finish that "investigation" of the ships' computer banks, putting aside his
gadget (his force-field, microelectronic, cognitive-biology, and vanilla
gadget) for now. Noone, not even Data, even remotely suspected he had managed
to hack out the access codes to the innermost parts of the  computer's logic
circuits...

                 ****************************************

While Acting Ensign Crusher hacked away merrily, prying into things that did
and did not concern him, interesting things were happening in the rest of the
ship. Lieutenant T'Fred had moved into her new quarters the day before and was
now, by no coincidence at all, also exploring her new computer. She had
recently transferred to the Big E and it had not taken much convincing to get
the Quartermaster to assign her the room next to Mr. Crusher (no-one else
wanted to take a chance on being trapped for a famous Crusher lecture on the
state of the posi-electronic flux flow in the ship's engines.) Had anyone been
watching, they might have noticed a distinctly un-Vulcan gleam in T'Fred's eyes
as she hacked alongside Mr. Crusher, seeing but unseen and unsuspected (Mr.
Crusher was sometimes awfully naive).

Meanwhile, on the bridge, the officer on duty at Mr. Worf's station frowned
momentarily as he noticed an unusual energy flux suddenly disturb space
underneath the saucer section. He investigated briefly, but the anomaly did not
reoccur and he soon forgot it in the boredom of the watch. It was much more
entertaining to plan his upcoming leave, he knew of this one place where the
Orion girls were so... <Well - maybe the rest of this is best left to the
reader's imagination!>

In her awesomely fast scout ship Falcon, just now sitting cloaked and
unsuspected underneath the Big E's saucer section, the wily Romulan agent <008>
froze, holding her breath until she was sure that the accidental energy release
had not betrayed her to the quarry. When she was sure she had gone undetected
she grinned fiercely and exultantly to herself. "Come on, T'Fred!" she thought,
"Don't fail me now!"

T'Fred noticed that Wesley was absorbed by one on his experiments and decided
to make her move. "Let's see these measly Earthlings jump", she said as she
maneuvered the computer into doing her bidding. She laughed inwardly while,
recalling the love affair that helped her get this far.

Oh Jason! You sentimental fool! I did love you in my own way, but you were a
pawn in a game of high stakes. You had information I needed to be able to get
my mission accomplished. You have such a brilliant and sexy mind for an
Earthling; perhaps...

T'Fred was awakened out of her reverie by the sound of the wailing klaxons.
"RED ALERT, RED ALERT". As T'Fred got up from her chair to leave, she noticed
that the ever obedient Ensign Crusher was already out of the door. She looked
at his computer screen and her eyes froze. There on the screen were access
codes to the most inner workings of the gallant Enterprise. Since T'Fred had a
photographic memory, it took no time at all before she had each one memorized.
As she left her quarters, she asked herself how long it would take before these
puny beings realized it was a false red alert. She decided it was best not to
think about it, until this phase of her mission was over and headed toward the
shuttle bay area to see a comrade.

008 maneuvered the Falcon gracefully into the shuttle bay, while maintaining
the cloak. "Thank you, my friend", she thought to herself. "I knew you wouldn't
let me down".

008 was a half-breed in old English terms. Her father was a Romulan and her
mother a Human. Her friends called her T'Ala. T'Ala was not welcome by the
Romulans on her world, but they let her stay because of her father, who was a
great warrior. She had met T'Fred in a fight as children.

T'Fred believed that T'Ala should be given a chance to prove herself, before
being discarded, and helped T'Ala learn the ways of the Romulan Empire and how
to defend herself against any creature. As the years went by they became fast
and steady friends and vowed to do the Federation in, for causing the deaths of
T'Ala's father and T'Fred's mother.

As T'Fred entered the shuttle bay, which she had prearranged, she spotted her
friend and stiffly hugged her. "T'Ala it has been many years my friend, since
we talked of getting revenge; do you have any fears about our forth coming
mission?" T'Ala looked her friend in the eyes, and noticed a hint of concern.
"The only thing I fear, said T'Ala is that we will not succeed." T'Fred smiled
then said, "You have learned the ways of the Romulans very well and I am  most
proud to call you friend. Come it is time for us to cause the Humans pain".
T'Ala gathered up her belongings and they left the shuttle bay.

Once in the hallway, no one noticed T'Ala, for she had the fair skin, blue
eyes, and light blonde hair of her mother. She was very beautiful to look at
and was looking forward to the companionship of a Human male, even if it was
just to distract people in order to accomplish the mission.

                 ****************************************

...Wesley had gotten deep into the inner bowels of the computer's logic
circuits again. This time he was going REALLY deep, so had to disconnect a few
cross-relays in the process to prevent security from catching on ("Not," he
thought, "that I'm doing anything really wrong. I'm just expanding my knowledge
base!") Little did he realize that he had accidently disconnected the relays
that connected ship's communications to certain areas, including Holodeck 4.

Suddenly, the ship's klaxon rung Red Alert. Immediately he slapped a button
that would momentarily conduct an auto-shutdown of the program he had been
running and he then ran to the bridge to man his station...

...As Wes ran to the bridge, his cabin doors hung open for a moment. Just a
moment too long to prevent prying eyes from catching the contents of his
computer screen before auto-shutdown occurred...

                 ****************************************

Meanwhile, on Holodeck 4, Dixon Hill and his friends were once again in the
City by the Bay. At the offices of Dixon Hill, Private Eye, four travelers from
another time and place stopped in to take stock and plan their adventure.
Since it was late in the evening, Hill's secretary had long since left for the
day.

"Well, Mr. Worf, what do you think of our little scenario so far?" asked
Jean-Luc Picard, decked out as the infamous Mr. Hill.

"Interesting so far, sir," Worf replied "The holodeck makes a convincing
background. But how exactly do we use this for - enjoyment?"

'Hill' smiled. "My Klingon friend, I strongly suspect you would most enjoy
yourself fulfilling a role you are more comfortable with. Since Data and the
Doctor already have established identities in this place and time, then let us
make one up for you." Dix gave it some thought. "You will be Dixon Hill's
bodyguard, a Mr. Worschfield." Worf grinned. "As we take part in our
adventures, it will be your job to protect me from attackers, miscellaneous
thugs, and the myriads of ladies who seem to want to drool over me all the
time."

Beverly smiled a secret little smile.

Worf was nodding appreciably. "Agreed, sir! 'Mr. Worschfield it is!"

Picard smiled "Very good, then. And call me 'Dixon' here, Mr. Worschfield!"

"Aye, ss, uuuuhhh, Mr. Hill!" Picard nodded. "Now! Let us see what messages
await us on this desk to keep us involved for the next four days... Hmm.
Here's one that looks promising. This case refers to an item known as 'The
Blackheart'. Intriguing. Let's study this case, and then ask the computer to
advance the program to daylight hours. Agreed?"

The others quickly agreed, gathering in close to Dix to find out more about
this mysterious "Blackheart". Little did they realize that at that very moment
a ship's klaxon was sounding red alert...

                 ****************************************

First officer William Riker jumped as the red alert sounded. Moments later,
responding to the alert, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher returned to the bridge
and relieved the Vice Admiral who had been navigating in his absence. Quickly
he realized the nature of the alert.

"False alarm, Commander" he reported, silencing the alert. "Computer
malfunction generated by, uh" he hesitated, thinking that the source could very
well be his own shinanigans. "By a queer neuro-micro-electrical impulse
cross-relaying through the alarm generator." Wesley techno-babbled. He looked
at Riker, wondering if he would call his bluff.

Riker stared at Ensign Crusher. Well, he's the genius, Will thought. "Hmm. It
sounds serious. Why don't you report to Engineering and correlate your data
with Mr. LaForge. The Admiral will relieve you."

"Check, Commander. I'll report right away. I'm sure it's nothing" he
dissembled, getting up and making way for the feeble old man with medals
dangling from his chest. Wesley exited from the bridge, watched closely by
Cmdr. Riker.

...It wouldn't be until much, much later that Riker realized that Picard and
the others hadn't even bothered to ask about the klaxon, even though it was so
short-lived. And noone, but noone would realize until it was way too late that,
while all eyes had been on Wesley and Riker, the yellowshirt at the bridge
security station had overlooked completely the warning signs of a serious
breach of security...

                 ****************************************

Under the cover of the false read alert, T'Fred and T'Ala slipped back to
T'Fred's room and settled down to do some serious plotting. With her usual
skill in hacking, T'Fred had given T'Ala her usual skill in hacking, T'Fred had
given T'Ala credentials as a visiting scientist, whose main interest was in
exploring the physics and astro-psychology of the nearest quasars. This would
allow her to move freely about the Big E and would explain any unusual amount
of time spent on the computers, should anybody get nosy. The quartermaster had
obligingly assigned T'Ala a room close to T'Fred's.

T'Ala settled down on T'Fred's bed and started, "Your mission (And I advise you
to accept it as the Praetor is in a bad mood this ten-month!) is to learn
everything possible about the computer software and security of the
Federation's ships. We must know of their weaknesses and strengths! If
possible, we are to create subtle weaknesses to our future advantage. The
Praetor is especially interested in this so-called "holodeck", such decadence
might prove useful when studied by our psychologists. Once we have attained all
the data available to us, I will ferry it back to the Empire in the Falcon. In
the meantime, the Falcon will remain cloaked and silent 10 meters under the
primary hull. It will be within reach if we need it, but we MUST NOT and WILL
NOT fail! This is our one chance, old friend! I, at least, will not have
another opportunity to prove myself. But I know you will not let me down. Now,
tell me what you know of this ship and her officers..."

T'Fred smiled to herself. "Well, my friend there is one officer in particular
that you should find easy to get along with; in fact he will probably find you!
His name is Commander Riker, very good looking, and likes the ladies a great
deal. I don't know how true it is, but it is rumored that they are doing
hormonal studies on him, since his sexual appetite is greater than other human
males. Perhaps you can show this human how it is done; Romulan style!"

A wicked smile crossed T'Ala's face as she thought of what T'Fred was saying.
T'Ala always did have an incurable curiosity for human males and their supposed
sexual prowess and agreed with T'Fred on pursuing this Commander Riker.

While T'Fred continued describing the rest of the officers, T'Ala only half
heard what T'Fred said. "................is an extraordinary officer, very
intelligent, nice looking, and respected by the crew. While you are busy with
Commander Riker, I will go to the holodeck and learn it's secrets". Little did
T'Fred know that the secrets awaiting her would change her and T'Ala's lives
for all time...

...Or those secrets WOULD have changed T'Fred's and T'Ala's lives for all time,
except for the bizarre set of circumstances taking place at that very time.

On his way to engineering, Wesley Crusher realized a couple of things. First,
that he HADN'T been responsible for the false alarm, and that he would actually
have to find out what was. And second, that Picard hadn't responded to that
alarm, even momentarily. Which was highly unlike the Captain. He realized that
he COULD have been responsible for THAT, since his hacking had disabled certain
internal security systems. Since those logic circuits were necessarily tied
into intra-ship communications, it was possible he had cut off the holodeck
from the alarms. As he reached engineering, he told Geordi of his  assignment.
As he got to work, he quickly took a moment to erase the last traces of his
earlier diversion, reestablishing all internal communications in the process.

                 ****************************************

Meanwhile, in ships' security central, adjacent to the brig area, yellowshirt
goon #2 was poring over the computer records of the events that occurred during
the false alarm. He was secretly trying to find a way to show up security goon
#1 - Worf's direct assistant - due to their rivalry. A rivalry compounded by
competition during after-hours gambling in the guards' barracks.  As he went
over the transcripts, he quickly noticed the missed security breach at the main
shuttledeck. Smiling, he traced it backwards to its origin, somewhere near the
ship's primary hull at the saucer section. Pleased with himself and his
discovery, and elated at being able to disgrace yellowshirt #1, he went to make
his report to the officer of the deck, Cmdr. Riker.

On the bridge, Riker was listening to the report of the guard. As he finished,
Riker turned to the security goon at Worf's station. "Consider yourself
relieved of duty until further notice. You are restricted to quarters until
such time as your presence is requested. Dismissed." He turned to goon #2.
"Mister, take the security station." The yellowshirt hastened to comply.  Riker
touched the gold badge on his left pectoral.

"Bridge to Captain Picard."

On holodeck four, now restored to communications with the rest of the ship
thanks to Wes, Riker's voice boomed out over the sounds of the street as the
four adventurers left Dixon Hill's offices. "Merde'", said Picard.

Looking up at the disembodied voice, Data said "Computer - freeze program."
Suddenly all action around the quartet came to a halt in mid-action. His voice
tinged with regret, Picard answered.

"What is it, Number One?"

"Captain, over the course of the past hour or so several things have happened.
First, there was a false Red Alert. Wesley and Geordi are tracing it's cause
right now. On the other hand, security has located what seems to be a breach of
both internal security as well as the ship's perimeter."

Picard's eyebrows shot up. "We heard no klaxon down here, Number One."

"I suspected as much. I suspect that a saboteur or saboteurs have infiltrated
the ship, purposes unknown, and that their plans included cutting off internal
communications to cause confusion. We suspect that a ship is sitting nearby,
definitely cloaked, which indicates this is a Romulan action."

"Sound red alert, Number one. And make sure everyone knows that _this_ red
alert is real. Mr. Data will join Wesley and Mr. LaForge in scanning for the
ship. Mr. Worf will coordinate the internal search. I will join you shortly on
the bridge. Picard out."

Data once again addressed the ceiling. "Computer - save program. Freeze
continuity at present level. Clear holodeck area. Exit."

"Acknowledged. Saving current program with time advance feature halted at
current frame." Then the images on the holodeck faded to a grid pattern, and
the door leading to the corridor appeared. Picard said "We shall have to do
this another time. Everyone, change into uniform on the double and get to your
assigned stations."

"Aye, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"Aye, Captain," were heard as they filed out into the corridor.

                 ****************************************

The voice of Commander William Riker reverberated throughout the corridors of
the Enterprise while the red alert klaxon sounded once again.

"Red Alert. All Decks. Red Alert. We have a ship-wide intruder alert. All crew
members report to their duty stations. All civilians please go to their
quarters. Security crews report to Lt. Worf on the double. Repeat..."

As the first officer repeated the alert, T'Fred and T'Ala, who had just left to
carry out their insidious scheme, looked at each other and realized that all
their planning had just come to naught.

"Oh, T'Fred, we are found out! They must have discovered the Falcon!"

"All is not lost. We can still escape and plague this ship another day. Come
on, we'll head into the bowels of this ship while we find a way to escape!"

Grabbing T'Ala's arm, T'Fred started down the corridor toward the turbolift,
where confused crew and civilians tried to clear the passages so that security
could begin conducting their search. With the thought of mingling and losing
themselves amidst the mass of people, and using their disguises to get out of
their predicament, they suddenly found themselves alone in one stretch of
passageway with the disgraced security goon #1, on his way to his quarters and
not looking where he was going. With a vicious smile, T'Fred tackled the
yellowshirt and wrestled him to the ground. On reflex, the guard started to
reach for his breastpin to warn his chief.

T'Ala, seeing his intent, instantly reached past T'Fred and grabbed his wrist.
"We'll have none of that now!" she spat. "You're our ticket off this ship and
back across the Neutral Zone!" As T'Fred rolled off of him,

T'Ala wrestled his arm behind his back, relieved him of the phaser he wore at
his belt, and said "Now, we have a few questions for you..."

                 ****************************************

Back on the bridge, Captain Picard walked out of the turbolift and took his
place in the command chair. "Status, Number One" he snapped.

"All passageways are now clear, sir. Based on the report of the Lt. J.G., here"
he indicated security goon #2 "we have one intruder who came in through the
main shuttlebay, probably with inside help. So we have two hostiles, and
possibly a scout-class ship sitting somewhere on our perimeter even now. Since
it would have to have been cloaked to even approach us undectected, it must be
Romulans who have infiltrated the Enterprise."

Picard nodded. "Your conclusion makes sense, Will. Especially if the hidden
mole among us was a Romulan disguised as a Vulcan. Mr. Worf, instruct your
crews to begin doing a check on all Vuclan or Vulcanoid crewmembers or
passengers. Do nothing to intimate suspicion of a particular individual or the
race; merely reinforce to them that this is a simple precaution."

"Aye, sir." Worf uttered. "I suppose they would simply say it is a 'logical'
precaution."

Picard smiled. "So they would. Carry on, Mr. Worf."

"Yessir".

                 ***************************************

Down below, the Romulan spies had questioned the captured yellowshirt and found
out a few interesting particulars, especially the fact that the Falcon remained
undiscovered off of the main saucer hull, cloaked and ready.

"Are you certain of your facts?" T'Ala asked harshly.

"Absolutely" he answered, eyeing the voluptuous intruder and starting to come
up with plans of his own. "In fact, your arrival here and your genius in
getting past me has disgraced me on board this ship. They'll bust me down to
yeoman, now, and probably assign me to the anti-matter storage section for this
(the WORST detail on the ship!). If you promise to take me with you, I can use
my status with security to get you past the checkpoints and off this ship any
way you choose!"

The ladies looked at each other at this. "What do you think?" T'Ala murmured.

T'Fred shrugged. "Hmmm. He SOUNDS sincere, at least for now. And he's obviously
enamored of your charms." T'Ala blushed a bright green. "And if he's lying we
can always kill him later. I doubt we'll escape unaided this time!"

T'Ala agreed, and turned to the traitorous security goon. "Okay, but you don't
forget who's in charge! Now, tell me your proper name."

The guard looked nonplused at that. "Do I have to?" he queried. "You see, in
the Federation, most starship security guards are guys like me who have
nerdy-sounding names and got picked on as kids. So we go into the Security Corp
so that we can take out our fustrations with phasers and hide behind nicknames
like 'yellowshirt' and 'security goon'."

"Hmm. If that's the case, then why wouldn't a boy with the name of 'Wesley
Crusher' do the same?"

"Oh. HIM. TOO much of a wimp, if you ask me!" he said, <snrk>ing.

"I see. Nevertheless, I won't work with or trust anyone who can't even trust me
with their true name."

Grimacing and left with no choice, the goon leaned over and whispered into
T'Ala's ear. Breaking into a grin at first, soon she was laughing uproariously.
T'Fred, wondering how bad it WAS, was shushing her. "You'll get us discovered!
What could possibly be so ridiculous?" T'Ala put her mouth in her friend's ear
and told her. Soon, both of these normally stoic Romulans where rolling on the
floor with mirth!

"All right, all right!" the embarrassed turncoat said, turning pink. "Now that
you've shown how sympathetic you are, shall we get out of here?"

The ladies soon stopped laughing and got up. "Yes, let's be on our way. Which
way, R-R-, oh, heck, Yellowshirt?" she got out.

"That way" he said, pointing. Immediately the Romulans started off in that
direction. As they did, the yellowshirt realized that in all their amusement
they hadn't noticed that the phaser was now sitting on the floor. Scooping it
up, he quickly secreted it behind his back and under his uniform.

"Coming?" T'Fred asked.

"Right behind you!" he answered.


                 ***************************************


Deciding to get to a transporter and beam over to the Falcon, the three
hostiles headed for Transporter Room 7. As they neared it, they spotted a
security guard outside the entrance. They quickly came up with a plan to
distract him.

T'Ala turned and started to saunter down the corridor. As she reached the young
yellowshirt, he gulped and told her "You really shouldn't be down here, ma'am."
T'Ala smiled and engaged the ensign with her beauty for the moments necessary
for T'Fred to sneak up behind him and knock him senseless with a closed fist.
Gesturing to their new friend to join them, soon all three of them were inside
the transporter room, and the now-renegade guard was powering up the
transporter console and feeding in the coordinates of the Falcon...

"Guards' personal monitors indicate that the guard at Transporter Room #7 is
unconscious or otherwise incapacitated." Will Riker said from the security
console on the main bridge. "Lt. Worf, that must be the work of the intruders.
Get there on the double!"

"On my way, Commander!" was the Klingon's curt reply.

...T'Fred and T'Ala stood on the transporter pad, helpless to do anything
except trust security goon #1 to deliver them from this trap. As the console
powered up, the disgraced security guard thought hard. Musing to himself, he
thought "Coordinates take only a moment to feed in. I could stun them with the
phaser, intra-ship beam them to the brig, and tell the guard on duty to raise
the force field. I'll have captured them single-handedly and regained my lost
respect instantly!"

Content with this, he started to put this plan into effect. Then Lt. Worf burst
into the room with Security Goon #2 right behind him. Taking in the situation,
and noting that the apparent spies on the platform didn't seem to be holding
the disgraced guard under any sort of duress, Worf decided that he had to have
been the "mole" all along. His companion came to the same conclusion as well.

"Reinhold! How COULD you!!?" he stammered out.

Enraged by the sound of his first name, and having taken enough abuse that day
on that score, Lt. J.G. Reinhold Wilburton (alias yellowshirt goon #1) decided
to throw in his lot with the Romulans after all. Quickly snatching his phaser
from its hiding place, he gunned down both Worf and his rival with heavy stun
blasts. T'Fred and T'Ala looked amazed at this. Quickly Reinhold punched in the
transporter coordinates for the Falcon, hit a 3-second delay, punched the
auto-wipe and energized. He dived into the beams just as they activated...

...and moments later found himself in the tiny control room of the Falcon.
T'Ala immediately jumped into the pilot's chair while T'Fred and Reinhold
strapped themselves in.

"Cloaking device still activated, as are main engines. Z-minus-one-
thousand-units, T'Fred, and set course for the Neutral Zone!"

"0270 Mark 5, Aye. Engaging thrusters."

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Picard and Riker had just received the report
of the escape of the trio. Data had picked up the direction of the transporter
beam.

"I have the hostile vessel located. It is already powered up and underway - I
have lost their location, Captain."

"Tractor beams! General Spread!"

"Too late, Captain. They have already engaged warp engines. Although we know
they are heading for the Neutral Zone, their cloaking device makes it
impossible to pinpoint their exact location. I am afraid we have lost them,
sir."

Miffed, Captain Picard said "All right. We can't track them, so we can't give
chase. Any other suggestions? No?" Picard mused. "Lt. Worf!"

The now-recovered Lt. Worf responded from the transporter room. "Aye, Captain!"

"Continue your deck-to-deck search for any more possible intruders, though I
doubt you'll find any. Mr. Riker, prepare a report for Starfleet and any ships
in the vicinity concerning the basics of this incident and to be on the lookout
for these interlopers. Mr. LaForge, Mr. Data, I want a complete search of all
ship's functions to ensure that no sabotage has taken place. We shall maintain
yellow alert until I'm satisfied all is well. Number One, inform Starfleet I'll
have a complete report for them as soon as these investigations are complete."

"Aye, sir. I'll coordinate with the Prometheus as well, still some three-odd
days out from Gamma Thiopa II."

Picard nodded. "Make it so. I want hourly updates on this, and a report from
all department heads within 5 hours." Picard gazed at the viewscreen, which
just then showed the space from the direction of the Romulan Empire beyond the
curve of the planet they orbited. "SOMEone out there is looking for a conflict
of some sort. When one goes looking for a fight, one often finds it.  Let's
make sure we're ready when it comes. IF it comes." he concluded.

Wesley Crusher paused in his scanning of the space surrounding the Enterprise.
"But, sir, should we have to stoop to their level?"

Data answered that question. "Sometimes, Ensign, one must fight fire with fire.
If the Romulans plan to infiltrate and sabotage this or other Federation
starships, we must be prepared to answer their tactics with our own."

"Yes, Data. Mr. Crusher, we aren't going to stoop to their level, as you put
it, out any malicious reason to 'take their territory', as they would sometimes
like their allies to believe. Our goal is to keep the peace.  Sometimes, when
your enemy uses less-than-honorable methods of beating you, you MUST respond in
kind. In order to keep the balance of power. Especially  when their forces are
buttressed by those of us who defect because of some failure on our part or
their part." he said, thinking of Lt. Wilburton's traitorous acts. "The world
of Dixon Hill teaches us that honorable men must sometimes do the wrong thing
for the right reasons. I myself plan to spend more time in that world once the
current crisis passes. After all, the 'Blackheart' still awaits!"

The crew smiled at that, agreeing with the sentiment. Picard smiled.

"All right then. Duty stations, everyone." The crew rushed to comply.

                 **************** The End ***************

Story by Jim Shaun Lyon, David Lambert, Sue Peterson, and Fredricka Black.
Special Thanks to Eileen Parkman for her 'saves'. Edited by David Lambert.

                 (-:   A HOM-9/Section 9 Production   :-)


"Sweet Savage Star Trek III: The Near Side Of The Zone"
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