Star Trek: Phoenix-X
"Duplicitous Dispossession, Part II"
The steady, obelisk-shaped black Ba’ul sentry vessel Kaleidoscope dropped out of warp from its majestic course for home. Its Captain Rolandu accepted Seifer, Elly and Veker onto its Bridge.
"We are grateful for the opportunity to rekindle this Kelpien with his home land, as the Great Balance would have it," the dripping, gooey Rolandu proclaimed from his wet Bridge chair.
Seifer blinked. "Honestly, you do realize you have wet floor signs on every deck, in every section, all the time, right?"
"It’s a part of who they are, Captain," Veker acquiesced with a hint of distaste. "Along with the perpetuation that the Great Balance religifies and excuses the Ba’ul from nearly genociding my Kelpien people."
As the Kaleidoscope rotated and reintegrated into Kaminar’s orbital Ba’ul stronghold, Ba’ul engineer John began to lead the group off the ship and into the main superstructure.
"Actually, both the Ba’ul and Kelpiens, on the whole, agree that the revelation of the culling, 136 years ago, itself was part of the Great Balance re-balancing itself on a balantic scale," John said as they entered a large control room. "Majority believe it’s a real thing. Same way I was confident to hand-off my Trill symbiont pool stabilization efforts on Tivien to join you here now."
Seifer noticed they were all walking in a half-inch of black goo. "Ugh."
"You’ll get used to it," sogged the offer from Captain Cid, a trim-bearded human and Starfleet officer who splashed around to join Seifer as John led the others off to explain the systems. "So, Starfleet has handed off this mission to you now? I stand relieved, sir."
Seifer shook his head. "A little excited there, Mr. Jumpy? But, yeah, once they heard Veker was interested in his vahar’ai, they gave me the next shift on Kaminar Orbital Defence to purge its systems of an apparent computer infection."
"I haven’t had any luck the past few weeks, but the Federation wants to someday have this world join our receding multi-species community, so we’re helping. Also, your arrest of an agent and claim of the Section 31 asset called Mayhem being taken by the Ba’ul/Kelpiens makes it even more obvious he is being held here somewhere."
The Trill nodded. "It’s never subtle with virus holograms, like you pretending to work from home when, in fact, your real efforts are with your ship the Ragnarok and the Fenris Rangers in the Qiris sector."
"Hey! I get to work with Seven of Nine sometimes. But, also, yeah. It used to be unheard of for Starfleet to lend Ranger support here and there. It’s even more rare now but I just do it because pulling out of the Romulan Neutral Zone and creating a power vacuum there was our doing. Seven knows what I’m talking about. We’re on a first name basis."
As he walked away, a rolling-eye Seifer was approached by Section 31 Agent Nelkast in a Starfleet uniform. "Of course you’re here to give me some cockamamie reason I’m needed anyway. You know I’m not playing anymore, right?"
"It’s Lieutenant to you!" Nelkast deadpanned. "And if you ever want to see your former crew Mayhem safe again, you’ll find him before his program is purged by the Ba’ul or the Kelpiens. I didn’t spend years as a low-level, under-appreciated data-miner in the Federation Bureau of Industrialization to see Section 31 deteriorated now. Some of your officers from the Phoenix-X have arrived on the shuttle Dracon to assist us."
Seifer gritted, "You seem worse without Elena." But, before he could grab Nelkast, he was interrupted—
"Captain, we’ve begun a search string using another virus schematic from the Phoenix-X database, called Amp," came the approach of Lieutenant Briggs. "Apparently, we had more virus holograms serve on the ship before?"
Suddenly noticing Nelkast had disappeared, Seifer conceded, "Not just him. We had a problem with downloading copyrighted movies from Orion pirate servers. It was a different time then. We don’t do that anymore." He checked the status on a nearby console. "Well, this is going to take a while. Perhaps we’ll be able to join Veker’s drunken-elegant mashup vahar’ai after all. Is it raunchy or graceful? Like, am I wearing a hoodie or a tie?"
---
Later, on an evening beach, in the Kelpien village of Agin, near some giant cliff-sides, several of Veker’s friends and some Starfleet officers stood around with shot glasses to cheers him.
"Over a century ago, our people discovered the gift of vahar’ai and its benefits of us not being killed by it," Yenzin began as he lifted his shot glass. "Today, we celebrate the elegant choice of what some other species may call induced puberty. My friend Veker and I were fist-bumping bros before he went off to Starfleet Academy. To a past version of him that I once knew! Shots! Shots! Shots!"
As everyone downed their shots, they were quickly replenished by the fast-moving bartender, Nelkast. Before Seifer could object, he finally tasted what he had drank. "Ugh! Is this coffee liqueur mixed with pickle juice??"
"Greetings all," interrupted John the Ba’ul. "I have not known Veker that long but, as a recovering xeno-maladaptive ideator trying purge my biological essentialistic desires of culling Kelpiens, I hereby lead the first family-friendly exploration, the Lantern Drift." As everyone was handed a lantern and directed to the water’s edge, he continued, "Each lantern represents something we leave behind. Fear. Childhood. Old grudges."
Veker placed his down along with everyone else. "My own distrust of conniving, lying Kelpien-sushi eating Ba’ul in general."
"Now it’s Predator Hour. Let’s gooooooo!" announced a drunken Yenzin as he led everyone over to a nearby haunted house and outfitted people with absurd costumes from Kaminar mythology. "The monsters chase the prey and every spook harkens back to a savage time that we celebrate with a drink! Yeeeaahhh!"
With the chaos of everyone chasing everyone else, a costumed Seifer was quickly grabbed by a costumed female Kelpien. "My name is Tristene, and I was once Veker’s love before he ran away from his obligations here. Now that he is back, you must help him find balance."
"We actually need his support in our thing? Finding a computer virus?" Seifer negotiated.
She clutched his shoulders to get his attention. "Think about all that is going on right now. Veker just deciding to come here after years of avoiding? He’s hiding something. This is disequilibrium. This is Kelpien vertigo."
"BAH!" came the drunken roar from a giddy costumed Veker jumping out to surprise newcomer John in a comical reversal of biological roles, forcing the Ba’ul to reluctantly take a shot of rum mixed with Worcestershire sauce.
Despite being slopped in gooey, black splur, John's disgust of the shot was so thorough, he failed to register the transition to the nearby caves for the next event.
"And, now, the final Reed Lift, but this time in a cave, because the elders weaved it without thinking about how they were going to take it out," Yenzin declared as a visibly diluted Veker was strung up by a new Ba’ul group’s black goo tendrils, forcing Veker onto a lifted circular thick grass mat.
Seifer stepped in. "Everyone stop! Lieutenant Veker, you want us to believe this is all going wrong so I’ll beam us out and get you back to the Phoenix-X, don’t you? You’re faking your sacred puberty ceremony and you’re hiding Mayhem."
"Captain, I’m impressed. I did not mean to insult your intelligence," a restrained Veker perked, now appearing completely sober. "But Kelpiens got to Kelpien."
Suddenly, one of the new Ba’ul flickered into a gruff human-looking deep-voiced virus hologram. "It’s because you agreeing to a vahar’ai and returning to your home world is not believable through attestations of reluctance."
"Mayhem! You were created by Section 31 to inspect ships before an Iconian probe on the Phoenix-X turned you virus and, after serving with us for some time, were trusted to be sent on further missions elsewhere," Seifer blurted.
The virus did a double-take. "I was not expecting that much palpable exposition in front of all these people. But, yes, after Wallace and I realized said-agency were attempting to burn off past assets, we escaped and the Kelpiens allowed me to hide here."
"As a caring species, years ago, Yenzin convinced me to assist in facilitating said-efforts but, when he suggested I undergo vahar’ai the other day, it was code that the agency was onto us," Veker continued.
Stepping out of the shadows, Nelkast revealed himself. "And don’t expect to be freed from your restraints just because you’ve come clean of your activities. Section 31 always has clandestine business, therefore I’m ordering you to destroy Mayhem now."
"Ugh!" Seifer struggled as he tried to reach out and grasp the agent but, along with everyone else, became suddenly held in additional Ba’ul tendrils. "Why are you always just outside of grabbing range??"
John gritted in Ba’ul intolerance as he and the other Kaminar peers were tendriled by the Cave Ba’uls too. "Murder is the complete opposite of the new Great Balance and I need to oversee the maintaining of this unifying ideology to overcome my own essentialist tendencies. Also, how can my fellow Ba’ul be on the side of these vu’kal?"
"My fault again, John," Veker conceded. "In Yenzin and mine’s shared-induced animosity, I refused to acknowledge their request to return here after Starfleet Academy and show appreciation for all the science I learned in these caves. You see, the natural rock here acts as a computational database and holo-emitter."
Seifer perked. "So, you guys hid Mayhem in the Agin Caves, likely without Ba’ul permission, recklessly forcing his viral anarchy upon their culture, disrupting Federation/Kaminar relations in both directions. Slow clap."
"Hey! I tried to help out around here," the viral hologram in civilian clothing refuted. "Defragging the cabinets, replenishing the user accepted cookies. But, yeah, their black goo-based java makers were not functioning at peek playback efficiency. But claims of harming relations would be greatly exaggerated."
Suddenly, Captain Cid entered the caves. "Hey! Am I late for the lifting festivities? Who’s got buff arms, am I right? Is the Jewish community okay with this?" But, upon visual absorption, he realized what was going on. "Ohhh, it’s the end twists. One of those. Allow me to add. You see, Starfleet Intelligence arranged to hide Mayhem here, to protect an ambiguously legal sentient being and, seemingly more importantly, as an oppose to Section 31. It would have been in your welcoming packet if you took a moment to read it, Captain Seifer."
"Reading, of course," countered Nelkast. "The Starfleet bureaucratic way of doing labouring, but legally dead since Mars was set on fire and the Romulan star exploded. Your retraction of resources rippled down through Starfleet Intelligence and then, surprisingly, to Section 31, thus proving the ineffectiveness of over-organizational governance. You should know the advantages of clandestine approach, Seifer, having proven this along side us before."
Seifer rolled his eyes before strength-forcing his tentacled arm to grab and open his tricorder. "Yeah, I kind of figured we were going full elitist non-oversight and, due to said proving, I repurposed your stolen Myriad codec— Originally a subspace transmission line, turned into a disruptive search string— Now a multi-focal location ping and transporter tag bull’s-eye of illicit operators of Section 31. Now that I know this cave serves as a computer, we’ve got you."
"Trying to out-reveal me, are you?" gritted a rising-anger Nelkast, who held up a hypospray and began injecting his allied Cave Ba’ul. "Impossible, as I have also repurposed a thing. In fact, our failed Dominion prisoner of war Changeling experimentations have been passed onto this Ba’ul group for maximum morphegenic tentacling! Further example of pure surreptitious bliss."
As the Cave Ba’ul extended even more and larger tentacles out onto everyone for maximum and overdone tentacle, and now Cid, Seifer gestured his gripped head. "I knew you would attempt to modify the gooey drip-drenched Changeling-wannabes, and somehow one-up the other day’s Trill symbiont tentacle snap, so I had this cave outfitted with standard Starfleet phaser torches."
"Hah!" Nelkast repulsefied as the torches mechanically popped up from nearby rocks and began targeting and phasering to break off Ba’ul tentacles. "You know they'll just grow back, right? Also, my assumption of your engineering attempt was justified as I have previously easily set up a counter to that through attaching Philippa Georgiou phase pods on all of them!"
Suddenly, the beams stopped cutting tentacles and just passed through, harmlessly, prompting the Ba’ul to reassert their additional and over-the-top tentacles onto everyone. "Ugh, how could you mine that repulsive style-over-substance Alpha Team disconnect? Also, are we borderline ceremonial in our constant Section 31 twists? Never mind. Have you tried this?" Seifer switched. "Hey, Ba’ul, what are you doing?"
"Actually, we’re not sure," one of the Cave Ba’ul answered, letting go of Tristene. "My name is Bhren, and I was just going with the flow, working with whoever seemed to be on our side. We actually lost track. We were unhappy about Veker and his using us to store Mayhem, but not enough to escalate cloak-and-dagger egregiousness. Also, dude, genetically modifying us without our consent? What the Soong?"
Nelkast watched in shock as all the Cave Ba’ul retracted their tentacles, only to fling them onto capturing him instead. They then helped Veker off the circular grass reed mat. The Kelpien shirked, "Eh, I’m sorry for disrespecting your home all these years, Bhren, and lying to everyone about not undergoing vahar’ai. I did it years ago at Quark’s Deep Space 9 bar on a dare from Morn. Everything I have done here has been completely non-Kelpien of me. "
"It’s almost Ba’ul," Bhren replied, understandingly. "Apology accepted as long as we can become not just friends, but found family. We shall propose this outrageous one-up-a-thon to be a part of Kaminar's future Federation-joining ceremony. It shall represent competition, secrets, and revelations of both into truths."
Veker nodded but was interrupted once again as Elena entered the caves to see the failed mission. "Nelkast, you idiot. You bunkered this up just as Seifer’s crew has done many times in the past! If you people are wondering how I escaped my holding cell, a Ferengi ally gave me a forcefield nail file in a purple cake. It was adorable."
"Perhaps Elena and I do work better together, Captain Seifer," Nelkast suggested as he hyposprayed the tentacles gripping him, reversing the morphegenic effects and causing them to shrink and retract and let him go. "As our goal here is to burn all our assets, we shall move onto the largest one in our proverbial repository, our transwarp-enabled U.S.S. Phoenix-X."
Seifer’s eyes suddenly went wide. "What are you talking about? There are people on that ship!"
"You know how far we go with things, and it almost always is too of said distancing. Our agency is a playground of covert nonsensical chaos. Never forget that. Kaleidoscope, two to beam up!" Elena countered as she tapped her black commbadge and both she and Nelkast were transported away.
Cid walked over. "The more this underground Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar-wannabe agency asserts itself upon us, the further from the vision of a sparse spy-thriller secrecy they become until they’re just an action-based non-brain enemy to be fired at. Join me on the Ragnarok and we'll stop them in this state, Captain. Use it to our advantage."
"It does seem their natural progression. Thanks, Captain Cid," the Trill conceded. "Even with the Phoenix-X being my home for nearly two decades thanks to Section 31 nativity, I can’t let it recede back into their anencephalic decrepitude. Action packed brainrot it is, then."
Nodding in agreement, Cid, Veker, John and everyone got to work cleaning up the caves, making amends and preparing to depart Kaminar in chase as the Kaleidoscope decoupled from the Orbital Defence superstructure and jumped to warp.
TO BE CONTINUED