Episode 95B

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 and everyone got to work cleaning up the caves, making amends and preparing to depart Kaminar in chase as John exited and the Kaleidoscope decoupled from the Orbital Defence superstructure and jumped to warp.

TO BE CONTINUED

Episode 95A

Star Trek: Phoenix-X
"Duplicitous Dispossession, Part I"

The agrarian, bucolic, run-of-the-mill Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X trekked steadily and solemnly in dispersion of the stars along the receded Federation border. Captain Seifer was in Sickbay getting his teeth checked by Doctor Xyrenia when the dental monitor clicked from vital medical data into a viewscreen-untraceable-communique from two Section 31 agents: Elena and Nelkast.

"It's been a while, Phoenix-X," glared Elena, from behind the shared desk. "We hope you enjoyed your irreverent gallivanting, but I expect you knew a follow-up was inevitable."

Seifer coughed away Xyrenia's final enamel exam tool. "Ugh! You guys? What I knew was that I was never going to force a wannabe ghost ops orthodoxy ever again. Briggs, terminate this contrivance, post-haste!"

"Every attempt at disengaging only reinforces the connection?" the Operations officer panicked, sitting up from his regular checkup, on the next biobed, and tapping frantically at its surgical bridge controls.

Nelkast arched his brow from the tiny viewscreen. "We know you feel we abandoned your ship's previous Captain to the annals of Starfleet bureaucracy, two years ago, but active clandestine remodeling in Starfleet's dark era is not as efficient as it used to be."

"Goddammit, they're still talking," Seifer gritted as he found a nearby console and began hitting it randomly. "Make them stop. Make them stop!"

Elena pushed, "Due to said-times and our audacious forced existence, it should be clear our desperation requires a mandatory mission, if you choose to accept, of your upcoming Ba'ul/Trill facilitation."

"Sir, as a Doctor, my kind does come into work armed with lobotomy and amputation laser guns, coupled with an experimental temperament?" Xyrenia offered with rising hope and Seifer's quickly nodded permission.

While the Deltan haste-burned a hot laser beam into the dental monitor, a picture-warping Nelkast rushed to finish his excitable-black ops pitch. "Section 31 is still relevant! You are to report on any anti-Federation intents by the Ba'ul or their Kelpien counterpar—"

"They're gone, but not before an enervated off-the-books lament," leaned Briggs in relief. "Are they insomniac by nature? You did this a lot with your old crew, right?"

Seifer slumped in the dental chair, relieved. "I would destroy ten non-recoverable life-saving medical devices if it meant snuffing them out. The Phoenix-X used to accept their implausible missions and far-fetched technologies all the time out of misplaced, immoral obligation. We were bred from the Dominion War, so we the-ends-justified-the-means'd all the time for the greater good."

"Then you woke up from their perpetual infractions and now you abhor them," Xyrenia surmised. "Like a terrible version of yourself you suppress through constant social media addiction. If we even still have that in the 24th century?"

The Captain nodded. "We do and, exactly right. Perhaps we're too deep under our Section 31 history by now for moral high-grounding, but the consolation is our Starfleet-level altruistic climb-out from regular chess-gaming and illegal black badge sweatshops."

"Yeah, the badges exposed them every time. Why were some of those guys so bad at undercover?" Briggs wondered. "They recruited a Boimler once?" 

Seifer waved it off. "They recruited misfit Nanokins and horribly organized, unageing Terrans with a Captain Garrett kink. But we don't talk about that."

---

Later, the Phoenix-X dropped transwarp to approach the gas giant Nehvia and one of its moon colonies Tivien before transporting several crew and then jumping back out of there. 

"Appreciate you joining us, Captain," opened Admiral Cloud as Seifer, Veker and Elly stepped off the transporter pad and walked with him through the corridors. "You’re still a Captain, right? Your symbiont hasn’t rejected the promotion yet, has it?"

Seifer shook his head. "Still frozen and unrecallable. I even went back in time and fought Ensign Chekov to see if his multi stomach punches would do anything. Nothing."

"He tried that on Klingons once. It was hilarious. Anyway, what concerns me most about this mission is your claim of Section 31 intentions. We were supposed to be done with that overused cloak-and-dagger mishmash on grounds of them never doing themselves right. I regret ever being brainwashed by them so, if you see anything, get us the evidence we need to condemn them once and for all."

The Captain perked. "But they would just cover that up?"

"You know not to contradict your superiors! Now, I’m off to appease the science and Trill dignitaries who will be watching all of you from the viewing windows, like a creepy Talosian marketplace or something. You get analogies."

---

Seifer, Veker and Elly entered a large rocky cavern with three functional Trill symbiont pools and several Trill and Ba’ul engineers working on attached tech near a large audience viewport.

"This is weird. Science is not entertainment and is to be done in the darkness of shame," Veker noted. "At least, that is Kelpien practice."

Elly looked around at all the black-gooey Ba’ul, walking everywhere at work. "The floors are a mess! This is the worst security job I’ve had since that horta ball-pit for adults."

"Rumor is their heat causes appreciation. You know what I mean," came the sly intersection of Elena in a Starfleet uniform. "Ensign Elena of the U.S.S. Ragnarok. Nice to see you, Captain."

Seifer pointed. "Dammit, Section 31. If you're already here to weed out anti-Federation detriment, what do you even need us for?"

"Your frozen symbiont affords you mental clarity in this thick neurological patchwork of telesthesia. Without a proper pool balance, all those messed up Trill symbiont visions hit even the non-Trill."

Veker held a hand to his head. "She's right. I'm sensing embarrassing 'thanks, you too' memories of symbionts at worm restaurants responding to their 'enjoy your meal'-wishing waiters." 

"Oh, that is the worst," Elly agreed as she followed him to a workstation. "I just heard a symbiont misread a taxi hail as a hello."

Seifer sighed. "They have this whole weird life in those pools before joining. No one ever talks about it. Also, didn’t the Ragnarok go rogue and start patrolling outside Federation space?"

"We were in the Qiris sector, walking a fine line between the surreptitious protection of Vashti and covert support of the Fenris Rangers," Elena splurted in disgust. "Both, a complete waste of resources but, at some point, the Captain has to rein it in to maintain some semblance of jurisdiction." 

The Trill looked at her. "How is helping others a pain point for you? Who are you?"

"I’m sure you’d like to hear that my trust issues stem from officer betrayal to bluegill parasites when I served the Renegade, but a clear-cut back story would be somewhat provincial, wouldn’t it?" Elena jabbed.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "It would be a backstory. That’s the point."

"The point, Captain, is that this whole operation is bogus," came the approach of Trill Ambassador Krenok, wearing long robes and prompting Elena to operate elsewhere. "Your Admiral reassures us that working with the Ba'ul's expertise in fluidic control will secure proper symbiont pool balance but I say this whole endeavour is an unholy blasphemy that crosses the line ten times over."

The Starfleet officer shrugged. "It's my understanding the progressive side of Trill politics seeking surrogate forms of longevity has been improving the betterment of symbionts. The government agrees."

"Like the way you've treated your symbionts? Losing Gotens, defying science through embezzling Seifer, mutating Seifer and then freezing Seifer? You know you're banned from the home world, right!?" the Ambassador ravished before walking away. 

Veker took notice of Seifer when he walked over. "I can't return to my Kelpien home either, Captain," Veker reassured while at work. "With the taste of Starfleet operational culture, I just can't deal with the weird, flouty, over-dramatized side of it all."

"I'm fine. We all learned to appreciate imperfection after the whole Borg thing came back several times over until it was done to death," the Trill Captain waved. "Like, get it right the first time, am I right?"

The Science officer’s eyes went simultaneously wide at what he was likewise reading off his console. "In this case, I wholeheartedly agree. You see, the Ba’ul chemical and gravimetric optimizations of these Trill pools are thorough and sensitive, indeed, but I’m reading a rising harmonic distortion of some kind."

"Don’t tell the Trill elders yet," came the approach of the wet, black-goo, drippy lead Ba’ul technician. "My name is John and fixing this unexpected issue is tantamount to proving our successful relationship here."

Seifer moved his foot away. "Ah! You’re getting splur all over the place. Also, John? A human name?"

"The splur is their way, Captain," approached Yenzin, a Kelpien engineer. "Some take off-world names as a show of appreciation for the larger galaxy but also spludge around in a maintain of their gooey cultural identity. Also, his uncle was named John."

Veker recognized the other Kelpien. "Yenzin! My grade school classmate and friend? It certainly has been some time and, before you ask, no I have not engaged the vahar’ai yet."

"Well, that explains your threat ganglia going crazy right now," Yenzin blinked. "Bro! Didn’t you get my long-range messages when you were at the Academy? We have to on that puberty-like evolution-jump, STAT, right after drinks, parties and strippers!"

Seifer did a double-take. "Hold on a second. That evolutionary thing the Ba’ul nearly genocided you over, a century ago, is now akin to a bachelor/Bar Mitzvah party? Is that why you won’t return to your home world? Also, are the pools supposed to be bubbling like that?"

The group looked to find the swimming symbionts morphing and flinging tentacles around and out, nearly whipping some of the walking-passed engineers. Upon realization, every engineer, including John and Yenzin, rushed to a control to investigate in panic!

"Reading a destabilization of the Primary Habitation Pool," Veker reported in a tizzy to Seifer. "The harmonic distortion has increased and is effecting every balance system they have going. Unable to locate its source thus far."

Elena approached. "This is clearly sabotage by the Ba’ul. I say we book them. Also, we should bring back the booking of people."

"Why are you worse without Nelkast? Is this separation the result of the dark times? John and the Kelpiens have every reason to succeed here to prove unity of their people to the rest of the galactic community. No, this is clearly Ambassador Krenok."

Suddenly, Elena was grabbed by the waist by a flinging symbiont tentacle and dragged toward the pools. Several other Kelpien and Starfleet engineers were also snatched and each humanoid struggled under the sudden super-symbiont strength.

"My deduction is based on his animosity toward any kind of symbiont pool expansion and this turn of events confirms his derelict amplification and betrayal of Trill culture," Seifer concluded while quickly working at controls while Admiral Cloud rushed over.

He rubbed his head. "Alright, I retract the Section 31 grind in favor of the immediate threat. As a Captain, your versatile skillset surely includes peril management."

"If I can modify the pools, I may be able to reverse them," Seifer surmised as he worked. "I was just adding depth with action. It’s called good writing— That is, if one were to transpose real life events as narrative. Which, I don’t. I’m not weird," he chuckled, unconvincingly, before Cloud’s neck was slapped with a gripping tentacle. "Elly, cut the tentacles! Don’t worry. They’re retachable."

The Admiral wedged fingers to prevent choking as Elly phaser beamed him free. "Thank you! Tell me, you don't think Section 31 still brainwashes me, do you?" But, before he could get an answer, his feet were pulled away by the loose tentacle, dragging him toward the pools, along side Ambassador Krenok. 

"Wait a second. Section 31? Veker, by chance, is this harmonic distortion just a reconfigured Myriad codec?" the Captain queried as he dodged a tentacle that, instead, grabbed Elly and pulled her away. "That covert plod once accidentally turned said-codec into a distortion on Rigel VII when they tried to re-purpose it as a search string."

Confirming, Veker replied as his waist was wrapped in a tentacle, "Yes, a codec is a tool and not signal and why does it sound made up and only ever mentioned right now for plot purposes?"

"That’s how deus ex machinas work! Nothing is really connected to anything, nor has any actual meaning, unless it facilitates surface-level action or special effects," Seifer said, taking over the console as Veker was pulled away. Seconds later, the distortion was stabilized and all the tentacles let go of their attempted hosts.

Krenok stumbled over. "Your people did this, Captain. Now it's going to take forever to reverse the symbiont mutations and speak to each telesthesian manager about the food here at this restaurant. The Trill government will hear of this! Actually, this looks good for my shut-down intents and conservative values. Thanks for that." 

"Please offload this so-called Myriad codec from our systems," John requested as Krenok exited and John squeegeed over, joined by Yenzin. "It looks like the distortions caused the symbionts to adopt Ba'ul aggressive tendencies from our gravitic and chemical alterations, and that reflects poorly upon Kelpien-Ba'ul delineation. Also, I'm working through my own Kelpien-targeted annihilistic suppressions." 

Yenzin halted in momentary shock for his life. "Yeah, that. Soon, please. As well, I'm glad to see you were not Trill-hosted like a few of the other Kelpiens here, Lieutenant Commander Veker."

"You know what? Between potential Ba'ul suppression and Trill life-extending, life is too short to indulge doubts. Let's do the vahar’ai. Science is entertainment!" Veker announced.

The other Kelpien did a double-take. "Bro, we are going to do so many shots, so much powdered-based illegal drugs off strippers and chair lift you at the peak of our family-friendly, traditional folk dance! Ree-joo mayzka!"

"I'm so confused about what you guys are now in the 24th century," Seifer blinked as he moved the codec to an isolinear chip and Yenzin and John exited before Elena limped over. "But I did figure out what Section 31 was doing here. You were searching the database for Mayhem."

Elena gritted her teeth. "Using the Myriad codec was an escalation of need, worth the potential expenditure of whatever was going on here. You were supposed to provide us plausible deniability. Damn. I guess I really did need Nelkast."

"Mayhem was a bitter virus and hologram that served the Phoenix-X as an Intelligence officer before taking on a Section 31 mission to Sigma Iota II, three years ago," Seifer explained to a confused Veker. "Perhaps Section 31 can do some semblance of relevancy after all."

The cover-Ensign added, "Our asset was later extracted by a Ba'ul/Kelpien starship and the technology within this facility matched that. Your new mission is to follow through and support Veker's vahar’ai for clandestine purposes."

"I'm not sure I like being used by the unsanctioned, disreputable organization that you've been railing against since we started, Captain, but I'm so revved up in excitement of biological character change that I do not care," Veker admitted to Seifer after Elena was apprehended by security and Elly. Next, Admiral Cloud approached. 

Captain Seifer sighed. "I just wanted to be done with those guys and not uncover an even further thing with them. You let her do this, didn't you?"

"It was the only way to keep them in my sights!" Cloud countered. "Besides, we can still squash that force-fed reclusive cockroach-like institution if we can secure the unsuppressable evidence of their virus Mayhem and get his testimony." He shifted, uncomfortably. "None of our own testimonies would work because of all the copyright music strikes on our Starfleet log accounts."

Seifer shook his head. "Why is everyone so obsessed with gaining followers on those? And tagging sponsors and getting monetized? We're supposed to be a cashless, carefree utopia! Never mind. The lesson here is, we're the problem and, because of these dark times, everyone else is going to suffer more from us if we don't do something about it."

"Very poignant and heart-wrenching to my missteps, Captain," Admiral Cloud noticed. "But, diluting perceptions of paradise and self-ego is what this is all about. So, carry on. The success of this moon Tivien means there may be hope for those affected by our organizational deformities after all." 

He walked on with a wet leg limp as the entire facility got back to Ba'ul pool stabilizing and Kelpien symbiont therapy.

Trek BBS 20

March/April 2026 Challenge: Old. Old tech, old school, old ship, old worlds, old life, old civilizations etc., whatever fits the bill.

Trek BBS: March-April 2026 Challenge
"Old: The Previous Upper Decks"

The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X mifted, miffly and monotonously in middling madness along the Federation border as the Type-4, Class F shuttlecraft Hendrix exited its shuttle bay and jumped to warp. BOB operated the shuttle's forward consoles.

“Special counsellor’s log, Stardate 70185.2. With the entire crew in near Antedian states from constant patrol, I’ve taken the unlocked, non-synced Hendrix toward the Volterra Nebula where a two-decades old Enterprise-D analysis has finally indicated a potential cluster of temporal matter. Since I’m a temporally displaced Ferengi myself, I intend to ride that anomaly back to the future where I came from!"

The shuttle dropped warp and approached an energized, fluctuating mess of giant hardened vines and branches in space. Captain Seifer awoke from a pile of blankets in the back of the shuttle, just now noticing the situation.

"What the hell, man? You stole this century-old, ancient shuttle gifted to us from the Unreliable to go anomaly-hunting to— what, time travel re-sync yourself, extraordinaire??" the jaw-dropped Trill blitzered.

BOB turned, quickly accepting his undoing. "Ahh! Yeah, pretty much. I’ve been waiting forever for a Temporal Investigations agent or some kind of 29th century Integrity Commission to correct my misalignment as I find the anticipation of such a pluck more stressful than the violation itself."

"Dammit, man. I ordered you otherwise specifically to evade those fun-killing hacks! It’s in the same sense I was hiding out in here to dodge hounding crew from stuffy patrol updates since I’d been missing twice now on shuttle mishaps."

The Ferengi nodded. "Shirking said duties on small craft was probably indicative of said issues in the first place."

"I know my foibles!"

But they were quickly approached by the Type-11 shuttle Haruko and hailed by its sole occupant, Tong. "Captain? You thumb-printed remote-authorized us to investigate this quandary this morning?"

"I’m going to be honest. I probably did that half-asleep and it seems BOB came across your same findings."

Tong understood. "Ah. Trying to escape the timeline again? Classic BOB shenanigans. Well, Hachi and I found two vessels, though, not future-related but, rather, past. Come. You’ll see what I’m being overtly coy about."

---

Soon, both shuttles weaved themselves near the outskirts of the chaotic temporal timber, where they separately shuttle bay-landed aboard two lifeless Federation vessels, now hung in the confines of the late 24th century: the archaic, low-quality original Constitution-class U.S.S. Shinsoku and the gimmicky-obsessed angled Crossfield-class U.S.S. Theodosia.

"This is amazing," Seifer observed as he joined BOB on the Bridge of the now-lighting up Shinsoku. "Retro nobs, illuminated blocks and faceless data cards with no clue what’s on them! It’s like being back in the 23rd century of misogynistic, sweaty old Vulcan bigotry."

The screen clicked on to show the hail from the Theodosia, where Tong and Hachi were now just getting into its reactivated Bridge. "Are you kidding me? Those ships were slow, redundant and lacking in visual resolution due to pervasive chemical leaks," Hachi offered while manning a nearby console. "At least this ship looked way more advanced than yours."

"This is the 288m asbestos version over its surplus-budget 442m neon-lights-everywhere version— I’ll give you that," Seifer noticed, looking around. 

BOB perked from checking the ship logs. "Captain, according to this, the Shinsoku was fighting Klingons in orbit of Caleb IV in 2270 before its crew were simultaneously transported off whilst a battle-damaged eruption sent the ship skewing through some kind of fungal subspace network."

"They must’ve looked like they exploded and died but, instead, became trapped in the multi-dimensional weave left by the Theodosia’s attempted spore drive jump, a decade earlier," Tong realized as he went through his own ship’s logs. "According to this, the Theodosia was covertly doing a Discovery and Glenn thing."

Seifer blinked. "I have no idea what space magic nonsense you just spouted, but it’s clear the Shinsoku rode what I assume are mushrooms all the way to the Theodosia and this fungal-growing end point."

"That’s exactly what that was," Tong conflated, impressed. "There’s some kind of hippie mycelial network permeating all of space and time and it’s bleeding out here? Anyway, I suggest we trigger main controls by initiating each ship’s tactical simulations."

With Seifer nodding and everyone getting to work, both old vessels began to rev up even more with the unfortunate happenstance of becoming suddenly locked in connection with each other. "Oh, crap!" BOB panicked. "The simulations have become synced and see each opposite vessel as its assigned enemy. Also, we can’t turn them off??" 

"This feels like we’re ramping up to something," Seifer deadpanned. "Are we doing a thing?"

Hachi nodded in agreement from his checks. "The only way to end our Alexander Rozhenkoing and get full warp control will be for us to complete our simulation through disabling you guys for real."

"Hold on a second," Seifer repulsed. "If anyone is disabling anyone for real, it’s the original Constitution-class taking your half-baked triangle toaster pastry out to serialized-drama-breakfast."

Tong protested as he brought phasers online. "Are you kidding me, sir? The Crossfield-class wipes your screenless, fighter jet stealing, doomsday food starship all the way from Delta Vega to the other Delta Vega."

"Your corridors are too big and you waste all your internal space on a mythical turbolift universe!" Seifer argued as he diverted weapons control to the Captain’s chair. "Also, why is everyone always crying!?"

---

Tong quickly leapt backward to the Theodosia’s nub chair as Hachi initiated the Crossfield-class ship to pass the Shinsoku whilst hitting it with photon torpedoes. 

"Constitutions can’t keep their visuals consistent," Tong added. "Are they high-definition shiny-metallic or toneless, grainy matte? Do their pylons have gaps in them or not??"

The Shinsoku rotated around and blasted canned phaser beams after canned phaser beams into weakening the forward shields of the Theodosia. Seifer argued, "Crossfields can’t keep their technology comparable with everyone else! Why do you have holographic interfaces? Or AI more advanced than ten years from then??"  

"They were Kurtz-ppealing to an attention-anemic generation of slab-obsessed, aggressive attentioners— Admirals, maybe," Tong countered, defensively, as the Theodosia went to black alert, spun its saucer section and popped itself to suddenly below the Shinsoku. 

BLAM! The Shinsoku’s ventral shields were broken through by a volley of photon torpedoes and the lower hull was breached. "Ahh! The Great Bird of the Galaxy must be spinning in his galactic bird grave!" BOB gritted from his light-bulbed damage reports.

"I’ve got to Kirk this somehow. Every starship carries a part of its predecessor and it looks like the Shinsoku has the grappler of its NX-class forerunner," Seifer observed before he fired a metallic cable out from the Constitution-class mashup to grab a giant branch of hardened Yeel tree.

Snapping it off, the Shinsoku flung the mammoth space bark into the Theodosia’s next attempted spore jump/hull spin, locking the mycelial appendage into the saucer section gaps and, instead, causing the bottom half of the Crossfield-class ship to spin uncontrollably. 

"Aaaaahhhh!!!" Tong and Hachi screamed as they cancelled their black alert, stopped their pointless spin and settled the resulting hull stress.

Hachi got himself up off the floor. "Captain, did you just jam a stick into the spoke of our saucer wheel like a mean kid throwing a rod into a friend’s bicycle tire?"

"I did do that. Yes," Seifer blinked in shared realization seconds before both simulations ended and two formally-dressed agents transported onto the Bridge of each ship.

Everyone noticed the Phoenix-X had delivered them as the human woman upon the Theodosia took them in. "Agent Liangi of Temporal Investigations: You time it, we sometimes untime it. But not always."

---

"Agent Chovdun," the human male upon the Bridge of the Shinsoku introduced while taking in the fascination of the back-to-basics starship. "Pretty good find you boys have here."

Seifer slumped in defeat despite the win. "Actually, I’m just now realizing the inherent authenticity-contamination of the Constitution-class. No matter how pure and out-of-the-box we want it to be, some kind of extended-canon composite irrigates mongrel tech mashing." 

"It’s like a quantum wave function in that you can’t claim an unsullied observation without it being effected by the observer," Liangi added.

Nodding, Seifer replied, "I miss the old days. Now androids are banned, Romulus is destroyed and Picard is some kind of angry hermit?"

"He’s a delightful crank!" Chovdun countered. "But, yeah. Times change and whether they’re good or bad is irrelevant as people are pawns to a galactic plot tapestry. Bearing witness is its own comeuppance."

Liangi continued. "Anyway, we’ll eradicate this mycelial outpouring and take these starships back to the Federation for the Starfleet Museum or some kind of covert mission or something. Who knows."

"Ahem! Hello? What about me?" BOB interrupted, expectantly. "I’m an anomalous aberration?"

Chovdun gritted angrily before transporting everyone and their shuttles back to the Phoenix-X. "Didn’t you hear what Liangi said about untiming!? Not always!"

---

Back on the Bridge of the Prometheus-class Phoenix-X, the crew came to see Seifer taking a seat at his chair.

"Captain, are you finally back?" Veker asked. "You know how the crew deteriorates into it’s weekly targ hunts whenever you’re away."

Seifer looked. "Wait. I thought those stopped when the Klingon Officer Exchange Program ended?"

"They never took the targs with them. Said they were tainted by Starfleet grooming and pet love standards," Hachi added. "As for us, that was a fun battling of a bunch of old ships. Back to patrol position then?"

The Captain hesitated. "Actually, let’s do a quick survey for any more anomalous irregularities. From now on, if we find a single mushroom spore tree anywhere, we are to destroy it!" After an agreeing crew, the Phoenix-X turned in space and jumped to warp.