The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003)/devilsdoorknobbbscapture1996-2003.iso/Dloads/TEXTFILE/STDUNE.ZIP/DUNE1.TXT

Text File | 1992-02-07 | 19KB | 515 lines

Item    2237811                 92/02/06        22:57

From:   J.HYCHE                         Jeff Hyche

To:     M.ALLEGRETTO                    M Allegretto

Sub: Dune/Star Trek 1 of 5

From daemon Sat Aug 24 11:49 CDT 1991
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Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 10:36:21 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Chris Ewing)
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Status: RO


Well, given that the world seems intent on discussing Tasha Yar, I shall take
this opportunity to post a little tale.  I am not familiar with all of the
copyright necessities involved.  Startrek:  The Next Generation is the creative
property of Paramount, as I'm sure you know.  We don't use any characters from
Dune, but we do bring in the Bene Gesserit, so I should probably say I didn't
invent them, Frank Herbert did.

Well, here we go...
[On the bridge of the Relaint-Class cruiser Nadia.  An alert sounds in the
background.]

First Officer:  All scanners negative, Captain.  Shields at maximum.  Weapon
batteries reporting fully operational and ready.

Navigator:  Entering standard orbit.

Captain:  Open a channel.

Com Officer:  Open, sir.

Captain:  This is Captain Michael Killpatrix of the Federation starship Nadia.
We have assumed standard orbit above Cey 4.  Please acknowledge.

Com Officer:  Receiving visual, sir.

Killpatrik:  Main viewer.

[A woman - visibly angry - appears on screen]

Killpatrik:  Colonel Lexis, I presume?

Lexis:  You were warned, Captain, not to assume standard orbit.

Killpatrik:  No signs of anything unusual, Colonel.  We are at maximum alert,
just in case.

Lexis:  None of the previous craft reported signs of anything unusual, either,
Captain.

Killpatrik:  Colonel, we are not a cargo ship.  And as I said, we are at
maximum alert.  It seems to me the best way to investigate a strange happening
is to recreate as much of it as possible.  Our current course matches that of
the last vessel.

Lexis:  I am a soldier and not a star jockey.  I shall assume you know what
you are doing.  Cey 4 out.

Killpatrik:  Nadia out.  Anything, Number One?

First Officer:  Scanners continue to report negative.

Navigator:  Nearing the Andromadorea's last coordinates.

Killpatrik:  Quarter impulse.  Focused short range scans, Number One.  All
phaser banks stand-by.  Establish telemetry link with Cey 4.  Transmit
continuous status.

Com. Officer:  Link established.  Transmitting full status.

Killpatrik:  Well, now we wait.

First Officer:  Oh, God...

___________________________________________________________________________



[The Enterprise bridge.  A wire-frame diagram of a ship on main screen.  The
vessel is bulbous, resembling perhaps a whale or other large sea-creature.]

Picard [voice-over]:  Captain's log, supplemental.  Proceeding to Cey 4 at
maximum warp.  We are responding to the loss of three starships and the
severe damaging of a fourth, all within a one month period.  The fourth ship -
Federation cruiser Nadia - suffered severe structural damage from a collision
with a vessel of unprecedented size.  We assume the other vessels suffered a
similar collision, and were destroyed.  The vessel appears to be cloaked so
effectively, the Nadia's - and even planet-based systems - have failed to
located it using there scanners, even though they now know exactly where it
is.

Data [continuing a discussion]:  Even Romulan cloaking technology could not
hope to mask a ship of this size with any effectiveness.  To hide it from the
concerted efforts of the Nadia and the military installations on Cey 4 would
be beyond them.

Riker:  It's plainly not beyond someone.

Data:  That is true, Commander Riker.

Picard:  But who?

Data:  That, Captain, would appear to be beyond us.

Worf:  This poses a severe military risk...

Data:  There have been no overtly hostile actions on the part of this vessel.
All damage, so far, has been the result of unforeseen events.  Literally.

Worf:  So far.

Riker:  And there were no warnings to the ships in danger.

Data:  I think it likely no-one exists capable of making such warnings.  Hoping
someone will crash into you is not a very effective form of hostility.

Riker:  It's been pretty effective to this point.

Data:  More by unfortunate circumstance than calculated design, Commander Riker.

Picard:  You think it's an abandoned vessel, Commander Data?

Data:  That is my first 'guess.'

Com Officer:  Receiving transmission from the Nadia, Captain.

Picard:  On screen.  Maybe we'll get some answers...

Worf:  Or more questions.

Picard:  Yes.  Or more questions.

[Killpatrik appears on screen.  His bridge shows signs of the mishap, but is
not severely damaged]

Killpatrik:  Am I glad to see you, Enterprise!

Picard:  Oh?  Has there been more trouble?

Killpatrik:  No.  This thing just - un-nerves me.  Well, it scares the hell out
of me.

Data:  Have you made any progress in determining why the vessel is invisible
to scanners?

Killpatrik:  You might call it progress.  We have determined the ship sits
inside a sphere of some kind.  Roughly twice the vessel's length in diameter.
Though it has no physical manifestation - we can move through it freely - it
cloaks everything inside it completely.  Including, I might add, us.

Data:  Does this sphere interfere with you instruments while you are within it?

Killpatrik:  Well, we're inside it now.  It doesn't seem to be interfering with
our communications.  It doesn't interfere with our scans of the main vessel.
Nor does it interfere with our ability to see out.

Data:  Can you determine the energy requirements of this sphere?

Killpatrik:  Well, no.  The ship has no detectable sources of energy.  No
detectable means of propulsion, either.  It's only visible feature, as you
already know from the diagrams we've sent, is an opening wide enough to move
five starships through side by side.  This slit runs down most of the thing's
belly.  Enterprise, if this is some kind of carrier, ti could hold several
thousand heavy cruisers...

Picard:  Understood, Captain.

Data:  You have not moved your ship inside, I presume?

Killpatrik:  Hell no!  We couldn't fight of a Klingon dinghy - uh, no offense
Commander Worf.

Worf:  None taken, Captain.

Killpatrik:  Thank God that thing's shaped the way it is.  All those curves.
Our shields held long enough for our momentum to shift, but we're still a mess.

Picard:  Looks like we'll be the lucky ones, then.

Killpatrik:  Yeah.  Lucky you.

Data:  Do you have anything else you could transmit?

Killpatrik:  We're waiting for reports from some un-manned probes, including
some sent inside the craft.  We'll send you what we can.  It might not be
much.

Picard:  It will be more than we have now.

Killpatrik:  True.  Until later, Nadia out.

Picard:  Enterprise out.


______________________________________________________________________________



[The Enterprise conference room.  Officers present:  Picard, Riker, Data, Troy
and Worf.  Several screens are active, showing diagrams of the mystery
vessel.  Data is speaking]

Data:  ...the vessel is, for the most part, hollow.  Support beams honeycomb
this interior, apparently designed to hold other vessels falling into four
primary size ranges.  The smallest, a one or two man corsair.  The largest,
roughly five times the size of the Enterprise.  Capacity is - as Captain
Killpatrik already implied - enormous.  There appear to be berths for twenty-
five hundred of the largest ships.

Worf:  Two-thousand, five-hundred vessels five times the size of the
Enterprise?

Data:  Yes.  That is what I said.  For the smallest ships, there is space for
perhaps ten thousand.  Total capacity is in the range of twenty-five thousand.

Riker:  That's almost incomprehensible.  All of Star Fleet...

Data:  Even at it's peak, would not exhaust it's capacity.  In all probability,
there would be ample room left for the Klingon and Romulan fleets.  The main
function of this carrier seems to be simply holding the ships securely.  There
are no visible access corridors allowing for movement from ship to ship, or
from ship to carrier.  In fact, the hangar is segmented in such a way that it
would be possible to close off sections.  Indeed, one could imagine the
Klingon and Romulan fleets together with the Federation inside this vessel,
none with access to the others' sections.

Picard:  Baring transporter technology...

Data:  That is not certain, Captain.  I shall explain later.

Worf:  With such capacity, the visible opening would appear to be too small to
be practical.  Especially in wartime.

Data:  The hull opens up.  Two segments can be pulled upwards over the vessel's
back, exposing roughly two-hundred and seventy degrees of the hangar.

Worf:  Such a sight would be awe-inspiring.

Riker:  The Nadia is certain this thing is empty?

Data:  The probes have accounted for all of the hangar space, and it is empty.

Riker:  But the entire ship is not a hangar.

Data:  No.  The foreward fifth of the ship is un-accounted for.  There are also
several bubbles along the hull about which we know nothing.  And the hull itself
ranges from ten to sixty meters in thickness.  Easily capable of housing
additional facilities.  The materials of this hull have resisted identification.
The Nadia's scanners have been unable to penetrate it.  Nor could transporter
beams, Captain.  Access to the carrier itself appears severely limited.

Riker:  Has any means of access been found at all?

Data:  No.

Picard:  Quite a mystery.  And it could not have appeared in a less practical
region of Federation space.

Riker:  Cey 4?

Picard:  Exactly.  I should remind you all of the nature of this world.  The
population of Cey 4 originated in a small nation on Earth, surrounded on all
sides by larger, hostile neighbors.  Somewhere lost in the turmoils of the
twenty-first and second centuries, this nation vanished.  Previously, it was
assumed they had been destroyed in the many nuclear exchanges that rocked the
area.  However, they themselves initiated those exchanges to mask a deeper
purpose.  They left.  In a massive exodus which ended here.  An amazing - if
not down-right miraculous - feat given the technology of the time.

Worf:  And their new desert home has made them harsh.  Their fighting skill is
legendary among Klingons.

Data:  And virtually unknown among the Federation worlds.

Riker:  I've never heard of them.

Data:  They have been used in planet-based raids only.  And only rarely, and
only in great secrecy.  They have never failed.

Picard:  And like all legends, privacy is of paramount importance to them.
They have shown an unusual spirit of cooperation in tending to the casualties
and damage of the Nadia, but we cannot be certain of their future disposition.

Riker:  Sounds like they just want us to be gone as soon as possible...

Data:  They are known to have a particular dislike for Star Fleet.

Picard:  Well, the point is we must tread carefully with Cey 4.  Anything else
on the vessel, Commander Data?

Data:  Only that even with the additional scrutiny, no sources of power have
been detected.

Riker:  But that should be expected, given we can't see through the hull.

Data:  Not so.  Signature radiations - particularly neutrinos - should escape
and be detected by our more sensitive instruments.  That is not the case.

Riker:  Maybe the power's off.

Data:  That is not the case, either.  Unless the cloaking sphere is a natural
by-product of the hull's materials.

Worf:  Which is a possibility.

Data:  But an extremely remote one.

Picard:  Well, we know a little more than we did.

Data:  One last thing, Captain.

Picard:  Yes?

Data:  None of the probes or scans have elicited the slightest response from
the vessel.  It is growing increasingly likely that we have stumbled across
an abandoned hulk.  If that is the case, there may not be anything aboard to
answer the many, many questions which are sure to arise.

Picard:  Yes. Foremost of which is the circumstance of it's abandonment.

_______________________________________________________________________________



[A vast plateau of metal.  In the background, a blue planet.  Several doezen
ships, similar in appearance to the giant vessel discovered by the Nadia, float
above the platform, occasionally connected to it by arcs of electricity.  A ship
which is plainly that encountered by the Nadia sits motionless at the center.
It
is larger than the rest, but not by much.]

Woman's Voice:  My Sisters, we are at the end of history.  The Maelsrom rages.
As goes the nova, so goes civilization.  It collapses upon itself.  Twenty
thousand years ago fell the God-Emperor.  Not even he Saw this far.  To the
very edge of Man.  Standing here, I See.  For I, too, am Atreides - the product
of Gesserit and Tleilaxu desperation.


     But the later have been swallowed.
     Sisters, we are the last.  We and this world Ix.  We are the height of
that which civilization has created, and we must fight.  Fight the rabid wolves
circling about us.  Only war do they know.  They burn hot, but like an ember,
are doomed to ash.  I have Seen that we may prevail. Also have I Seen that we
may fail.  But I hold your memories with me now.  And if we are to fail, I shall
take this ship - the pride of Ix - and loose myself in the cosmos.  Come what

take this ship - the pride of Ix - and loose myself in the cosmos.  All record
     Go now to war, and send us all to Destiny.

[The leviathan ships begin to move.  They rise above the plateau and vanish.
Only the central, largest remains.  The planet rises in the background.  And
then, the last ship vanishes as well.]


________________________________________________________________________



[Enterprise bridge.  Crew at yellow alert.  Killpatrik on main viewer.]

Killpatrik:  We'll guide you in, Enterprise.  We're sitting just below the
fore section of the craft.  She'll seem to just pop into existence right over
your head.  It's spectacular.

Picard:  I'm looking forward to it.

Killpatrik:  I would too, the second time around.

Com Officer:  Receiving transmission from Cey 4, Captain.

Picard:  This, I'm not sure I'm looking forward too.

Killpatrik:  Colonel Lexis.  She's a real peach, Picard.  You'll like her.

Picard:  We will continue to follow your guide.  Enterprise out.

Killpatrik:  Right.  Nadia out.

[Lexis appears]

Lexis:  Welcome to Cey 4, Enterprise.  Colonel Hafia Lexis-Benyamin, Al-Mossad.
I salute you.

Picard:  Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, Starship Enterprise.  It is our hope,
Colonel, to trouble you only so long as necessary...

Lexis:  We understand Starfleet's presence here, Captain Picard.  We do not
resent it.  We requested it, and are, in fact, grateful.

Data:  Can you add anything to the Nadia's account of the vessel, Colonel?

Lexis:  We have plotted positions for all ships known lost over the past two-
hundred years.  Some thirty vessels in all remain unexplained.  Of those, 16
disappearances have occured within a narrow band.

Data:  Corresponding to the vessel's orbit?

Lexis:  Yes.  It has been here a long time.

Riker:  An abandonned hulk of some earlier civilization?

Data:  That is a possibility.  Are there any signs of previous habitation on
the planet's surface, Colonel?

Lexis:  I am sorry, Enterprise.  Cey 4 is not open for discussion at this time.
We do not believe anything of relevance to this vessel exists on the planet's
surface.  Captain...

Picard:  Yes, Colonel Lexis?

Lexis:  We are sincerely grateful for Starfleet's help.  However, this system
is our home.  This discovery a piece of it.  We do not want it lost.

Picard:  Starfleet understands your position, Colonel.

Lexis:  I do not wish to make threats, Captain.  We will help you in any way
we can, including granting access to the planet's surface if that proves
absolutely necessary.  However, should you remove this vessel or it's contents
from this system without our consent, you will be making a dangerous foe.

Picard:  Let me say, Colonel, that we fully understand the position of Cey 4
and it will be consulted in all decisions of pertinence to this case.

Lexis:  [laugh]  The reknowned Starship warrior has become a politician.  I will
trust you, Captain.  Your past speaks for your future.  Lexis out.

Picard:  Enterprise out.

Troi:  She was afraid of something, Captain.

Picard:  Afraid?

Troi:  Apprehensive.  Like a tigress in a zoo.  Her cub is wounded, and she
trusts the zoo keeper.  And yet...

Riker:  And yet one false move and off with his head.

Troi:  Yes.

Riker:  Do we know anything about their offensive capability?

Data:  Classified at the highest levels of Starfleet.  And that is their planet
based capability.  Of their space systems, we know next to nothing.

Worf:  We know they required our aid.

Data:  An interesting induction.  However, given the nature of this mystery
vessel, it could well be they exhausted all other options but turning to
Starfleet.  We still do not know what those options were.

Picard:  The bottom line is:  we know damn little about anything.  Other than
the fact we're right smack in the middle of it.

Data:  That is correct, Captain.

Riker:  We should be crossing the boundary soon.

Picard:  Good, Number One.  Main screen forward visual.

[Several moments pass.  Without warning, the vessel appears.  It's upper bounds
disappear off the edges of the screen.  The Nadia sits, barely visible, beneath
it.  The left side of her main section shows severe damage as the Enterprise
nears her.]

Worf:  In combat, I would rather it remained a mystery how I was destroyed than
see what it was I battled...


[Enterprise bridge.  Most of the officers standing.  Notable exception:
Commander Troi.  Worf notices, and rushes to her side.]

Worf:  Captain!  Commander Troi has collapsed!

Picard:  What!?

Worf:  She has collapsed.  Her pulse is very weak.  I do not believe she is
breathing.

Picard:  Have her taken to sick bay at once!

Worf:  Yes, Captain!

Picard [hitting comm link]:  Dr. Crusher, prepare for an emergency.  Commander
Troi has collapsed.  Perhaps some kind of cardiac arrest.

Dr. Crusher:  What caused it?

Picard:  That is something I would very much like you to find out.  [turning
to Worf] Immediate status report.  Full alert!

Riker:  An attack of some kind?

Data:  Commander Troi could present a meaningful target to a very perceptive
enemy.  Her empathic abilities could give us an advantage.

Riker:  What kind of an advantage would someone on a ship like that need?

Picard:  I can't imagine...




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