Chapter Text
Star Trek: Phoenix-X
"Cookies, Part I"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X held, stitched within the cold confines of interstellar space. Its commanding crew sat diligently at their stations on the Bridge as Lieutenant Wallace bumbled his way off the turbolift.
"Hey-low, Starfleet memba's!" Wallace frumped in pure elating bliss.
Both Captain Daniel, from his command chair, and Commander Gotens, standing nearby, took notice of the euphoric officer. "Ah, Lieutenant Wallace. To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?"
"Yeah, and it better be worthwhile!" Daniel snapped.
Wallace then held up a tray of baked cookies. "Well, I made these cookies Armond asked for, and I thought I could bring some to the Bridge for everyone, Cap'n."
"You mean, replicated," Red, from the helm, amended.
The other officer chuckled. "Aheuh, heuh! Why, no. I baked them myself, Cap'n."
"Very well. Proceed with the pre-established baked goods dissemination that so many office workplaces toil on and on," Daniel consented as Wallace began generously handing them out to the senior staff. He then leaned into a whisper with the Commander. "Why does he keep calling everyone Cap'n??"
Gotens followed suit. "It's a new trend with the kids to call everyone Cap'n. I found it when I was browsing the Urban Space Dictionary."
"Yous twos Cap'ns are m'favourite," Wallace leaned in after he was done. Then, noticing Lieutenant Commander Kugo enter the Bridge, he offered her a cookie. "Here you go, Cap'n!"
Accepting it, Kugo then turned to her commanding officers and spoke while chomping. "Cap'ns, I just wanted to report the preliminary updates to the transwarp are done and we are ready for stress testing."
"I'd like to protest the fact we're toying with our transwarp when it's obvious said likewise-manipulations are what destroyed all previous Phoenix-ships and accelerated us to the -X postfix?" Kayl interjected from Ops.
Red turned as well. "Also, how is our current transwarp not fast enough for us? It's already 20 times the speed of warp?"
"It's never enough!" Daniel snapped. "We must at no time fall into complacency and always push the limits of being OP! Always and forever onward!"
Gotens addressed everyone as well. "Yeah, and everyone is to eat their cookies as a concession to never question authority ever again— Especially if there are ethical uncertainties."
"Oh man, I hate those. Anyway, let's begin," Daniel offered, now pleasantly to Kugo while the crew began eating their treats.
---
As the Phoenix-X sped into transwarp, a Klingon and an Andorian passenger found themselves unnoticed in a hectic Main Engineering.
"Did you put the chilled-out substance in the baked goods?" the Klingon, Ragon asked.
The Andorian nodded. "Right next to the nutmeg. I've also implemented our own modifications to the transwarp stress test. We are now going towards our—"
"Ah-ah-ah-ah!" Ragon hushed. "You know better than to explain everything in plain sight. Now, when I push this button, everyone who ate a cookie will be knocked unconscious."
As Lieutenant Kayl was entering Engineering, she just barely caught that. "What did you just say?"
"Oh, uh, when I push this button, everyone playing hooky will be caught in conscience!"
She smirked before continuing passed. "Hah! That'll be hilarious. Carry on, you sketchy, no-clearance guests-in-a-restricted zone."
"The computer reports that everyone on the ship has eaten a cookie," Kotah examined when she was gone. "Luckily, everyone agreed to have their stomachs data-tracked for a previous synthejiuana blind test."
Ragon nodded in deviation. "It's going to be so weird when Starfleet approves that."
---
Meanwhile, on the Bridge, Ensign Dan found himself unsettled by the consumption of his cookie. The Captain took notice and quickly snapped.
"Ensign Dan, you are relieved!"
And a second later, the Bajoran toppled over, unconscious.
"Well, you don't have to take it that bad. You know what? On second thought, you're back on duty," the Captain rescinded, excitedly, a minute before he realized the entire Bridge crew had fallen over as well. "Computer, is anyone moving on the ship?"
The computer replied, over-air, "One Andorian, one Klingon, and the Captain are the only non-motionless forms on the Phoenix-X."
"I'm so glad we installed those porch light motion detectors on every deck," Daniel digressed. He checked a few pulses to ensure his subordinates were still alive then went to a control panel to track the intruders. His display indicated a turbolift moving toward the Bridge. "What!? That thing is programmed to jam during hijackings!"
Captain Daniel took the shape of a hard-edged wooden chair, seconds before the doors opened, dispelling Ragon and Kotah.
"Ahhh, the legendary Phoenix-X. I've always wanted a ship like this," Ragon consumed quite vigorously while taking a seat in the command chair. "Although, it is rather too comfy. The coarseness of the executive officer's perch is more my style," he added while appreciating the nearby, out-of-place wooden chair.
Kotah checked the Operations console. "Ship systems are good, as well as weapons."
"Excellent," the Klingon replied. "Set course for the Maquis cell at Moghren III. Never thought I'd be helping a dying terrorist group, but money is how I will honor my House."
The Andorian popped. "How is the mistress?"
"She wants me to pick up some blood milk on the way home."
Kotah nodded. "Ah, domestic life. Also, internal sensors are saying not all personnel are accounted for. The Captain never had a cookie!"
"What!? They are delicious!" Ragon countered. "The nutmeg, alone." And then, "Okay, let's find him. And while you're at it, I want you to check on our Cardassian prisoner. That's right. You can do two things!"
---
After a thorough perusing over unconscious bodies, Ragon made it to the Messhall for a break. There, Kotah joined him to report his own findings.
"Meloneus rattled off several backstories about his past almost immediately," the Andorian noted. "But I did learn that I could perform two things, as you said."
Ragon slapped the bar table. "I told you! Let's prematurely celebrate such revelatory multi-tasking by layering in a toast in a momentary dropping of our guards."
"Surely, that's a terrible idea," offered Daniel, stepping out of the shadows to reveal himself. "A person can only do so many things at once at the behest of the main operation."
Kotah's jaw dropped. "Holy crap. He's right. That shadowy corner was one of the last spots we had to check!" The Andorian then took out his phaser as Ragon pulled the bat'leth off his back.
"Mooooooooohhhaaaa!" Daniel transformed himself into an Adamantaimai, a giant hard-shelled, heavy-limbed beast, scaring Kotah away before smacking Ragon across the room. "Ah. I'm just remembering I left the kettle on."
---
In haste, Kotah made his way toward the Bridge, in the turbolift. The doors opened and he ran to the helm to check ETA to the Maquis base.
"Holy crap! Starfleet employs Changelings now?? I really have been living in my mother's basement for too long."
---
Ragon awoke, groggily, got up and made his way to the Shuttle Bay. He boarded the Class-2 shuttle Roche, ejected into mid-transwarp space, and locked clamps onto the outer hull of the Phoenix-X.
"Shapeshifters are Dominion leaders, so either this vessel has been compromised, or he just works here?"
When the ship dropped back into normal space at Moghren III, the Klingon observed they had arrived earlier than predicted.
"Also, Kotah lied for the purposes of double-cross!" the scrag-monster realized. "Could it be? First the Captain is morphogenic, then my partner is in cahoots with the buyers, while all I ever had going for me was my last place Forcas III trophy selling on Klingon eBay?"
---
On the Bridge, Captain Daniel took the shape of a Pollensalta, a giant poisonous flower, approached Kotah and pressed his lethal petals against the Andorian.
"You will feel the wrath of my delightful wonder or suffer the pollen-sneezing consequences!"
Kotah struggled under the pressure. "Aah! My brother was killed by a giant Edosian orchid. It punched his lights out!"
"There are entire planets where flora go to war with each other and have unspeakable relations!"
The Andorian recoiled. "Okay, okay! We tricked Wallace into duping your crew and planned to deliver everyone to the surface where you would be fed cookies and offered bovine milking opportunities all day. It's one of the last, secret Maquis cells and good bakery/farms this side the Alpha Quadrant."
"Impossible? The Maquis were wiped out by the Dominion-Cardassian joint forces last year?"
Kotah almost regurgitated at the sight of him. "The cell was previously planted as an out-of-bounds, off-radar coordinator for proxy-world fleetyards to produce attack fighters and Peregrine-classes. Your ship was to be their flag vessel and prize for their most recent success."
"Curse those rebellious, low-budget Bajoran Resistance copy-catters."
The Andorian retched, slightly, but held it in. "No! We're an annexed ex-Federation group who want revenge against the Federation for being annexed!"
"Aaand there goes my reproductive leaves," the Daniel-flower said as they both watched them fall to the floor, prompting Kotah to involuntarily upchuck. "Yeah, I missed pollination season again."
---
Meanwhile, Captain Aeris met with Captain Cid and Admiral Cloud in the Observation lounge aboard Starbase 55.
"My ship reports a fleet of vessels forming in Sector 309," Aeris said, dropping the PADD onto the table. "The ships are near-unidentifiable, as we are reading signs of Federation and alien."
Cid pointed at the wall monitor displaying an external visual of the Moghren system. "Residual warp trails indicates this as the likely location of the last, last known Maquis cell. Not that we don't say that about every cell now."
"Stop beating around the bush, Captains," the Admiral spread. "Your analysis from the Xena indicates Tosk Hunter technology. You believe the pre-Maquis stealth-acquired it during the Gamma Quadrant Hunter's one and only incursion at Deep Space 9 and replicated it from Moghren into a fleet of ships."
Aeris shrugged. "Well, it's either that or said Hunters have somehow crossed into our Quadrant and amassed in Sector 309 under the tutelage of the Angry Humans."
"Seems wildly implausible, but I like it! Alert the writers!" the Admiral began before realizing. "Damn. Forgot this was real life. Never mind."
---
Elsewhere, on the Cardassian Hideki-class C.U.V. Isotope, the recently dejected Gul Dukat sat in its darkened Conference room, reading Bajoran texts when an officer entered with a report.
"You said we got them all," Dukat erupted. "The Maquis are a dreck on the backside of your Cardassian freedom."
Mag, a female and rank Glinn, flipped the screen to a view of the Moghren system. "Our intel indicates one last cell here. In fact, it wasn't really intel so much as they contacted us and told us out-right."
"Seems like terrible tactics," Dukat raised a brow. "If you don't get them, their own ineptitude will." And then he realized, "They want to offer the Dominion something in order to let them be, don't they?"
The Glinn nodded. "They're so last-resort that they've relinquished their obsession with their past Cardassian-acquired worlds and desire only to focus their fight with the Federation now."
"I respect the eleventh-hour concessions of a broken group that I broke with my unrelenting vengeance,” the towering scaly man asserted. "We should humor them, but only as a first resort. Then ensure things to go sideways, fast."
---
Later, the Phoenix-X sped through transwarp as the crew were slowly revived, one by one, by the efforts of the ship-wide-accessing Emergency Medical Hologram.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," he would chirp every time he woke someone. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
On the Bridge, Daniel, back in humanoid form, frustrated, "Ugh! Computer, delete EMH from the ship, immediately!"
"Deletion subroutines have been deleted," came the reply over-air.
Gotens sat up, groggily. "Yeah, sorry about that. That cookie threw me for a loop and I half-woke, slapping the consoles trying to order tequila."
"Dammit, Commander, you know we have a mini fridge under the helm," Daniel argued. "Never mind. Wallace, take that Andorian to the Brig and never talk to strangers again."
Wallace frumped as he got to his duties. "I am sad. I am going to read more books!"
"How is that going to make a difference? Never mind. Just do the things," Daniel sanctioned. "Red, tractor beam that shuttle, and do it with a vindictive attitude."
Red attempted to get a locator on the vessel to no avail. "It has landed on the planet where there is too much interference in the atmosphere to even get a transporter lock. These Maquis have diseased this world to hide themselves."
"Oh, now they're okay with poisoned atmospheres?" Daniel criticized before a nearby console alert went off, prompting him to check it. "Long range sensors are picking up a massive fleet of ships in Sector 309?" And then he remembered what the Andorian said. "A prize for their most recent success."
Gotens perked. "Ah, succeeding: The winning of achievements."
---
Down in the depths of the Klingon home world Qo'noS, two warrior officials congregated at an iron table in a dark, unclean conference room.
"There is a traitor from our midst that has come into contact with this last Maquis cell and their new fleet," Bahah, a thick haired soldier summarized. "Federation intel reports it outrageously large."
Logtow, a lean build official with a braided goatee, erupted, "Foolish miscreants, always trying to boost themselves for amplifications sakes!"
"Right? It's an obvious compensation for a lack of equanimity," Bahah added. "Either way, in light of our own intel, a team of skittish Klingon half-warriors always fidgeting their heads in all directions, we must stop them."
Logtow nodded. "Also, those guys give me the nehret freak outs."
TO BE CONCLUDED...