Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont’d)
The Sud Yot hung gently in space, having temporarily paused in its desperate journey towards the stricken derelict.
It was positioned next to a large rectangular metal object, dominated at one end by a vast array of subspace transmitters. One of several such arrays dotted around the surrounding space, and one of the most extensive projects undertaken by the Flaxian Science Agency.
The network of deep space transmitters allowed a steady flow of subspace comms traffic throughout Flaxian space, with messages flitting between ships, stations, shuttles and planets. And right now, the Sud Yot was using it to amplify and focus their own comms signal.
On the bridge of the cruiser, Captain Sonaya watched on from her command chair as Natasha stood over the expansive port-side communications console, with Denella frantically tapping at the controls alongside her.
Sonaya knew that a few of her officers were put out by their passengers appearing on the bridge like this. Her crew weren’t quite as grizzled as Captain Grinya’s, but they were still a proud and often prickly group. Still, given what she had heard from Commander Turanya, and given the speed with which the Orion had come up with her plan, she was happy to give them the space to work.
Denella finished her frantic work and looked over at the human woman next to her. “Ok, I’ve got us tied into the array’s main booster. You’re patched in and targeted to any open comms line in or around our target point. Even in a spacesuit.”
“If there’s anyone there to hear me,” Natasha replied quietly.
“They’ll be there. They’re survivors, remember?”
Natasha accepted the supportive words with a slight nod, still feeling a sense of dread as she looked down at the controls in front of her.
Ever since things had started to go wrong, a nagging voice at the back of her head had been persistently reminding her that this had all been her idea. She’d been the one who had negotiated their participation in the salvage work in return for their debts to Turanya. And she would be responsible if anything had happened to the others.
With some sense of trepidation, she licked her lips, reached out and slowly pressed her finger down on the panel to open the comms link.
“Jirel?”
Nothing. Her sense of guilt rose further as she feared the worst.
“Klath? Sunek? If you can hear me—”
“I can hear you, Nat.”
The sound of the familiar voice of the Trill coming back over the link caused her to instinctively break out in a look of relief. A look that was noted by Denella with a trace of knowing amusement before she could return her features back to business mode.
“I’m still here,” Jirel continued after a burst of static, “So are Klath, Sunek and Lieutenant Kataya. But, everyone else…”
Behind Natasha and Denella, Captain Sonaya dug her fingernails into the arms of her command chair. Jirel, his voice sounding weak and pained, continued.
“How are you even talking to me right now—?”
“Long story,” Natasha replied quickly, forcing herself to stay in business mode, “But you need to know, on the derelict, there’s a—”
“Mugato. I know. We’ve met.”
Natasha and Denella exchanged a slightly confused look, before the doctor continued. “No, Jirel, listen: It’s a chameloid.”
A long pause. Long enough for Denella to furtively double check that they hadn’t dropped their connection with the array. “A what?” Jirel replied eventually.
“A chameloid. A shapeshifter.”
“Huh. Like one of those Dominion fellas?”
“No, not exactly,” Natasha explained, “The Founders are a semi-collective species, non-humanoid in their natural state. Chameloids are individual humanoids, with shapeshifting abilities.”
Another pause. Denella was sure she could hear the sound of the cogs in Jirel’s brain turning over.
“So,” he offered, “This thing could be a little girl one minute, and a mugato the next? It could even…turn into Captain Grinya and fool the crew of the Ret Kol?”
“It could.”
“And it could even disguise itself from tricorder readings somehow? Cos we’ve been walking round this crate for hours, and we’ve definitely not detected any chameloids. Whatever one of those is.”
“Possibly,” Natasha replied, “We still know so little about them. Frankly, until about eighty years ago, they were still assumed to be mythical.”
“Fascinating,” he grunted back, through pain and heavy sarcasm, “Important thing is: A phaser can still take it down, regardless of what it’s dressed up as, right?”
Natasha glanced over at Denella with concern. She sighed. “Jirel, listen, whatever it’s done, it’s just a child. It’s scared.”
“Makes two of us.”
“The Flaxians were…experimenting on it. I don’t know how badly, but…you need to understand that it’s just frightened, and probably confused. And—”
There was a sudden burst of static over the link. Denella tapped at the controls and shook her head in frustration. “We’re losing the link,” she reported, “Comms lines are shorting out all over the ship. Was only ever going to be a short-term thing.”
Natasha nodded, then found that she couldn’t help but call out one final message to the Trill across the ether.
“And Jirel, stay safe. We’re on our way.”
Her words were met with silence, as the link finally died.
* * * * *
“Natasha?”
There was no answer.
Jirel had passed through the door and into a corridor beyond, with still only the vaguest sense that he was heading in the right direction. As he listened to the silence that followed his question, he stifled a fresh feeling of pain, not just from the wounds on his back and his side, but from the sensation of being alone again.
He tried not to dwell on that feeling, nor on wondering how much it had been triggered by hearing Natasha’s voice specifically, and kept limping on with his rifle raised.
Instead, he started to think about what she had just told him. About how this thing that seemed to be hunting them wasn’t a murderer or a psychopath. Or even a monstrous fur-covered mugato. But a terrified child.
He thought back to the damage he and Kataya had seen in the science labs earlier. The way it felt as though something had burst out of there, splitting the bulkhead asunder. It had seemed like the actions of a violent monster. Something gruesome that had wrenched its way out of containment to slaughter the Flaxians onboard. And something that had just nearly killed him, and could be stalking him right now.
But after hearing Natasha’s explanation, he pieced together a different view.
They could have been the actions of a frightened child, reacting on instinct. Trying to escape, to get away from the people that were hurting it.
He remembered the child-like way the girl had spoken to him. And he couldn’t help but feel like things weren’t quite as they appeared.
He checked his comms link was still active as he limped down the dark corridor towards the next intersection.
“Guys, you hear all that?”
Static. Then a response.
“Yep,” Sunek piped up, “And I told you, it wasn’t a mugato. So once again, I’m right, and everyone else is—”
Another burst of static. Eventually, a more measured response came back.
“We heard,” Klath confirmed, “We are nearly at the lower level.”
“Ok, but, that all made sense, right? What Natasha was saying about this…chameloid?”
“Jirel,” Klath grunted, clearly in no mood for having this debate, “I suggest we concentrate on getting to the bow. Then we can devise a strategy to defeat our enemy.”
“But it sounds like you were right,” Jirel replied, grimacing as he took another painful step forward.
This seemed to give the Klingon reason to pause for a moment. “I do not understand,” the reply came eventually.
“You said we were up against an intelligence, not a beast,” he reminded him, “And if that’s what this intelligence is, some scared child a million miles from home, then maybe we’ve got a chance to…reason with it?”
“Before or after it chews your face off?” Sunek glibly cut in.
As Jirel struggled for a response to that remark, he heard Lieutenant Turanya jumping in as well, his tone back to something approaching his old grizzled roughness. “We can’t reason with it, Jirel. You’ve seen what it can do. What’s it’s already done. So we regroup, and then we kill it.”
“Except,” Jirel persisted, “It’s wiped out two crews at this point, and we’ve barely got a shot off. Maybe we need a different plan—”
“No!” Kataya cut in again, “We’re not reasoning with it. Especially not after what it did to the Ret Kol. And to Captain Grinya.”
Jirel stopped himself from firing off a quick retort, taking a moment to grimly appreciate the losses that Kataya had suffered at the hands of the chameloid. For a moment, static-flecked silence descended over their link.
“Jirel,” Klath’s measured voice returned eventually, “You are injured. Focus on getting to us.”
“Right,” he sighed, “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Good.”
With that, the comms link went quiet, as each side of the conversation returned to their more pressing tasks.
Jirel approached another intersection. His head was still filled with thoughts of what they were dealing with. Of what Natasha had told them. He wondered if there really was some way to reason with the chameloid.
He certainly hoped there was. Because as he turned the corner, he saw her again.
* * * * *
She hadn’t expected to fall.
In all of her work so far since she had made her escape, she hadn’t really hurt herself. At least, not beyond a few scratches. But the fall had definitely hurt her. The pain had shocked her.
It was true that she healed quickly. Any injuries she had sustained were now gone, absorbed back into her body. But still, the experience had thrown her off. It had made her want to run away, and it had made her cry. It had made her yearn to be comforted by her mother. And that feeling of loneliness had made her even more upset.
So she had retreated to the shadows once again, as she decided on a new plan. She knew that she needed to be more rational in her actions, she needed to think things through more. Not act quite so instinctively as she had before the fall.
She opted to lie in wait.
And it didn’t take long before he reached her. And they saw each other.
And she started to transform.
* * * * *
Jirel raised his rifle as soon as he saw her. He felt disconcerted to be pointing the weapon at a small, dusky-skinned child. But he wasn’t doing that for very long.
Almost as soon as he rounded the corner, she began to change. Her face began to fold in on itself again as her body grew and contorted.
He watched on through the smashed visor of his helmet. His finger tensed on the trigger. Time seemed to be slowing down.
It’s just a child.
The chameloid’s form grew further as its new form fully resolved in front of the Trill.
It’s a terrifying mugato.
The monster in front of him prepared to charge, claws raised and horn lowered. At the same time, he prepared to fire.
It had already wiped out the crew of the derelict. Used its shape-shifting powers to trick the Ret Kol’s crew and destroy the cruiser. It had slaughtered Captain Grinya and Lieutenant Deroya. It had nearly killed him, and was now ready to finish the job.
But it was just a child. That was what Natasha had told him.
Jirel’s brow was thick with sweat. The wounds on his back and side ached. His spots itched like never before. His finger wavered on the trigger.
The mugato roared. And it charged.
He had no idea what to do. And so, he took a deep breath, and placed his trust in two things he had developed an unshakable trust in.
Natasha’s conscience. And his powers of negotiation.
* * * * *
She was used to the reactions by now.
She remembered how scared she had been when she had first broken out. When she had seen the look on the face of the first one she had killed. It had been awful enough that she had wanted to stop there. But they had kept on coming for her, trying to find her, wherever she had hidden away.
And before that, they had hurt her. They had hurt her so much that she found she had the urge and the strength to keep going. To punish them. Every single one of them.
Some she had taken by surprise. Some had tried to fight back. Some had begged for their lives. But each reaction had one thing in common. A look of horror. And none of the reactions had ever caused her to stop doing what she had to do.
Until now.
She charged at the man in front of her. And he reacted by throwing the bulky rifle in his hands to one side, and lifting his hands above his head.
She stopped her charge on the spot, and cocked her head, fur and horn and all, in curiosity.
The man kept his eyes focused on her, as he placed his hands either side of the strange adornment he wore over his head and lifted it clean off with a slight hissing sound. She saw his face more clearly now, and noted the two lines of spots running down the side of his face that she had seen earlier.
And then she saw him open his mouth, and speak.
“I’m not like the others!”