SSSSS t TTTTTTTTTT kk SSSSSSS tt TTTTTTTTTT kk SS SSS tt TT kk SS SS ttttt aaaaa rr rr TT rr rr aaaaa kk kk sssss :: SSSS ttttt aaaaaaa rrrrr TT rrrrr aaaaaaa kk kk sssssss :: SSSSSS tt aa aa rrr TT rrr aa aa kk kk ss ss SSSSS tt aaaa rr TT rr aaaa kkkkk ssss SSS tt aaaaaa rr TT rr aaaaaa kkkkk sssss SS SS tt aaa aa rr TT rr aaa aa kkk kk ssss SSS SSS tt aa aa rr TT rr aa aa kk kk ss ss SSSSSSS tttt aaaaaaa rr TT rr aaaaaaa kk kk sssssss :: SSSSS ttt aaaa aa rr TT rr aaaa aa kk kk sssss :: HH HH t HH HH tt HH HH tt HH HH uu uu nn nnnn ttttt eee rr rr sssss HH HH uu uu nnnnnnnn ttttt eeeee rrrrr sssssss HHHHHHHHHHH uu uu nnn nn tt ee ee rrr ss ss HHHHHHHHHHH uu uu nn nn tt eeeeeee rr ssss HH HH uu uu nn nn tt eeeeeee rr sssss HH HH uu uu nn nn tt ee rr ssss HH HH uu uuu nn nn tt eee ee rr ss ss HH HH uuuuuuuu nn nn tttt eeeee rr sssssss HH HH uuuu uu nn nn ttt eee rr sssss These are the voyages of the USS Aikido The Federation's Last, Best Hope Against Alien Invasion Star Traks: Hunters is a spin-off from Star Traks: Melting Pot. Star Traks: Melting Pot is based on Star Traks, which is owned by Alan Decker, which in turn is based on Star Trek, which is owned by Paramount and Viacom What's left is mine, all mine! (Looks like I'm left with the leftover salt from someone's bag of pretzels!) Copyright 2006 "A-Hunting we will go!" by Paul Cloutier People ask me how I do it, and I say 'There's nothing to it! I just stand there looking cute, and when something moves, I shoot!' And there are ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now, Two game wardens, seven hunters and a cow! - The Hunting Song (Music and Lyrics by Tom Lehrer) Dramatis Personae: Captain Adrian Thorne - Thorne is a career diplomat - just not a very good one. After nearly causing his third 'incident' he was promoted out of the Diplomatic Corps and made Captain of the Aikido. Everyone figured that he couldn't do too much damage as part of the Earth Defense Force. Alex Thorne - Thorne's son is the stereotypical spoiled brat with the added bonus of having ADHD. Thorne believes his son to be capable of greatness, but the only special ability he has demonstrated so far is the ability to drive the crew insane. Commander Justine Monserrat - The Aikido's First Officer is scared of being out here in space. In fact, pretty much everything scares her since a near-death experience she suffered through when she was younger. She hides her fear under a veneer of professionalism but secretly beieves that the crew is on to her. Lieutenant Ivor Matalon - Security Chief - Matalon is a typical Starfleet smart-ass. He fakes a Russian accent to go along with Thorne's preconceived notion that anyone born in Siberia must have a thick Russian accent. Lieutenant Aceed Sperr - Helm - Sperr transferred over from the Menagerie after the death of his beloved Thog. He is probably the most competent member of the Bridge Crew but, since he is a non-human, no one ever listens to him. Ensign Virgil Cordwainer - Ops - Cordwainer expected his first posting to be a nice quiet cakewalk as part of the EDF. Things didn't quite work out that way and he's still trying to decide if he's happy about that or not. Lieutenant Commander Tetsuo Ifukube - Chief Engineer - The thoroughly Japanese Engineer is actually pretty competent. But why does he always start shouting in German when he gets excited? Doctor Alida Valli - CMO - Valli is not much of a Doctor. She was posted to an EDF ship since there would be few medical emergencies in Earth orbit, and there were plenty of really good doctors down on Earth, anyway. Now she constantly tries to hide the fact that she wouldn't recognize the difference between a blood coagulator and a self-sealing stem bolt. Doctor Preston Stewart - Chief Science Officer - Is easily the smartest Human on board. How he got stuck with this bunch of idiots is anyone's guess. Tellat C'lrith - Tellat comes from an alternate universe, the universe which was also home to the Cattreth. He is in charge of all Cattreth-related activities on board the ship. What has gone before: The USS Aikido was pressed into emergency service to help to try to contain the Black Queen menace on Trill. They failed in this task and were then given the job of hunting down the escaped monsters. They didn't really do too well with this either, requiring the aide of the USS Menagerie to finally end that menace once and for all. For whatever reasons they might have had, Starfleet decided that they, by virtue of their recent experience, would be best qualified to hunt down the new Catttreth threat. Arriving at the planet where the Cattreth had downed a Borg Cube, the Aikido failed once again and allowed the Cattreth to scatter to the stellar winds. Now the race begins to see if the Aikido can find and destroy the eight new Cattreth colonies before they can launch their assault upon the Milky Way! "Two weeks have passed since we found the derelict Cattreth ship. Under the timekeeping methodology of the United Federation of Planets, it is Stardate 58087.4. We have re-supplied and installed a new console which has been tied into the new life-form monitoring probes which all Starfleet ships have been ordered to deploy. These new probes have but a single function - they will detect massive increases in a planet's biomass. This will, we hope, allow us to locate the Cattreth's new colonies before they can ForceGro their vast armies of warriors. All that remains for us to do now is to wait for enough of the probes to be deployed that one of them detects our quarry." I finished my log entry and got ready to take another shift on the Bridge. These logs were Starfleet's way of keeping some sort of historical record of the personnel involved with Starfleet's advancement throughout the galaxy. These stream- of-consciousness recordings are, apparently meant to suppliment the substantial in- flight records that are continually being made throughout the ship. Of course, if we are not successful in our mission, no one will around to view any of the records. I forceably push these thoughts from my head. I will prevail simply because I must prevail. For, if not me, then, who will? These are the thoughts which have been bouncing around my head for the past 600 years. How I long for an end to them! There are only two ways to achieve that goal, however. One is by the eradication of the Cattreth. This will be difficult, to say the least. This universe has not been fighting against these monsters for the past six centuries, the length of time that I, personally, have carried the fight to them. The other way the thoughts might be banished from my head is with my death. Again, this will be difficult. The reason that I have been able to carry on this fight for that length of time is because I have been granted immortality in order to carry out my sacred duty of destroying the Cattreth and ending their threat to whatever universe they happen to be in. Yes, 'whatever universe'. I can still remember the joy my people and I felt when it appeared as though we had finally broken the spirit of the Cattreth. I remember, too, how bitter that joy tasted when we realized that they had simply changed tactics and were working on a method of crossing dimensional and/or probability barriers. They escaped our righteous wrath by crossing over to this universe. I alone managed to follow them. The turbolift was nearing the Bridge so I put these thoughts out of my head. reliving the past would not serve any useful purpose. I must concentrate on the present and the future if I were to have any chance of victory. <<'Bout damn time you got your head out of your butt! Getting all maudlin and weepy, like some old woman! I thought you might have put all of that behind you in this new universe, but there you go again!>> Ah yes, D-One. Its mental admonitions trying to keep me centered, as always. The sentient rock had been my companion now for something like 400 years. At times I felt supremely lucky to have been blessed with such a steadfast, resilient companion. At times. <> The mental raspberry was fading as I walked onto the Bridge. As was often the case, I was the first member of what was called 'Alpha Shift' to show up for duty. The members of 'Delta Shift' nodded their hellos as they continued to work at their stations. I had worked with them two weeks ago, and with 'Beta Shift' last week. I had been cycling through each shift to satisfy myself that they would each be able to perform in the event of a crisis. Justine had assured me that if either Beta or Delta ran into anything too dangerous that Alpha would be immediately summoned to the Bridge. I had my reservations about how some of them would define the word 'immediately', however. Not to mention my reservations as to whether or not the appearance of Alpha Shift would actually indicate an increase in Bridge efficiency. The sound of the turbolift opening drew my attention towards the back of the Bridge. Lieutenant Aceed Sperr had arrived for his shift. I had found him to easily be the most reliable and conscientious of the Aikido's crew. This was, perhaps, due to the fact that he had come over from the USS Menagerie after the death of the Aikido's original Helmsman when the ship had been ambushed by a another foe, some time before I had joined the crew. He and I were the only non-Humans on any of the Bridge Shifts. I wondered if that was due to the fact that the ship had originally been part of the defensive fleet for Earth, or if such Human-heavy crew ratios were, in fact, the norm in this Starfleet. The only other Starfleet ship that I had ever seen was the USS Menagerie, which was made up of entirely non-Humans. This, however, seemed to be more the exception than the rule. The next to arrive were Lieutenant Ivor Matalon and Ensign Virgil Cordwainer. Matalon was a bit too irreverent for my tastes and young Cordwainer was entirely out of his depth. Unfortunately, he was the most experienced of the three Ops specialists. Again I was forced to question Starfleet's choice of rescources assigned to this mission. These individuals must have some vast reservoirs of hidden talents for them to have been chosen for what was probably the most important mission in the history of the Federation. Reservoirs, I hasten to point out, that I have seen no evidence of. The turbolift opened once again, discharging a yawning Doctor Preston Stewart. Stewart was something of an anomoly, as far as I could tell. Starfleet regulations required the staffing of the Science Officer's position for all capital ships. Even ships in the Earth Defense Fleet. This seemed to me to be a waste of resources, but no one had asked me. Stewart himself was a further puzzle. He seemed far too intelligent to have been satisfied with such a posting, but here he was. The doors to the turbolift opened a final time, this time releasing Commander Justine Monserrat. Justine and I had developed something of a close relationship over the last fortnight, something that I had denied myself for the last 600 years. We each seemed to have something that the other lacked and we both hoped that we could each fortify the other's deficiencies. It remained to be seen whether or not this would prove to be the case. It appeared that Captain Thorne would not be joining us, today. This was neither surprising nor disappointing. Thorne was easily the most incompetent person that I had ever met, and his irritating son invariably accompanied him when he was on the Bridge, decreasing the crew's efficiency by a large margin. In any event, Thorne had tended to avoid me ever since I had belayed several of his orders during the ship's first encounter with the Cattreth. The resultant delays while instructions were sorted out had allowed the Cattreth to escape us that day and I held Thorne personally responsible for our failure. After the battle, I had tracked down the Captain and I had made it clear that I would kill him before I would allow his stupidity to interfere with the mission a second time. Stupid he certainly was, but his instinct for self- preservation must have been active. I had barely even caught a glimpse of the man, recently. Not that I was complaining. Looked like it was shaping up to be another routine day... "Sir! Probe number 2114 just activated!" called out Ensign Cordwainer. So much for it being another routine day! "Retreive the coordinates for that probe and send them to Sperr!" Justine commanded. "Engage at maximum warp when ready!" "Engaged!" Sperr reported. "Estimated time to arrival - 6 hours at Warp 9.5!" "Doctor, sensors to maximum. I want plenty of warning as to what we are heading into!" "Boosting sensor arrays to 120% of rated capabilities," Stewart agreed, as his hands danced across his console. "Cordwainer - divert all available power to engines and start creating secondary and tertiary plasma pathways for phasers and shields. Alert quantum and photon torpedo crews." "Shutting down holodecks, individual quarters' replicators and the scented oil diffuser subsystems," Cordwainer reported. "Ifukube, we have finally found something. We'll need all you can give us." "Hier gehen wir wieder. (Here we go again.) I can give you up to 9.75. Any more than that and reconfiguring the plasma pathways would take too long once we get to our destination." "I'll take the 9.75, thanks," Justine answered. "Sperr..." Increasing speed. New ETA - 5 hours, 15 minutes!" "I guess we should also alert the Captain," Justine decided. Sighing, she activated the comm system again. "Captain Thorne, we have detected a possible Cattreth colony." Thorne's voice came back with the petulant whine that was so familiar to the crew, "So? That's Tellat's area of expa... expi... exppo... department." "Yes, Sir. We just thought that you should be informed. We'll be there in a little over five hours. Monserrat - out." "Doctor," I turned to Stewart to ask my question, "what can you tell us about the planet which triggered the probe?" "Tangores 4 - Class M but no higher lifeforms. Mostly jungles and vast savannahs. Geological, zoological and astrometrical surveys all agree that this is a very young planet. Why would the Cattreth want a planet with no evolved lifeforms?" "You say it is very young." "Yes, I would estimate the equivelant of early-Jurassic period on Earth." "Well, there is your answer," I replied. "A few thousand dinosaurs will provide more than sufficient biomatter to ForceGro an entire generation of Cattreth warriors. It looks as though this colony was founded in what would normally not be considered prime territory to act as a breeding colony. They will provide the warriors to fight the coming war." Everyone somberly digested this news, before Justine spoke, "Well, I guess we'd better get there and take care of them, then." So, we had finally found a colony! Now all we had to do was sit back and wait. Well, that and rush headlong into what could quite possibly be our doom! We were just coming into the outskirts of the system that the probes had detected when I felt the first problems. The food created by the replicators on board the Aikido sometimes produced food which didn't quite agree with me. I could feel the rumbling and gurglings as my stomach began to rebel against the lunchtime meal that I had eaten. Fortunately, we still had enough time for me to make a quick trip to a restroom before we would be going into battle. Or so I thought. I returned from my brief sojourn wishing that the power had not been re-routed away from the scented oil diffuser systems to find Captain Thorne perched in the center seat. His Hellspawn child was playing at the back of the Bridge, sure to trip anyone emerging from the turbolift. These thoughts were pushed far to the back of my mind, however, as I glanced up at the main viewscreen. "Why are we so close to the planet?" I calmly asked. <<'Calmly asked'? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa>> OK - so maybe I screamed like a little girl. The question was still valid. "What? Its just a standard orbit," Thorne cringed as he responded. "Take us away from the planet - best possible speed!" I calmly - Alright, alright! I yelped like a gelded targ. "What's the problem?" Cordwainer asked as Sperr redirected the ship. "I believe that I might be able to answer that question," Stewart's voice /was/ calm. Unimaginably so considering the image he sent to the main viewscreen. A thick, white stroke of what appeared to be lightning was streaking up from the planet - right for us! And, of course, hitting us! Electricity corruscated across the consoles, the chairs, the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the... <> Pretty much across everything. We were all paralyzed, both by intense fear and also by the electricity coursing through our bodies. Only Preston seemed to retain hold of his faculties. "Computer! Deactivate artificial gravity generators!" As the ship's computer complied with the order, we all found ourselves drifting free from the floor and our seats. Not to mention free from the painful electric charge that these had developed. Unfortunately, the shower of sparks that cascaded from every console and conduit, indicated that using any of the ship's systems right now was a dangerous gamble. The electrical discharge combined with the normal command pathways could easily overload us and create a catastrophic systems failure. Not that things weren't pretty bad as they were. "Good work, Doctor!" Justine praised the quick-thinking Science Officer. "What is our status?" I wanted to know. Floating over his console, Cordwainer reported, "The ship appears to be caught in this electrified dampening field. It is draining our own power reserves to create these discharges. At present rate of drain, I estimate that we will be completely powerless in just under three hours!" "I concur. Is this what they hit the Borg with?" Stewart asked. "Yes," I replied. "The Borg apparently use some sort of distributed power network. Each power generator was targeted by a draining beam. Since we get nearly all of our power from the warp core, we have been hit by only the single beam. Paradoxically, we will likely last longer than the Borg, simply because of our centralized power distribution system." "Hoovay vor us!" Matalon remarked snidely, slipping back into his fake accent since Thorne was on the Bridge. "What else do we know?" Justine's question turned everybody back to their consoles. "Sensors are reading in excess of one billion Cattreth lifesigns on the planet," Stewart reported. "We are currently facing directly away from the planet at an altitude of approximatedly 85 kilometers," Sperr announced. "What's the range of one of those draining beams?" Justine asked. "Something around two hundred fifty thousand kilometers," I replied. "Two hundred fifty thousand kilometers!" "Why do you think I had ordered us to stay in the outskirts of the system," I responded angrily. "Why were we so close, anyway." "Captain Thorne decided to join us and ordered us to fall into a standard orbit," Justine admitted. "Haven't we been over this ground already?" I asked, more tired than angry, now. "Thorne has absolutely no authority when it comes to dealing with the Cattreth." "It seemed like a harmless order." "From now on, if he even comes onto the Bridge while we are getting ready to engage, actually engaging or even discussing engaging the Cattreth, I want him stunned. Is that perfectly clear, Matalon?" "It izz wery clear, Zir!" Matalon agreed. "Howewer, zere is a distinct pozzibility zat zere von't be a 'next time'." "That is true," I nodded. "However, just to be on the safe side, you had probably better stun him now." The zzzzzzap get one problem out of the way, at least for the time being. "Hey! That was my dad you just zapped!" Zzzzzzap! "Oops! My finger slipped!" "Computer enter, on this date and time, a commendation in Lieutenant Matalon's service record for actions above and beyond the call of duty during a crisis situation." "OK. Now that that is taken care of, does anybody have any idea how we can get out of this mess?" Justine's question was met with silence. "Why not just activate the Shields?" Cordwainer asked. "The Borg were taken by beams just like this. Do you really think that they didn't try to raise their Shields?" "Give it a try, anyway. At the very least it will give us some more data to work with," Stewart prodded. "Computer! Shields up!" Justine shouted out. On the Bridge, new showers of sparks blossomed out from consoles and conduits. With the artificial gravity offline, the sparks took on the forms of beautiful fireworks, appearing to be flowers of brilliant blues, yellows and reds. Across the outside of the hull, specially designed energy field generators activated. Their only purpose was to project a field of energy around the ship. This field was designed to deflect and to mitigate any incoming beam weapons that might be directed at the ship. For some attack forms they worked very well. These forms were, not surprisingly, the very attack methodologies used by the Federation. It is even possible that, had they been in place before the discharge beam had struck the ship, we might have had a chance to escape. Unfortunately, with the discharge effect impacting the ship, the delicate geometry of the balanced fields was thrown completely out of alignment. With fireworks every bit as impressive as the ones inside, the Shields failed to activate. In what is apparently a tried and true Starfleet tradition, a staff meeting had been convened to try to up with some way of extricating ourselves from this predicament. I joined Lieutenant Commander Ifukube, Lieutenant Sperr, Ensign Cordwainer, Lieutenant Matalon, Doctors Stewart and Valli and Justine in what turned out to be a small room which had been built, incredibly enough, for just these occassions. The fact that Starfleet ran into so many problems that they had created a special room just to try to resolve them did little to boost my confidence in our chances. "First of all, Doctor Valli. How long can we be exposed to this level of electrical field without adverse effects?" Justine opened the briefing. "Well, we should be fine for as long as we have left, I think," Doctor Valli seemed rather unsure of her answer. "So there will be no detrimental effects to either encephaletic or cardiological functions?" Stewart seemed surprised. "Ahhhhh, nope!" Valli's eyes resembled those of a chuss-beast caught in the headlights of an oncoming dwanga vehicle. "Great!" Justine accepted the CMO's assurances without a second thought. "Now, does anyone have any idea how we can get out of here?" "Why don't we just load up one of our shuttlpods with anti-matter and launch it at the colony?" Ensign Cordwainer's question revealed the young man's inexperience. "How do you propose to get the anti-matter into the shuttlepod?" Ifukube asked." "Whaddya mean? Just drain some off from the core into a magnetic bottle and put it on the shuttlepod," Cordwainer seemed truly surprised that this was even a problem. "Let me make sure that I have this right - you want to take some of the most explosively unstable material in the known universe and transfer it through an electrical field into a magnetic containment device?" "Well, yeah." "Didn't they teach you about the relationship between magnetic and electric fields at the Academy?" Stewart asked, shaking his head, perhaps at the state of the Federation's educational system. "Ummmm, not that I can recall," Cordwainer admitted. "The two don't react well," Ifukube clarified, not unkindly. "If the electrical discharge comes into contact with the magnetic bottle, during the transfer. We certainly wouldn't have to worry about the Cattreth any more." "Really?" Cordwainer asked, brightening. "Yeah, we'd all be dead!" Justine brought the young Ensign back down to Earth. "Why don't we just hit the Cattreth colony with a full spread of quantum torpedoes," Matalon offered. "I'm sure that we could take out that beam easily enough." "The problem there," I replied, "is that the colony likely has several of those beams. If we destroy just the one beam emitter hitting us, they can just target us with some other beams." "Then we calculate the most likely locations for the other emitters and hit them all at the same time." "Unfortunately, even if we manage to take out all the emitters, we will suffer from the residual effects for several minutes. During that time, unless we can completely demolish the colony in that first salvo, the Cattreth we likely decide that we aren't worth the risk of trying to capture and simply blow us out of space. Can you guarantee the complete elimination of the colony with just one volley?" "I'll have to do some simulations, using the runabouts, but in all probability no, I don't think so." "What about using the tri-cobalts?" Justine asked the Security Chief. "We have six tri-cobalts in inventory. That should be enough to completely eliminate the continent that the colony is on. Unfortunately, we would be too close to the explosions. We would likely be ripped apart." "That is even assuming that the Cattreth would allow the devices to impact. Do not be fooled into believing that this discharge device is the only weapon that they have available to them." "So, we're back to square one," Justine sighed. "No, we have at least eliminated several possibilities," Stewart corrected her. "And I believe that I have a plan." We all pricked our ears up at that. Today was a good day not to die! "I have been analysing the responses from the Sheild generators and I believe that our Shields would, in fact, cancel these beam weapons if they were extant when the beams hit them." "How, exactly does that help us?" Matalon asked. "Unless we can somehow pop back in time and put up our Shields before entering orbit!" "In that case, we could simply not enter orbit," Stewart observed dryly. "Now, if I could continue. We will rig up specially reinforced and independantly powered Shield generators on the two runabouts and on two shuttles. These will be isolated from the hulls of the auxilary craft by heavily insulated cradles. These craft will launch and take up a precise, computer-controlled formation off our starboard side and slightly lower in the atmosphere. Once in place they will activate the special Shields and create an area of Shielded space between and around them. Once this is activated, we will open one of the port cargo bays and vent some of our atmosphere. The resultant reaction will move us over the Shielded area, effectively blocking off the beam and allowing us to reposition ourselves out of its range. We can then signal the auxillary craft to move away from the planet and we can begin our attack." Around the table, nods and looks of hope replaced fear and apprehension on the faces of the Starfleet officers. "What do you think, Tellat? This is, afer all, your department," Justine asked. I was forced to bring everyone back to chilling reality. "I really have no idea," I admitted. "But you are the Cattreth expert," Matalon accused. "Yes, and in my 'expert' opinion, I had planned on us staying far away from the planet. Remember? Based on what I know about Starfleet Shield generators, which isn't a whole lot, and Cattreth weapons technology, which is a whole lot, the plan certainly seems feasible. Whether or not the Cattreth will simply shoot down the shuttles and runabouts is the unknown factor. No one that I know of was ever insane enough to utilize such tiny craft so close to a Cattreth colony, before. However, the in time that we have left, I don't see us coming up with anything better. Let's give it a try!" We all set to work. After being treated by Doctor Valli for minor electrical burns, we all used the isolated replicators in one of the runabouts to replicate heavy duty rubber gloves and boots and set to work again. We were going to be cutting it close. According to Cordwainer and Stewart's initial estimates, we had approximately 20 minutes left before our power reserves would be reduced past the point of no return. We had cranked the shuttlebay doors open manually after disabling the automatic forcefields. We didn't want any unnecessary loads on the plasma conduit at this point. The atmosphere vented in a puff, the Newtonian reaction moving us slightly away from the planet. Stewart had actually programmed the auxillary craft to act like they had been thrown out of the shuttlebay as we tried a desperate, last-ditch gamble to save ourselves. The craft would tumble, seemingly randomly away until they were in position to activate the special Shields. We hoped our subterfuge would be enough to fool the Cattreth long enough for what really was our desperate, last-ditch gamble to pay off. Matalon and a crew of engineers had also disabled the forcefields in cargo bay four. He had rigged explosives around the bay's doors. Cranking them open would have been too slow, we needed a violent push into the area of safety before the Cattreth could figure out what was happening. When he received the signal from Stewart, he would blow the doors and, hopefully, blow us to safety. Ifukube and D-One had double-checked Stewart's calculations and everything seemed to be in order. Of course when it was one's life on the line, clarity of thought was always a good thing to have going for you. And nothing sharpened one's thoughts like staring death in the face. Well, if the Human anthropomorphization of death was accurate, death didn't actually have a face. So I suppose nothing sharpened one's thoughts like staring death in the skull. <> Since we didn't dare use the turbolifts or transporters and since climbing through the Jefferies tubes was decidedly painful, we had all strapped ourselves down to any conveniently available object with what Matalon had called 'bungee cords'. The magclamps which were used to secure the auxillary craft to the shuttlebay floor had isolated the craft from the discharge effect. This had made programming them infinitely simpler and had allowed us to replicate needed supplies. We probably could have used the runabout transporters to beam back to the Bridge, but none of the Starfleet officers really wanted to have their atoms shot through an intense electrical field and I despised transporters on general principles. They resembled a particularly nasty form of Cattreth weaponry far too closely for my comfort. The four small ships tumbled away from the ship, their twisting dances indistinguishable from random tumbling - at least we hoped so. Tense moments passed as we held our breath in anticipation of the moment of truth. Stewart held a PADD, slaved into the computer system controlling the shuttles and runabouts. He began counting down to what we assumed was the moment when the special Shields would activate, although for all I knew it could just have easily have been a countdown to the anniversary of the first broadcast of his favorite holovison program. Either my trip into this universe has seriously scrambled my brain, or my close association with these individuals is casusing some of their attitudes to wear off on me. I seem to find myself becoming a bit more sarcastic than I ever was. <> Well, perhaps, not. Two things suddenly became clear; 1. The countdown must have reached zero 2. It was, in fact, the countdown to the activation of the final stage of the plan The shuttlebay shifted beneath our floating forms, darting to starboard and, hopefully, into safety. The bungee cords stretched, since we had been isolated from the ship and our inertia had yet to be affected. That changed as the bungees came to the limit of their stretching capacity and we were each whipped to starboard. The stretch capacity was quickly reached in that direction, too, and we all were whipped back to port. Then back to starboard. And back to port. I was becoming seriously nauseous. D-One's mental > wasn't helping matters much, either. Finally, in desperation, I grabbed hold of the shuttlebay floor to try to stop my wicked oscillations. I mentally berated myself for discarding my gloves even as I physically braced myself for the painful electrical shock... that never came! Stewart's plan had worked! Climbing quickly to my feet, I stopped Justine and Stewart's bouncing. As soon as Justine had caught her breath, she ordered, "Computer! Ahead one quarter impulse! Take us out of here!" "Acknowledged!" We rushed over to the shuttlebay chief's office and activated the viewer. Quickly calling up a reverse view we sighed with relief to see that we were, in fact, moving away from the planet, our four-unit Shielding platform tagging along behind us like a faithful Terrestrial canine. We made our way to the nearest turbolift and, from there, to the Bridge. There we found that the sudden spurt of motion had slammed Thorne and Alex against wall and they were both unconscious, again. In fact, we weren't entirely sure whether or not they had ever regained consciousness after Matalon had stunned them in the first place. In point of fact, we really didn't much care, either. We contacted Sickbay to come and get the pair admist the more important business of getting the ship back in order and eliminating the Cattreth. "Ifukube, Stewart and Cordwainer! Run whatever diagnostics you need to determine the extent of our damage! Then get teams assembled to repair the more serious stuff! We need weapons, propulsion, life support and structural integrity ASAP! "Sperr - put some distance between us and that planet! Give us at least one million kilometers! Use whatever power we have left to get of out of here!" Slowly, the mighty starship limped out of range of the colony. At 1.5 million kilometers I announced that that we had moved out of the danger zone. Now we could begin the arduous task of repairing the damage the ship had taken. Only then we could begin to concentrate on the task that was the whole reason that we had come here in the first place. A task which had become immeasurably more difficult now that the Cattreth were aware of our presence. We had spent sixteen hours making the minor repairs that the ship required. Surprisingly enough, there had actually been very little actual damage. While our power reserves were low - very low, all-in-all we had come through the debacle relatively unscathed. We had taken up a position on the far side of Tangores, the system's yellow-green sun, from Tangores 4 in order to use the solar energy to speed up the recharging of several ship's systems. After the repairs, Matalon, Ifukube and I had retreated to Holodeck One to attempt to come up with an effective battle strategy. After trying scenario after scenario we were forced to retire due to advanced fatigue. We hadn't so much as even made the holoCattreth nervous in any of our scenarios. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better day. The next dawned (well, no, not literally, we were on a starship for goodness' sake!) with an entry on my terminal informing me that a staff meeting had been scheduled for 09:00. Aparently Starfleet crews would go to any lengths to use those special, little rooms of theirs! Oh well, I supposed that if I had gone to all the trouble of making these little rooms, I'd want to use them, too. The same faces that had been present at the earlier meeting were there for this one as well. The surprise, at least to me, was the announced agenda for the meeting... "Trying to brainstorm a way to destroy the Cattreth colony?" I asked, dumbfounded. What could any of these people possibly contribute to any discussion in this area? None of them had ever really dealt with the Cattreth before, unless you counted the miserable failure yesterday and the miserable failure when we had first encountered them, over two weeks previously. As for 'brainstorming' I wasn't sure that this group would be able to come up with a light drizzle, much less a storm! "Yes, when one of our departments comes up against a problem that they can't solve, we all like to get together to see if any of the other departmenst might offer a valuable insight that might have been overlooked," Justine explained. Fortunately, my facial expressions and body language were still a closed book to the rest of the crew, otherwise my dumbfounded incredulity might have given away my true feelings at this point. Instead, all they had to go on was what I actually said, "Sounds like a good idea to me!" Matalon and Ifukube wasted time explaining the options that we had explored the day before. The technical details seemed to sail right over most of the rest of the assembly's heads. Only Stewart offered intelligent responses and insights. But, still nothing that the three of us hadn't previously thought of. This meeting was a complete waste of time and only the fact that I really had no new avenues to explore kept me present during all of this prattle. High-altitude, poison dispersal, meteorite bombardment, triggered excessive solar flare activity - all of these, in addition to more conventional strategies were each discussed and rejected. The Cattreth were certainly not stupid. Such obvious threats would be swiftly and decisively dealt with. Finally, it was young Cordwainer, of all people, who came up with the idea. "Didn't you say that the planet was really young," Cordwainer spoke up during a lull in the discussion. "Yes, estimated early-Jurassic period if I recall correctly," Stewart confirmed. "Wouldn't that mean a lot of volcanoes and stuff?" Cordwainer continued. "Certainly. Excessive tectonic displacement is one of the main characteristics of such a time period. But how does that help us?" "Well, could we trigger a volcano to erupt under the colony?" The only sound was the blinking of our eyes as this suggestion was filtered through our heads. "Computer! Display tectonic stress values and fault correlations for target continent on Tangores 4!" Stewart's command broke the near silence. On the briefing room's viewscreen, an image of the continent which contained the Cattreth colony appeared. Overlaid on the continent were various lines and numbers which, apparently displayed the data that Stewart had requested. I must admit that it meant next to nothing to me. Stewart and Ifukube, however seemed very interested as excited technobabble drifted across the room. I, on the other hand, turned my attention to the young Ensign that I had previously discounted as being too young to ever add anything pertinent to these meetings. "Ensign, I thank you for this new avenue of attack. I did not know that you were a student of Vulcanism!" "No, Sir," the boy seemed confused. "I don't study Vulcans!" My mouth opened and shut a couple of times at this apparent /non sequitor/. "No, Cordwainer," Justine laughed, "Vulcanism is the study of volcanoes, not Vulcans!" "Oh!" Cordwainer's face shone with understanding. I wish I could have said the same for mine. How did these people get to be in control of a starship, again? "I don't study volcanes, either," Cordwainer continued, compounding my confusion. "You don't?" Sperr asked. "Then how did you come up with that idea?" "Well in Jurassic Park 52, the heroes have to use Mecha-T-Rex to put a bomb deep under the mutant dinosaur bad guy's hideout. He swims through the lava flow under the hideout and blows up all the bad guys! Then, this huge volcano starts spewing out all this stuff and Mecha-T-Rex is hurled to safety!" That blinking sound again. "So this is all because of some holomovie you watched?" I hesitantly asked. "Yeah! When Doctor Stewart said 'Jurassic' I remembered the movie!" I most likely would have laid down and cried at this point if Stewart and Ifukube hadn't chosen that precise moment to announce, "We think it might work!" They laid out their plan, verifying several details about Cattreth battle tactics with me at various points in their narrative. When everything had been discussed at length and all departments were in agreement over how we were to proceed, the meeting broke up as we all headed to our various battle stations. What may have been the most bizzare battle plan that I had been unfortunate enough to have ever been a part of, was about to begin! Photon torpedoes popped out of the ship at widely spaced intervals. They were not aimed at the colony, but we didn't want the Cattreth to get nervous and shoot down a spread, just to be on the safe side. The torpedoes were aimed at several small ridges and hills several dozen kilometers removed from the borders of the colony. These ridges and hills indicated blockages and bottlenecks to the underground lava flows in the area. We were using photons, instead of the more powerful quantum torpedoes, because we wanted to /add/ to those blockages, not open them up. We hoped that by denying the lava any other outlets, the opening that we would, hopefully, create in part two of the plan would serve to release the entirety of the region's magmic fury. Hmmmm, 'magmic fury' that's really rather poetic, isn't it? <> Ah yes, D-One. Have I mentioned that you have the soul of a rock? <> The photons were completely ignored by the Cattreth, just as we had hoped. Our next actions would not be ignored, but that was what we were counting on. We moved closer to the planet, this time with our Shields fully active. After a couple of futile shots at us the Cattreth settled back to wait for our next move. They didn't have long to wait. Specially tuned, medium power phasers began to shoot out, again one at a time, at the colony. These were as effective against the colony as their discharge beams currently were against us. Then, with predictable Cattreth efficiency, the colony's Shielding was tweaked to require less engery to maintain. This limited the range of frequencies which could be blocked, but since we were only shooting one frequency (as far as they knew /could/ only shoot one frequency) there was little for them to worry about. Which was exactly what we wanted them to think. The tunneling phaser shot out with ridiculous violence, at least compared to the phasers that we had been shooting. It was also at the extreme other range of frequency that the other beams had been using. The Cattreth were not fools, they would remodulate their Shields after this trick and go back to blocking all frequencies, again. But by then it would be too late. At least we hoped so. The tunneling phaser burned through the planet's crust, directly in the center of the colony, finally penetrating to the molten lava flow beneath. The beam had lasted for only a few seconds, just as it had reached its target, the Cattreth had altered their Shielding to overcome our tactic. As far as they were concerned, we had pulled off a minor trick and actually managed to do some minor damage to the colony. Their response to this would certainly not be long in coming. So we did the only thing that we could at this point - we staged a strategic withdrawal. <> That too! In fact, the 'minor trick' was anything but. It was our entire strategem. We retreated <> to our 1.5 million kilometer position and waited for all Hell to break loose down on the planet. And waited. And waited. Just as we were sure that the plan had failed. Sensors indicated a massive explosion - right under the Cattreth colony! Smoke, lava and exotically toxic fumes poured out of a new mountain which had violently thrust itself up along where our tunneling phaser had opened up a passageway up from the planet's depths. The entire colony flashed into fire as the temperature soared to over 400 degrees centigrade. We watched the carnage through special filters which allowed us to detect lifesigns even through the intense heat and blinding smoke. Most of the Bridge crew turned away or went about other business, but I watched the counter tied into the lifesigns gradually work its way down to zero. Mission accomplished. That night, I was introduced to another odd Human behavior. The victory celebration. I walked into the mess hall that evening to find a jolly, celebratory party in progress. A spot had been reserved for me at the senior officers' table and Justine quickly pulled me over. A glass of my usual drink was already waiting. I had developed a taste for synthe peach schnapps over the last couple of weeks, although referrences to my fuzzy navel seemed to be completely unnecessary as I bathed at least once a day. In the aftermath of our victory, today, everyone seemed to be both happy that we had won and hopeful that we would continue to do so. I was forced to admit to myself that I, too, shared these feelings. The fact that the Cattreth had apparently decided to divide responsibilities among each of the colonies seemed to bode well, as well. It was a behavior that I had witnessed before, and the Cattreth were nothing if not traditionalists. In fact, Doctor Stewart was asking about just that particular aspect of their psychology as I took my seat. "How could you have been sure that they would adjust their Shielding that way? If they hadn't things would have been much less certain, you know." This I knew only too well. Simulations had shown that, without the bore- hole produced by the tunneling phasers, there was only about a 40% chance that the resultant volcano would do sufficient damage to the colony to allow us to successfully assault it from space. Some might have said that we had gotten lucky, but I knew better than that. Planning and preparation, coupled with knowledge and... <> OK! OK! We had gotten lucky! "Doctor what you witnessed today is what we called 'cultural inertia'. The Cattreth use tactics and systems that have worked for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. They are very slow to change these systems, since anything new couldn't possibly have had all of the testing, tweaking and tempering that the age-old methodologies have had. We managed to exploit this weakness several times at the beginning of our war with them. By the end of the war they had adapted to nearly all of our new tactics, however. Fortunately, in this new universe, they have no idea what to expect so they appear to be falling back to their old standbys. We may be able to exploit that in the battles to come." "Ya know," Matalon piped up, "we have come across similar examples of this 'cultural inertia' ourselves, over the years." "Oh yes," I responded politely, not really interested in comparing notes right now. "Yep - we even came up with a name for it!" "You mean like 'cultural inertia'?" I asked, curious in spite of myself. "Sure! But we call it the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' syndrome." "Mine's shorter," I observed. "Sounds like a personal problem," Matalon responded, taking us on another trip to /non sequitor/ land. Of course the smirks and grins from everyone else around the table showed that I was, apparently, the only one who hadn't gotten the joke. Seeing my confusion, Justine took my hand and started leading me away from the table, "C'mon Tellat. I'll explain it to you - in private!" We walked away from the mess hall and back to Justine's quarters, where she did, in fact, explain it to me. But, that is, perhaps, a story for another time. <> Next Time: The first-ever Melting Pot Halloween Story! Featuring everybody's favorite naked, unicycle-riding, Karaoke-singing Tellarite! (that should be scary enough!) "Big Wheel, Keep on Turnin'", available on 10/23/2006 I welcome Reader Feedback! Please let me know what you've thought of Melting Pot/Hunters so far, and, in particular this story! Contact me at: meltingpot@khobrah.net