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From: mcmelmon@btr.btr.com
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Subject: Five Star Trek - 7
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Date: 13 May 92 02:16:03 GMT
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Five Star Trek - Part 7:


   Last lines of Part 6 -

   Exedore:  Poseidal has never been outmaneuvered on the   
   battlefield.  He may already have followed such 
   reasoning...

   Bretai:  We must choose one, and I have chosen. We shall 
   destroy this distant world, completely and utterly.  And 
   then we shall destroy one of the other two.  Ultimately, 
   Poseidal will have no choice but the third.  Ready the 
   fleet for a transferance.


Part 7:


Yamato bridge.  Commodore Hayes cuts an enigmatic figure before the vessel's
huge viewscreen.



Hayes:  Warp nine.

Wesley:  Aye, Commodore.



From space, we see the Yamato vanish in an explosion of light.  

Returning to the bridge, the ship's security officer looks at his screen.  He
looks up quickly.



Security:  Commodore, we seem to have uninvited guests.

Hayes:  Oh?

Security:  They beamed aboard, shortly before our departure.

Hayes:  Who are 'they?'

Security:  We're checking...  Apparently our guests are Lynn and Kyle Ming.  The
celebrities.

Hayes:  What the hell?

Wesley:  Oh, sh...



Bridge of the Grand Adas.  Poseidal sits, deep in thought.  Atrophos appears
beside him.



Atrophos:  What is the matter, Lord Poseidal?

Poseidal:  We have guests.

Atrophos:  The Zentradi?

Poseidal:  Yes.

Atrophos:  How many survived the transference, I wonder?  So great a distance to
cross...  

Poseidal:  Seven battleships.  Four super-carriers.  Eighteen heavy cruisers.
Twenty-five cruisers.  Missing are two battleships, one carrier, fifteen heavy
cruisers, and thirty cruisers.  All smaller vessels appear to have perished in
the transference.  They have been reduce to nearly one sixth their total
capacity...



A brilliant, piercing light illuminates the bridge.  A beautiful woman
materializes in it.  Impossibly long hair wraps and sways about her.  A gown of
shimmering gold flaps in a fiery breeze.



Atrophos [gasping]:  Sister!  It's Clotho!  She's sent us her image across the
galactic void...

Aisha [to Poseidal]:  The Sleeping Witch appears to have awakened, Lord.


Poseidal:  Fascinating... 

Clotho [chanting, musical voice]:  Hail, Lord Poseidal!  Your greatest strike
yet, a daring retreat.  Not a shot fired, yet thousands upon thousands, dead;
their bodies disipated along the ehtereal winds of the bio-relation pool.  The
Zentradi followed helplessly into your trap.  To defeat Poseidal has been
encoded into their very being.  How could they not follow?  And now your allies,
the Trio de Colus, is free to strike as it will - the Zentradi eliminated from
the field.   Breathlessly, Pentagona awaits the return of Great Poseidal's
victory banners to the towers of Float Temple...


[her voice drops very low]


...I neglected my duties once.  Never again.  I shall stop you, Oldna Poseidal.



The light fades, Clotho disappearing with it.



Aisha:  After two millenia of sleep, stuffed in the cockpit of a Mortarr Head, I
suppose I'd be a little cranky, myself.

Poseidal:  It does not take two millenia of sleep, stuffed in the cockpit of a
Mortarr Head, to make you cranky...

Atrophos:  I am glad Clotho has finally pulled herself from her dreams.  A
living death, to go on like that for so long...

Poseidal:  I am glad, too.

Aisha:  Even though she seems intent on stopping you?

Poseidal:  Stopping me from what?  Clotho is a fatima whose intentions are not
unknown - they are unknowable.

Aisha:  Perhaps.  And the intentions of the Enterprise, and her bald - and,
might I add, very sexy - Captain?

Poseidal:  Those we shall know soon enough.  Is Rogner ready?

Aisha:  He is.



Enterprise bridge.  Picard, Troi, and Riker seated in their respective chairs.
Formal uniforms.  Worf stands behind the tactical com, resplendant in the
uniform of a decorated warrior.



Worf:  The Grand Adas is hailing us.

Picard:  Onscreen.



[Poseidal's image appears before them.  Poseidal, too, has dressed for the
occasion:  his waist-lenght silvery hair is pleated and fastened by a number of
ornate golden clasps.  He wears numerous robes which appear to be finely
hammered sheets of metal - primarily silver with flashes of brilliant purples,
reds, and violets.  From a perfectly scultped, pentagonal face, stare his
trademark eyes:  one gold, one blue.]



Poseidal:  Greetings, Captain Picard of the USS Enterprise.  My envoy is ready.
Falk Rogner, one of the finest Knights in Pentagona space.  

Picard:  We are looking forward to the meeting.

Poseidal:  He will be accompanied by his Fatima.  On one level, an artificial
being.  A doll.  On another, so much more.  

Picard: An android?

Poseidal [laughing]:  No.  So much more.  Artificial, yet biological in nature.
Yet mechanical as well.

Riker:  A slave?

Poseidal:  Of a fashion.  But we're all slaves, of a fashion.  You shall get a
better view of us face to face.  Rogner will leave the Grand Adas in his Mortarr
Head.  Please do not be alarmed by it's appearance.



[Poseidal fades away]



Troi:  That was odd, Captain.

Picard:  In what way, Counselor?

Troi:  There was some manner of deception, but it was unspecific.

Picard:  Common in all diplomacy, Counselor.  Do you think it a threatening
deception?

Troi:  I don't know what to think yet, Captain.  There was no hostile intent.
But I did sense some kind of a trick - working in the background of his
thoughts, almost subconciously.  

Riker:  Great.  An unstable captain at the helm of a battleship ten kilometers
long...

Troi:  Not unstable.  Very stable.  A very precise, calculating mind.  It will
take some time for me to sort this out.  For the moment, I do not think the
situation warrants extra-ordinary caution.  Just common sense.

Picard:  Thank you, Counselor.  Prepare a methodology for narrowing in on what
you think odd about Poseidal.  Have a plan to me within the next five hours.

Troi:  Yes, Captain.


Worf:  Captain, a vessel - roughly sixty meters in length - has exited the Grand
Adas.

Picard:  Visual.



[A wedge shapped craft with two long protrusions at it's for appears on screen.
The surface is very complex, covered with protrusions and carvings.

The craft stops several hundred meters from the Enterprise.  There is the flash
of a thruster, and the wedge begins to open from the belly.  It pulls back to
reveal a strikingly humanoid form inside.  

A Mortarr Head.

Nearly twenty meters tall, it looks like a giant suit of armor - A Cross Mirage.

The red, extended cross that is Poseidal's crest flares brilliantly on the
Mortarr Head's chest]



Worf:  Captain, I cannot believe these sensor readings...

Picard:  Why is that?

Worf:  The energy output would make sense for a ship ten... perhaps twenty...
times that size.  More than that, the complexity of the onboard systems is
phenomenal.  Almost...  

Picard:  Almost?

Worf:  Almost organic, Captain.

Troi:  It's true, Captain.  I can feel a mind.  A simple mind, almost like a
child.  It's... afraid?

Picard:  Afraid?  Afraid of what?

Troi:  Afraid of us, Captain.  It has never encountered anything like the
Enterprise, and is naturally anxious.

Riker:  Is that Rogner?

Data:  Negative, Commander Riker.  There are three humanoid life-forms inside.
I believe that is the 'Mortarr Head.'  

Picard:  Three life forms?

Data:  Yes.  One could be what Poseidal termed an 'artificial' being.  The
'artificial' nature of the small entity bears a striking resemblance to that of
the Mortarr Head.

Troi:  Yes!  There is a strong link.  Captain, this is incredible!

Picard:  What, Counselor?

Troi:  Almost a symbiotic connection between the two...  The 'artifical being' -
the Fatima, I believed Poseidal called it - is soothing the giant.  Making
it relax.

Picard:  Fascinating.  Worf, report to the transporter room.  Prepare to bring
our guests aboard.



[Worf exits]



Riker:  Poseidal seemed to indicate two...  Yet, we are detecting three life
forms, in addition to the Mortarr Head?

Data:  Correct, Commander.  One - the Fatima - is situated in what would
correspond to the cranial cavity of the Mortarr Head.  Another, in the chest.
The third, in one of the legs.

Picard:  How strange...

Riker:  Which do we bring aboard?

Picard:  All three, I suppose.

Worf [remotely]:  Ready, Captain.

Picard:  Energize.