FicWad

- Traders' World -

--MindBender--

17

In the south:

Worf quietly observed from the street as Commander Riker emerged from a nearby wooden building and shook his head. Riker waited for a break in the stampede of bodies that passed before making his way back to the Klingon.

"Not Data?" said Worf, already knowing the answer.

"Just a robot man-servant running off neural gel-packs. Its motherboard has similar properties to a positronic relay. What about you? Anything?"

Worf grumbled and watched the passers-by. "No," he growled. "Commander Data could be anywhere. This is hopeless."

As he said this, Kuhl - The newly appointed military advisor to the Klingon fleet - returned from his own investigation. He had insisted upon being present for this away-mission.

But, thus far, The Beta Team had been searching the southern-most region with little success.

"Behind me," Kuhl said in the tone of a spy. "The cloaked figure with the bowed back."

They looked passed the stout Klingon and saw a crooked man; back doubled over in a way that was uncomfortable to even watch, of what race they could not see as he wore a baggy gown of dirty blue and green.

"What about him?" Riker asked somewhat abruptly. The man was clearly not Data. Even doubled over he would not be that small and thin.

Worf responded to the commander's disrespect by aiming an offending glare at him.

"I observed him acquiring a tachyon diffusion device in a most suspect manner."

"A tachyon diffuser?" Worf repeated. A machine designed to counteract the tachyons that adhere to a cloaking field. Amazing. A tachyon sweep would have been their sure-fire method of detecting a cloaked ship. Without that ability, an enemy may be undetectable.

"In what way was it suspect, General?" Riker said. "Bearing in mind our current location."

"It was the manner in which the sale was undertaken, Commander. The owner of the device seemed to part with his stock far too easily. Without pay."

"Most unusual," Worf confirmed.

"Perhaps the buyer was owed a debt?" offered Riker.

"Then the debt must be a large one indeed," the grey-haired Kuhl retorted.

"Why so?"

"The seller seemed more of a machine to me than the android we are searching for. As though his mind was not his own."

"Like he was being forced to part with the goods against his will..." Riker contemplated.

"Vulcan mind tricks?" pondered Kuhl.

"It may be nothing at all," said the commander.

"You question my instincts?"

"We need more to go on than mere instinct-"

Worf interrupted their discussion with the results of a tricorder scan of the departing figure. "This tricorder has been modified," Worf explained, "with the transporter program created to track supernatural beings."

Will scoffed.

But Worf held the scan results before him. "It would appear our suspect is... a /demon/."

Riker weighed the impossibility against the hard data in front of him.

"You SEE," Kuhl boasted, "a warrior's instinct, Commander, is NEVER wrong." General Kuhl tugged at his belt in a typically Klingon gesture of smug gratification as the two Klingons made a beeline through the throng of patrons in pursuit of their target.

Beta Team followed closely for nearly a quarter of a kellicam - almost half an Earth kilometre - until the shrouded figure stopped suddenly in the street. The team halted 20 yards behind and quickly formed a casual huddle beside a group of Pakled merchants. Had they been discovered? Could the suspect sense them?

The figure's crooked back straightened up and the hood that hid it's features from them began to turn a little to the left, almost as though it's face inside might be looking right back at them. After a long pause, the target fled at a speedy pace and withdrew into a narrow alley between two buildings.

"He's onto us," Riker observed, and the three of them took off after it.

The team entered the alleyway, leaving the crowds behind - the cacophony of their movement and banter growing more and more distant from them. And the inherent feeling of safety the crowds instilled went along with them. Which was, in itself, contradictory. After all, nowhere on this world was 'safe'.

As they rounded the corner where the alley opened up at the rear of the buildings, Worf and Kuhl each pulled a Klingon disruptor pistol from their belts.

The figure was just a short distance ahead of them. A pack it carried on its back no doubt housed the device it had obtained. But the robed figure did not run. Instead remaining still, almost like it was waiting for them to catch up.

Riker advanced as close as he dared to the suspect. "Hold your position! We are armed, and will open fire!"

The mysterious individual obeyed, and straightened up completely - reaching a height of about 2 metres in all. So much for it being a crooked old man. Again, the hood of the cloak turned and Riker now felt certain that whatever eyes were behind there were looking right through the cloth at them. There was an abrupt ripple of the material, like the head beneath had performed a discreet twitch. But nothing happened.

Worf looked back down the alley; toward the corner that led back onto the streets. A sudden sensation that there was a presence behind them flooded over him. He watched for a few seconds for any sign that his feeling was correct. But there was no movement. No head peeped from around the bend. Also, there was another strange sensation. He could only have described it as a thin cloud of transparency that hovered over his perception. Yet, when he tried to focus on it, it would just bring him back to that other feeling. That they were being tracked from the rear.

Worf was about to concede that his suspicion was misjudged, when a clear shuffling sound came from behind the wall; amplified by the echo of the compact alley. He grinned. The enemy had failed to elude his predatory skills. The Klingon warrior slipped his disruptor into its holster and drew his mek'leth. The other two could handle the cloaked figure while Worf took care of the real threat here. He stepped away from his team without them realising, and retraced his steps down the alley.

Riker, in contrast, took a step toward their prisoner. "Turn around /slowly/; with your arms held out where we can see them!"

It spun on them. In an eruption of green and blue, it threw open the robe and presented itself in all its unnatural glory. The robe folded back to reveal thrashing tentacles.

It was bipedal, but the upper section of its body bore not arms but many thick, flaying tentacles. From the edges of the hood, smaller tentacles writhed around what settled for its face. And within this fray, a hissing mouth could be seen. But no eyes.

The mouth widened to fill much of the creature's 'face'. The tentacles waved about the creature's body in a threatening display of aggression, as it hissed at them in warning. A living tongue slithered from the opening of the mouth and stared back at them. The flesh on the tip seemed to grow around a reflective black sphere - possibly an eye. It was certainly the means by which it sensed its surroundings as it swayed and bobbed, testing the air.

The false daylight of Traders' World reflected a single point of white in the eye's inky blackness. Riker and Kuhl's attention was caught there in that spot of light. A spot of light held in a deep well of darkness. Once their interest was captured there, they were transfixed. Its power numbed their bodies until even the will to move was gone. It slowed their minds to the point where they had not the energy to fight against the calm stillness it evoked.

As Kuhl was lost in a vivid daydream of battle, Riker's thoughts drifted to Troi.

Counsellor Troi...

Deanna...

...IMZADI.

The ebony eye drew back and the tongue became a makeshift claw. Drool from the gaping mouth fell in great gobbets over its mottled, cyst-ridden flesh.

With the eye gone, Kuhl's keen muscles regained their vigour and his mind soon followed. As the Klingon snapped out of his hypnosis, the clawed tongue retreated into the maw; reached for something within the palate at the roof of its mouth, and tore something free. In its grasp was a small dart-like splinter. Perhaps just one of many that lined the inside of its muzzle. The tongue whipped and it flicked out the dart. It streaked across the alley and pierced Kuhl in the throat.

He lurched back and grunted in pain. Reaching up with one hand, he took hold of the bony needle and pulled it free, but the demon's venom was already at work in his system. Like a powerful anaesthetic, it desensitised his large muscles until they became too relaxed to support him. He first dropped to his knees, fighting the weakness within him. But he could only fight so much, and he fell forward onto the rough ground. Fully conscious, there was nothing he could do but look on from the prison of his own paralysed body.

A few moments later, even his eyelids grew too heavy to remain open. With his eyes fixed shut, it didn't take much for the old warrior to slip into sleep.

Will Riker, though aware of what was happening, was caught between the real world and the dream-state that numbed his whole being.

The eye returned and regarded Riker momentarily. Then the demon turned on its heels in a swirl of blue and green cloth, and drew away.

The demon was gone, and Riker came back to the world. He quickly pulled his Bajoran hand-phaser and fired just as the creature turned into a side-alley between two storage facilities. His reaction was a second too slow and his shot hit bare wall; the demon disappearing out of sight.

Riker glanced around.

Kuhl was down. His heavy snores were a clear indication that he was not dead. But where was Worf?

"WORF!" he called out. There was no reply, and there was no time to waste. He gave up on the idea of finding Worf and gave chase through the back streets to capture their elusive opponent.

He soon found it in a tight cul-de-sac. Behind the creature a high wall blocked any hope it had of escape, which gave Riker some hope. To its left was a locked door to one of the storage buildings that surrounded them.

He had it cornered; with his phaser locked on target. "You're out of places to run... whatever the hell you are. So, unless you want me to start amputating those tentacles of yours" - he held his phaser right out - "you'll remove that pack you're wearing and lay it on the ground. And don't even think about trying anything."

Riker realised then that, what at first appeared to be a bipedal creature was, in fact, nothing of the sort. What seemed on initial inspection to be legs... were actually two of the thicker tentacles tied into a pair of heavy boots! It wasn't even humanoid! It was a damned Octopus! Or whatever kind of pus had about twenty limbs.

As his eyes moved up the thing's body, he noticed now that each limb had on the underside many rows of tiny hooks.

His eyes moved further up...

And up...

And there it was again. That eye.

A sharp pain pricked the back of Riker's eyes and with it came a single piercing word.

Deanna

He cared for no other woman as deeply as he did for Deanna Troi. He often considered whether or not it could be possible to rekindle their romance. Though it was probably the case that they both had grown too much to rediscover a seemingly ancient love. And there were other things that stood between himself and his Imzadi...

Riker realised that the numbness had returned to his body and that his mind was not heeding his desire to get back to the business at hand. And where the hell was WORF?

Thinking of things that stood in the way, it was just a few years or so since Worf was trying to move in on Deanna. But that was then, and Worf was no longer in the picture.

(Or was he?)

Riker recalled that Deanna had been the senior officer who met the arrival of the Klingon delegation to the Enterprise. She was the one to escort them to their quarters.

/No, no, that was only because myself and Captain Picard had been far too involved with rescheduling the duty rost/er to welcome them at the time.

(What if that was just a cover?)

A cover?

(Yes, a cover. A way to allow Deanna to greet Worf the moment he arrived!)

Oh, listen to yourself! Now you're getting paranoid!

Of course, Riker really had no doubt that it wasn't pre-organised.

But that didn't mean Deanna hadn't wanted to be there to welcome Worf into the ship.

(Into her arms.)

Into her bed!

(Into her-)

That was when he heard Worf's gravel voice behind him.

"My apologies, Commander. I was certain we were being followed. But I believe this creature was affecting my mind."

Riker shuddered with disgust when he heard the Klingon speak. To think that this man had courted his Imzadi. The pain that he felt just imagining this foul, sweaty beast laying his hands on the woman he LOVED!

Worf put a hand on his shoulder and asked: "Are you alright, Commander Riker?"

"I'LL KILL YOU!" came his reply. Riker turned on him viscously and made a grab for his face.

The warrior caught Riker by the wrists and held him at bay. The two of them struggled for a moment until Worf's eye was drawn behind the brainwashed Riker.

He saw the creature scaling the height of the wall with its hooked tentacles. Before the warrior had time to reconcile what he was seeing, it scuttled over the crest of the wall and out of view. He could not allow that thing to escape.

Worf apologised again to Riker then beat his fist into the man's soft nose. Riker's eyes rolled back in his head and his muscles went limp.

As the commander slid to the floor, Worf hurried away. He made straight for the door to the storage facility, blasted the old-style lock using his pistol, and barged into it with his shoulder. He found himself in darkness, but kept moving. Twice he crashed into crates as he ran for the rear of the building. It couldn't be far now.

He smacked into the back wall running, and stumbled back. Unfazed, he began to feel for what he hoped he would find, until he recalled there was a light in his belt. He hurriedly slipped the pistol away and drew out a small torch, lighting the back wall. Instantly he found what he was searching for.

The rear exit blasted open and Worf came out onto a metal stairwell overlooking another crowded street filled with stalls.

He could make out nothing familiar among the melee of writhing bodies. Throwing down the light, he pulled out the tricorder to scan the area for the demon. A few moments later he turned and cracked a fist into the building. He looked back at the street and reluctantly admitted defeat. They'd lost the target. And the device.

He made his way back to check on General Kuhl and the commander.

Riker was going to be most annoyed.