Meanwhile, Riker, Finnegan, Kirk, and Spock all crammed into the tiny shuttle, and after a furious squabble over who got to drive, Riker and Kirk shared the pilot's seat and the occasional elbow, while Finnegan did an absentminded jig in the back and Spock practiced his behind-the-back soul handshake, looking grave and majestic and remarkably old for a Vulcan. The tiny ship ahead of them appeared to be having trouble of some sort. Crouched in the pilot's seat, peering at the screens, Data was desperately trying to decipher the read-outs with his worsening vision, while Worf scowled balefully (or perhaps grinned cheerily, who knows?) at the viewscreen. "Doctor," said Data hesitantly. "I'm afraid I have something to tell you."

       "Not now, Data, for heaven's sake. Keep your eyes on the read-outs, Data. Data!  Data!" she screamed, as he swerved desperately to avoid ramming two news-ships here to cover the space-battle, and swerved back again when he appeared to be about to graze the solemnly rolling Royal Flush. Worf growled, whether in fury or the joy of danger I couldn't tell you without consulting the script, and drew his lips back so far they rolled over his nose and chin. The effect was comparatively esthetic, revealing the tattoed pattern on his gums, but unfortunately he was a nose-breather, so the noise rapidly became unbearable.

       "Doctor, let me put it this way," said Data rapidly, swooping under two pleasure-craft crammed with ambulance-chasers. "Are you a licensed optometrist? If not, we'd better turn back."

       "Well," said Beverly, doubtfully, and not realizing the implications of the statement, started rummaging in her bag. She began extracting all sorts of paraphenalia from her seemingly bottomless bag....a medical tricorder, hyposprays, tweezers, a dry martini (shaken, not stirred), a dog-eared script, skateboard, a nameplate emblazoned with the name Cheryl, a bare bodkin, hall tree....."Aha! Here they are -- I knew I had these antiques in here somewhere. Is this what you're babbling about, Data?" Beverly produced a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses with a flourish. "Whatever do you want with these things?"

       Data squinted at the eyegear and smiled. "Yes! That's exactly what I wanted!" He grabbed them eagerly and put them on. "I can see again! I'm so happy...I'm so happy I could...SING!!" He jumped out of the pilot's seat and began an elaborate Busby Berkley-type tap routine. "But when you see them all dressed up....You'll know why my favorite is.....the SALAD!" He executed a particularly difficult time step and began humming "Hello Dolly".

       Worf quickly grabbed the controls of the tumbling shuttlecraft, interrupting Data's impression of Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding". The former android came to his senses after a moment of intense irritation at the wheezing Klingon's maneuver. He returned to the pilot's seat and took the controls again.

       Now wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and with tiny beads of sweat gleaming on his pearl-like skin, Data acquired a sprightly air of satisfaction as he piloted the tiny shuttle into open space. "This is quite enjoyable when you can't extrapolate every move," he remarked, "almost--exciting. Yes. It's definitely exciting."

       "Data," said Beverly doubtfully, whacking Worf on the back of the head several times until he rolled his lips back down, "are you sure you're all right?"  She moved to the front of the shuttle and peered over at him.

       "Never better," he said, smiling so widely he actually showed some of his teeth. "I've never been...I can't remember being...I'd venture to say it's impossible...that I've ever felt better."

       Beverly, who had been timing the contractions, said laboriously, "Five! Data--you're human!"

       "All too human, my dear doctor," he replied, his eyes fully dilated, and kicked the Sakharov into mini-warp drive, crashing the gears in the process and making euphoric <eeps>.

     "Captain," Spock said. "Wouldn't it be better to have the Enterprise rather than just this shuttlecraft?  We could get to Wrigley's Planet much more quickly."

     Kirk nodded, then mumbled quiet curses as his neck muscles again seized up. Spock activated the communications console and used the shuttle's Remote-Ship-Control-Grabber to get control of the Enterprise's helm. Minutes later the starship had caught up to the shuttle, and Riker guided it back into the shuttlecraft bay.

     Once back on the bridge, Riker took the helm and set course for Wrigley's Planet. Meanwhile, Kirk headed for Sickbay to get an anti-arthritis booster shot, and Spock and Finnegan began planning what to do once they reached Wrigley's.

     He held his weapon with a certain lackadaisical anticipatory panache that only he could achieve successfully.

     "You," he snarled, grabbing a passing crewmember and casually throwing him against a bulkhead, "where am I?"

     "Uh, you're on the Federation Starship Enterprise, sir," said the somewhat startled crewman.

     "Federation?" the man, dressed in a gorgeous costume of black leather and silver studs said. "Federation?"  he repeated, with a look of almost malicious delight.

     Spock looked up from his station, a look of dread passing momentarily over his features. "Captain," he started.

     "What is is now, Spock?"

     "I sense a malevolent, paranoid, somewhat homicidal presence on the ship."

     "Spock, it's probably just the vegetarian pizza you ate for dinner. You know what onions do to you. Besides," Kirk added with a touch of regret in his voice, "you know there are no paranoid homicidal maniacs in this universe."

     Spock, still somewhat shaken, murmured "Perhaps you're right, but still..."

       Ignoring Data's aerobatics, Beverly stared, trance-like, at the constellations surrounding the Sakarov, her thoughts now distant. She wondered what had become of her poor, tortured Jean-Luc. Then her feral green eyes narrowed dangerously - if he was having a good time with _those women_, she would have to get violent with him. (Hmm...come to think of it, wouldn't that be such a bad idea. You know what they say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains...") This pleasant thought was interrupted by a soft tap on the shoulder from her once-synthetic companion.

       "You look tense, Dr. Crusher," Data's eyebrows lowered in an expression of concern.

       "I'm beginning to wish you still had an 'off' switch," she growled, shruggin his hand from her shoulder.

       "Off switch!" Worf exclaimed in surprise. His solemn expression turned to one of pure joy as he filed the information away in his macro-headed brain.

       "I feel it's my duty to cheer you up," Data proclaimed. Beverly only glared at him maliciously, her features beginning to change again. He didn't heed the warning. Data cleared his throat and curled his lip.

       "Are you lonesome tonight?" he began, singing the chorus from a song by a long-dead King.

       "Data! So help me!" Bev snarled.

       "...now the stage is bare..." he continued, gyrating his hips in a strange manner.

       Just a Dr. Crusher was about to clip the singing fool across the face, the shuttlecraft bucked, sending its occupants flailing through the air. They finally landed together, in a heap on the floor, with a resounding THUD!

       "Nice going, Zippy!" Worf barked.

       "Huh?" Data responded, at a most unusual loss for words.

       "You just scraped the side of that derelict ship with the shuttle," Beverly hissed, shoving at the very heavy Klingon resting on her legs.

       "It's not my fault. After all, I'm only human," Data added defensively. Then a smile played across his expressive lips. "Yes, I am, aren't I?"

       "I vote we jetison him," Worf sneered.

       "I vote that I drive," Bev sighed.

       "I vote we play naked Twister," Data offered with a grin.

       Meanwhile, on the so-called derelict, Brittany Collins slid out of her plush Captain's chair as her ship lurched forward. The surprised woman landed with an ungraceful _thwump!_

       "Alright, who's the wise guy?" she shouted, the whine waking the bridge crew who had been dozing on their consoles. She flung a whisp of auburn hair over her shoulder and noticed that the bottle of "Perfectly Pink" nail polish she'd been using before the impact had toppled and deposited a sticky pink trail down the front of her low-cut, cleavage-revealing uniform.

       "Arrgh!" she exclaimed. "Okay, what happened?" As usual, her sleepy-eyed crew gave no answer -- they were oblivious to everything, as they preferred to be.

       "That shuttle rear-ended us, Brittany...ur...I mean, Captain," said a mysteriously chipped Ensign.

       "Why, the nerve..." she growled, becoming more angry and shrill by the moment.

       "That's a shuttle from the U.S.S. Enterprise."

       "So??" Brittany retorted.

       "Well, the Enterprise is a fine ship -- best in Starfleet," the Ensign continued.

       "That piece of junk dented my spaceship," she screeched. Fire all phasers at that grey menace!!"

       "Yes, Ma'am!" grinned Gunther, her over-sized Andorian Security Chief.

       "Fire! Fire! Fire!!"

       "Um, Captain," the strange Ensign hedged.

       "What? What? What?!"

       "We don't have any phasers, or other weapons, for that matter. Remember?" He smiled calmly and handed her a cup of tea to soothe her nerves.

       "Oh...yeah. Gunther, do we have a transporter?" she asked, sipping the tea and regaining her composure.

       "Last time I looked we did, Ma'am."

       "Okay -- good. You go down and beam those blaggards aboard and detain them. They're not getting away without paying for the damages."

       "Yes, Captain. It's head-cracking time," the huge Andorian smiled. He turned and rushed to the turbolift doors, promptly smashing right into them.

       "I really must get that fixed someday," Captain Collins remarked. "Oh, well, maybe I can add it to the charges we foist off on Starfleet." She took another sip of the strangely heady tea. "And thank you for the tea, Ensign..." She turned to find the young man gone and only the barest wisp of a black cloud fading away.

       Back on the Sakarov, Data, Beverly and Worf had managed to untangle themselves and climbed back into their seats, with Beverly in the pilot's seat. Just as she was about to speed out of the sector and head for Wrigley's Pleasure Planet to rescue her beloved Jean-Luc, a strange but familiar sensation flowed over their bodies...

       ...And they appeared on the transporter pad of the Grand Voyager. Before they could focus on their new environment, several pairs of hands grabbed them and began to drag them away. Worf struggled mightly against Gunther and lost, a new experience for the Klingon. Data was definitely rethinking his newly-found appreciation of the sensation of pain.

       "Now what??" Beverly growled, beginning to look a little long in the tooth.

       Elsewhere on the Grand Voyager, Science Officer T'kai was staring at her assistant, who had just been engulfed by a large black cloud. "Most interesting," she mused, torn between her Vulcan need to study the phenomenon and her Romulan desire to fight the intruder off with her bare hands. The indecision kept her motionless.

       The cloud, chuckling evilly, released the hapless scientist, leaving him scuttling across the deck in search of a convenient mousehole. "Perhaps I should report this to the Captain," T'kai thought aloud. She turned to a nearby com panel. "T'kai to Captain Coll..." she began. Her report became a series of hisses and miaows as the cloud surrounded her. With one last laugh, the mysterious assailant left the Grand Voyager. T'kai began chasing her associate.

       "T'kai? T'kai? Did you call me? Where are you?" the com panel squawked as Brittany tried to understand the message. "I'm getting tired of all of this nonsense and I have a migrane. Lieutenant T'Kai! Report to my office immediately!!!" The com panel shut off with a resounding CLICK! T'kai released the mouse's tail, purred a response to Brittany's order and left the lab, heading for the Captain's office.

       Gunther and his security team marched the confused Enterprise trio down one of the merchant ship's cramped corridors toward the Captain's office. Suddenly, one of the team "ack-gacked" and turned into a wart-covered toad.

       "You've been contaminated, too," Beverly said. "Why don't you let us go and we'll try to help you find a cure."

       "Nice try, beautiful, but..." Gunther's reply was cut short by the appearence of black cat.

       The feline crossed the floor in front of the Enterprise officers, pausing to twine its lithe body through, in, and around Data's legs. Still looped about the hapless were-android, the cat began to transform back into an exotic-looking halfbreed woman. T'kai, suddenly aware of her position, and liking it very much, paused in her change to undress Data with her violet eyes, while just the tip of her tongue ran laciviously over her lips. She tossed her mass of midnight curls over her shoulder and curled her tail about his waist. With a sigh guaranteed to melt ice, she purred, "I want you."

       Lieutenant Commander Data, have only been human for a few short hours, was totally unprepared for the heady rush of hormones which pounded through his body like a herd of Kirellian nerth. With an unlikely snort and whinny, he clamped his mouth to her hungry one. Liplocked in a passionate kiss, the couple was totally oblivious to the approach of a rather large and potentially dangerous tiger.    

       Beverly and Worf backed away, trying to pull the couple with them while Gunther pulled in the opposite direction. The ferocious jungle cat let loose a terrific roar. Data and his lusty companion finally woke from their dreamy trance - their lips parted with a loud "Pop!" Once again, bodies went flying about as the strange tug-of-war ended.

       "Keep your hands off my science officer!" Brittany, returning to her normal appearance, yelled at Data.

       T'kai, also completely humanoid again, blushed a delicate olive. "Ah.. Captain Collins, this isn't what you think..."

       "Isn't it?" growled the auburn-haired captain. Worf stared at her with naked desire dripping from his chocolate eyes. Here was a woman he could enjoy, claws and all.

       T'kai and Brittany squared off for a cat-fight (quite literally). Gunther stepped between the two felines to try and stop the fight. Instead, he only managed to provoke the combatants and they attacked him instead. The Captain lunged for his legs. As he side-stepped the tiger and thumped her on the head with one ham-fisted hand, T'kai launched herself onto his shoulder and sunk her teeth neatly into his earlobe. Suddenly, she was humanoid again, with no trace of her were form. The Andorian casually threw her at Data and turned to face his commanding officer. The tiger leapt at her blue target, knocking him down. She bit down on his arm -- and was a woman again.

       "That's it!!" cried Beverly. "The cure is in Andorian blood! But I MUST be certain." With that, the Enterprise's chief medical officer transformed into a fox and bit Gunther squarely on the nose. "Yes!! I was right!! Oh...sorry about that. But I had to be sure," she apologized, offering the bewildered security chief a tissue. "Would you mind coming to the Enterprise for a few tests?"

       "Wait just a minute! No one's going anywhere! You're the bozos who dented my ship and you'd better have some insurance!!" Brittany yelled.

       "Now, Captain, the damage isn't substantial," husked the lovely science officer, still clinging seductively to Data's chest. "You did more damage last month at the 3rd Annual Gala Ball and Drunken Orgy, remember?" T'kai closed her eyes and playfully nipped Data's lip while kissing him. She opened her eyes to gaze up into bewildered golden ones.

       "Inquiry, who are you and why are we siting on the floor?" Data lifted T'kai off his lap and placed her gently on the floor. "Ah, Doctor Crusher, Lieutenant Worf. Can you tell me where we are? It seems I was deactivated for a time." He looked around the corridor outside Captain Collins' office, trying to correlate his last memories with his present position.

       "Not now, Data," hissed Beverly, motioning him into silence.

       Brittany's eyes misted over and a look of carnal bliss melted her features like hot fudge. "How could I forget last month, T'kai?" Suddenly pulling herself together and clearing her throat several times, she turned on Dr. Crusher. "But that doesn't mean you're off the hook. The ship we can fix, but what about my injuries??" She held up her right index finger to which a well-manicured but broken nail clung in desperation. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to grow this stupid thing?!"

       Beverly rummaged through her medi-kit once again and pulled out a small vial. "Hang on, all is not lost. C'mere." And she applied some super-glue to the damaged nail.

       Soon, Captain Brittany Collins of the Grand Voyager was whole again and feeling like her old self. She agreed to waive all charges and drop any damage claims against the Enterprise. T'kai and Gunther permitted Dr. Crusher to take some blood samples for anaylsis. Not wanting to waste any time in synthesizing a cure for the were-sickness, Beverly wished them well and pushed Worf and a still-bewildered Data onto the transporter pad.

       With a sigh of relief, Brittany watched them go. Then, to celebrate the occassion, she announced it was time for the 4th Annual Gala Ball and Drunken Orgy. Every member of her hearty crew responded with a cheer (and a few hoots, squeaks, squawks, and even an eep or two, for good measure).

       Tripping lightly, Beverly leaped from the transporter pad (and promptly tripped heavily over a scrawny, mangy, Chief O'Brien), trying to rush down the corridor with her samples. O'Brien, baring his yellowed teeth in one last desperate lunge (he hadn't been able to catch anything for days), bit Beverly in the ankle and promptly became himself again, not that it mattered, really. With a vague and bewildered expression, he rolled his eyes at her and managed a doubtful smirk. Beverly glared at him, shook her auburn tresses, said "Hmph!" and stalked down the hall (with a fetching limp) to her laboratory to synthesize the antidote.

       Data and Worf split up, Worf to engineering and Data to the bridge, to see if they could salvage some order in the zoologically infested ship.

       Left alone and line-less once again, O'Brien shrugged, trudged out the door, and was promptly pounced upon by an elegant lynx. She sunk her fangs deep in his shoulder, and promptly became Doctor Pulaski, though she didn't relax her bite until she nearly tore her teeth out.

       "Feh!" she said in a ladylike and elegant way, rose from the supine and bashful O'Brien, and strode down the hall to look for Dr. Crusher. Meanwhile, several marsupials, a bat, and a half-grown crocodile leapt upon the supine de-lined O'Brien, who wailed (but wasn't paid for it) and covered his head, and Doctor Pulaski was waylaid on her way by a warthog and several flamingos.

       By the time Beverly lifted her lovely head from the microscope and exclaimed, "That's it!"  everybody aboard the Enterprise had bitten somebody else and been cured of the mysterious disease (including Wesley the hamster), except for Ensign Krista Lovely, who was just naturally that way.

        Jean-Luc Picard awakened in darkness.

        If this happens one more time, he thought, nursing his terrible headache, I'm going to get testy. Then he put that thought into the back of his mind. He was already terribly upset. Every time he tried to become acquainted with the reality around him, someone knocked him out. Or better yet, threw him into a dark closet. The last memory he had was jumping about the singing asteroids of Rousseau Five, a place that he and several other members of his crew - including Wesley Crusher - had become quite fond of in the holodeck because of its sheer beauty. And after all, he was a romantic.

        "Aurora? Philipa?"  No answer from the shadows. A small amount of light was trickling into the room from a small crack on the wall....a very distant wall, at least a hundred meters away. Some huge room, he thought.

        Then the lights came on again...

        ...and Picard was surrounded by yet another reality. The light on the wall vanished, and colors swirled around him until he was lost in a blizzard on a planet of snow.

        Picard curled his parka....where had that come from?...tightly round his body, then began to walk forth, toward where that light from the dark wall had come from. He had finally figured out what was going on...but the distance confirmed the fact that he wasn't where he thought he was.

        Over an ice cliff, into a deep crevasse, he moved forth through the snow. The whiteness around him blinded with harsh brilliance. Yet he moved toward the spot, the very place where he'd seen the light...in that other reality, or one not quite so distant.

        Nothing in his way but the crevasse etching forth...and then he stopped dead in his tracks. Or, rather, he was stopped. He put his hand forth again, and still, touched an invisible wall.

        "Holodeck," he cried. "We've been stranded in a damned holodeck. Darkwind, Louvois, can you hear me?"  Still nothing. He looked around into the air. "Arch," he cried, but there was no response from that either. This, plus the fact that the size of this holodeck was simply too vast, convinced him he was no longer on the Enterprise, meaning that he HAD been captured.

        "I'm not going to submit to this any longer," said Picard into the wind. He removed his parka quickly, exposing his uniformed body to the elements, and threw it to the ground, then escaped from the crevasse. A cold blast hit him square on in the front, and he was propelled to the ground.

        "Do you hear that?" he shouted again. "I will not permit this any longer."  Briefly, he swore to himself: this had better work, I'm freezing my ass off!

        He waited...and waited...and waited...

        ...and the ice field faded. Blackness again. And then, from behind him, where the other side of the crevasse had been, light poured into the room. Picard picked himself up off the ground, turned around...and saw Aurora Darkwind (clad in a LEATHER hunting outfit) (that was for Lisa Blanc!) and Philipa Louvois (in flowing judge's robes) flanking a man whose face he could not see through a cowl.

        "Please come with me," said the man, "we have much to discuss."       

"What's it?" inquired a masterful, light, geriatric voice from one of the diagnostic beds in Sick Bay. Beverly whirled around. In her absence, one of the techs must have been tending to a patient, who was now lithely swinging himself down to the floor. Abstractedly, she admired the breadth of his shoulders and made a mental note to ask him for the name of his plastic surgeon.

       "Who are you?" she demanded.

       The stranger strode up to her, grasped her by one arm, and said, "That's not important now."  Up close, he had golden eyes. For an ancient geezer who'd obviously undergone several remodeling jobs, he was quite a dish, and his hands were strong and commanding. "Tell me what you found."

       "It's..." for a moment she couldn't remember. Somehow it seemed so unimportant. "Oh!  It's a cure for the lycanthropic plague, based on A-A-Andorian blood," she stammered. She fought an overwhelming urge to swoon, or pant, or shriek, or something equally indelicate. "Who are you? WHAT are you?  How do you do that?" she gasped.

       "I am Captain James Tiberius Kirk," he said, looking deep into her eyes and taking the antidote from her nerveless hands. "I'll take it from here, dear," he continued, clenching his jaw muscles, looking brave, sucking his gut in, and hobbling toward the door. It wasn't until the panels had whooshed shut behind him that Beverly realized she'd been a victim of the famed James Kirk close-up. She wiped the vaseline and gauze from her eyes, and dashed after him.

        Commander William Riker breathed a heavy sigh, and looked around the bridge, which was kind of quiet right now.  Not that it SHOULD have been; it was the middle of the day, normal ship's time, but then this wasn't a normal day anyway. He'd already been through quite a lot, and would have liked to go to his quarters and pull the sheets over his head, listening to some soft music and maybe looking at a few luscious babes on the holo-screen, but alas, that was not to be.

        The situation had rapidly changed since the lycanthropy, presumably induced by Gorgan, the "Friendly Angel" (yeah, right, he was just about as friendly as a Mugato, though not quite as foul-smelling!) (hey, you ever slept with a Mugato?  You'd know what I mean!), had been reversed aboard ship. At a meeting between his senior officers, the First Officer of the Justice, Donald Maxwell, the first of the Allegheny - that Feinstein character, Riker noted - and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, he'd informed them of the presence of the Gorgan and how it possibly related to each and every one. To further the plan, all officers present were asked to keep it quiet.

        "Does that mean we cannot provide accurate reports?  If we are in mixed company..."

        "Data, don't ruin a good plan," Riker had answered.

        So the events that had followed had been sound. Kirk and Spock had been beamed back over to the Royal Flush for some last minute work on the mission. Worf, Data, Chief O'Brien and Dr. Pulaski, the best game players of the lot (excepting himself, Riker thought - hey, when you're hot, you're hot!) had just beamed down to Amber Nine to investigate there (by sitting in on a few games, Pulaski thought they could win some information - little did Riker know that's the furthest thing from her mind). The Justice would remain in orbit to monitor the situation while the Allegheny - with Deanna Troi, Derek Fein- stein and Lance Sterling aboard - would travel to a point about two hours out of the system....where the USS Independence, the ship that failed to arrive at Amber Nine, sat, its automatic beacon turned on.

        Riker wondered if a wild party was going on on the Independence, almost transferred himself to the Allegheny, considered it again, said "Forget it," and warped the Enterprise out of the system for good, toward Wrigley's Pleasure Planet.

        The bridge was still quiet.

        Until, of course....

        "Estimated time of arrival, four point six hours, sir," chimed Wesley Crusher like clockwork. He could always ruin a good silence!

        "Shut up, Wesley," said Beverly, seated next to Riker. Although technically, Geordi LaForge was his first officer, he was down in Engineering working on the ship's engines, and Riker needed someone he could trust and depend on. So, Beverly, thinking that First Officer would be a really neat thing to be, said, "What the hell?  I could use a diversion" and joined him on the bridge.

        The mighty ship sped on through the black night.

        Elsewhere...

        The shimmery glittery funky sparkle of the transporter beam vanished, leaving behind four very interesting deposits. Humanoid deposits (well, three of them.....being called humanoid made Worf very mad....and you know what happens when Worf gets mad!).

        Worf, Data, Pulaski and O'Brien stood in a deserted plaza. Marble constructs and metal hangings decorated the plaza; it looked like a modern shopping mall. But there the similarity ended; shopping malls were always crowded, and this one wasn't.

        "Where the hell is everyone?" asked Pulaski, to virtually no one. Worf pulled out his tricorder, examining the area.

        "Sensors detect....no life in the general vicinity."

        "That's impossible!" said O'Brien. "How can the entire gaming group vanish into thin air?"

        "Maybe they all left for a better card game," said Data.

        "Maybe they knew you were coming," replied O'Brien.

        "Could be that they don't like androids," said Pulaski.

        Worf glared at the three of them, then walked toward a far corner of the plaza. He didn't like this one bit.

        How could the population of Amber Nine simply have....disappeared?

        Krista Lovely, Possessed Public Enemy #1, wandered through the corridor of the Enterprise. It was on its way to somewhere, but she couldn't possibly care less. Whatever course it was on, it would soon vanish, just like all the others. But....that was not her concern.

        Krista opened the door to someone's private quarters. It just seemed like a good door to open. She stepped inside, and closed the door.

        Behind her...a voice.

        "Hello, my friend," said Cassandra Foresythe. "You know what they say, two heads are always better than one."

        And Krista Lovely could only smile.

        In Ten-Forward, which was empty, Guinan sat looking out into warpspace.

        She felt....uneasy. She hadn't felt this way in a long time.

        "I know who you are," she said to the wind.

        And the wind answered back. "Same to you, oaf!"  And the Gorgan appeared in the corner....

        Within two hours, the USS Allegheny had arrived in orbit about a small Class-D planetoid well away from the Amber system. In orbit about the planet, the starship Independence, which had failed to respond to any pages so far.

        Troi looked at Feinstein. "Derek, I don't like this. I'm not feeling anything from the Independence. It's almost as if...there's no one there!"

        "But that's impossible."  Feinstein's large, muscular, black body slunk into the Captain's chair that he knew all too well - Aurora had trained him well. "We heard from Commander Suvik only six hours ago!"

        "Nevertheless, it appears as though....wait a minute. I'm feeling something. I don't know what it is...but...oh my--!"

        Deanna turned white as a sheet. As snow. As Snow White. You ever notice how Deanna has the uncanny ability to look like Snow White?

        "I'm wishing....I'm wishing..." she could say and ---

        No, back to the story.

        "Deanna!" cried Derek Feinstein. "What is it?"

        Suddenly, the viewscreen came ablaze with the image of a single person. Deanna Troi gasped....she hadn't believed Data when he'd reported her existence at the meeting back on the Enterprise, but now...before her very eyes...

        "Allegheny, this is USS Independence. Captain Natasha Yar, at your service!"  Tasha - or whatever it was - saluted them over the airwaves...

        And on the Grand Voyager, things weren't as they had usually been.

        The crew had vanished. Like the crew of the Independence. Like the men and woman and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri on Amber Nine.

        All but one, who sat in the Captain's chair....humming....

        "Hail, hail, fire and snow..."

        She rose.

        Captain Brittany Collins, her eyes possessed with piercing red energy, laughed a hideous laugh, as a mesmerizing glowing blue form appeared in front of her...

       Troi gasped, slumped, and fell decoratively over a handy railing, while Derek watched appreciatively. "That's...that's...that's..."she gasped, and a passing ensign goosed her helpfully. "Thank you," she lisped demurely to the ensign, batting her large and limpid eyes. "I have a problem with feedback loops."  She continued, returning to the languishing pose, "That's not Tasha. Somehow I know it, Derek, I just know it. Aside from the fact that she's dead as a doornail and I felt her die, something doesn't ring quite right here...I feeeeeeel it."

       The image in the viewscreen raised her eyebrows, adopted an aerobic pose, and flipped her shock of blond hair to one side, thereby exhausting her acting repertoire completely, but the way she looked, who cares? "Deanna!  How can you say that?" she crooned in a Betty Boop voice. "You're my best friend in all the world. Bad actors never die, they just smell that way. I've been promoted, that's all, risen even farther than I ever expected, above my level of incompetence. Come over and visit my new ship, won't you?" she continued to croon, strumming a handy ukelele and tautening her derriere. The viewscreen cleared, showing only stars, several tumbling garbage cans, and a waving tourist.

       "Now I know it's not her," said Deanna to the oblivious Derek, who was admiring his deltoids. "Tasha never knew how bad she was, and if she did, she'd never admit it."  Derek, suddenly realizing she was speaking to him, reassembled his anatomy and sat up.

       "Well, I suppose we should assemble an away team, since we have a dangerous and improbable situation and no particular reason to go over there. Isn't that traditional on these occasions?" inquired Derek.

       "I don't know why not," breathed Deanna huskily, and they lightly skipped to the turbolift to put on their invisible space-suits.

"...two heads are better than one."

       Obligingly, Krista reassembled herself, and two sets of perfect teeth now gleamed at Cassandra, four blazing blue eyes, two elegantly sculpted noses, and a partridge in a bear pit. "That's not what I meant," snapped Cassandra, and Krista apologetically got rid of the extra head.

       "What's the plan, Cassandra?" she said sweetly. The erstwhile Enterprise ensigns were both so lovely they could peel paint at twenty meters, so the atmosphere in the small dark room was heating up a trifle. Cassandra absentmindedly removed her clothes by tearing them off. She was still somewhat affected by her poisoning, temporary death, and other insignificant recent events.

       "Devastation. Degradation. Depredation. Decoration," she said suavely, and Krista's eyes lit up. Literally. They glowed a kind of ghastly green. Krista was just being her usual charming self.

       "You mean a big party?" she said eagerly.

       "That's just what I mean," answered Cassandra grimly, and trailing a few shreds of cloth strategically draped around entirely irrelevant pieces of skin, she strode to the door. "To Ten-Forward!" and Krista crept submissively after her down the corridor. It made a nice change from tripping gaily. Maybe next she would gallop energetically, or stumble wearily. Life was always interesting to Krista.

       One of Beverly's medical technicians, wearing the usual impassive but somehow bewildered expression her assistants always had, watched dazedly from a side corridor as the peculiar parade passed by. The last couple of days had been entirely too strange for words, and just as he had established an intimate relationship with a trusting wombat, it had turned into an elderly hydroponist he didn't know. Working aboard the Enterprise was entirely too exciting. Maybe he would transfer to a spy ship in the Neutral Zone, just for a rest.

       In Ten-Forward, Guinan leaned intently over one of those furshlugginer tables that made everybody look like they were wearing a flashlight aimed upwards in their undershirts, and on the other side of the table, the Gorgan gazed back at her. "Tell me more," she said in her level and gravelly voice. "I love to listen."

       The Gorgan, sobbing and clutching a handkerchief, continued to babble out its life story, and Guinan continued to look sympathetic. Guinan, the truth be told, came from a race of audiophilic perverts of great ingenuity, and there were members of her race wherever there was irregular sexual conduct and the urge to talk about it.

       When the Gorgan had purged itself of all its filthy secrets, massive misdeeds, and several really embarrassing faux pas, all that was left on the chair was a meek puddle of protoplasm. Confession might be good for human souls, but for Gorgans it was poison--without evil and guilt, there wasn't any there there. Guinan blandly regarded the pool of pseudo-cellular matter, signaled the maintenance mechanism to suck it up and spit it out into space, and sighed. Since the lycanthropic poison had ceased to exert its fearsome power, things had quieted down in Ten-Forward. No matter, this was the Enterprise. Something was bound to happen soon.

       Abruptly, Ensign Krista Lovely, now leaping loopily, burst into the room, followed by the intense and unclad Cassandry Foresythe. "Guinan, can we reserve Ten-Forward for a party tomorrow," howled Krista, grinding her insteps into her armpits.

       "Yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh," growled Cassandra. "Party. Maim. Dismember."

       "Let me check the calendar," answered Guinan, her dolorous face brightening slightly. This would do for entertainment while she waited for something interesting to happen. "Yes, I think we can fit you in."

        "Wonderful," said Krista. Cassandra whispered over her shoulder, "mutilate, destroy, plunder," and Krista shrugged her off.

        "My pleasure. Have either of the two of you seen Ensign Crusher recently?"  Guinan noticed that both looked oblivious. "Oh, well, if you do, send him down here, will you?  I have a terrible headache..."

        Outside Ten-Forward, which Krista and Cassandra had just left, beaming and generally feeling good about themselves, the two ladies (ahem?!) stopped dead in their tracks. Krista turned to Cassandra.

        "Did you feel it?  The Gorgan has ceased to exist..."

        "Yes, sister," said Cassandra. "But he lives on...in us. This is going to be quite a party, is it not?"

        "Oh, yes."  Krista looked at.....the camera!  That's the ticket. One of those shots that would have made William Shatner green with envy!  Looking straight into the camera with all the passion of the devil itself. "Quite a party. They're all going to die laughing!"

        When the shimmer of the transporter beam faded, all Deanna Troi and Derek Feinstein could see through their invisible space suits was darkness. They noticed that they'd beamed aboard the correct place - the Bridge of the USS Independence - but Tasha was no longer there. Derek's tricorder failed to pick up any life at all....any human life, that is.

        Scurrying about in the Captain's chair was a smallish, black panther. Troi smiled. At last, she understood.

        Derek scratched his head.

        "Don't you see, Derek?" said Troi. "The tea worked both ways. Made some of us turn into animals, and made this animal turn into a wanna-be Tasha. That explains the better-than-usual acting!"

        "Oh," he said, disinterested. "I suppose we should try to find the crew, too."

        "Certainly," said Troi, scratching the were-panther behind the ears. To the panther, she said, "Well, 'Tasha', here's looking at you, kid."  And with that, she contacted the Allegheny and the two returned to the ship.

        Once aboard, Lance Sterling whisked around from his Ops chair. "Counselor Troi, Mr. Feinstein, what did you find?"

        Troi shrugged. "Only a flimsy answer to a terrible plot hole!  Oh, well..."

        Feinstein shrugged, too. "Deanna, do you have any plans for dinner?"

        "Why, no..."

        "Good..."

        Sterling shrugged like they'd shrugged as Feinstein carted Deanna away. Life aboard the Allegheny was never dull...

        Krista Lovely and Cassandra Foresythe returned to the latter's quarters on the Enterprise. Once inside, they closed the door, sat down at the communications board, and contacted the third member of their Triumvirate, already appraised of the plan.

        "It's going nicely, sister," said Krista, to the young lady on the viewscreen. "You should cross paths with the Enterprise very soon. If I know Commander Riker, he'll be more than happy to let you aboard."

        "Very nice."  Brittany Collins nodded. "I shall be there shortly. To the mission!  Party on!"

        And on Deck 34 of the Enterprise....

        ....the black cloud had returned.

        The Enterprise sped through the endless black night like a ghost image. At least, it would have appeared that way to someone outside the warp envelope. The way it streaked across the heavens...

        Never mind the techno-babble. It wouldn't serve any purpose. Suffice it to say, the Enterprise appeared majestic...both inside and out.

        Beverly Crusher couldn't be bothered with that fact.

        She was too busy in Sickbay.

        Leaving Riker to his duties on the bridge, and her son Wesley driving the ship like he always did, and Geordi in engineering playing with his...his... his engines, for Ghu's sake! (what else would he be playing with) and the rest of the crew doing their own bits of work here and there while the ship sped toward Wrigley's Pleasure Planet and adventures unknown, Beverly decided to get some work done analyzing the makeshift cure to the lycanthropic tea in Sickbay.

        She was so wrapped up in her work that she almost didn't notice the ship's sudden lurch back into real-space.

        "Dr. Crusher," came Riker's voice over the comlink, "please report to Transporter Room Six."  And she was on her way. A little groggily, as she hadn't had any sleep for days, but such was the life of a surgeon.

        Halfway to transporter room six, she stopped, breathed deeply, and moved on again. These things were becoming increasingly difficult knowing that somewhere, out there, Picard might be in trouble. At least, they were almost there. She realized that whatever had drawn them out of warp-drive, it was probably someone in medical trouble. At that moment, she decided she hated that person for stopping the ship.

        Not that she'd not perform her medical duties to the best of her abilities. Far from it. She simply wanted to heal whomever it was, and then rip his/her lungs out.

        Briefly, she hoped it was Philipa Louvois, and then entered the transporter room.

        "Captain Collins," cried Beverly. Riker and Geordi were flanking the woman she had met two days before. "Fancy meeting you here."

        "Matter of necessity, Dr. Crusher. As I was just explaining to Commander Riker and Mr. LaForge, my ship was propelled along this course after the crew vanished into thin air!"

        "They what?"  Beverly looked at Riker, who only shrugged.

        "T'Kai detected some strange energy readings from deep within the Grand Voyager. Next thing I knew, Gunther and his entire security team had vanished. Then, the bridge crew. I was the only one who remained on board."  She turned to Riker. "You have to help me!"

        "I'd be....delighted," he said, looking at her....though not at her face.

        The famous Will Riker Hormones kicked in, and he carted her away. Bev and Geordi remained in the transporter room.

        "I don't know about you, Doc," said Geordi, "but I don't like the looks of this one."

        "Me either," said Beverly.

        In case you're hopelessly lost in this story, Captain Brittany Collins failed to mention something very important. Actually, she never really knew what the energy reading was, but let's take a little jaunt back to that fateful moment on the Grand Voyager when Gunther and his men were swallowed....

        "Ohmigodohmigodohmigod," said Security Goon #4.

        "Back!" cried Gunther, his Andorian antennae cringing at the sight of the strange black cloud that hovered in corridor C17.

        And suddenly, it swallowed them up...

        Feel better?  I knew you would. Back to the story...

        Today, the present day...

        The black cloud hovered in a corridor on the Enterprise. How it jumped from that ship to the Voyager and back again, we might never know. Let's just assume that it doesn't travel by transporter, or shuttle, or in the back of a Chevy Pickup, and suspend our disbelief enough to realize that it's there, sitting there, looking pretty weird.

        And suddenly, the blackness coalesced into a shape.

        The shape of a humanoid.

        A humanoid that smiled.

        And continued walking...

        Of course, I should mention the fact that he was a psychopath, dressed in leather and steel, but I won't.

       Worf, having turned the corner, found himself in an enormous amphitheater, a great bowl with what looked like a round stage in the center, and deep regular grooves radiating from the perimeter to the center. He stood, puzzled, for a moment, and then abruptly the entire construction began to move. It was revolving around that center stage, beginning to spin faster and faster, and he staggered and grabbed at the nearest railing to keep from falling. What was going on?  The centrifugal force of the accelerating wheel flattened his brow ridges and moved his hairline even farther back, while his lips drew back most attractively from his teeth.

       "Worf, where are you?" he heard Dr. Pulaski's drily puzzled voice from a distance, but he couldn't answer. Suddenly, from a great chute overhead, an immense, gleaming, silver ball the size of a boulder dropped onto the center of the spinning wheel, and with a boom it promptly bounced high in the air and started crashing across the grooves. The wheel began to slow. Worf, despite his Klingon heritage, cringed slightly as it crunched away and almost rolled straight at him, but in the nick of time it flipped over into the track next to him, rumbled to the edge, and wobbling slightly, came to a stop. The wheel slowed, halted, and a thunderous voice said, "45 black."

       Worf scrambled over the shallow wall of the wheel, ran back around the corner, and cannoned into Doctor Pulaski. "Doctor," he growled. "We've got to get back to the enterprise."

       "Why, Worf, what's the matter?" she inquired with a steely smile, hauling herself up from the pavement.

       "Transporter malfunction," he said, flinging a glance behind him as the noise of the wheel turning began again.  "Our proportions are slightly off. I was just aboard a roulette wheel."

       "Well, that would explain why the stores in the mall were apparently made out of cardboard, with magazine pictures pasted on the walls," she said.

       The famous Will Riker hormones kicked off just as the famous Brittany Collins bootheels kicked up, and Will cringed and fell heavily to the floor. "I do not appreciate being...carted off," she snarled adorably, brushing her prominent anatomical features off. Her shoulders, silly. "Besides, you are too large for me. I like my men small and winsome."  She strode off down the hall, while Riker's eyes bulged. He felt particularly small and winsome at the moment, so much so that the famous Riker Grin in the Face of Danger had been swallowed inadvertently and was now appearing in his nether regions.

       "She was supposed to appreciate that," he husked to Geordi, who was standing in the Transporter Room doorway. "Women like men to be masterful, don't they?  Or have I gotten it wrong?  I must have misread the book."

       "I don't like the looks of this one," repeated Geordi, now pointing to Riker, and Beverly, appearing behind him, agreed and rushed to the First Officer's side with her medical kit.

       Meanwhile, in fact very mean, while Beverly was attending to Brittany's erstwhile would-be swain, Captain Collins searched for the soul-mates she knew to be aboard the Enterprise, her shoulders back, her chest up, and every other promontory equally elevated. She caused several collisions in the corridors. Finally, after she'd ridden the turbolifts aimlessly for a few minutes, she emerged to find Ensign Krista Lovely and the unclad Cassandra doing a pagan dance around an impromptu fire on Deck Eleventy. "There you are!" she barked. "There is no time to waste. Have you sent out the invitations?  Arranged for the caterer?  Contacted the florist?  We have some serious sedition, pillage, and assault to conduct, and I find you dilly-dallying!"

       Krista, covered with some recently acquired computer-generated blood, and a hapless crewmember's hairpiece, not to mention the string of skulls she'd ordered from Stores, looked abashed. "We were just trying to get into the mood," she said apologetically. "And you weren't here yet."

        Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commanding Officer of the USS Enterprise, master of the most powerful ship in Starfleet's arsenal and commander of men and women, sat powerless in a broken chair.

        Flanking him, Aurora Darkwind and Philipa Louvois, both Captains who held silent as they stared forward.

        "I'm sorry we had to put you all through this," said the gnome in front of them, who had removed his cloak to reveal a four-foot tall, wizened, twisted frame of a body, finally uttering a sound for the first time since he'd 'rescued' Picard from the icy death in the holodeck. "Your minds were being monitored and it was necessary to keep you diverted until the monitoring subsided."

        "Pardon me for almost total disinterest," said Aurora, "but who the hell *are* you?"

        Reminding Picard of a wise old alien being he'd seen in an old film on Holographic Box Office a few months before, an alien who commanded a great power called the Force, the gnome stood as tall as he could, straight and proud. "I am Gnorph, High Master of the Gnorphians."

        "B-but...the Gnorphians were destroyed countless millenia ago by the Barglesnaffites!" cried Philipa. "Took a whole chapter in 'Combined Galactic History, Volume Four'."

        "I assure you, the Gnorphians survived. We traveled to many parts of the galaxy, and finally came here to this planet, where the last of us opened this cosmic amusement park."

        "I don't understand," said Picard. "Where exactly is here?"

        "Why, Wrigley's Pleasure Planet, Captain Picard. You were accidentally brought here....or, I should rather say, you were purposely taken from the Enterprise and it just so happened that this was the place you ended up - the last place your kidnapper wished you to be. Oh, well, so much for coincidence. It's really a mathematical--"

        "I don't mean to be rude, but would you kindly make some sense, sir," interrupted Picard.

        "Very well," said Gnorph. "Long, long ago, the Gnorphians ran a massive Empire dedicated to pleasure and amusement. We created hundreds of amusement planets throughout the universe; two of them in this galaxy, the planet called Wrigley's and a second one discovered by Captain James Kirk a century ago in the Omicron Delta system. Unfortunately, there are those who to put it simply, have no sense of humor. Two races, especially, who went to war almost immediately after they each met our mighty fleets.

        "The first, the Barglesnaffites, were a race of nightmarish accountants who were interested in little more than our profit margins, how much money they could make off our blunders. Tax here, tax there...it became a terrible scourge, and we went to war. Fortunately, the Barglesnaffites overlooked one important thing."

        "And that was?" asked Philipa.

        "Tax returns," answered the gnome. "With the money they would receive from their tax returns, they could afford expensive vacations on our beautiful worlds. And so the Barglesnaff Dominion collapsed, and the members of that race became our greatest customers.

        "The second scourge was much more severe. You - but not you personally - have already met the Vegan Tyranny, which was finally destroyed by the Andorians before Terra rose to power in the Federation. These cybernetic warriors achieved discorporeality, adapting energy forms. With that, they were able to sneak in and pull the plugs on all our equipment, and our EMpire collapsed. They also destroyed our race, and the few survivors fled to the far reaches of space, to secretly continue repairs on the amusement park worlds until the galaxy needed them again."

        "I understand," said Aurora. "But what does this have to do with what hit our ships?"

        Gnorph frowned. "A terrible, terrible mistake. A trap, created millenia ago to destroy the last vestiges of the Gnorphian Empire. One of your lot, a very bright young lady named Cassandra Foresythe--"  Picard gasped. "--stumbled upon it. Very simple, a chant that would bring the last member of the Vegan Tyranny's soul back to haunt. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last of it. Instead of bringing back this one entity, the Gorgan, the chant brought back two."

        Picard, Aurora and Philipa looked at each other, lost.

        "A very bright Gnorphian who survived both wars," continued Gnorph, "took to evil ways, and eventually aided the Gorgan in achieving his semblance of reality. In return, he achieved something we can only call 'piggybacking', a real deadly trap if there ever was one. For when the Gorgan was called, the Gnorphian traitor would appear too. Fortunately, on the Gorgan's first appearance a century ago, the traitor was in the middle of spending his OWN tax return on a fantastic vacation to Enlightenment Seven's third moon - oh, what a beautiful sunset, have you ever--"

        "Get on with it!" commanded Picard.

        "Very well. This time, we have not been so fortunate. The traitor has been manifested as a black cloud--"

        "That swallowed us!" cried Aurora.

        "--that kidnapped you two and sent you here, accidentally. The cloud creature has also done far worse....he has kidnapped the entire population of the planet Amber Nine, and the crews of the USS Independence and the SS Grand Voyager."  A gasp from the three Captains.  "I cannot find where he/it has sent them."

        "So how do we stop it?" asked Picard.

        "There is only one chance. The Gorgan has been eliminated by your own crew, Captain Picard, but the traitor still remains. And his power reigns over three people now. Originally possessed by the Gorgan, the three - Krista Lovely, Cassandra Foresythe and Brittany Collins - are now under the evil influence of this malevolent being. I fear that your crew is in trouble."

        "Oh, sh*t," said Philipa. "What should we do, Picard?"

        "Get back to the Enterprise, for starters," he answered.

        Gnorph smiled. "Your wish is my command...."  He snapped his fingers, clicked his heels three time, said "There's no place like home," to the wind, and suddenly, the four were in an altogether familiar location...

        ....the deserted Conference Lounge, two minutes before the party in Ten-Forward -- which would end all life on the Enterprise -- was slated to begin.

        Riker awaited the wonderful moment where the party celebrating the defeat of the Gorgan would begin, only two minutes away. He spotted Guinan at the bar, Wesley sitting next to the Listener lifeform, Beverly and Pulaski chatting in the corner about her mind-erasure technique, and Geordi, Worf and O'Brien teaching Data how to play seven-card stud at a table. Krista, Brittany and Cassandra were mixing with the rest of the crew.

        It was nice that Worf's team, which had failed to locate anyone on Amber Nine, had returned in a shuttlecraft just in time for the party.

        It was nice for the three ladies, too...

        ...who waited for the drinks to be poured, and Death would begin.

     Death, however, waited in the lounge, next to the Ten-Forward. Death was iminently infamous throughout the known galaxy (and parts of the galaxy that were better left unknown), for a slight problem involving tardiness. Death, you see, was the preeminent, penultimate, Neo-heavy metal , post-rap-classical, new new wave rock band of the 25th century. They were now three hours late for their performance, and the audience in the Ten-Forward was getting a tad restless. . . . .

     In the Conference Lounge, Picard, Philipa, and Aurora sorted themselves out. They had a tendency to arrive in a tangle whenever the Gnorphian had anything to do with the method of transportation. The elderly, dwarfish, wrinkled, wise, contorted Gnorphian perched blandly on the table top, wondering why it took them so long. Finally, sweating and swearing, Aurora won the tug-of-war with Philipa, but Picard wriggled free at the last moment and stood braced against the far wall, ostentatiously wiping his brow with his forearm while both women glared commandingly at him. "You humans are easily distracted by your physiological urges," said the gnome wisely, raising one wrinkled forefinger to say something incredibly profound.

     What it was will never be known (which is lucky for me, because I am incapable of thinking up profound dialogue at 8:30 in the morning) (let alone any other time of the day), because Picard said, "Not now, Captains! We have a ship to save, a galaxy to defend, peace in our time!"

     Philipa nodded "All right, how about," checking her pocket calendar, "Tuesday at 4:00."

     Aurora said, "That's good for me. Jean-Luc?" and he nodded briskly. Straightening their shoulders and various rumpled bits of uniform, the vigorous trio strode from the room while the gnome hastily trotted after them, wailing "Wait!  I had something profound to say!  It was in the script!  Wait!"  He was adorable, but short and hairy, and no match for the pantherlike Captains.

     Meanwhile, in the darkest deepest corridors of Enterprise (some of the light-bulbs had blown out there), the other Gnorphian, the immortal renegade sadistic sociopath Gnorphian, sauntered suggestively, now permanently separated from his eternally hellish companion the Gorgan. His outfit made a stunning fashion statement, a statement made at the top of its lungs and with a hacking cough. Perfectly tooled black leather clung with desperation to his long, gently swelling calves, to his flaring rib-cage, glided suggestively down his wiry arms, circled his corded neck with a fondling clutch. Here and there, mostly there, the exquisite leather suit was picked out in pointed steel studs (sitting down must have been excruciating), and crescents and stars of hammered silver. He'd spent several centuries thinking up this outfit, and he had decided that he preferred being a black-leather sociopath to being a black cloud. Gave a personal touch to his depredations. Speaking of which, he had a strong hankering to abuse, mortify, savage, or torture somebody. It had been several hours since he'd sadistically dismembered anybody, and he was getting an appetite. This immortal evil genius stuff took a lot of maintenance.

     He paused, mused in the darkened corridor, sent out mental feelers. Yes! There were great numbers of potential victims thronging to Ten-Forward, ripe for plucking. A vile and poisonous leer spread over his face, dripping slightly. He wiped it off and stalked away, his spurs jingling, his chains jangling, and the collection of auto parts he dangled behind him banging and jouncing and ripping the carpet in his trail.

     In Ten-Forward, the entire population of the Enterprise had jammed itself into the lounge, flattening the tables and crowding the corners. Guinan was voluptuously slathering authentic Dippity- Doo into Wesley's hair, while he watched her in mingled terror and fascination, his upper lip lifted slightly and his doelike eyes widened to convey both emotions. He was fiddling with a gadget, something vague to do with force-fields, microelectronics, cognitive biology, and vanilla that he had thought up this morning. It was designed to save the day in a future episode, but it wasn't quite finished yet. Guinan began to work Dippity Doo into his neck, and he dropped his lower jaw slightly to indicate I won't say what.

     Dr. Crusher said to Dr. Pulaski, "Is this it?" and applied the mind-erasure machine delicately to a strategic spot just above her temple. She promptly forgot whatever it was she had been intending to erase, something to do with her deceased husband, whatever his name was. She stared disappointedly at the apparatus, sure it hadn't worked.

     "I'm not sure," said Pulaski urbanely, having used the machine herself a couple of times in the last few minutes and wondering where the hell she was and who this woman was. "I think you have to move it up a little and to the right."  That sounded good. She wondered what the machine was for. Beverly obliged, and for a while the two distinguished scientists smiled vaguely at each other, full of well-being and mental health. The mind-erasure machine would have been a big seller in the psychoactive pleasure- drug industry, but unfortunately nobody ever remembered what it was for after they tested it.

     Commander Riker's neural pathways had undergone considerable reorganization after the blow of Captain Collins' rejection - his right shoulder kept alternating with his left shoulder now, his hips kept switching, and he couldn't keep himself from raising his eyebrows suggestively and twinkling, but he had never felt better. He glowed with vigor, with animal spirits, and he couldn't wait for the party, especially with Captain Picard out of the way. He dared to hope the inconvenient old geezer was gone permanently, and maybe--just maybe--the Enterprise was his to command. He stood surveying the genial crowd in Ten-Forward, spotting the increasingly acrimonious poker game, the bunch playing Drivel Pursuit in the corner, the square-dance on the ceiling, and he examined the stage which stood stark and bare, waiting for the band to appear. Ensign Krista Lovely wriggled up to him, wound herself around him, grasped what would have been his lapels had he had any, and planted a kiss blam on his mouth, then slunk away, leaving him with a goofy grin. This was just how the Enterprise would be run when *he* was in command.

     His reverie was rudely interrupted by a harsh, unfair, unfeeling, pushy, demanding bark from Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who appeared at his elbow and said, "Number One, wipe that expression and that lipstick off your face!  We have an emergency!"

     "Why, Captain!" he stammered, "I thought...I thought...I thought you were..."

     "My God, a thought actually passed through his brain," muttered Picard. "There's hope for him yet."  He absentmindedly passed one absolutely gorgeous hand over his head, tugged his uniform top down with masterful presence of mind, and made an enigmatic pointing gesture at the crowd, thereby fulfilling his contractual obligations for this episode.

     "No time for that, Number One," he snapped. "You can kick the brain into gear later. Right now, we must find Ensign Krysta Lovely, Ensign Cassandra Foresythe, and Captain Brittany Collins, and subdue them. We are in terrible danger!"

     "Subdue the most toothsome, delicious, exquisite morsels aboard the Enterprise?" gasped Riker. "Right away, sir.  You can take Captain Collins, though."  And he darted away, his right shoulder and forehead leading the way.

     "Wait!" snapped Picard, but it was too late. He hadn't been able to warn his First Officer about the Gorgan possession. Oh, well.

     There was a shriek from the crowd. It was Riker, who had had the misfortune to attempt to subdue the porcelain-skinned, delicate Cassandra Foresythe. He struggled to draw his phaser, but the sweet young thing had wriggled away in the mob, and he only succeeded in stunning several Engineering gremlins.

     Picard, who had already drawn his weapon, was scanning the crowd. He spotted Captain Collins, and noted that Aurora Darkwind and Philipa Louvois were placed along the far walls awaiting his command. That was nice of them, letting him have a turn being in charge. He couldn't wait until Tuesday. Grimly, he indicated the formerly vivacious Brittany. Aurora and Philipa nodded. They made their way towards her, while obliviously she held an armlock on a xenobiologist and pulled his nostril hairs out with a fork.

     The good Gnorphian, arms folded, regarded the scene with disgust and distaste. It didn't look like a real party to him. Far too boring and sedate. Well, after all, his race had perfected the art of entertainment to a ridiculous level, and after a few millennia, one does get jaded.

     The doors to the lounge whooshed open with an extra-special hiss designed for the occasion. The evil Gnorphian, jingling, jangling, clunking, and clanging, appeared framed in the aperture, lips contorted in a devil-may-care sneer, borrowing heavily from James Dean posters and a little bit (god help us) from Sylvester Stallone. "You are all doomed, useless mortals," he snarled, aiming an industrial bolt-cutter phaser at the room full of terrified crew-members.

     "You!" gasped the good Gnorphian, cringing.

     "You!" said Guinan in genial astonishment, dropping Wesley abruptly as she stood up. She'd been right. Something interesting *had* come along.

      "Do you know *every* omnipotent evil-minded implacable monster in the galaxy?" inquired Picard from nearby, where he stood holding the unconscious Brittany Collins under one arm.

      "Well, I get around," admitted Guinan, and glided across the room toward the Leather One. It was kind of a hovercraft effect, which was handy because there were a lot of people between her and the glutinous Gnorphian, people over whom she simply coasted with a crunch. I mean, have you ever actually *seen* Guinan's feet?

      The diabolic Gnorphian, eyes rolling wildly, attempted to escape, but Guinan seized him by one well-shaped elbow, guided him gently to a table, and sat him down. "So, tell me all about it," she said with a tranquil smile. Sweating and convulsing, the monstrous being stared at her with horror.

      "I knew I was right to hire her," commented Picard to Philipa, who was dangling the decorative Cassandra Foresythe by her earlobes.

      But the vicious and adorable Krista Lovely was still at large, and the band was finally ready to start. The lights lowered.....and the band ascended the stage. They were still in the throes of their usual pre-concert argument.

      "But I wanna play the rap version of 'Please, Mr. Postman'", whined Destruction (aka Waldo Emerson (no relation)) the drummer.

     "We're doing the metal version of 'Baby Love', and that's final!" growled Death, their lead singer. His real name was Delbert Eck, but he had gotten rid of everyone who ever knew his real name, including his mother. (No one mentioned his mother in his hearing, either, for reasons better left unsaid).

     The band began tuning up, which mollified the crowd somewhat, since nobody could tell the difference between that and their regular performance, anyway. As Delbert (I mean Death) scanned the crowd, he suddenly became aware of a black leather clad entity in the corner, chatting (not so chummily) with Guinan. (Yes, everybody who's anybody DOES know Guinan). As the band launched into their opening set (the classical verson of 'Sweet Little Sixteen'), Delbert suddenly remembered where he'd seen that particular entity before, and turned to his black drummer, pointing at the sociopath. "I've seen him a bunch of times!  He's our biggest fan. He's always around Death concerts, getting autographs and the whatnot."

        The drummer sighed, turning to the short girl on keyboard. "Are we too late?" she asked.

        The band played on.

        Picard and Riker stood in the middle of the room, while everyone else was oblivious to the actions around them. It was like the middle of a dream; the two men stood there, waiting for something to happen...and it did.

        "Don't move a muscle, Captain," said Krista Lovely from behind Picard. She was holding a phaser, set on kill.

        Picard turned around. The band stopped playing, and suddenly the room was a scene of chaos; people ducked and dove toward the walls. Guinan, who had talked the sociopath into a great bereavement and sat consoling the poor bawling being, looked upset. Pulaski, Beverly, Aurora and Philipa, who sat in a corner playing bridge, looked upset. Even Wesley, who was telling fifteen or sixteen unattentive get-a-lifes about his technical prowess, looked upset.

        "You don't want to kill me, Krista," said Picard. He spotted Worf pull his phaser out of his pocket from the corner of his eye, and shook his head no. He didn't need that. "You were possessed by a terrible spirit, young lady. The spirit is gone--" and he indicated the mass of protoplasm that the sociopath had turned into on Guinan's barstool "--and no longer needs you."

        "We've got Brittany and Cassandra, Lovely," added Riker. "Both of them have snapped out of it. It's really easy, all you have to do is want to be free."

        "But I don't want to!" she cried. "I want one thing.....to destroy you all. Hey, it's not much to ask, is it?  I mean, come on, everyone has a dream right?  A little fantasy. Mine just happens to be killing everyone in this room. Call it a whim, but I intend to do it."  She raised her weapon at Picard's head. "Starting with you, sir..."

        Picard had had enough. The Great Communicator of the Starfleet era, the one who talked his way out of situations, ducked into a roll, knocking Krista toward the doorway. Riker grabbed for her phaser, but missed it. The crowd screamed. Picard was slapped senseless by Lovely, granted incredible strength by the sociopath's spirit inside her, and he careened over toward the bridge game. Krista raised herself, stood in the doorway....

        ....and then the main door to Ten-Forward opened, and twenty Starfleet officers in Death costumes immediately flanked her, weapons trained on the poor possessed Ensign.

        The drummer and the keyboardist rose from the stage, also with phasers they had taken from their cases drawn.

        Krista lowered her weapon, and fainted.

        "Sorry we kept you in the dark, sir," said the keyboardist, who removed her outlandish wig and glasses. Deanna Troi stepped down from the dais, flanked by the drummer - Derek Feinstein, who thanked Delbert for his band's help and proceeded to outline his views for a Death Galactic Tour.

        The Starfleet officers in Death drag took their costumes off, and Picard could see their true identity -- the Security contingent from the USS Allegheny.

        "We couldn't inform you for fear of the sociopath reading your mind," continued Troi.

        "But how did you find out?" asked Riker.

        "Gnorph told us. While you were stranded on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet, the gnome appeared to us and told us of your predicament. Thankfully, we were able to make the rendezvous on time. Not a bad bit of rescuing, eh, Captain?"

        "No," he agreed, "not bad at all."  Picard hugged Deanna. Turning to Death, er, Delbert, he said, "Mr. Death, you and your associates have our thanks."

        "Eh, no problem, Picard. We're getting paid a bundle for this!"  He hadn't been informed of the tremendous lien put on his estate by Deanna - who had been able to wrestle the needed information out of Picard'd mind - but one of these days, would get VERY upset.....

        "And now," said Picard, turning to Gnorph, "what of you?"

        Gnorph smiled. "What of me?  Yes, yes, with all my work done, I should be off. Wrigley's Planet and the whole galaxy are saved, thanks to all of you. If I ever need your services again, I'll be sure to call."

        "What about the missing crewmembers, and the population of Amber Nine?" asked Worf.

        "You'll find them back where they were before. All is as it once was. Now then....I'm off. Captain Jean-Luc Picard?"

        "Yes?"

        "May the Force be with you!" Gnorph the gnome cried, and vanished from sight.

        Picard stood smiling, that wonderful enigmatic smile he always gives when he's extremely happy with the situation. And all was finally, after days and days of wonderfully undaunting confusion, well again.

        CAPTAIN'S LOG; Stardate 43047.2

        With the successful completion of this mission, the Enterprise has

        returned briefly to Amber Nine. The rock band Death has been booked

        as a star attraction at the Interfleet Gaming Seminar, which the

        starships Allegheny, Independence and Justice will be staying for.

        My crew has elected to return to duty, however.

                Brittany Collins, Cassandra Foresythe and Krista Lovely have

        all returned to normal, thankfully. The Grand Voyager has returned

        to the spacelanes, while the Royal Flush, commanded by James Kirk,

        has set down on Amber Nine, joining into the Starfleet-wide games.

        After all, Kirk always was a gambler at heart.

                Most of our respective ships' personnel have returned to

        their vessels and to normal duty. I hate long goodbyes.

                And of course, Gorgan, the sociopath and Gnorph himself

        are gone. Three beings I hope I never meet again.

        "You hate long goodbyes, Jean-Luc?" said Aurora. "That's not what I've heard."   She reached over and planted a kiss on his firm lips.

        Riker and Beverly Crusher, who stood over the transporter console with O'Brien, cringed. Philipa Louvois and Derek Feinstein, standing next to Deanna Troi, did the same.

        Aurora Darkwind stepped onto the transporter pad. "Come along, dear heart," she said to Derek, who stepped up onto the dais.

        Turning back to Troi, he said, "It's been real babe, but must dash. Until we meet again..."  The transporter beam sparkled, and Aurora and Feinstein vanished.

        "I guess once a slut, always a slut," said Philipa, whacking Jean-Luc on the posterior. "See you next time, Jean-Luc. Dinner's on me."  Philipa did the sparkly flash and vanished.

        Picard noticed Riker, Troi, Beverly and O'Brien were staring at him.

        "Do we not have duties to return to?  Things to accomplish?"

        "Um, right, sir. We're on course for Gamma Thiopa, as was our original course. We should make it..." he checked the chronometer "....only four days ahead of schedule. You did say a week, sir."

        "So I did," said Picard. "Four days to play, Number One."  And Picard left.

        Beverly looked at Riker. "Did I ask for this job?" she said, and departed.

        "What are you looking at?" asked Riker of O'Brien, who only smiled. Faintly, Riker could still see the laughing hyena in their transporter chief, but put it aside. It couldn't be...could it?

        Nyaaah.

        Troi smiled. Riker could never hide his feelings.

        Before returning to the bridge, Picard stopped in his quarters. Very curiously, atop his coffee table sat a silver teapot, a bone china jug of milk, three saucers and a china cup.

        Picard smiled faintly, sat down in his chair, poured himself a cup of the hot tea, and sipped at it. He put the cup down, waited for about two minutes, then rose to his feet.

        He felt fine.

        Things were back to normal.

        Without a moment to lose, Picard left his quarters. No more lycanthropy, no more evil spirits. Only himself, his crew, his ship and the stars.

        Which was the way he always wanted it anyway.

        And the adventure, as it always will, continues....

THE END

"Sweet Savage Star Trek II: The Shadows of Gnorph"

Copyright (C) 1990 by the SF & Fantasy Forum

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