Stardate: 70213:0849
Title: A Nightmare Walking
Author: Lt. Kal Vilmer
Time: After "Out of the Loop"
Scene: Personal quarters


Kal was tired both mentally and physically. There hadn't been much time to rest since they'd jumped into this universe and the CEO was pleased when the word had come down to get the ship ready to jump.

Vilmer had left it to his department to get the necessary information to Starbase 9 regarding the ablative armor and upgraded shield harmonics. The CEO had larger problems - it was as if someone had reached into the most secret recesses of his mind and stolen his most fantastic and ambitious research projects. Stolen them and made them work.

The CEO tossed and turned uneasily, trying to get a few minutes sleep, but fear and unanswered questions kept him awake. He had the feeling that he was just missing something. Something on the tip of his tongue so to speak, but just out of reach. The kind of thought that when a person concentrated on it, it slipped away.

Realizing he wasn't going to get any sleep Kal stood, stretched for a moment and stepped into the shower. He set the ultrasound high and let the sound waves batter tired muscles and massage the soreness away. A few minutes later he felt almost El-Aurian again. Stepping out of the shower and pulling on a fresh uniform he replicated a glass of cold orange juice and began to order in his mind what he knew.

The assailant had to be male or at least thought of itself that way. There was no doubt that the women of many species could be fierce and deadly fighters, but the pattern of the attack on Relly just bespoke of male aggression, it was brutal, direct, and efficient.

*An attack like I would make,* Kal thought.

Our man possessed very advanced technology and the ability to shapeshift. Kal had gone through the transporter logs and as far as the computer knew none of the known shapeshifting races was transported onboard. Kal was willing to take that on face value. That left technology then.

Kal got his bag from a storage locker rummaged around in it for a few seconds and withdrew a black memory card. He slotted it into the computer, entered his access codes and searched for the information he was looking for. On the computers display, schematics, notes, and neural diagrams flew rapidly past as the engineer revisited one of his favorite projects.

At last the blonde made the connection. He removed the card and stowed it back in its proper place.

The CEO had the computer list all known information about shapeshifting races concentrating on medical knowledge and further refining his search to xeno-neurology. It didn't take the blonde long to confirm what he had hoped to be true. In nearly all instances of known shapeshifting attacks one constant remained - brainwave activity remained constant when adjusted for changes in lifeform.

"Beauty is only skin deep," the blonde chuckled to himself.

Now if only they could find a copy of the thief's brain patterns and if only they could find a way to come up with a scanner between science, medical and engineering that would isolate those brainwaves and be able to scan for them out of the myriad of beings on Starbase 9.


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Lt. Kal Vilmer
CEO
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
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