/||\        -----------------------------------------
       / || \            Starfleet Command, Second Fleet
      /  ||  \             U.S.S. Coronado,  NCC-63100
   .-/   ||   \-.     Fleet Captain Brian Aldur, Commanding
   ./    ||    \.   -----------------------------------------
   .-_-. || .-_-.              Simulation Teaser
   .-_  \||/  _-.

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/ Simulation Teaser                                                             |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

 Frustration and annoyance finally drove Brian Aldur out of bed after several
 hours of tossing and turning.  He was simply unable to relax enough for sleep.
 Almost growling from the frustration, he pushed himself clear of the tangled
 sheets and blankets and padded over to the computer console.

 The sight of Rura Penthe in his cabin windows only increased his frustration.
 Cloaked, the Endeavour had been hanging over the gulag for the better part of
 a day without having been able to prove or deny the theory that Martia, the
 changeling that Kirk had encountered here, had been a Founder.

 "Computer, lights!" he called.  "Access library records.  Non-fiction,
 Autobiography.  Kirk, Captain James T.  'Risk is our Business.'  Display."

 Dropping into the chair in front of the console, Aldur advanced through
 several sections without seeing them.  Finally, he came to the section that
 he was unable to get out of his thoughts for some reason.  He felt as if he
 were missing something obvious... as if a half-remembered name or phrase
 danced just out of range.  On the tip of his tongue, the thought would tease
 at him, then retreat just as he thought he would grasp it.

 Commander Cash's Away Team, including Commanders DuLac and Lehman, and Lt.
 Wallace, had scoured the area where the Endeavour transporters said that Kirk
 and McCoy had been beamed up, without success.  Subspace energy readings
 should have lingered from a Founder's death even after the six month delay,
 DuLac thought.  What's more, he had found *some* kind of strange energy
 reading.  He just wasn't sure what it meant.

 "'No, shoot him!' Martia cried, pointing at me.", Aldur read.  "'He's the one
 you want!'  Sure that my life was going to end in seconds, I brought my hands
 up.  But so did Martia.  The warden fired once, on disintegrate..."

 "...and Martia was destroyed.  'No witnesses!' the warden said with an evil
 smile, turning to me..."

 Aldur stopped.  He blinked.

 "The warden fired once, on disintegrate..." he read again.

 "The warden fired once..."

 "The warden FIRED ONCE!" Aldur cried, then slapped the comm panel much harder
 than was strictly necessary.  "Aldur to DuLac!"

 DuLac answered almost at once.  Aldur could hear wind whistling in the
 background, as well as the repetitive drone of a tricorder.  "Commander, I
 take it you're still on the planet?" Aldur asked.

 "I am, m'Lord," DuLac replied.  "I thought to attempt once more to discover
 what trickery defeats my scans of this ice field."

 "Commander..." Aldur asked carefully.  "Is it safe to say that you have been
 attempting to discern whether Martia was a Founder by scanning for the
 subspace traces of a changeling disassociating?"  After receiving an
 affirmative, Aldur pressed on.  "Let's turn the problem on its head," he said.
 "Assume that Martia *was* a Founder.  Would a single shot from a Klingon
 disruptor have destroyed--"

 DuLac, that magnificent brain already running, had soon slipped past Aldur's
 train of thought.  "Of course!" he cried over the communications link.  "The
 brigand would not have been disintegrated, but would have used her foul
 sorcery to *appear* to vanish!"

 "By shapeshifting into something extremely small, for insta--" Aldur said,
 but was interrupted again.

 "I hath been searching for the wrong clue!"  Fifteen minutes later, it was
 confirmed.

 Martia *was* a Founder, and she had *survived* Rura Penthe.  But where had
 she gone?

\_______________________________________________________________________________
\ End Simulation Teaser                                                         |
 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

----------
Ross Glenn aka Jester
Fleet Captain Brian Aldur, U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-63100
http://www.ussrenegade.com/coro2400/