Star Trek: Defiant

"The Planet of Professor Migalito" - Part Ten

Written by Takila "Mak" Shuriik

A very loud hydraulic-sounding hum punctuated by the boom of pounded metal interrupted Migalito and cast a startled silence on the lab. He and the Defiant crew looked over to a fissure in the wall that was beginning to open. The Professor broke into a grin, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, when he realized his new "guest" had arrived.

"Aha!" he shouted triumphantly. The fissure split and from the inside stepped a tall, blond man shaking his head. Migalito's face lowered a bit in surprise. "You're not Bobo."

"Not even to my closest friends, pal."

"Mak!" yelled Rael, on the verge of bouncing up and down.

"Yesssss!" added Marinus, a sly grin appearing on his face as if he suddenly drew that final Ace to complete his four of a kind.

"Ahhh...so you are the fourth. Excellent!" decalered Migalito. "I will be intrigued to dissect you." Mak just looked at him as if he just suddenly sprouted eight additional purple legs and had a pair of pinwheels suddenly burst from the top of his head.

"Don't tell me, let me guess," said Mak, "You're 'Not So Gentle Ben's' daddy."

"Mak, he's trying to use our genes to make an army of super soldiers to..." said Jen, halted by a hand up by Mak.

"I've heard that one before. A wacky little Austrian house painter back in the 20th century had a similar idea. Needless to say, it ain't gonna happen...again."

"Oh, but it will, my friend, it will!" shouted Migalito. "My pets, subdue the women and kill the men!" Then all hell broke loose.

Mak blasted the creatures nearest his friends to buy them a little more time to assume better defensive postures. Unfortunately, by doing so he drained the remaining power from his own equipment. As was typical, that's when the pair of tiger men closed in on him, apparently from nowhere.

Mak jumped up into a split kick, connecting with a boot to each of their feline heads, sending the beasts reeling. Marinus and Rael stood back to back against the circle of mutants that surrounded them. Jen, being closest, smacked Migalito with a roundhouse to the jaw, putting his lights out.

Upon seeing their creator taken down--and having no clue that he was actually still alive--they became enraged and attacked full force. Mak battled his way toward the Defiant crew fighting bravely with a mixture of martial arts and good old fashioned bare knuckle brawling. They were holding their own, but he had no idea for how long. He was out of range to do anything when a bat-like creature swooped down from the lofty ceiling and grabbed Rael, taking her back to a ledge of some kind. This made him and Marinus more than little upset.

Mak caught just the barest shimmer around his young friend and saw an unusual look cross the Betazoid's face; one that he hadn't seen in months, but one he'd certainly not forgotten.

Marinus reached behind his back as if for no apparent reason and when he brought his arm around, there was a sword in it. Mak looked at him and saw the smile of grim satisfaction that crossed the younger man's lips. He knew from a past experience that in his current state, Mathew was virtually as dangerous as he was with a blade, if not more so. Mak just hoped that he would stay focused on the right opponents.

The Defiant crew fought vigorously, with Mak keeping an eye on the bat creature and Dr. Laine as best as he could. She fought with all her might but was simply overpowered. Jen had morphed one of her arms into a sword and the other into a form resembling a sledge hammer and she muttered curses at her foes as she beat them back. But still they kept coming. There was no time to count just how many there were, but Migalito had obviously created many and many were bred with each other to produce all manner of bizarre offspring.

Time lost its meaning and even Mak was beginning to feel a strain on his Novachron muscles. He was good, possibly the best there was at what he did, but even he couldn't continue forever. Marinus was sweating profusely, moving silently, whirling his blade in a Shivalike dance of death. He hadn't that much longer either before he would probably drop from sheer exhaustion. Then another loud metallic rumble issued from the wall opposite to that from which Mak hade entered earlier.

Kliemann, K'larn, Clark and Tyrrel, sounding very much like a heavy metal law firm, burst out of the transport lift, weapons drawn and ready. Clark was the first to assess the situation.

"Geez, this looks like the climax of a James Bond movie!"

Mak turned his head at the sound heard faintly above the clamor. "Well, if it ain't the cavalry!" He grinned, his face partially blood spattered. "Now don't just stand there, jump in!" He pointed towards Rael partially obscured on a tall ledge above. Kliemann blasted the bat creature with pinpoint accuracy and it fell twitching to the ground.

The sight of the second away team brought new life to the tiring crew members and soon Migalito's monsters were either dead, damaged or departed. Clark threw a rope up to Rael and she easily rappelled down to give him and Kliemann one of the biggest hugs they'd ever received, which said quite a bit for the First Officer as androids weren't typically categorized with teddy bears when it came to being huggable.

Tyrrel then came over, smiling, to Mak who was sitting on one of the operating tables taking a long drink from a canteen.

"Now there's one for the books." He said.

"What, the day I rescued the legendary Takila Mak?" She grinned.

Mak raised his eyebrows, laughed and put his arm around her, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. "Cute."

K'larn, meanwhile, had rigged a few of Migalito's machines and was able to establish a link to the Defiant to let them know the situation. With most of the professor's machinery shurt down the signal was more easily received aboard the ship. Rael spoke with Captain Bridges and the captain's sigh of relief could be audibly heard by all -- though he'd probably never admit to it. Fortunately, nobody would ever bother to ask.

"Hey, Jen," Mak asked. "What did you do with the good professor?"

Matute looked around her and then back at where she dropped Migalito some time ago. He was gone. "Dammit!" she swore.

"And since he probably built the place, he could be who knows where!" Marinus added.

"Right now that isn't terribly relevant," said Kliemann. "Let's just get ourselves back to the Defiant and we can make our analyses later."

"I'm with the Commander," said Clark. "Who knows what other weird surprises may be around here."

"Like this," said Rael, looking up from a rack of test tubes, one bluish-green one in her left hand."

"What's that?" asked Tyrrel.

"It's labeled in, I think, Romulan. 'Nanitic Antibody: Lot 1'." She looked up at them as if she just found the legendary philosopher's stone. "Do you think...?"

"I think we need to analyze the hell out of that stuff, Doc," Mak said quickly. "Who knows what that old kook could have in there?" She nodded.

* * *

Epilogue

"Mak to Dr. Laine."

"Rael here, what's up, Mak?"

"Have you begun analysis on that sample you picked up from that planetoid?"

"No, not yet." she replied.

"Good. Have you told anyone about it yet?"

"Just the Captain." Mak gritted his teeth in annoyance.

"Nobody else?" he asked.

"Not a soul."

"Ok, as of now, the existence of that chemical is top secret until complete testing can be conducted. There's no need for anyone to get their hopes up or for word of this to accidentally leak out. Besides, if word somehow leaked out to the wrong people..."

"But why... what wrong people?" Rael began.

"Doctor, this is matter of galactic security. We'll work on analysis details together later. Mak out."

That evening, Mak called a meeting in the briefing room. Both away teams were there as well as the Captain.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming, " He began, "I know this last mission has been a trying, albeit successful one. I have some interesting data to present to you based on my personal findings." With that he reached into his pocket and removed what appeared to be a laser pointer and held it up near the viewscreen for all to see. "Observe."

Then, in a fluid motion he put on a pair of dark glasses and hit a button on the side of the pointer and a bright light flashed from its tip. "The artificial Class M planet known as "Migalito's World" was investigated and deemed hostile. All reports shall bear the warning to avoid contact at all cost." Mak then took the glasses off. "Sorry guys."

"Mr, Mak, I'm afraid your neuralizer will not work on my particular positronic faculties," said Commander Kliemann.

"That's OK, Scott," Mak removed his sonic spanner from his other pocket and quickly activated it. Kliemann's face froze as a couple megabytes of his memory were suddenly, irrepairably deleted. "Don't think I forgot about you. No offense."

A short time later, the sample of the alleged "Nanitic Antibody" was beamed into the hands of Starfleet Intelligence. It was just a matter of time before Mak received a full report of the results. He hated having to ply such a cover-up, especially where his best friends were concerned; but then, those were a big part of his orders from officials in the extremely big, just absolutely gigantically enormously immense chairs. He hoped all went well. Civilization needed a second chance. He just hoped that old Romulan sympathizer, Migalito, would stay underground long enough for it to happen without screwing things up.

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