MiSTing -- IMZADI II EXCERPT MiSTed by Arthur Levesque -- bs@boog.org -- http://boog.org (To a segment of "Imzadi II" by Peter David; URL below) Pearl (using PC): Perfect! Oh God, iis this perfect! Let me just set my browser to send this to the so-called "Satellite of Love"... [cut to SOL, Mike and the 'bots watching Win98 boot...] Mike and 'bots: AAAIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! [...and http://www.simonsays.com/titles/excerpt.cgi?isbn=0671025325 opens up on the large screen before them...] Triangle: Imzadi II Tom: Oh my God, is this some kind of evil fanfic? Peter David Crow: Yep, looks that way! Chapter 1 Riker had no warning before the shock prod tapped him in the small of the back. Immediately he died... Mike: Wow, it's already the best fanfic ever! ...temporarily, from the waist down. Mike: Tease. He hated the occasions when it happened, the feeling of total helplessness. Tom: But, it was the only way Deanna would let him have sex with her, so he just gritted his teeth and thought of Starfleet. The knowledge that the fall was inevitable was more grueling and hurtful to him than the fall itself. Crow: Only because he was landing on a mattress. If it had been real ground, it would have really hurt. Mike: Especially if it was ground glass... He hit the ground hard, as he always did on such occasions. Crow: You mean, he always hits the ground when he falls. Wow. Tom: He just hasn't gotten that knack yet for throwing himself at the ground and missing. He felt the jolt all the way up his elbows... Mike: That's a lot of caffeine Crow: Yeah, and all the sugar, too! Then he braced himself for the inevitable kick. It came just as he had expected... Crow: Well, duh, he isn't blind! In his first days in captivity, that had always been the worst, those stomach blows. Tom: Wow, even Clinton hasn't tried it that way! Over time, however, he had learned to anticipate them... Tom: And even, to enjoy them! Mike: I notice we've been doing a lot of Clinton jokes lately... Crow: Depends who's writing for us, Mike. Mike: I just don't want to be subjected to that speech yet again... It was a very nice fantasy. Crow: Oh, yeah, we forgot about that Klingon fetish of his! And Riker managed to get out, "Please, sir...I want...some more... Mike: Wow, who ever thought we'd be seeing a Star Trek/Oliver Twist crossover? Crow: I just want to see Deanna's big oom-pa-pas! Tom: Thank you sir, may I have another! The Jailer, whose name was Mudak, was a beefy fellow, but anyone thinking him fat would have been in for a rude shock. Any excess on his frame was pure muscle, and when he moved it was with speed that was blinding. Tom: It sounds like Peter David is in love! He was also tall, and his eyes were the most striking thing about him. Mike: OK, this is getting a little sickening. Crow: Can't we turn the page? Mudak looked at the individual who had interrupted his sport. Mike and the 'bots: Eeeeewwww!!!!! It was a Romulan Mike: What's a Romulan doing with a Cardassian? Tom: This must be parallel universe 23-B Mike: Oh yeah, I forgot -- It's a Peter David story... a head taller than Mudak, with graying hair and a darkly imperious look. Crow: Uh oh, I know where this is going... Tom: Does that mean we should start calling Riker "Fingercuffs"? From his attitude, it would have been unlikely that any bystander would have realized that Mudak was the jailer and the Romulan the prisoner. Mike: Any bystander would have assumed that Mudak was the Romulan's prison bitch. Crow: And now he wants Riker, too... Yet despite the Cardassian's ostensible authority over the Romulan, Mudak did not seem inclined to press the point. Instead he said, with a level voice that bordered on malevolence, "This is none of your affair, Saket." Tom: I'm not touching that one... "He was moving too slowly," Mudak retorted. "He was daydreaming." Saket took a step closer so that he was almost in Mudak's face. "Leave him his dreams, Mudak. In the final analysis, what else have we in this place?" Mike: That is SO deep. "Someday, Saket, you will lose your usefulness to my superiors. And on that final day, you will pay for your arrogance." "We all pay on the final day, Mudak," Saket said imperturbably. "Jailors and jailed alike; we all pay then." Crow: But only the jailors ever leave tips. Mudak's hands idly twisted on the shaft of the shock prod Tom: There he goes again... Mike: Do we HAVE to be reading this? as if contemplating shoving it down Saket's throat or into an even more inconvenient bodily orifice. Mike and the 'bots: Eeeeewwww!!!!! Instead he lightly tapped the now-deactivated end of the prod against his forehead in a sardonic salute and moved off. Saket then crouched next to the fallen Riker. "You should be able to feel something in your legs by now. He had the prod on one of the lower settings." "I thought as much," grunted Riker. "This time around it was just agonizing instead of incredibly agonizing." "You see? Your sense of humor returns already." Crow: That was humor? Mike: Shut up, or David will go back to the icky stuff... Tom: So is this the triangle that the title refers to? Within minutes, Riker was walking about in a manner fairly close to his normal strength and stride. "Come, Riker...let us go for a walk. you and I." Mike: See? "Were you out of your mind just before? Saying you wanted more?" "It was...it was a quote...from a book, actually...about orphans, Oliver Twist. Author's name was Dickens... Tom: OK, I guess you guys are proud of yourselves... "You're babbling, Riker." Mike: You're babbling, David... "Saket," Riker said, "we haven't known each other long. But we're friends...you can feel free to call me Thomas. Or Tom, if you prefer." Mike and the 'bots: Aha!! David, you cunning bastard!!! Tom: So the triangle will be Riker, Riker, and Troi? "Actually, I prefer Riker," replied Saket. "Always have. Stronger- sounding name. Sounds more pleasingly harsh to the ear." "Guess it really doesn't matter," Riker admitted. "As long as you continue to call me 'friend.'" Crow: And don't call me late for dinner... Tom Riker, the bizarre and perfect duplicate of William Riker Tom: Except for that "distinguishing mark" who had been created through a strange transporter accident during a rescue operation at a station on Nervala IV. The fact that there had been a second Riker running around had been disconcerting enough to the original item. Mike: Yeah, and the duplicate didn't think much of it either... Crow: Wait a minute, I thought that neither one could be determined to be exactly the original or the duplicate... Tom: Quiet, I want to read this huge block of exposition that's been thrust upon us... But after an abortive career in Starfleet Mike: He became an abortionist? Tom Riker -- taking his new name from his (their) middle name -- had wound up joining the revolutionary group called the Maquis and endeavored to steal the starship Defiant. The result had been his incarceration on Lazon II. Crow: And being sent to bed without dinner. Standard Starfleet discipline. Tom: Could be worse, he could be a transporter-created entity on the Voyager... Unfortunately, the mortality rate on Lazon II was quite high. Sentencing to Lazon II therefore became a de facto death sentence. Mike: I guess everyone has a little Rura Pente of their own... Originally Lazon II had been of particular interest to the Cardassians since the planet was rich in deutronium ore. Crow: Sure you don't mean "deuterium"? Tom: Shhhh! It was at that point that Lazon II was developed into a penal colony Mike and the 'bots: Eeeeewwww!!!!! and hard-labor camp. And it was a masterful way in which they did it, because hard labor was bad enough. But hard labor for no real purpose was far worse. Mike: I'm sure after a long, hard day of toting rocks and being whipped and tortured, the prisoners bemoan the fact that their work is actually for naught. Crow: Like they would PREFER being cogs in the Cardassian military machine There was a forcefield in place that covered the compound, but that was only one of the protective systems. Crow: I'm so glad they use protection. Tom: All right, stop it now!! There was also a sensor scrambler: a rather insidious device that made it impossible for any ships to lock on, via transporter, to anyone in particular on the planet's surface Mike: But anyone with a big enough ship, say Galaxy-class, if they really wanted rescue a certain prisoner, they could just swoop in and beam them all up into a cargo bay... But the field was heavily guarded... ...although lately Riker noticed that there were fewer guards than usual. It seemed to him that there had been cutbacks on Lazon II, as if Cardassian forces were being stretched to deal with situations elsewhere. Crow: There's always a war on somewhere. The small, shabby hut that Riker and Saket shared with five other inmates Tom: Shut up! Don't say anything! "How long do you think they'll leave us alone in here?" Riker asked grimly. Mike: Ummm... Tom: Shut up!! "Long enough to catch our breath, get our bearings," Saket replied. He regarded Tom Riker thoughtfully. "Tell me, Riker...when you first came here, you seemed rather pleased with your situation. You stole a Federation ship, am I right?" Mike: *yawn* MORE exposition... The door to the hut banged open and Mudak was standing there, his lower lip curled into an impatient snarl. "Your legs will have recovered by now," he said sharply. "Why are you still in here?" "No particular reason, Saket said. "We will be with you right away, Mudak." "Right away. How charming." Mudak's face tightened a moment, and then he turned away and closed the door behind him. "You're pushing him, Saket," Riker said worriedly. "Sooner or later..." "Sooner or later, he will break," Saket said, the irony clearly not lost on him. "That, Riker, is my fondest hope." "Why, Saket?" Crow: Because he is my father! Riker stared at nothing and shivered at the chill air blowing more harshly through the crack in the structure. "I'm the road not taken." "Pardon?" He arched a confused eyebrow. Mike: This is unbelievable... Tom: Aren't you glad we're just getting one chapter? Saket admitted. "But I do know of alternate universes. I know all too well. I know of a woman, in fact, whose very existence hinges on an alternate universe. She was...is, I should say...very dear to me." Crow: Another offhand cutesy reference... "It's rather...complicated. A tale for another time. Come. Even I don't desire to push Mudak's mood too far at this point." Riker nodded and followed Saket out. And it was not too long after that that all hell broke loose, Saket died, and Tom Riker found himself staring down the barrel of a phaser with only a twitchy trigger finger between him and instant death.... Mike: Wow. They spent so much time on exposition that they had to skip over the actual action and story... Copyright 1998 by Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved. Crow: You'd think for just this once they might not want to reserve the rights. Mike: Remember, this is Paramount we're talking about.