Stardate 52039.4

	"Captain Mason" stepped from his ready room onto the Equinox bridge.  
The alien impostor looked around.  Lieutenant Commander Mull was still 
watching the Ops console, Ensign McOwen was monitoring the Engineering 
station, and Lieutenant Elea and two science officers were at Science 
station 2 reviewing the data on the alien ship, the one that belonged to the 
very alien who was standing at the ready room door watching them.  
	Mull straightened up in his chair when he noticed that the Captain, 
or at least who he thought was the Captain.  The alien said, "Report, 
Commander."
	Mull did a quick double check of his readings and said, "Nothing new 
from the planet, Captain, and there’s been no more sign of the alien ship.  
However, sickbay reports that Ensign . ." he looked at the name on the report 
". . Hindman passed out in front of the Equilibrium.  The Doctor thinks it 
might be . ."
	The false Captain waved his hand dismissively, "Yes, yes.  Lieutenant 
Elea?"	
	Elea expected that he meant for her to give a report of her findings 
so far, "We have one theory about the alien ship, sir.  We’ve detected a 
number of radiation spikes that seem to be affecting sub . ."
	The alien interrupted her, "Lieutenant, what is your maximum storage 
capacity?"
	Elea was puzzled, but answered, "784.6 quadrillion bits, sir."
	"And how many operations per second can your positronic brain 
perform?"
	"17.09 trillion under ideal conditions."
	"And your appearance, how was it determined?"
	"My appearance is a composite of the developers who created me."
	The impostor said, "Thank you, Lieutenant," and returned to his ready 
room.
	Everyone on the bridge looked slightly confused.  Mull looked over at 
Elea and said, "What was that all about?"
	Elea shook her head, "I don’t know."  Elea thought for a moment, 
trying to understand the importance of those questions.  It was inconsistent 
with what she had observed of the Captain so far for him to be more 
interested in her specifications than in the well being of one of his crew 
members and especially in data that could likely be important to this 
mission.  She turned to the science officers she had been working with, 
"Excuse me for just a moment."
	Elea walked into the turbolift and ordered it to deck 11.  She 
intended to speak with Lieutenant Draven.  The Captain was acting strangely, 
and perhaps there was a reason Draven attacked him.

	Meanwhile, in the ready room, the alien smiled to himself.  His plan 
to stow away on the Equinox to reach this planet without using his ship had 
worked perfectly.  The Borg signature he detected while he was impersonating 
one of the officers at Starbase 263 was indeed a drone hiding on the 
Equinox.  He was able to get plenty of Borg technology before he killed the 
drone.  The Equinox crew was even proving useful as test subjects before he 
used his techniques on the people of this planet.  He knew why this planet’s 
people had been put here and just what kind of potential there was to 
transform them into perfect soldiers.
	The next thing he wanted was the Cyberdroid.  He had been impressed 
with the way she figured out how to beat his ship in a fight, and he had been 
similarly impressed with her technology.  That technology could make his 
soldiers even stronger.  All the had to do was wait until she was alone or 
off duty or something so he could take her without any of these idiot 
Starfleet types noticing.  Yes, the plan was proceeding wonderfully.

	*****************************************************

	On the planet, the real Captain Mason regained consciousness.  He 
slowly looked around, trying to ignore his splitting headache.  He was in 
some sort of structure.  It looked way too advanced to have been built by any 
of the people native to Talic 2.  He tried to move, but found that he was 
strapped to the table he was lying on.  He then saw someone in a Starfleet 
uniform holding some kind of scanning device over him, at least he hoped it 
was just a scanning device, the technology was completely alien.
	The Captain looked at the man’s rank pins and yelled, "Lieutenant, 
what the hell are you doing?!"
	The Lieutenant just ignored him, his expression was blank, 
mechanical.  He set the scanning device down and picked up something that 
looked a lot like a laser scalpel.  Mason struggled to free himself.  The 
Lieutenant brought the scalpel down toward Mason’s chest.  The Captain could 
almost feel the laser tearing into his flesh.
	Suddenly, he heard a phaser blast.  The Lieutenant turned to see the 
Pinx security officer, Chief Beeg standing in the doorway, holding his 
phaser.  Beeg looked surprised that the Lieutenant wasn’t stunned by the 
blast.  He increased the setting on his phaser and fired again.  This time 
the Lieutenant’s chest exploded when the blast hit him and he was knocked 
back to a corner of the room.  Beeg looked around and said, "Clear."
	Ming, White, and Calea came in behind him.  Calea was limping, but 
was walking without any help, something she had insisted on doing.  Ming was 
surprised when she saw the Captain, "Sir?  I didn’t know you were planning on 
beaming down."
	Mason nodded, "Neither did I."
	Ming walked over to untie the Captain.  She motioned for White, 
"Ensign, help me with this."
	The Captain tried not to look at White.  This situation reminded him 
and White of the same thing, he just hoped she didn’t let it show.  To his 
relief she didn’t.
 	As Mason sat up he noticed Calea was limping, "Do you need some help,
Lieutenant?"
	Ming anticipated Calea’s objections and said, "I think she’s fine.  
What about you, Beeg?."
	Beeg understood, Calea had turned down his help as well.  He simply 
said, "She is strong."
	Calea smiled, she was glad they were letting her do this on her own.
	Ensign White noticed the body in the corner and gasped, "Alex!"
	Ming turned and saw Alex Jarrod’s body lying in the corner.  She 
kneeled next to it, looking at the wound, "It looks like somebody’s 
integrated mechanical components into his organic tissue."
	Beeg said, "He was attacking the Captain.  It took the maximum phaser 
setting to kill him."
	Mason nodded toward Beeg, "Thanks for that, by the way."
	White looked mortified at the sight of Jarrod’s body, the front of 
his uniform charred, with organs and circuits visible through the wound.
	Calea looked over White’s shoulder, "Was he assimilated?"
	Beeg shook his head, "That technology is not Borg, but it is 
similar."
	The Captain grunted, "This whole thing keeps getting more 
complicated, and nobody can come up with any answers!" he looked back over at 
Ming, "What happened to Syxx and Enoz?  They contacted the ship then I told 
them to find you."
	Ming looked surprised, and a little worried at the same time, "We 
haven’t seen them."
	The Captain shook his head, "We should just get back to the ship.  
You know about the dampening field?"
	The Commander nodded, "We can’t use our communicators and tricorders
because of it.  Beeg managed to get one phaser working, but that’s all we 
have."
	Ming explained the route they had taken here, about the beast that 
had attacked Calea, and about how they’ve had to keep moving to keep from 
getting caught in the middle of the war the locals were waging.  Mason tried 
to remember as much as he could about the shape and size of the dampening 
field, and decided they’d better head North.  The Captain hoped they’d be 
able to get out of the dampening field and get back to the ship.  The search 
for Syxx, Enoz, and Reman would have to wait.
	Outside the building, Etely Bruder, now known as Ju’el, was returning 
after searching for the away team, only to hear their voices coming from 
inside.  They were talking about which direction they were going to go, and 
that they wanted to return to the ship.  She closed her eyes and communicated 
with her master, asking him what she should do next . . .