From: mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon)
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: World of Two Moons - I
Date: 14 Nov 92 00:40:25 GMT
Followup-To: alt.startrek.creative
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.


For my next trick, I shall try something most people probably
won't realize is a cross-over (saving, of course, for the fact
I've just spilled the beans).  Again, as with everything else
I've done - I'm afraid this will be 'serialized.'  Which is to
say, in several parts.  Which is to say, it ain't finished yet.
Now, with Dune, Gone with the Sunset, Belly of the Whale, and
Five Star Trek - I have managed to finish the story.

It just takes a while...

Also, as with everything else I've done, Wesley figures
prominently.  *I* think he's cute as hell, even if the writers
didn't have a clue what to do with him...

Sans further babbage:



World of Two Moons:  Part I


Wesley awakened with a start.  The dream.  It had happened again.  
The strange woman with unbelievably long hair.  And fins!  But 
beautiful, even so.  A mermaid. Or a siren.

The sheets were uncomfortable.  

He pushed them away and stood up on the bed.  His skin was very 
pale.  Geeks always have pale skin, he thought.  The moonlight 
only made him seem even more pale.  But the woman in his dream.
Now, she was pale.

Wesley.  

He didn't like that name.  It wasn't a bad name, but it was very 
soft.  Crusher.  Another strange name.  Especially when juxtaposed 
with Wesley.  Wesley Crusher.  A soft, brutal man?  Hardly.

He was a geek.

But not for long.  Wesley smiled in the darkness.  A smile no one 
could see.  But even if they could, they wouldn't understand.  
Now?  Should he do it now?  His breath started to come with more 
difficulty.  God, the trouble he would be in.

But so the fuck what?  Now it was.  

Wesley got dressed.



Nobody had stopped him on his way to the transporter chamber.  The 
computer, of course, knew he was there.  The computer was suposed 
to stop people from doing suspicious things.  But the computer 
wasn't about to stop Wesley.

He had seen to that.

The tingle of re-materialization passed.  He had always liked that 
feel.  Dull red emergency lights came on.  The Klingon Bird of 
Prey was only set up with it's emergency lights.  Or so the 
Federation officials responsible for it thought.

Wesley stepped off the antique ship's transporter platform.  A 
very famous little craft, this.  Captain Kirk - James T. - had 
used it to save the Earth.  He did that so frequently.  Nobody 
ever accused Kirk of being a geek.  Now, the little thing was a 
tourist attraction here in San Francisco.  

Tourist attraction and geek expirement.  Wesley had convinced the 
Academy to let him modify some of the onboard systems.  Like the 
warp drive.  The shields.  The computers.  

And the cloaking device.

They didn't know about that one.  He'd had enough contact with the 
Romulans to make some guesses about their new cloaking technology.  
Working with the Klingon model, he'd made a few alterations.  It 
might almost replicate the Romulan level of undetectability.  Of 
course, it might also blow up in his face.

What the fuck?  You only live once.

And he was tired of being a geek.

Wesley sat in the captains chair.  Even in this antique, it felt 
so much more authoritarian than the Enterprise.  None of that 
triad crap on a Klingon warship.  One ship, one captain.

And now, that captain was him.

"Computers," said Wesley.

There was a hum.  The consols came to life.

"Awaiting instruction," replied the generic female voice.

"Initiate launch sequencing."

The Bird of Prey - Jamie, he called it - was kept inside.  There 
was a huge pseudo-glass dome covering the display hall.  That dome 
wouldn't be there much longer.  He was going to cause a lot of 
damage.  It made his blood race.

"Launch sequence initialized and waiting further instruction."

Wesley sucked his lower lip into his mouth for a moment.  The 
exhibition hall computers would have detected the power-up.  But 
they were covering his ass.  Nothing would have been reported.  
Yet.  But crashing through that ceiling was another matter.  
Structural integrity would not be threatened.  The exhibition 
hall's computers would still cover for him.  But when the Bird of 
Prey crashed into the San Francisco night - that would be a 
different story.

And there were the orbiting destroyers - the Dahlia and the 
Kareninna.  They would notice.

"Launch," said Wesley.

The ship lurched.  Jamie was old, but she could perform.  Could 
probably out-maneuver anything in the fleet.  There was a thud.  A 
brief shudder.  Then a cascade of falling shards.  He was in the 
night sky.

Blasting away with too much thrust would throw down a rain of 
deadly radiation.  He didn't want to do that.  Better to take it 
up into low orbit nice and slow.  That would give the cruisers 
floating around plenty of time to lay in an intercept.  But that 
shouldn't matter.  Either his pseudo-Romulan cloak would work, or 
it would blow the little Bird to so much metalic dust.

___________


In standard Earth orbit, the destroyer Dahlia glided lazily above 
the planet.  The duty officer had taken reports from San Francisco 
with some skepticism.  Why would anybody try to steal an antique 
Klingon warship?  And how could they be foolish enough to think 
they'd get away with it.  But scanners quickly confirmed the 
reports.

"Captain, I think you'd better come to the bridge... immediately."

____________


Wesley saw the destroyer moving to intercept.  Technically, he was 
outgunned, outmaneuvered, out shielded, and generally overpowerd.  
Furthermore, the Klingon cloaking techology was thoroughly 
understood by the Federation.

The lazy intercept was understandable.

The Dahlia was hailing him.  He ignored them.  Very soon, he would 
be free of the upper atmosphere.  Even the Romulan technology 
would not help much in such an environment.  To many ionized 
particles.  Even in high Earth orbit, the planet's magnetic field 
would betray him.  But only if they looked.  The Klingon 
technology shouldn't require that they look.  The Dahlia crew 
would be momentarily confused.

He was counting on that.

The Dahlia was raising her shields.  Good.  That would use up 
time.  She was charging her tractor beam.  A ship of that size 
wouldn't be able to hold him.  Wesley knew that.  He knew the 
Dahlia very well, in fact.  But they didn't know that.  They 
didn't know about all the work he'd put into this little falcon.

Jamie.

He cleared the atmosphere and began to accelerate.

The tractor beam locked on.  He increased thrust.  The beam 
faltered.  That would surprise them.  They were charging their 
phasers. 

"Cloak," he said.


___________


On the bridge of the Dahlia, a moment of confusion.

"We've lost them," said an ensign.

"What do you mean, 'lost them?'  It's a Klingon cloaking device!  
Find them!"

The ensign tried furiously.  Nothing.  He turned slowly to the 
captain.

"I'm sorry, Captain.  We are unable to compensate for the cloaking 
device.  It is _not_ of Klingon manufacture..."


____________


Wesley had cleared the gravity well.  Cleared most of the 
radiation belt.  The Dahlia was bringing itself about.  It knew 
his general direction.  They would find him sooner or later, so 
long as he remained in the soup of interplanetary space.

But he wasn't about to do that.

"Warp..."


____________


On the Dahlia bridge, the ensign looked up from his console.

"Captain, the Klingon ship has entered warp space.  After-image 
analysis indicates a departure at... warp seven."

"Impossible!"

The bridge was quiet.  

"Captain, the Kareninna is hailing us."


____________


Free from the Terran system, Wesley relaxed.  It was still a long 
way to where he was going - but only he knew where that was.  The 
cloak was working perfectly.  And Jamie was a small ship.  He knew 
the Enterprise could never track him.  And thus he knew the 
Federation was helpless.  

He was free.

"Free to follow a dream," he said aloud.  "Only a dream."

But no.  Not only.  There _was_ a world of two moons.  He had 
found in.  How?  Impossible to say.  The dreams told him where to 
look.  And there it was.  

So it wasn't only a dream.

He probably should have told someone...

No!  That's the geek thinking again.  He was going to do this by 
himself.  Fuck the Federation...  The Enterprise would come 
looking for him.  His mother.  And Picard.  He liked that.  Let 
them look.

Let them look.


____________


The admiral stared blankly at Picard for a moment.  Then 
continued.

"So you see, Picard...  We have a bit of a problem."

The captain rested his fingers on his desk.  The admiral could not 
tell, but Picard was smiling to himself.  To think that Wesley was 
finally acting like a rash young man.  Finally.

Thank God it didn't happen on my ship, thought Picard.

"You are certain, admiral, that it was Wesley?"

"It is the most logical explanation, captain.  Wesley had several 
ongoing projects involving the Bird of Prey.  He was retrofitting 
several modern technologies...  Re-useability experiments.  And 
there's the cloaking device.  I can count the number of people who 
can take apart and re-assemble even the Klingon device.  But 
unless a Romulan agent has infiltrated the Academy..."

The admiral broke off.  His eyes widened.

"Now, admiral!" interjected Picard, "I don't believe for a moment 
that Wesley is acting as a Romulan agent."

"I hope not...  But you do think it was him?"

"Yes."

"And you'll find him?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I don't know yet.  But the place to start is where he started.  
You can expect us in a day, admiral."


____________


From Ten Forward, Picard watched the Earth grow larger.  His 
affection for the world of his birth had never dimmed.  It never 
failed to wash him with emotion.  Riker was guiding the ship in.  

Picard was thankful for the time to reflect. 

He could feel Guinan move up behind him.  Picard tensed 
involuntarily.  Guinan was a mystery, and while mystery fascinated 
him - he didn't always appreciate it so close to home.

"It makes for a wonderful picture, doesn't it, Captain?"

Picard could only nod.  He knew that if he spoke, his voice would 
betray his emotion.  He didn't want that.  Not now.  

The planet stopped growing in size.  They had assumed standard 
orbit.  Soon enough, the search would begin.  It was a daunting 
task.  Looking for a cloaked ship in the vastness of space.  And 
Wesley, he was now an unpredictable quantity.  The Wesley that 
Picard had known would never have been capable of such a feat.

And Picard was glad he no longer knew Wesley.

This was a mystery more to his liking.

"Commander Data to Ten Forward," he commanded.

Picard had a plan.


____________


Wesley dreamed.  He was underwater.  Looking up.  Two pale, white 
eyes stared down at him.  Moons.  This world had two moons.  He 
had seen them over and over again.

Something moved between him and the pale white eyes.  Something 
slender, with billowing fins.  And hair.  Long, long black hair.  
Almost a woman.  Her eyes were large and pale as well.  And they 
burned with fire.

A shark circled about them.  Wesley was afraid, but he knew it was 
a dream.  He also knew the woman was not afraid.  She floated 
lazily at the center of the shark's circle.  The monster darted 
in.  

And was slammed away.  Something invisible.  Something 
irresistable.  Batted it away like a small insect.  The shark 
trembled for a few moments.  Spasms of confusion.  Then began 
circling again.  Oblivious to it's own danger.

The shark knew no fear.  The strange woman knew no fear.  Only 
Wesley knew fear - but of which one?

The shark attacked.

This time, an ark of pale red light connected it to the floating 
woman.  The shark continued in it's path.  But it was dead.  
Wesley could tell.  It glided past the woman.

It sank into the depths.

He was alone with her now.

The woman smiled.  Who is she, Wesley thought?  The woman smiled.  
Who?

"Winnowil," said a voice in his mind.

Wesley woke with a start.