The last few days had been prosperous and extremely busy for the women of Banshee Squadron. All five were hard at work cleaning and polishing what used to be called 'Banshee Country', and soon would be again thanks to Alex Dalton's unauthorized snooping. As Lee Carter worked to return some semblance of order to her quarters, which had lain here abandoned for the last two years, she thought back to the unlikely events that had led up to their current situation....
Three days ago....
Minutes after Alex Dalton had made the incredible discovery that Banshee Squadron's fighter planes were stored right here on Starbase 901, Carter had stormed into Captain Mallory's office, determined to get her team's status changed back to active duty-wild targs couldn't have diverted her from her course! "Captain Mallory!" she blurted the moment she was across the threshold. "I have something urgent to discuss with you."
Mallory looked from a pile of paperwork at who was interrupting her peace and quiet. "Ah! Commander Carter," she commented dryly, as if she was expecting no other than the headstrong wing commander to barge in unannounced like this. "Come in, why don't you," she said with more than a hint of sarcasm, but her warm smile belied her waspish words. "Have a seat," she said, indicating the chair across the desk from her.
It took all of Carter's willpower to force herself to plant her butt in the proffered seat, and when she finally did manage to sit down her legs kept threatening to leap to their feet again out of sheer intensity of feeling.
Mallory looked at her curiously, frowning at the uncharacteristic tension on her friend's face. "What's the matter, Commander?" she asked with concern. "You look about as jumpy as a Klingon with tribbles down his pants!"
"Captain, I have a request-" began Carter, but Mallory cut her off.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here, Commander. I've just received some news for you from Starfleet that might change your mood," said Mallory, digging through her pile of paperwork apparently looking for the message, but not having much luck finding it amid the thousand other bureaucratic missives littering her desktop.
Carter couldn't contain herself any longer. "Captain! We found the Banshees!" she cried in exasperation at the Captain's seeming inattention.
Mallory ceased her fruitless searching and sat back in her chair, staring at Commander Carter with a stunned expression. What was the woman talking about? She was finally forced to say "What?" unable to decipher Carter's meaning.
"We found the YF-6100's-down in their hangar where we left them when we got shipped back to Earth last year," explained Carter slowly. "I'd like to officially request that Banshee Squadron be-"
But Mallory cut her off again. "You found your planes in the hangar?" she asked incredulously. "What in the world were you doing down there anyway? That whole area has been off-limits since your flight team left the station, and I don't remember lifting that restriction for you," she finished accusingly.
"Ah, well...," hemmed Carter, suddenly remembering with some embarrassment that her knowledge of their planes' disposition hadn't exactly come to her by legitimate means. Rather, it had come by way of a young ensign with far too much time on her hands snooping around where she shouldn't have been. "You see, here's what happened..."
Mallory was enjoying watching Carter squirm, although she was careful to maintain a stern outward facade-sometimes you had to remind these young officers just who was in charge, or else they might start doing things like barge into their captain's office unannounced and start making all sorts of wild and crazy demands. After a few seconds though, her natural compassion reasserted itself, and she let her subordinate off the hook. "Relax, Commander," she chuckled, letting her stern mask melt into a knowing smile. From the paper pile on her desk, she pulled the message from Starfleet that had eluded her before and reached across the desk to hand it to Carter.
Carter clamped her mouth shut, not yet daring to hope that she'd been given a reprieve, and took the sheet from Mallory's outstretched hand. Sure enough, the message bore the official letterhead of Starfleet Command. As she read, her elation grew. When she reached the bottom, she looked up at Mallory and said, "Is this a joke? This can't be for real!" It was too much to hope.
"A joke of cosmic proportions, Commander," replied the Captain wryly. "Heaven help us, but Banshee Squadron is back on active duty!"
Carter jumped to her feet and shook Captain Mallory's hand so enthusiastically she almost knocked the poor woman over. "Thank you, ma'am!" she said happily.
"Don't thank me," said Mallory. "Thank your number one fan back at Deep Range Fleet Headquarters, Admiral—"
"—Pike!" finished Carter.
"That's right," said Mallory a little testy, not happy about being cut off like that. She realized that Carter had just been given the best news she'd heard in a long time, but she still seemed to be acting a little strange-a little too intense. She was normally such a cool and level-headed person; this just wasn't like her. On the other hand, it could simply be a result of being cooped up here on the station for a month with nothing to do. She made a mental note to send a message down to the medical center asking that Carter and her teammates be thoroughly checked out again before they took their first flight in their planes.
That having been decided, she turned to wrapping up business. "In light of the growing probability of another war with the Mullurans in the very near future, Starfleet has decided to continue the Banshee Project. For the time being, your flight team will continue to pilot your YF-6100 Banshees, but you can expect new equipment to start arriving for field testing."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Carter. "I'll go tell the others." With that, she turned on her heel and swept out of Captain Mallory's office as quickly as she had arrived.
"Dismissed," said Mallory to the office doors which had closed at Carter's back. "Strange," she muttered to herself, more worried than ever about the Commander's odd behavior and lack of discipline.
On the turbolift ride back through 500 levels from the Captain's office to Banshee Country, a small glop of green Jelly squished free from inside Commander Carter's left boot and quietly oozed away unnoticed, disappearing through a tiny crack in the deck plating.
At the same instant, a sudden wave of violent nausea overcame Carter, and she leaned heavily against the turbolift's wall. Her head was spinning at warp 10, while her knees threatened to fold beneath her. She fought back the surge of bile in her throat, all the while clinging for dear life to the handholds in a vain effort to make the spinning stop. "Stop turbolift!" she gasped. Just as she was about to succumb to illness though, the sickness faded.
Sucking in huge lungfulls of air, she painfully straightened up, trying to compose herself. She had never felt anything like that before, but she was already feeling almost normal again-whatever it was, it had passed quickly and left no traces. In fact, she felt more 'normal' now than she had been feeling all through her visit to the Captain's office. With growing horror, she suddenly had full recollection of how she'd behaved towards the Captain.
How could I have acted that way? I'm lucky she didn't throw me in the brig for insubordination! What had come over her? "I'll have to go back up and apologize to her later," she muttered to herself. She gave the command for the turbolift to resume its journey.
That had been three days ago. She had returned to Captain Mallory's office (knocking before entering this time) and apologized for her crazy behavior, and all had been forgiven. Now she was here, back in her old quarters, and it almost seemed like she hadn't been gone for a year. A little more dusting, a little more rearranging, and everything would be back ship-shape.
From out in the common room she could hear the bustle of activity as Max, Sam, Jo and Alex cleaned up out there, and occasional hammering and clanging as a whole battalion of Starfleet engineers worked to refurbish the Banshee hangar one deck below. In a few days they would be taking their first flights.
Unnoticed by anyone, puddles of green Jelly began gathering in out-of-the-way corners—in air vents, in wall conduits, under the floor plating—waiting, biding their time. Some of the puddles drew together and joined, forming larger puddles. A few of the puddles had already tried hitching rides with some of the biped creatures, seeking out areas ripe with emotional turmoil, empathically churning some up when they couldn't find any, feeding on the resulting releases of neural energy. This particular group of bipeds was a prime candidate for the Jelly's attentions-they would be in the thick of the coming war.
The Jelly knew war was coming. It had been following the bipeds through the Galaxy for hundreds of millions of years, from the days when the species inhabited only its original planet, to the present epoch when they were spread throughout the Galaxy. In all that time, there had never been a time devoid of war and conflict. And the more conflict, the more chaos, the more violent neural energy to feed on. The Jelly liked the bipeds. Together they formed an excellent partnership. The bipeds created chaos, the Jelly fed on the neural energy released by the chaos, and used its natural empathic ability to stir up yet more chaos—an arrangement made in hell.
The Jelly was hungry. It would do all it could to make sure the coming war was as violent, bloody, and chaotic as possible.