Illnesses, Cures and Criminal Behavior on DS9, CONTINUED...
unknown Author
Chapter 6: The End?
Three days later, in a secluded area on the Risa, Quark hid in the underbrush and waited. The hours passed painfully, but he was going to see this through today, no matter the discomfort. As the suns set on the horizon, a sunbather stood and brushed the sand from her slender body. Quark took a deep breath and fired an undetectable radiation beam at her. He waited for a minute and then approached her. "Excuse me, I've been lost in this area for hours. Could you point me to the nearest hotel? Please, take this as a token of appreciation." He handed her two slips of gold pressed latinum, which she refused at first, but Quark refused to take them back.
"If you follow the beach to the north for sixteen kilomet..." She suddenly fell silent. Leyta felt the familiar sensation of transmutation begining, only more rapid this time, she felt her body stiffen and the wonderfull golden sensation come again. In the fading sunlight Quark watched her skin tone change. He could see her body solidify before his very eyes. Soon, the waning rays of sunlight were reflecting off of her golden, latinum body. He stepped back from the statue on the beach and drank in the view until nothing remained of the sunlight. He signaled his ship to beam him and his cargo aboard. They materialized together on the transporter pad. He ordered that the statue be delivered to his quarters and to set a course for the nearest Ferengi trading outpost. This was indeed going to be a very profitable venture.
And now...
Chapter 7: Work of Art.
The ship was in warp and Risa was several hours behind them, Quark had been in the bridge in comunication with several potential customers, all wealthy collectors of art who had a taste for one of a kind merchandise, often stolen. Because of the nature of their purchases they all had private galleries, secret collections only seen by them and no one else, their prizes safe from prying eyes. Better this way, if Leyta were to be displayed in a public gallery or museum someone might recognize her and guess the truth. This way Leyta would dissapear forever, a priceless possession in a hidden gallery to be enjoyed solely by her future owner. It was going to work out fine for the both of them, for Quark a huge profit, for Leyta eternal life. Quark left the bridge and entered his quarters, the crewman had already moved the heavy statue to the middle of the room. Planning ahead, he had earlier commisioned a craftsman to make a latinum plated tritanium pedestal that had been waiting in the cargo hold. Using a levitator beam and help from the crew, along with latinum solder and a fusion torch they had welded the statue's feet to the pedestal. Quark still gasped at the beauty of the sculptured form of Leyta. Quark walked up to the statue and examined its form, he put out his hand and gently caressed her smooth metal shoulder, it was cold, hard and unyielding. Quark then gently rapped Leyta's shoulder with his knuckles. A beautiful clear ringing sound came from her body, the bell like note musically reverberating from solid metal. Leyta was in the blissful pleasure of endless metallic orgasim when Quark rubbed his hand on her body, her sensual pleasure intensified with each touch. When Quark tapped her and made her form vibrate the orgasmic feeling was raised to celestial heights, if Leyta had been able to speak she would have cried out with a moan of pleasure. Only pure gold latinum made that wonderful chiming sound when struck, it was the sound of profit. Quark sat down and gazed lovingly at the golden light reflecting off her shimmering body and sat there for several hours just looking and sighing contentedly. Quark had sat there watching Leyta's form when he noticed the sound of the engines had changed, it was too soon for for their arrival at the trading post, something was wrong! Quark pressed the intercom button and contacted the bridge. "What's wrong?" asked Quark, anger in his voice.
The pilot replied, "There is a federation patrol vessel on an intercept course, it's hailing us!"
"How long till interception?" asked Quark.
"Three hours!" the pilot said.
Quark rushed to the bridge with a sudden plan. Quark hurriedly checked the charts. There was a solar system nearby circling a small dim red dwarf. The crew followed Quark's instructions and soon they were in orbit around a suitable planet, perfect for Quark's plan. The planet was at the far edge of the system and was a frozen ball of ice and gas, at temperature hundreds of degrees below zero. It had a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium and a global ocean of liquid nitrogen covered with a layer of frozen nitrogen ice. They beamed the statue down to the surface of the ice sheet, carefully noting its location. The thick atmosphere would hide the latinum from long range sensor scans. They then moved out further to the edge of the system to wait till the patrol had boarded them and left after finding nothing. Leyta felt the transporter beam dematerialize her and rematerialize her somewhere else, she suddenly felt herself surrounded by a swirling cold wind, she could feel her body begin to chill and become colder. It was a new sensation that added to the constant pleasure she felt it was a wonderful frigid feeling that grew stronger each moment. She felt herself sinking lower and lower as if she were on a elevator slowly going down, suddenly there was a cracking sound and instantly she felt herself immersed in a incredibly cold liquid and she was sinking even faster. The liquid was boiling all around her and she felt the wonderful coldness grow with each moment. Leyta noticed the colder she became the less the fluid boiled around her, soon she was no longer growing colder and the boiling ceased, she felt only felt the rushing of the liquid as she plunged deeper and deeper into the frigid depths. They returned to the planet and at close range scanned the surface for a transporter lock, the statue was gone! They sent down a remote controlled probe and it located the exact spot where Leyta had been left. Then they saw the explanation for the disappearance in the images transmitted from the probe. There was a hole bored straight through the ice, several feet down the hole the rippling surface of the liquid nitrogen ocean showed. Leyta's gold body had been at room temperature when beamed to the surface of the ice. The ice was frozen nitrogen with a melting point hundreds of degrees below zero, the warm metal body rapidly melted the ice below it and the statue had fallen through the ice. The ocean was hundreds of miles deep, slushy liquid gasses around an ice core too deep for a transporter lock, the statue was lost forever at the bottom of an ocean of super cold cryogenic liquid!
Chapter 8: Cold Comfort.
Leyta felt herself plunge rapidly downward through the depths of pleasant coldness, she had been descending swiftly for a long time, tumbling slowly in the darkness for at least a day or more. She noticed that her speed was slowing and the liquid was becoming thicker, like an icy slush. Finally Leyta came to a gradual stop as she sank into a thick slush of liquid nitrogen. The nitrogen was in a high pressure state far below its freezing point, the slightest shock would make it crystalize into a solid. Leyta's metal body had provided that shock. The thick liquid froze around her and the freezing expanded outward, and soon the statue was embedded in the center of a solid diamond-hard block of clear nitrogen ice over a mile thick.
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Is this it for poor Leyta ? Or will some miracle come about to get her out of this predicament? Submit some ideas or different ending to this story if you wish, I got tired of waiting for new chapters so I wrote my own.