Illusions Lost

This is my first submission to Literotica Stories, hopefully not the last. This story was originally going to be sent to an anthology contest, but by the time I was finished and ready to submit it, it was reported that the publishers were no longer going to make the books. A missed opportunity.

So, I decided to submit it here instead. I hope you like it.

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Captain Picard paced the length of his ready room still not believing his luck, and wasn't sure whether it was good or bad. Nevertheless, on his desktop terminal was the course for their next assignment, once their mission briefing was complete. After replacing the warp core, which they jettisoned during the Ba'ku incident, the Enterprise was ordered to Starbase 343. Once there, a mission advisor would come aboard and give the particulars of the assignment.

That was Picard's first surprise. He had worked with this individual once before during a covert operation, and didn't think he'd have a second opportunity. He figured it must have taken a lot to extract this person from his "unofficial" location, but judging from their destination, the only piece of information the advisor gave him so far, Starfleet felt it was necessary.

That was surprise number two. Picard couldn't believe they were actually going there... of all places! This sector had been quarantined for years, and it was a paramount issue that no one entered this region of space... ever. No one knew why, except a very few, one of whom was on board.

Straightening his uniform, he left his ready room.

"Number One?"

Riker rose from the command chair and met Picard halfway, "The briefing?"

Picard nodded and tapped his comm badge, "This is the captain. All senior officers, report to the main conference room." Then, turning to Riker, "We'll be there shortly."

"Aye, sir."

Picard entered the turbo-lift and headed for the VIP section of the ship. It was his duty to escort their guest to the briefing, and he certainly didn't want to keep him waiting.

* * *

In the main VIP stateroom, a robed figure knelt before a small tapestry draped over a corner table. The cloth, embroidered with the IDIC emblem, was a gift from his stepmother, his father's third wife. The message with it expressed her love and their shared grief.

Many people in his life were gone now, but he learned to expect and eventually accept it; most humanoids didn't possess the same life span of a Vulcan.

Though one tried, he mused. Out of spite, no doubt.

He thought of him and their constant war of words, and found he missed it. He thought of his closest friend: a young maverick, taking risks and going on instinct more often than not. In later years, he became a seasoned veteran of space, with a little bit of that 'maverick' still in him. He thought of a certain engineer who, through his own mechanizations, found his way to the twenty-fourth century, but he knew that time would not be denied. Soon he would be gone, like Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, Dr. Chapel, his mother, so many others, and just recently, his father. He knew them all, knew all their fates... save one.

It was ironic that he didn't know the fate of his very first friend, and yet this mission would bring him to the last place he saw him. He couldn't have known; entry into this sector was forbidden under Federation law, a law he once broke to help his friend. Now, with this new information, he and the Enterprise-E were going back to a world that no one has had contact with for 107 years.

Bringing himself out of his thoughts when the door chimed, he rose to his usual stance and answered, "Come."

The doors parted and, with respect and courtesy, Jean-Luc Picard bowed slightly to his honored guest. "It's time for our briefing, Ambassador. May I escort you to the conference room?"

"Thank you, Captain."

Picard still expected to see a giant appear before him every time he heard the Vulcan speak, but from the outside, the giant was an elderly man, with hull gray hair and facial lines that ran deep with decades of service to the Federation. The upswept eyebrows and elegantly pointed ears completed the look that all Vulcans had: haunting grace and dignity. Picard felt a little intimidated. It isn't every day one gets to walk with a legend, he thought.

"I offer my gratitude for keeping my arrival as subdued as possible, Captain."

"No trouble, Ambassador. None of my officers know of your presence yet, but I can count on their discretion, as can you, sir."

"Most kind, Captain." The ambassador did know Picard's officers, after a brief mind-meld with him. He saw them in the captain's mind when he delivered the news of his father's passing. His first officer: tall, bearded, that half-serious, half not-so-serious smirk. And playing a trombone? His ship's counselor: a beautiful, lithe woman with flowing black hair and those deep black Betazoid eyes. His chief engineer: a capable young man, wearing a prosthetic eyepiece. And of course, his Ops officer, the android. They arrived at the turbo-lift, and Picard allowed his guest to board first.

"Main conference room." The lift complied and whisked the pair upward. "Ambassador, what kind of problems could we expect?"

"There is the potential for danger, Captain. However, I believe my presence should defuse anything unwarranted."

That statement made the hairs on Picard's neck stand out. He was about to ask "How much potential?" when the lift doors opened. A short walk, and another set of doors parted revealing the conference room. He stepped to the side, allowing his companion to enter.

"Ladies, gentlemen. Allow me to introduce our mission advisor... Ambassador Spock of Vulcan."

Eyes widened when the famous Vulcan walked into the room, and Picard gave everyone a moment to compose themselves, then got down to business. He made the introductions, starting with Riker who offered the chair next to his own, which Spock accepted. Next was LaForge, whose optical implants were a pleasing improvement over the VISOR, Spock noted. Then, Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troi, "and of course, you know Mr. Data."

"Indeed; most pleasing to see you again, Commander."

"Likewise, Ambassador."

Picard finished with, "and our chief of security, Lt. Commander T'Vel," a Vulcan woman, with long black hair tied back in an oriental queue.

"Greetings, Commander," said Spock, holding up his hand in a Vulcan salute.

"A great honor to meet you, Ambassador," she replied, returning the salute.

Picard began pressing a few table padd controls, and a holographic map of space materialized. "The orders Starfleet sent us are considered 'classified'. No one outside this room will know anything of this meeting." He looked at his officers, and they nodded in agreement.

"Computer, display course; authorization: Picard, beta 287."

A white dot blipped on the map, indicating the Enterprise's position, and a blue line traced her course ending at a yellow dot, dead center inside a shaded red area. Widening out to a representation of a star cluster, consisting of old red giants, the view expanded again to a single star system with eleven planets.

"This is our destination," said Picard, as the map expanded one more time, narrowing in on the fourth planet. The computer flashed its name, and even T'Vel with all her Vulcan control couldn't totally hide a look of dismay. The others didn't bother trying as their destination was projected in yellow letters.

The one forbidden world in the entire galaxy.

Talos IV.

The reactions hit Picard like a hurricane.

"...WHAT? TALOS IV? Are they kidding... ...not seriously entertaining this... ...fleet regulations clearly state that General Order... ...does Starfleet get off ordering..." Picard let this go on for a few beats, and then tapped the table, calling for silence. He got it immediately.

"One at a time, please. Number One?"

Riker turned and nailed Spock with a confused glare, "With respect, Ambassador... please tell me this is a joke."

"Vulcans never joke, Commander," T'Vel said, flatly. She then saw a slight twitch at the corner of Spock's mouth. Was that a smile?

"This came straight from the top, Number One. This is no joke," Picard directed their looks toward Spock. Resting his elbows at his sides, the not-quite-so giant Vulcan spoke.

"I appreciate your misgivings about our destination, and I know that General Order 7 is quite explicit in its finality." Every first year cadet had Starfleet's general orders drilled into their heads from day one, especially number seven: no vessel, under any condition, emergency or otherwise, is to approach Talos IV. Any communication or signal of any kind emanating from this area is to be considered false and ignored, with no exceptions. Moreover, everyone in Starfleet knew the consequences if this order was disobeyed; it was the only death penalty left on Starfleet's books. There was only one person in the room that knew why. "You must trust me that the information I possess will justify this mission."

Spock entered a code on his padd, and the viewer behind Picard came to life. It showed an old briefing room with three tables and a large viewscreen on the far wall. There were officers wearing uniforms about a hundred years out of style, and the individual off to the right everyone recognized. It was the ambassador, in the formal dress of a commander. Two officers sat at the middle table, one of which was James Kirk. There was a third on the left, but he was sitting in, what Dr. Crusher recognized as, an old anti-grav medical chair used to care for those who were injured beyond the point of self-locomotion. She also recognized Leonard McCoy, as if anyone in the medical field wouldn't, and Geordi knew that had to be Montgomery Scott operating the recording monitor.

And on the old viewscreen, a starship glided into view. Those in their respective briefing rooms knew what ship it was when her registry number came into focus.

N.C.C.-1701, U.S.S. ENTERPRISE.

"This transcript was recorded aboard the Enterprise, stardate 3012.6, while on course to Talos IV. This is a record of my court-martial." The officers looked from him to the screen, not believing what they just heard. "The charges were mutiny, theft of Starfleet property, and the abduction of a Starfleet officer, Fleet Captain Christopher Pike."

Spock explained that thirteen years prior to this transcript the Enterprise, under the command of Pike, responded to a distress signal from Talos IV and discovered an encampment with eleven survivors from a forced landing. Pike was led away from the others by a young woman named Vina, and then captured by the planet's inhabitants. Watching the events happen just as Spock described them, they saw the Talosians, fragile beings with enlarged craniums, drag Pike into a lift disguised as a rocky knoll. The landing party fired their weapons at the hidden doors to force them open, but to no avail, and Commander Spock reported that there were no actual survivors and the captain had been abducted.

"Ambassador, how could you and the away team see and hear, even talk to the survivors if they weren't actually there?" asked Riker.

"The Talosians were found to have mastered the power of illusion. They have the ability to super-impose their own brainwaves over the sensory receptors of other beings. The receiving victims would see, hear, and feel anything the Talosians wished, usually a re-creation of the victims own thoughts. Illusions as real and as solid as this table, and just as impossible to ignore."

They looked back at the screen and saw the court-martial board watching the end of a fight between Pike and a Kalaran warrior from Rigel VII. The behemoth jumped from an upper level of a courtyard attempting to land on him, but Pike brought up the business end of a broken spear and the Kalaran took it full in the chest. He rolled him off and then looked up at a woman dressed in something out of a fairy tale. Different dress, longer hair, but Picard and the others saw that it was Vina, the woman from the survivors' camp. The image blurred for a second and Pike was now in a holding cell with a large transparent wall, with Vina beside him. She began to describe life on this world when Spock interrupted.

"The Talosians suffered a devastating war many centuries ago, and were forced to move their civilization underground. They found life there to be somewhat limiting, concentrated on developing superior mental power, and perfected their ability." They returned to the transcript to hear Vina finish the story.

"...but they found... it's a trap, like a narcotic. Because, when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating... you even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit... living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records."

Kirk turned to the officer on his left, but the man didn't move, and then Picard heard the distinctive beep of Captain Pike's med-chair, apparently answering a 'yes or no' question, but no one had asked anything. And the man in the middle still didn't move an inch. Picard wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Ambassador, why isn't the officer in the middle moving or even saying a word?" asked Troi.

"Commodore Mendez was the senior officer presiding over the inquiry, but he was never actually on board the Enterprise."

"An illusion?" this from Crusher. She looked closely at the screen, startled to see Pike screaming and writhing in pain as flames licked at him from all sides. The image blurred, and he was back in his cell, holding a vial of blue liquid. The Talosian observing him said, "From a fable you once heard in childhood." Pike tried to argue with him, but was interrupted with, "If you continue to disobey, from deeper in your mind there are things even more unpleasant!"

"If that officer isn't really there, why can we see him?" asked Geordi.

"The Talosians' power of illusion can make anyone not entirely sure of what they do or see," Spock answered, "After the incident, it was discovered that Chief Engineer Scott was being manipulated. While he was monitoring the transmissions, Mr. Scott was, in actuality, creating an image of the commodore for the sake of the official record. The interaction between the commodore and the others was solely in their own minds."

LaForge went back to Pike and his keeper. With an intense look on his face, Pike drank the liquid, and suddenly launched himself at his jailer. The transparent wall bounced him back, but the Talosian backed away, regardless. Troi didn't need her Betazoid ability to know what that move meant: fear.

"That's very interesting," Pike said, "You were startled; weren't you reading my mind then?"

"So they do have limitations. Pike was angry when he attack, but the Talosian jumped back, knowing full well the wall would protect him. If he was reading his thoughts, he wouldn't have moved."

"Correct, Counselor," said Spock, "The Talosians cannot read through primitive emotions such as hate, anger, and so forth."

"Ambassador," this from Data, "in describing what happened to Mr. Scott, you said "transmissions". That would suggest the images the inquiry board are watching..."

"...were coming from Talos IV."

They all returned to the transcript and saw Pike's new surroundings: a palace drawing room, complete with a reflecting pool, a quartet of musicians, and lounging pillows scattered about. Pike, dressed as a sheik, was watching a woman dancing seductively to the music. Their suspicions were justified when they heard Kirk ask, "That's Vina again, as the green Orion slave girl?" Pike, in his med-chair, beeped once: yes. With green skin, wild black hair, and wearing an outfit that looked ready to fall off, Vina whirled about, doing her best to arouse her 'master'. Succeeding in only angering him, she watched Pike bolt from his pillows and stomp away.

Picard asked the next question. "Were the Talosians doing this to see how Captain Pike would react, or was there another purpose?"

"I may have an answer, Captain," said T'Vel, "The Talosians were experimenting, not just on Captain Pike, but on other beings they've collected, and for a considerably long time. Since many species do not possess a lengthy life span by most standards, they must have performed their experiments on the species' descendents. Therefore, the Talosians required two of every being they captured."

"Correct, Commander," said Spock.

"But Pike couldn't possibly have mated with Vina," Crusher countered, "She was an illusion, wasn't she?"

The doctor then noticed two other women in the cell with Pike and Vina, and realized her point might be moot. The new arrivals were Enterprise crewmembers, and she guessed the Talosians were giving Pike a selection since he didn't want anything to do with Vina.

"Slaves." They all looked at Riker, and he continued, "The Talosians didn't want a community of humans, but a colony of slave labor. They needed someone to repair their technology and rebuild their culture for them." A nod from Spock told him he had guessed right.

Next, Pike was dragging a Talosian through a hole in the rear wall and into the cell. But just as he got his hands around his keeper's throat, the Talosian blurred and was replaced with an ape-like creature, with orange fur and a wide, growling mouth full of pointed teeth. It took a couple of swipes but Pike didn't give an inch, and the ape-thing vanished with the Talosian reappearing and threatening to destroy the Enterprise. Vina said he wasn't bluffing, "...with illusion, they can make your crew work the wrong controls or push any button it takes to destroy your ship."

Pike told his crewmember to hold the Talosian, and turned to fire the weapons the two crewwomen had hidden on them at the window.

Nothing happened.

He then threatened his keeper, and the "nothing happened" blurred into a large hole burned through the glass. The group, with Pike using the Talosian as a hostage, made their way back to the surface.

"They prevented the away team from seeing that, too," said Geordi, pointing out that the knoll and half of the lift was blasted away by weapons' fire, "They cut through it and never knew."

The tall, black haired woman told the Talosian that their plan for enslaving humans was wrong, and set her weapon to 'overload'. Pike ordered Vina to get to safety, then told his keeper to go with her, "...just to show you how primitive humans are...", but Vina refused. Two more Talosians appeared on the knoll and direct their thought images of the Enterprise's library records at the one below, and Pike told his officer to wait on the 'overload'. Picard and his staff listened carefully to the next part.

"We had not believed this possible," said the keeper, with a sad look, "The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs."

"What he's saying is... they can't use you," said Vina, "You're free to go back to the ship."

Pike looked from Vina, to the Talosians on the knoll, and finally to his keeper.

"And that's it," he said with a sarcastic smirk, "No apologies. You captured one of us, threatened all of us..."

One of the two above replied, "Your unsuitability has condemned the Talosian race to inevitable death. Is this not sufficient?"

"No other specimen has shown your adaptabilities. You were our last hope."

"Wouldn't some form of trade, mutual cooperation...?" Pike offered.

Shaking his head, he answered, "Your race would learn our power of illusion and destroy itself, too."

"You mean Starfleet seriously thought something like that could happen?" asked Riker.