"Fear is the Mindkiller"

By: Deathstrike

 Mulder stared, gaping, at the hideous, drooling monstrosity that reared up before him, glistening wetly in the putrid yellow moonlight.  Thankfully, he could only make out the outline and highlights of the slavering thing, for the mind plays interesting tricks of perception when it senses that it is grazing against spheres of utterly primal terror.  Call it the vestiges of long-dormant genes, but whatever it was, it saved Mulder from certain mental annihilation.

The brush nearby was alive with the rustling and snapping branches which marked the Deep Ones’ clumsy shambling.  Hoarse, phlegmy barking and grunting sounds echoed through the oppressive, fishy air.  Scully began to convulse from fear and blood loss, eyes rolling up into her head, and Mulder could feel himself slowly becoming unhinged…
 

Gandalf stopped in mid sentence, his head popping up almost as if he was listening to something.  He eyed Kirk in a sidelong way.

Huyj and Kirk just looked back, raising their eyebrows.  "What is it?" asked Hyuj.

"I’m sensing a parallel time-order discrepancy.  We’ve got a branching loop anomaly."

"Ahhh…interesting," said Hyuj.

Kirk obviously didn’t get it.  "Uhhh, what?"

"Back when you and Q were traveling here through SuperSpace, a TimeShard branched away from you and created duplicates of you in another time and place."

"And this means…?" asked Kirk.

"For Q, this duality is trivial…he can perform this feat at will.  For you, Captain?" Gandalf nearly chuckled.  "It means there are two of you, Captain."  

Thrawn eyed the Emperor’s force cocoon, noting the increase in activity.  Something was happening, it looked like Palpatine was preparing to emerge.

He turned to the viewscreen, watching the Imperial Fleet forming up on the Eclipse and the Vindicator as it turned to deal with the Rebel fleet that had followed them away from the Octorg fleet.  Normally, he would have ordered his fleet to engage and destroy the rebels, but things had definitely stopped being ‘normal’.

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