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In Medias Res
philipclayberg
Member Posts: 1,680
Author's note: I'm trying a new story (the old one "died" back in September, when I didn't know what to do with it next). Hopefully this one will last long enough to reach its ending. I even have a title this time (it came to me as I was typing up Chapter 1).
Copyright 2013, by Philip Clayberg
CHAPTER 1 --
"Is it supposed to hurt this much?" I asked, wincing.
It was like the old stories of migraine headaches. Intense pain that seems to be everywhere inside the head. Inescapably so. If only there were an injection, or a medication, that I could take to rid myself of it. But Doc (his name was actually Tovaz, but I preferred to call him "Doc") was a Vulcan and preferred to avoid those until after all other options had been exhausted.
I almost touched something that covered my right eye. Doc pulled my hand away, shook his head.
"Don't," he said. "It needs time to heal."
"And the pain is part of it?" I asked.
"It apparently affects each individual differently," Doc said. "You're fortunate."
"I am?" I asked. I didn't feel lucky at all. "How so?"
"The installation of the visual augmentation technology didn't kill you outright," he said.
Oh. Good point. If intense pain were seen as an advantage over death. Which, to a Vulcan, it probably was.
"I suppose that there aren't any available records of any Borg dying during their conversion from whatever species they were to membership in the Collective," I said.
"I'm afraid not," Doc said. "But even if there were, the information probably wouldn't have done you any good. Or alleviated your pain, for that matter."
I sighed. "Probably not." I carefully sat upright -- the patch covering my right eye made it difficult to judge the distance between me and what was around -- and looked at him. "So. When should I expect the onset of the symbiotic effects?"
"At any time," he said. "If they haven't already begun."
Wonderful.
"How will they manifest themselves?" I asked.
"That would depend on you, Lieutenant," Doc said. "That laboratory explosion had two possible outcomes: death, or crippling of the entire body. Somehow you managed to experience a third outcome. You only lost an eye."
"Would death have been a better outcome?" I asked.
He made a face. "You would've made an excellent Vulcan. Anything less than one's absolute best is unacceptable."
I waited, silent.
"Unless you have a morbid fear of the Borg," Doc went on, "I believe that life will reveal itself to be the better outcome." He patted me on the shoulder, but I didn't feel any comfort. Maybe Vulcan doctors simply lacked the empathy required for a good bedside manner. "Unless I am mistaken, I believe that this is the first time that this has happened to a Romulan. I'm quite curious to see how it develops. I may require testing from time to time."
"Why doesn't that surprise me," I said sarcastically. "Wish I could say I'm also curious about it, but I'm not."
"Your perception of it may change," he said. "Give it time."
But how much time would that require?
"I'm going to try to stand up," I said. "Catch me if I fall."
"Understood," Doc said.
Standing up was the easy part. The side effect of mild disorientation was unpleasant, but not to the point of disability.
"How does it feel?" he asked.
"A bit odd," I said. "Like something isn't quite in balance."
Doc came over, checked my right ear. "Your inner ear seems to be intact. You should regain your natural sense of balance soon enough. After all, you've been off your feet for at a week, unconscious most of the time. Now that you're up and about, your brain will have to adapt to what you weren't born with. I would suggest taking it easy for the next few days. I'll inform the captain to keep you off of active duty until I feel certain that you're ready to return to it."
"What do I do in the meantime?" I asked.
"Learn about Borg visual augmentation technology," he said.
I made a face. "Funny."
"I'm quite serious," Doc said.
"You're a Vulcan," I said. "Of course you're serious. You're always serious."
"Since you're back on feet with no debilitating side effects, I want to see you back in the Infirmary at 0900 tomorrow and each day thereafter for the next two days," he said. "Until then, pay attention to everything that happens to you. It's possible that more than just the visual centers of the brain will be affected, but I don't think so."
I nodded. "Thank you for saving my vision, Doc. I wasn't looking forward to spending the rest of my life half-blind."
"Thank your liberated Borg assistant first," he said.
I froze. "My what?"
"You don't remember?" Doc asked.
I shook my head.
"Four of Twelve's quick reactions had you here less than a minute after the explosion," he explained. "If he hadn't been there, it might've been worse. I knew immediately that there was no way to save your eye. Once I had the bleeding stopped and fresh blood flowing into you, I had to figure out what to do next. Four of Twelve made a suggestion." Doc took a deep breath, let it out.
"What sort of suggestion?" I asked.
"That I remove his augmented vision technology -- and install it in you," he said.
"But wouldn't that kill --" I started to say, and stopped.
Doc nodded. "Look behind you."
I did so, and saw another bed, a body on it, covered in a white sheet. I almost felt ill, even though I hadn't seen anything unpleasant.
"Before I performed the operation, Four of Twelve agreed to donate any organs that weren't rendered unusable by the conversion to Borg," he went on. "I have them stored in the Infirmary's freezer. They haven't been used yet."
"Why don't I remember him, though?" I asked. I looked at Doc. "You suppressed that memory."
He nodded again. "Four of Twelve asked me to. It isn't permanent. You will begin to remember him again, but I'm not sure when. It's even more unpredictable than the adaptation to the visual augmentation technology because memories are never really forgotten. The brain rewires itself, building new paths to old destinations."
"But why suppress it at all, then?" I asked.
"He said he had his reasons," Doc said.
"So, to make a long explanation simpler, one day my memories of Four of Twelve will just start popping up," I said. "Without warning."
"Correct," he said. "You're dismissed, Lieutenant."
"0900, tomorrow, here," I said.
Doc nodded. "While you're at it, search for Ambassador Spock and Project Genesis. I think you'll find it interesting reading."
"Isn't Genesis still censored?" I asked, unwilling to leave just yet.
He gave me his onboard system password. "This will give you access to it. But to nothing else."
"What if someone asks me what I'm doing with it?" I asked.
"Show them this," he said, and handed me a pad. "It usually does the trick. Bring it back here tomorrow."
"What does it say?" I asked.
"That I'm a member of the Soong Institute," Doc said.
"But don't you have to be a holographic program to be a member of it?" I asked.
"Not just that, but yes, you do," he said. "They made an exception where I was concerned."
"Is that somewhere in the Project Genesis information?" I asked.
Doc smiled, shook his head. "If your new eye has healed enough by tomorrow morning, I'll remove the eye-patch. Until then, good afternoon, Lieutenant."
I nodded, and left the Infirmary.
And found myself half-way to the Library before I was conscious of where I'd decided to go. But then I remembered why. Because I'd not only wanted to do research about Borg augmented vision technology, Ambassador Spock, Project Genesis, and the Soong Institute.
I'd also wanted to learn about a certain liberated Borg crew-member.
Named Four of Twelve.
(written 11-9-2013)
Note: Changed "T'Vaz" to "Tovaz" (thankfully only one instance).
Copyright 2013, by Philip Clayberg
CHAPTER 1 --
"Is it supposed to hurt this much?" I asked, wincing.
It was like the old stories of migraine headaches. Intense pain that seems to be everywhere inside the head. Inescapably so. If only there were an injection, or a medication, that I could take to rid myself of it. But Doc (his name was actually Tovaz, but I preferred to call him "Doc") was a Vulcan and preferred to avoid those until after all other options had been exhausted.
I almost touched something that covered my right eye. Doc pulled my hand away, shook his head.
"Don't," he said. "It needs time to heal."
"And the pain is part of it?" I asked.
"It apparently affects each individual differently," Doc said. "You're fortunate."
"I am?" I asked. I didn't feel lucky at all. "How so?"
"The installation of the visual augmentation technology didn't kill you outright," he said.
Oh. Good point. If intense pain were seen as an advantage over death. Which, to a Vulcan, it probably was.
"I suppose that there aren't any available records of any Borg dying during their conversion from whatever species they were to membership in the Collective," I said.
"I'm afraid not," Doc said. "But even if there were, the information probably wouldn't have done you any good. Or alleviated your pain, for that matter."
I sighed. "Probably not." I carefully sat upright -- the patch covering my right eye made it difficult to judge the distance between me and what was around -- and looked at him. "So. When should I expect the onset of the symbiotic effects?"
"At any time," he said. "If they haven't already begun."
Wonderful.
"How will they manifest themselves?" I asked.
"That would depend on you, Lieutenant," Doc said. "That laboratory explosion had two possible outcomes: death, or crippling of the entire body. Somehow you managed to experience a third outcome. You only lost an eye."
"Would death have been a better outcome?" I asked.
He made a face. "You would've made an excellent Vulcan. Anything less than one's absolute best is unacceptable."
I waited, silent.
"Unless you have a morbid fear of the Borg," Doc went on, "I believe that life will reveal itself to be the better outcome." He patted me on the shoulder, but I didn't feel any comfort. Maybe Vulcan doctors simply lacked the empathy required for a good bedside manner. "Unless I am mistaken, I believe that this is the first time that this has happened to a Romulan. I'm quite curious to see how it develops. I may require testing from time to time."
"Why doesn't that surprise me," I said sarcastically. "Wish I could say I'm also curious about it, but I'm not."
"Your perception of it may change," he said. "Give it time."
But how much time would that require?
"I'm going to try to stand up," I said. "Catch me if I fall."
"Understood," Doc said.
Standing up was the easy part. The side effect of mild disorientation was unpleasant, but not to the point of disability.
"How does it feel?" he asked.
"A bit odd," I said. "Like something isn't quite in balance."
Doc came over, checked my right ear. "Your inner ear seems to be intact. You should regain your natural sense of balance soon enough. After all, you've been off your feet for at a week, unconscious most of the time. Now that you're up and about, your brain will have to adapt to what you weren't born with. I would suggest taking it easy for the next few days. I'll inform the captain to keep you off of active duty until I feel certain that you're ready to return to it."
"What do I do in the meantime?" I asked.
"Learn about Borg visual augmentation technology," he said.
I made a face. "Funny."
"I'm quite serious," Doc said.
"You're a Vulcan," I said. "Of course you're serious. You're always serious."
"Since you're back on feet with no debilitating side effects, I want to see you back in the Infirmary at 0900 tomorrow and each day thereafter for the next two days," he said. "Until then, pay attention to everything that happens to you. It's possible that more than just the visual centers of the brain will be affected, but I don't think so."
I nodded. "Thank you for saving my vision, Doc. I wasn't looking forward to spending the rest of my life half-blind."
"Thank your liberated Borg assistant first," he said.
I froze. "My what?"
"You don't remember?" Doc asked.
I shook my head.
"Four of Twelve's quick reactions had you here less than a minute after the explosion," he explained. "If he hadn't been there, it might've been worse. I knew immediately that there was no way to save your eye. Once I had the bleeding stopped and fresh blood flowing into you, I had to figure out what to do next. Four of Twelve made a suggestion." Doc took a deep breath, let it out.
"What sort of suggestion?" I asked.
"That I remove his augmented vision technology -- and install it in you," he said.
"But wouldn't that kill --" I started to say, and stopped.
Doc nodded. "Look behind you."
I did so, and saw another bed, a body on it, covered in a white sheet. I almost felt ill, even though I hadn't seen anything unpleasant.
"Before I performed the operation, Four of Twelve agreed to donate any organs that weren't rendered unusable by the conversion to Borg," he went on. "I have them stored in the Infirmary's freezer. They haven't been used yet."
"Why don't I remember him, though?" I asked. I looked at Doc. "You suppressed that memory."
He nodded again. "Four of Twelve asked me to. It isn't permanent. You will begin to remember him again, but I'm not sure when. It's even more unpredictable than the adaptation to the visual augmentation technology because memories are never really forgotten. The brain rewires itself, building new paths to old destinations."
"But why suppress it at all, then?" I asked.
"He said he had his reasons," Doc said.
"So, to make a long explanation simpler, one day my memories of Four of Twelve will just start popping up," I said. "Without warning."
"Correct," he said. "You're dismissed, Lieutenant."
"0900, tomorrow, here," I said.
Doc nodded. "While you're at it, search for Ambassador Spock and Project Genesis. I think you'll find it interesting reading."
"Isn't Genesis still censored?" I asked, unwilling to leave just yet.
He gave me his onboard system password. "This will give you access to it. But to nothing else."
"What if someone asks me what I'm doing with it?" I asked.
"Show them this," he said, and handed me a pad. "It usually does the trick. Bring it back here tomorrow."
"What does it say?" I asked.
"That I'm a member of the Soong Institute," Doc said.
"But don't you have to be a holographic program to be a member of it?" I asked.
"Not just that, but yes, you do," he said. "They made an exception where I was concerned."
"Is that somewhere in the Project Genesis information?" I asked.
Doc smiled, shook his head. "If your new eye has healed enough by tomorrow morning, I'll remove the eye-patch. Until then, good afternoon, Lieutenant."
I nodded, and left the Infirmary.
And found myself half-way to the Library before I was conscious of where I'd decided to go. But then I remembered why. Because I'd not only wanted to do research about Borg augmented vision technology, Ambassador Spock, Project Genesis, and the Soong Institute.
I'd also wanted to learn about a certain liberated Borg crew-member.
Named Four of Twelve.
(written 11-9-2013)
Note: Changed "T'Vaz" to "Tovaz" (thankfully only one instance).
Post edited by philipclayberg on
0
Comments
One point, is that the apostrophe with the T prefix, denotes a female name... Tavaz, Tevaz, Tivaz, Tovaz or Tuvaz would all be acceptable names for a Vulcan male, but T'Vaz, would be a female name...
I'm not sure of the canonicity of the following rule, but I have found it helpful when developing male Vulcan names.
Names beginning with S, show the first son, names beginning with T show the second son, and names beginning with V show the third son (I'm guessing a reflection of Spock, Tuvok and Vorik...) and names ending in a K, reflect a conception during the pon farr.
I created the female name T'Natra as the original Vulcan-root form of the Romulan name Donatra (and Natara was the Vulcan deity of water, so T'Natra would conceivably be a feminised version of that name)
Hope that may be of help :cool:
Will be interested to see where this story's going, anyway!
Thanks for the "promising" and for the Vulcan name lesson. I have male Vulcan doffs in STO that start with T' (T'Pler used to be my go-to trader, until he got killed in a trade-gone-bad; got another T'Pler, but just not the same; so I upgraded to better traders).
T'Vaz was a bit too close to T'Vas anyway (the latter is a name I bumped into in Vulcan history at the Memory Alpha website; an ambassador, I think), which I didn't realize until after I posted the chapter and thought, "Whoops. T'Vaz ... T'Vas. Either they're twins or I goofed."
Tovaz sounds good. Tuvaz sounds too close to Tuvok, so I'm skipping that suggestion. Okay, I'll go back and re-edit Chapter 1 and change "T'Vaz" each time to "Tovaz". I'm not fussy about canon vs. non-canon. I just want a name that sounds right for the gender/species of a character.
Btw, the Lieutenant's comment about Vulcans always being serious could be taken as sarcasm. Remember the scene in ST:TOS in the Enterprise's Sickbay and Spock asks his father, "Now tell me again why you married my mother?" and Sarek replies, "Well, at the time it seemed the logical thing to do." Amanda shakes her head and mutters, "Vulcans." In this and elsewhere, I'm trying to make things less obvious and more ambiguous than I did in my previous story (for instance, what gender is the Lieutenant/narrator?), so that the reader doesn't always have it shoved in their face. They actually have to do some thinking and interpreting for themselves and might not come to the same conclusions each time that the author did.
Also, I'm not much for writing third person (which Shevet and Starswordc do so well at). I like doing the hard work of getting inside the first-person narrator's head, to try to figure out what motivates them, why, and how. Third person is too omniscient for me.
SAREK: I don't understand.
AMANDA: For saving your life.
SAREK: Spock acted in the only logical manner open to him. One does not thank logic, Amanda.
AMANDA: Logic! Logic! I'm sick to death of logic! Do you want to know how I feel about your logic?
SPOCK: Emotional, isn't she?
SAREK: She has always been that way.
SPOCK: Indeed. Why did you marry her?
SAREK: At the time it seemed the logical thing to do.
- "Journey To Babel", Season 2, Episode 10
That really is bizarre about the names, but I guess it might be like where guys sometimes have girl's names like 'Kelly' or 'Jessie'
I've used an existing name before, under the rationale that there's not only one Human called 'John' or 'Chris', but equally, it was a very vague reference, not a 'major' character name... In my writing, Marcus' best friend as a boy was a Vulcan called Selek. Selek is a pseudonym Spock employed in an episode of the Animated Series when he encountered his younger self, and used the name of, if I remember, one of Sarek's cousins... I figure there has to be more than one Vulcan with the name, so used it :cool:
Tovaz definitely reads better, IMHO, another variant which I think might sound good, is Tovax... I might use Tovax myself at some point, as I do have a fondness for Vulcans
Absolutely, look at how Tom Paris used to yank Tuvok's chain, but I felt it was always clear that Tom really did respect Tuvok, and, if not exactly 'looked up to him', certainly viewed him as an elder who knew his business.
I have to admit, I hadn't even considered the gender of the narrator until you raised that point, so indeed, it'll be interesting to see how things pan out ^_^
lol ... one of my all-time favorite ST:TOS scenes. Thank you so much for posting it in its entirety.
Since I'm not much of a plotter, I tend to wait until the next chunk pops in (and hopefully not self-criticize it to the point it collapses). The first chapter came together rather easily, and was hoping chapter 2 would be similarly easy. Nope. Trying to balance between what the character knows vs. what they don't know. No point to a story without either an ongoing mystery or mysteries popping up from time to time. So I just keep improvising my way along, trying different ideas when I reach a point where I don't know what to do next, and then something usually clicks and I go on from there. It usually works best if I try to write late at night, when I'm least self-critical. Then it just flows and all I have to do is some editing here and there to keep it self-consistent. The back-story (what isn't already part of the STverse/STOverse) gets built up as things go along. Which, I know, is somewhat how Tolkien wrote "Lord of the Rings" (he had some "historical" background already in place, but more was added as he wrote LotR).
I'm leaning toward the narrator being female (tomboy type), since I find it more interesting to write from the female point-of-view. I think I just used "Lieutenant" because a Chief Medical Officer wouldn't necessarily call a low-ranking officer by their name, and because I didn't know what their name was yet. But in the meantime, I think I have a possible name for them. Been trying out the Romulan name generators on the Internet and modified one of the resulting names to something I think would work. Also, I wonder: Would a Romulan necessarily call a Vulcan "Doc"? Would that be overly familiar on the Romulan's part? After all, Spock always said "Doctor McCoy" in ST:TOS. Or maybe the narrator is still young enough that the casual "Doc" is preferable to the more formal "Doctor". Not sure yet.
Something else I noticed: *when* does the story take place? Project Genesis is mentioned, so maybe the story is somewhere between STIII and STIV. But Ambassador Spock is also mentioned, so maybe it's even further in the future than STIV. Still working that out (brainstorming helps). Also, I figure the starship is Starfleet/UFP, not KDF (I don't think a Vulcan would choose to serve on a Klingon ship). So many holes in the ongoing story that need filling. The title, "In Media Res" (Latin; "In the middle of things" in English), suggests that one has been dropped into the story (as its reader) without really knowing what its beginning was or how it will turn out. Rather like Homer's "Odyssey" which starts in the middle, and then goes back to the beginning, proceeds up to the middle, and finally heads towards the ending. And another thing: the lab explosion that destroyed the main character/narrator's eye. Was that unintentionally also suppressed when the memories of 4 of 12 were suppressed? The main character/narrator doesn't seem that interested in the lab explosion ... yet. So many things to disentangle, and chapter 1 was only 5 pp long. (sigh)
Btw, for anyone who was wondering: It wasn't 7 of 9 that inspired the main character/narrator and 4 of 12 in this story. It was actually Ronnie/2 of 12 in Shevet's "Fallout" story that inspired it. I thought: "What would happen if you went back to when they were first in symbiotic relationship with one another -- how would that've begun and developed from there?" I only wish I also had Shevet's talent for story-plotting, but alas, I don't. It's easier for me to write about a story idea (or ideas) than it is to write the story itself.
(Decided to copy this message to the story folder on my PC. Might prove to be useful.)
I have to admit, I don't think it flows quite right for a Romulan, but, I guess that can on their experiences and influences... My Romulan character, Ael t'Kazanak, is a naturalised Federation citizen who has mostly Human friends, so doesn't behave like a typical Romulan. Maybe 'Doc' is a nickname that another member of the crew applied to Tovaz, which the Romulan uses as a kind of mockery between their racial history...
Very interesting thoughts... Due to the knowledge of the Borg, for that to be common knowledge, it realistically can't be earlier than mid-TNG... I'm interested to see where things go with it :cool:
Agreed. Btw, in the last story, I knew that the story would include the First Contact with the Romulans (originally done with Captain Archer's Enterprise), but alot of things happening in my offline life kept interfering. Self-confidence, never a strong point with me, collapsed. Being a shy introvert has its limitations.
I think I just might borrow that idea, if you don't mind. I was thinking that she wasn't entirely willing to be respectful toward a non-Romulan (especially a Vulcan). Perhaps she'd had a bad experience with Vulcans in the past. Maybe as a child, maybe on Vulcan or on Romulus. Lots of possibilities to brainstorm about.
And here I am, not a big fan of ST:TNG, writing about something that takes place during it. Talk about ironic. I liked the Borg-related episodes in TNG, including the movie "First Contact", but the rest of TNG didn't do much for me. Maybe too much Deanna Troi and Wesley to make me want to stick with it. I did enjoy Majel Roddenberry as Luxwana Troi, though. Q took time to grow on me. I preferred him on ST:V.
Took a few days to iron out chapter 2, and hopefully it doesn't have too many problems (a story with some problems is interesting; a story with too many tends to collapse). I'll post that next. The interaction between the narrator and another character in the library was hard to work out. Still might not be right the way it is. C'est la vie.
CHAPTER 2 --
Login: Chief Medical Officer Tovaz
Password: sutseahpeh
Welcome, Dr. Tovaz. Your last login was this morning at 0615. How may I help you?
I quietly said: "I am interested in any and all pre-Starfleet experiences of the liberated Borg named Four of Twelve."
One moment. Added to ship's crew after serving at Mercury Underground Base for one year, eight months, and three days. Assigned one week ago as assistant to Lieutenant K'Mara in the ship's experimental laboratory. Currently listed as deceased. Cause of death: transfer of Borg augmented visual technology to Lieutenant K'Mara.
"Continue."
"You really shouldn't do that," a male baritone voice said.
"Pause." I turned around. A tall Andorian stood there, antennae curving forward (which meant?), mouth a straight line, short white hair, dark blue skin, grey eyes, dressed in pale green shirt and black pants and boots. Stereotypical Andorian officer serving in Starfleet. And an unwelcome one. "Excuse me?"
"I said --" he began.
"I know what you said," I said, trying not to lose my temper. I hated sudden interruptions. "Is there a reason you're sticking your nose in my private business?"
"There might be," he said. "Mind if I sit down?" He whistled up a chair, sat down in it, and pointed at the terminal screen in front of me. "For instance, that isn't your login and password. Now you wouldn't want the head of security to ask why you're using it, would you?"
"How do you know it isn't mine?" I asked.
"You obviously aren't Doctor Tovaz," he replied.
"Fair enough," I said. "He gave me permission to use it."
"I suppose I don't have to tell you how many rules he's breaking by doing that," he said.
"You can probably cite them, chapter, verse, and footnote," I said.
He nodded. "Why don't we begin again, then?"
"What's your rank and name?" I asked.
His antennae were facing one another, almost touching. It was frustrating not knowing what his reactions meant in non-Andorian terms. "That's one way to do it. All right. I'm Commander Rez. And you are Lieutenant K'Mara."
Busted -- by the head of security himself. Put the best face on it you can, I told myself. You're probably going to end up in the brig anyway. Hopefully it wasn't an offense that called for court-martialing or execution.
I immediately sat at attention and saluted him. "My apologies for my irreverent comments, sir." I turned to the terminal. "Logoff."
"As you were," Rez said, his antennae curving forward again. "I'm not quite as fussy about formalities as the captain is. Why don't you log back on, and then tell me why you were interested in a deceased member of the crew?"
What other option did I have?
I logged back in as Doctor Tovaz, and turned back to face Rez. "Sir, I wanted to learn about the individual who gave their life so that I could see with both eyes again." I tapped the patch over what had been Four of Twelve's augmented eye.
"Since they were your assistant in the laboratory up until the explosion there a week ago, surely you knew something about them," Rez said. "And it's not absolutely necessary that you call me 'sir' each time."
The explosion. There was a blank where that memory should've been. Just as it was with Four of Twelve. As if it had never happened. Had the laboratory explosion been accidentally -- or intentionally -- suppressed as well? Doc hadn't said so. More that I needed to know.
Suppression of memories was a delicate process. If one wasn't careful enough, one could affect more than just one set of memories. Wait a minute. How did I know that? I wasn't a neurologist.
I made a face.
"Apparently not," Rez said. "Would you like a suggestion or two?"
"Sir -- sorry -- I'm confused as to why you would want to help me break rules," I said. "Shouldn't I be in the brig by now?"
"Normally, yes," he replied. "Do you want to know why you aren't?"
I nodded.
"Four of Twelve was a friend of mine," Rez explained.
" 'Borg, liberated or part of the Collective, do not make friends among non-Borg,' " I said. " 'Friendship is irrelevant.' "
His antennae curved even more towards me and his eyes narrowed, but not with anger. "I thought you were a Romulan."
"I am," I said. "What made you think I wasn't?"
Rez's left eyebrow rose a little, something that seemed more Vulcan than Andorian. "Back to Four of Twelve. When he began serving on this ship more than a year ago, he had no friends. His willingness to trust any of the crew, even the captain, was almost nonexistent." He touched the terminal screen, bringing up a brief biography. One paragraph. Three sentences. Sufficient. "I reached out to him, in the hopes that his non-Borg personality would reciprocate. It took longer than even I expected. No appreciable progress until roughly two weeks ago. It was as if he had to shed an extremely thick layer of skin to allow light -- any at all -- into himself. It was the same day that he was assigned to your laboratory. Remember what he said when you and he first met there?"
I shook my head, and then heard myself say: " 'I am Four of Twelve. I am your assistant. Please tell me what my duties will be.' " What in the world? It was as if I'd stored it away and, like a recording, played it back verbatim. What else was in there, waiting to be restored? But there was nothing in reply to my mental questions.
His antennae were wringing and lashing. His eyes looked puzzled. "But you shook your head."
I sighed. "You're the one who wanted to help me. Don't blame me if I don't react in a predictable manner."
"Predictable you definitely aren't," Rez said, shaking his head, his antennae facing one another until they almost touched. "If you had antennae like mine, at least I'd have a chance at trying to figure out what you're thinking and feeling."
"They're like facial expressions?" I asked.
He nodded. "I have no conscious control over them. I feel and think something, they express it."
"I wonder if Four of Twelve had been as puzzled by them as I am," I said. " 'Andorian antennae and Caitian tails serve much the same purpose, apparently. Involuntary expressions of subconscious thought and feeling.' "
"Since he discussed it with you, apparently it made some sense to him," Rez said.
"He didn't discuss it with me," I said. "We rarely spoke outside of the laboratory. When on-duty, we kept to work-related topics. At least he didn't have any antennae that I had have guessing games with." I looked at him. "You think that Doc might be interested in any of this? I'm due to see him tomorrow morning for testing."
His antennae faced one another, but not as closely as before. "If you haven't already, you'll pique his Vulcan curiosity at least as much as you've piqued mine."
"Anything else about Four of Twelve that we should share?" I asked. " 'Borg augmented visual technology cannot be removed from one individual and installed in another without the risk of permanent deactivation of both individuals. There have been very few instances of successful transfers of this kind, and because of this, it is not recommended. But if successful, the receiver of the transfer also may gain some or all memories of the source-Borg that provided the augmented vision technology. The neural cortex normally stores such memories, but in case of imminent deactivation, memories may be downloaded to the augmented vision technology for later retrieval and insertion into another Borg's neural cortex. Without the neural transceiver, however, connection with the hive mind is impossible.' "
Rez tapped his chest badge. "Doctor Tovaz? Rez here. Emergency. I think K'Mara and I need to come to your infirmary right now."
"Understood," Tovaz's voice calmly said. "I'll be waiting."
Rez tapped his chest badge again.
I looked at him. "I thought I wasn't supposed to go back to him until tomorrow at 0900."
"Change of plans," Rez said.
"But I feel fine," I said. "Are you feeling ill?"
He shook his head. He looked worried, but I couldn't figure out why.
"I need to finish my research," I said.
"That can wait," Rez said. "I'm ordering you to accompany me to the infirmary. Now."
I sighed. No sense in arguing with an Andorian, apparently. "Logoff." The terminal screen went dark. "Maybe I'll get some done some other time."
Doc was waiting for us in the infirmary. He didn't seem worried at all. It made me wonder if he ever spent any off-duty time anywhere else. Surely the head nurse could handle most things when he wasn't there. I seemed to recall that she was quite intelligent and competent.
I sat down on the same bed I'd been sitting on what felt like only minutes ago. The bed that had Four of Twelve's body on it was empty. I looked around for the freezer, but couldn't find it.
Doc came over to me, lifted the eye-patch, checked under it, then lowered the eye-patch. "Everything seems to be in order. Feeling all right, Lieutenant?"
I nodded. "I don't see any reason why I had to be brought back here. I was in the middle of doing research in the library. He interrupted me, and after we talked some, he insisted that I needed be here again."
"No unusual experiences?" Doc asked me.
I shook my head. "Sometimes it feels as if I'm recalling things that Four of Twelve must've told me. Otherwise, no."
Doc turned to Rez. "Then I don't quite understand the urgency, Commander."
"You didn't hear her speak," Rez said, his antennae wringing and lashing. "It didn't sound like her at all. It sounded like Four of Twelve."
"There will be a time period where the two have to adjust to coexisting with one another," Doc told him. "Her brain isn't used to Borg technology, and Four of Twelve's eye isn't used to her brain. I told you about this right after I told the captain. I believe you're overreacting, Commander."
Rez's left eyebrow rose. "I don't think so, Doctor."
"I'm aware that Andorians disapprove of biological manipulation and augmentation," Doc said. "One must be kept pure, or risk not only being exiled from Andoria, but being persona non grata among Andorians elsewhere in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants."
"And you think we don't have a sound basis for our position?" Rez asked. "If we seem myopic, I assure you that you Vulcans can be the same sometimes."
"But this has nothing to do with either of us," Doc said. "She is Romulan, and once the symbiotic adjustment is complete, she will be both Romulan and Borg. The first ever, I believe. This shouldn't be upsetting at all. You should be as excited and curious about it as I am. Why don't you get back to your job, and let me do my job. Surely you trust me that I can take care of my own patients?"
Rez sighed and nodded. He glanced at me, seemed about to say something, then changed his mind and left. His antennae were wringing and lashing more than they had before.
"You'd think a species with four genders would be more open-minded," Doc said, shaking his head.
"Four?" I said, surprised. "Not just two?"
"Four," he said. "Now, then. Since it's just the two of us: Are you sure that you don't feel as if the Borg part of the symbiosis is trying to dominate the adjustment?"
I shook my head. "You said that the suppressed memories were return in an unpredictable way. These are just memories I'm recalling, then. I just didn't know I had a phonographic ear. Is that a side-effect of the transfer?"
"I doubt it," Doc said. "One question: Why did Commander Rez involve himself in your research?"
"I was using your login and password," I said. "You gave me permission."
He nodded, looking puzzled. "But he knew why because I'd already told him. Most unusual."
" 'A Starfleet ship's Head of Security is trained to be suspicious,' " I said. " 'Anything out of the unusual should be investigated and resolved as soon as possible. Andorians who are employed in security are especially suspicious, however pleasant they might seem to be. Klingons, on the other hand, despite their aggressive tendencies, are less suspicious in comparison. Suggestion: Choose a Klingon to serve in Security rather than an Andorian.' "
Doc paused, then went over to the terminal in the corner roughly opposite the infirmary's entrance. "Lie down, Lieutenant."
"Then there is something wrong?" I asked, lying down on my back.
He came over to me, leaned over and removed the eye-patch. Suddenly, I could see him quite clearly, almost down to the skin-pore level. Above him, the ceiling seemed unusually textured, and the overhead light that Doc pulled down to shine in my face was painfully bright. Blinking more than usual didn't help.
"Could you dim the light?" I asked.
"Don't talk, and try not to blink," Doc said. "I need to see something inside the Borg eye."
As he reached down, I grabbed onto his hand and pulled it aside. He tried to free his hand, but failed. Had I always been this strong and just not known it?
"That won't be necessary, Doctor Tovaz," I said. "There is nothing wrong with me."
"And if I respectfully disagree?" he asked, his usual calm facial expression overlaid with what seemed to be a mixture of annoyance and anger. "I'm the doctor after all, and you're the patient. It's my job to make sure you're all right."
"There is no need to make any further adjustments," I said. "The testing scheduled for tomorrow morning also won't be necessary. The operation was a success." I paused. "Symbiosis complete. Assimilation commences." I released his hand. It didn't seem to be injured, but I saw him massage it. Vulcans apparently weren't as robust as I thought they were. Or perhaps this was one of the weaker ones.
I heard a commotion outside the infirmary. An intense disagreement between two individuals, by the sound of it. I turned to see who they were.
Rez entered, followed by the captain and several security officers. The security officers were holding their phaser assault rifles at the ready. Rez's antennae were wringing and lashing. He'd talked earlier about what his antennae did and now I seemed to be learning how to interpret it on my own. No matter how neutral his facial expression was right now, I knew what his real reaction was: more upset than confused. I was an anomaly onboard and he was less than happy to have to deal with it.
You should have left me alone in the library, Commander, I thought. This was none of your personal business. You already knew what had happened, as did the captain. But you couldn't leave it alone. So you intruded. And that caused me stress. Stress can be a biological catalyst, usually in a negative way -- but not this time. Whether you meant to or not, you helped encourage the symbiotic process within me toward an earlier completion. Good.
"I don't understand why you insisted on my coming with you, Commander Rez," the captain said. "Surely one Romulan can't be a threat to my entire ship. After all, the laboratory explosion did no damage outside the laboratory and there was only one casualty. The experiment can be restarted once the damage has been repaired and Lieutenant K'Mara is back on duty. There's nothing to worry about. If it were a Borg neural cortex, that would be different. As Doctor Tovaz's message said, this is simply the symbiosis of Borg visual augmentation technology and the Lieutenant's brain. If there was any danger, Tovaz would surely have warned us both." He looked at Doc for confirmation.
"Consider yourself warned, Captain," Doc said.
(written 11-16-2013, 11-17-2013, and 11-18-2013)
Something to remember, is that in a sense, Romulans are the True Vulcans -- They were the ones who chose to remain true to The Old Ways, rather than embrace Surak's new manifesto, and modern Romulan language, is developed from Old High Vulcan, rather than 'the common tongue'... K'Mara would definitely be aware of that cultural focal point. Also, her age can be explored considerably. If you've seen my LC entry Brothers in arms, there is a guest appearance by Tuvok in 2349, and a young female who in the current timeline, still only appears -- by Human standards -- to be in her twenties. There are certainly lots of possibilities to consider :cool:
Definitely some unspoken issues between Rez and K'Mara, it'll be interesting to see how things develop :cool
If I were an author who was better at building back-story and plotting, I wouldn't need to brainstorm quite so much (my late father never improvised creatively; when he composed music, he knew the goal he needed to reach; when he wrote stories, he knew each plot point he needed to reach; he found it difficult to improvise). And if you're surprised by the twists and turns, imagine what it's like when you're the first to read it as you type it, and you think: "Wow -- I had no idea that *that* was going to happen!" Which is when I sometimes have to go back to earlier text in the same chapter (or to an earlier chapter) and make changes. Other times, I get lucky and get an inkling of what's coming up. But as long as I'm asking myself: "Okay -- so what happens next?" I'm doing okay. Sometimes I just have to let a story gel for awhile, rather than try to force it along when it doesn't want to be forced.
The trouble I had was with Rez's Andorian antennae. I had to use Google to search for a website that listed about a dozen basic Andorian antennae movements and the emotions/thoughts they expressed. This may seem overly pedantic, but it felt right the first time I did it in Chapter 2, so I kept doing it. I wish the list had been longer, though, with alternate versions. I kept having to repeat the same wording when a reaction occurred again later in the chapter.
What will happen next between Rez and K'Mara is anyone's guess. (Rez only appeared in the story when I was thinking about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and wondered what if there were someone onboard the ship like Sherlock. Initially Rez seemed a bit too Sherlock-like, and was grateful that he's managed to develop into his own persona, rather than just being a Star Trek version of Sherlock.) I haven't brainstormed about it yet. But I figure when Chapter 3 is ready to be started, I'll be warned by hearing it in my head -- and usually when I'm doing something else and nowhere near the computer screen or a pen and paper.
And what sort of experiment caused the laboratory explosion? I don't know that either. But it'll come to me. I just have to be patient. Was it intentional on Four of Twelve's part, so that everything that happened afterward took place as it did? Something must be in the suppressed memories in K'Mara or Four of Twelve wouldn't have asked Tovaz to suppress them (even if it was only temporary). But they seem to've resurfaced much sooner than expected. Is that a good thing or not?
(More thinking-aloud notes to copy/paste to my PC here at home. I'm also saving what you've said that I think would be highly useful for background and where the story might go next, and that it was by you; I prefer to cite my sources. I just hope the combined notes files don't end up longer than the story itself.)
I think you handled the antenae fine, especially as K'Mara's memory has been compromised, so she may indeed have forgotten how to read Andorian body language. However, that also lends a nicely sinister air to Rez's behaviour, as he knows exactly who she is, and to behave thus toward a former colleague who has been incapacitated, seems more than a tad unkind, so it'll be interesting to see how they interacted before the explosion, and if this may be his way of getting back at K'Mara for some past transgression or insult against him on her part in the past :cool:
Oooo. I like the way you think. I'm copying this paragraph of yours into one of my story/notes files with your name as the source. I almost wish that we could collaborate on this story (but you're already deep into your new story). You have such neat-neat-neat perspectives on it. Digging into the pre-lab-explosion "history" of K'Mara, Rez, and Four of Twelve could be quite interesting. Was Rez jealous of K'Mara and Four of Twelve's friendship (the friendship which is professional in nature, not leading to anything more intimate)? Had Four of Twelve promised to work with Rez on some as-yet-unknown project, and then changed his mind, which Rez interpreted as betrayal? Did Four of Twelve know who was behind the lab explosion? Did K'Mara? Why suppress it, then? What does Tovaz know, that he isn't telling anyone? (Gives new meaning to the term "patient confidentiality", doesn't it?) So many questions to dig into, so little time.
You really make me want to get back to work on the story (I haven't even sketched out Chapter 3 yet, not even a paragraph or two). Thank you.
You are some catalyst, sir. Don't ever change. If I can ever return the favor with your own writings, I will. You'll just have to tear me away from Shevet's and Starswordc's stories first ... which might be a tad bit difficult to do, since I'm such a fan of their fan fiction.
I think the key to Rez's behaviour towards K'Mara is going to lie in the past before the explosion. It feels to me, like this situation has presented him the opportunity to try and slap K'Mara down, metaphorically speaking, which he might not have been able to do in the past, so to me, that suggests some kind of resentment... Andorians have pretty much nothing to do with non-Andorians socially, let alone romantically, so that suggests some kind of work-related issue... It just depends how far you want to go back... I'm always keen for feedback on my work, so any thoughts you may have are always welcome, and of course, I'll certainly look forward to part 3 when it presents itself to you :cool:
I did think just now that brainstorming with questions/sentences that begin with "What if ..." might be a good creativity/imagination trigger. And then try to answer some or all of them in story-form. I had no idea that there was an Andorian onboard K'Mara's ship ... until "What if there were a character like Sherlock Holmes" popped in, and then I had to find a name for the character (Rez was the only one that did anything for me, even though it's also a name in William Gibson's "Idoru" novel). Name-finding is the hardest part for me. I don't have encyclopedic knowledge when it comes to the STverse. I have to do lots of Google searches instead.
And if I could somehow add in the dry humor of Shevet's story "Fallout" (the relationship between Ronnie and Two of Twelve, for instance), then I'd really feel good about what I was writing. I don't like stories that are overly dark (or overly light, for that matter). I like a balance of dark and light, serious and funny, that sort of thing.
Ah, but I don't have a cellphone anymore. So I'm stuck in the Stone Age (bangbang ... chipchip ... bonk ... dang ... bipbip ... kuhbopbop ... that's better ... bangbangbang ... chip ... shoot ... wufwompwomp ... duhdeedeeboop ... whew ... bangbang ... chipchip). And that's just the first sentence. I get kind of tired if I make too many spelling errors. The flying chips from the spellchecker really hurt.
I can hardly imagine life without my phone now
CHAPTER 3 --
I wanted to laugh. It seemed so ridiculous. So absolutely absurd. "And you expect them to believe you?"
Doc looked calmly at me. "Why wouldn't they? I am the Chief Medical Officer, after all."
" 'The only one that can deem a captain incapable of doing their duties and remove them from their position,' " I said in the voice that wasn't mine. " 'The Chief Medical Officer must therefore be of such trustworthiness as to be above suspicion. Any hint of dishonesty --' "
"I am quite aware of the regulations regarding my presence on this ship," Doc interrupted curtly. He looked past me, at Rez, and nodded. "You know what to do."
My hands were grabbed roughly and pulled behind my back. Cuffs were placed around my hands, tightened to the point of intense discomfort.
"I've done nothing wrong," I protested angrily. "You've no right --"
"You are deemed a threat to this ship and every person serving aboard it," Rez said. "Do not attempt to escape or you will be rendered unconscious." He continued with the rules and regulations dealing with apprehension of dangerous suspects.
I narrowed my eyes at Doc. "I won't forget this."
"Unless you are forced to, that is," he said.
" 'Suppressed memories, unlike data stored in a computer network, still exist, however difficult it may be to access them at a later date,' " I said. "A court of law would demand such access."
"I am aware of that," Doc said. "Damaging or destroying evidence is still considered a crime, even in the 24th Century."
"Then what do you hope to accomplish by imprisoning me?" I asked, struggling but not too hard. Each struggle made the cuffs even tighter, their metal teeth digging into my wrists.
"You will be harmless while in the brig," he said. "Until such time as it is decided what to do with you."
"Maybe you should let the captain make that decision," I said. "He is the ultimate authority onboard this ship, after all."
Doc looked at the captain. The latter nodded.
"Take her to the brig, Rez," the captain said.
"Yes, sir," Rez said, and escorted me, none too gently, out of the infirmary, him on my left, the security escort on my right.
But we were still close enough that I could hear the captain ask Doc, "Was that absolutely necessary, Tovaz?"
Unfortunately, though, I didn't hear Doc's reply. We were out of earshot by then.
"If I were that dangerous, you should've done this when you saw me at the library terminal," I told Rez. "After all, there could be tricobalt bombs hidden on my body. Enough to destroy the entire ship. You should've searched me."
"Shut up, K'Mara," Rez said gruffly.
I snorted. "Don't tell me I've hurt your precious Andorian feelings." I tried to glance back at him. His face was blank, except for twitches of something that tried to break through and express itself. "No, I obviously haven't. Your antennae are calm."
"I said, shut up," Rez said, more gruffly, but also more quietly than before. We stopped, and he turned me around to face him. "You have no idea, really no idea, do you?"
"About what?" I asked angrily. "Illegal arrest, trumped-up charges. What was I supposed to know? I'm the one with the unknown past, somewhere back before my memories were all but locked away against my will. The unwilling receiver of a Borg visual implant." Whose laser was carefully inspecting both of his eyes as I spoke. "Shall I continue?"
"One moment." He turned to the security escort. "Dismissed."
They nodded and left.
Rez looked around us, saw something, and then roughly escorted me to a nearby doorway. It slid open and we entered someone's quarters. I had the feeling they weren't his or, for that matter, mine. Then again, I couldn't remember where mine were, much less what they looked like.
The room was mostly filled by a bed, night-table with a terminal on it, and a desk and chair opposite the bed. Whoever was berthed here, they were obsessed with neatness. Nothing out of place.
Rez undid the cuffs and threw them on the bed.
I rubbed my wrists to get the circulation flowing a bit more normally. "That was a dumb mistake. Now I'm free to attack you, and there's no one to help defend you. Unless, of course, there's some other way to immobilize me here. As head of security, you'd know that, wouldn't you?"
He looked like he wanted to smack me across the face, but resisted the urge.
I narrowed my eyes at him, but not in anger. Something wasn't quite right here. Just as it hadn't been in the library half an hour ago. First, he hadn't stopped me from using Doc's login and password. Then he'd forced me to return to the infirmary with him. And now we were here. What was going on?
"You know more about what's going on than I do, so how about letting the accused know what led up to your apprehending her?" I suggested.
"I wouldn't know where to begin, much less what I can tell you," Rez said.
"Why not start with the day of the explosion in my lab?" I suggested. "Which, I rather think, wasn't an accident. Or was it?"
He glanced at me, then shook his head.
"I didn't think so," I said. The more I spoke, the more the pieces of the puzzle came together. Not the entire puzzle, true, but much more than I'd been aware of when I'd woken up on the bed in the infirmary this morning. "I had to be injured enough to be taken directly to the infirmary. Preferably by someone who wouldn't be questioned while in transit. That would be you, sir. As impeccably above suspicion as Doc himself. Correct so far?"
Rez looked startled and nodded. Maybe he was surprised that a mere lieutenant had the mental ability to do what I was doing. And not just a lieutenant, but a Romulan one, not an Andorian like himself.
"You're risking your career by breaking Starfleet regulations the way you have," I went on. "The same is true for Doc and the captain. If this was reported to Starfleet, I can only imagine the punishment that would come down on the three of you. The loss of your rank would be miniscule in comparison. Those who knew would have to be silenced." I looked at him. "Memory suppression. Because it wasn't just the three of you. It was Four of Twelve also."
Again he nodded.
"I wonder," I went on, "what else there is that I don't know about yet. For instance, Doc seems to have quite a bit more authority than I thought a Chief Medical Officer usually had. Who is really in charge onboard this ship? The captain -- or Doc? I would guess, the latter. You shouldn't have tried to out-finesse a Romulan when it comes to dirty tricks and betrayal. We've had far more experience in it than all of Andoria, Earth, and Vulcan combined. Many centuries, in fact. Which makes me wonder, why bother at all? What did any of you stand to gain?" I waited. "Or do I have to be obvious and point it out to you?"
"Since you're so much more intelligent and devious, why don't you?" Rez suggested.
"If you insist," I said. "My presence onboard this ship, like that of Four of Twelve, wasn't coincidental. It was planned for. You needed a liberated Borg -- since a member of the Collective wouldn't have cooperated -- and you needed a willing victim who, if all went sour, was expendable. As an orphaned Romulan, what better choice was there? Unless, of course, this either reached the ears of Starfleet or those of the Star Empire --" I paused, seeing the expression on his face, and the way his antennae were twitching. "I see. As long as neither knew, neither could intervene in my favor. If I supposedly died in the line of duty, no one would suspect foul play. Just put a red shirt on me and it would seem quite natural."
"You came up with all this with almost no time whatsoever on that library terminal," he said. "May I ask how?"
"Eliminate the impossible, and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth," I said, feeling as if I were quoting someone, but didn't know who. "I may be naive in places, but definitely not stupid." I sighed. "Which brings us back to where this conversation began. Now what?"
"You haven't figured that out as well?" Rez asked, looking amused.
"Either I was to be actually incarcerated in the brig, or -- which seems more likely now -- I was to appear guilty," I replied. "But not to the three of you. So who needed to be deceived? Someone onboard or elsewhere? If I knew where we were headed, I might be able to make some educated guesses."
"Nukara Prime," he said.
"In the Neutral Zone," I said.
Rez nodded.
"Not the most pleasant of places for a meeting," I said.
"Who said there was going to be one?" he asked.
"Then you are going to get rid of me," I said and sighed. "I guess I shouldn't have been surprised."
"Hardly," Rez said. "After all, we've found an EV suit just the right size for you."
"EV suit," I said. That implied an environment hostile to the wearer. "How dangerous is Nukara Prime?"
"Quite," he said. "Non-indigenous life forms need protection from both its atmosphere and terrain."
"But what could survive there?" I asked. " 'The Tholians' homeworld was destroyed when its star destabilized and exploded.' " I stared at him. "They were experimenting with it?"
Rez nodded. "Its name and location are unknown. Perhaps to disguise their shame and guilt. A Tholian's facial expressions aren't exactly the easiest to decipher. The survivors, including just a few of the scientists, fled to the nearest similar world they could find: Nukara Prime. Even so, it required some terraforming before they could colonize it."
"How in the world did you learn all that?" I asked.
He smiled slightly.
"You interrogated one of them," I said.
"Close, but not quite," Rez said. "One of them defected from the Tholian Assembly. Escaped offworld and contacted Drozana Station from an undisclosed location, asking to speak to any Starfleet or Klingon Defense Force representative available. Discretion absolutely mandatory. As luck would have it, a Starfleet captain was on leave there. The Ferengi who received the Tholian's coded message passed it on to him."
"Our captain," I said.
He nodded. "And he passed it on."
"Not to Starfleet, apparently," I said. "Or this ship wouldn't be where it is."
"Section 31," Rez said. "Or, to be more specific --"
" 'Franklin Drake,' " I said. " 'Head of Starfleet Intelligence's Section 31. Known for both secrecy and unorthodox solutions to situations deemed too dangerous for public disclosure. Prior experience with Tholians during the Temporal Ambassador Incident.' "
"You've heard of him," he said.
I shook my head. "Just a name. I don't know when or where I first heard of him." I looked at him. "Is he going to be on Nukara Prime?"
Rez nodded. "He asked to meet with you."
"On an inhospitable planet populated with a species that harbors an intense dislike of all other species," I said. "Let's hope that the Tholian Assembly doesn't learn about our meeting."
"If the suppression of your memories had lasted longer, it would've been even more clandestine," he said.
"I can fake it, if you need me to," I offered.
"You might need to," Rez said.
"Would the Tholians believe it, though?" I asked.
"Like any ultimate war, nothing is actually known until it actually happens," he replied.
I sat down on the bed, needing something solid beneath me. Just because I'd figured this much out didn't mean that I was all that comforted by my role in it.
"But why did I need this?" I asked, pointing at the Borg visual implant. "I could've gone there without it." I paused. "Unless, of course, I'll need to use it there."
Rez whistled up the desk chair and sat in it. "Are all Romulans as insightful as you are? And as stubborn?"
I shrugged. "I wouldn't know. That part of my past hasn't resurfaced. Yet." I paused. " 'Empress Sela has expressed an interest in possible cooperation with the Borg Collective. She believes that both the Borg and the Star Empire might stand to gain a great deal from it. Especially from a technological standpoint. Any possibility of dangerous collateral damage has been deemed an acceptable risk. This information must be kept secret. Is that understood, K'Mara?' "
"I think we'd better plan for a visit from the Romulan Star Empire at Nukara Prime," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Call it a hunch," Rez said.
"Something I just said and can't remember, you mean," I said.
He nodded. "But it's there in your head. Not from Four of Twelve's past. From your own."
"I am dangerous, then," I said.
"In which case, I'll keep an eye on you," Rez said. "And there'll be others nearby. You should be safe enough."
"But will those around me be safe enough from me?" I asked.
"It's a chance that we'll have to take," he replied.
"Tell me," I said. "How far are we from Nukara Prime?"
"At warp 7 -- we should reach it tomorrow morning," Rez said.
No testing by Doc tomorrow, or perhaps that was just to distract me? If so, from something of greater importance. Whose results couldn't be predicted with certainty. And I'll be in the middle of it. Wonderful. Next time, remind me to pick a less dangerous career path. Something far away from Starfleet.
I looked up at him and sighed. "I guess you'd better put me in the brig until then."
"Wouldn't you rather spend tonight in freedom?" Rez asked.
"I'd rather not raise any suspicions prematurely," I said. "If someone comes looking for me, they need to find me where they expect to find me, not somewhere else."
"And who might that be?" he asked.
"If I knew, would it be safe enough to tell you?" I replied.
"Probably not," Rez said.
I held out my hands. He put the cuffs back on them.
"Thank you for trusting me," I said. "More than anyone else does."
"Andorians aren't xenophobic," Rez said. He hesitated, though.
"Were you once?" I asked.
He nodded. "A long time ago. It made diplomacy with other species a delicate matter, to put it mildly. One was an incident between us and the Vulcans. We were thought to be the villains, when it turned out to be them."
"And the other incident?" I asked.
"It had to do with a conference at Babel," Rez said. "A certain Captain James T. Kirk was present. Not our proudest moment, true, but not our worst, either."
We reached the brig and I was put in one of the cells. Once in it, the cuffs were removed again. This time hopefully for a good long while. My wrists still hurt from the first time.
"I'll be back at 0700," Rez told me. "Arrival at Nukara Prime will be about an hour later, or noon local time."
" 'Nukara Prime has a twenty-two hour day,' " I said. " 'Eleven hours of daylight and eleven hours of night-time. Gravity is slightly less than Earth's. Temperatures range from a daytime high of 300 degrees C or more, depending on location, to a nighttime low of 130 degrees C. No moons, thus no tidal forces. Fauna is crystalline. No data for any possibility of mining and refining. Only one ambulatory species known: the Tholians themselves, said to be diurnal, since none have yet been seen at night. The Collective continues to observe, sending probes to the surface. It has been decided that Borg drones will not be transported to the surface, as any attempt to assimilate Tholians has been singularly unsuccessful. Only one other species has also failed assimilation: the Undine.' "
He didn't comment, so I guess it wasn't anything terribly important. "Your evening meal will be brought to you in thirty-one minutes."
I nodded.
"Would you like any visitors?" Rez asked.
"Just one," I said. "You."
"Understood," he said, turned and left.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. Bed. More like a stone slab from an ancient dungeon. And about as comfortable.
Before I laid down, I decided to try one thing: to remember my parents. But nothing would come.
I sighed and shrugged.
" 'Parental units are unpredictable in their level of child-raising ability,' " I heard myself say. " 'The Borg does not understand the need for this, as information is disseminated to all parts of the Collective equally. Except for that which is available only to the Borg Queen. Such occurrences are rare, but not unique. Immature non-Borg are not recommended as additions to the Collective, though this is sometimes superceded by the Borg Queen herself.
" 'One such exception was Four of Twelve. This drone was assimilated at a very young age for the species it came from. Its adaptation within the Collective was lengthier and more difficult than that experienced during assimilation of mature non-Borg. Four of Twelve was eventually assigned to the surface of the first planet orbiting a yellow G-type star. During its residency here, Four of Twelve was disconnected from the Collective.' "
Maybe the drone got bored, I thought. The Collective certainly doesn't sound like the most exciting place to be in the universe.
" 'Excitement is irrelevant,' " I said.
So are you, whoever you are, I thought.
Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to nap until the evening meal came.
I slept more deeply than I expected to. And the dream I remembered was quite vivid. Were my past dreams so vivid? Possibly.
There was an unknown little boy playing in front of an unknown house on an unknown world. Nearby was a nighttime celebration of some sort. In the middle of it, unknown ships appeared in the sky. People ran this way and that, screaming. Some where shot by the ships and killed. Others found somewhere to hide. Homes burned. Not just homes, but non-residential buildings also burned. Two older people ran outside, picked me and brought me inside their home. I kept crying. They tried to comfort me. Several metallic humanoids appeared around us. One of them took me from the female person, while another shot her and the other, male person. Both were killed. Next thing I knew, I wasn't in that house anymore or on that world. I was in the middle of a group of metallic humanoids, like the ones that had appeared in the house. And I found that I looked like a smaller version of them. Then they backed away, parting as a tall hairless woman approached me.
"This is the Borg Collective," she said. "You are Four of Twelve."
Since I couldn't remember any other name, I said, "I am Four of Twelve."
"You will serve under Ten of Nineteen, Fifth Adjunct to Unimatrix Zero Three Three," she said.
"Understood," I said.
One of the Borg drones approached. "I am Ten of Nineteen. Come with me."
And I did.
Since I was still so immature, there was little work that I could do. But as time passed, I grew in size, maturity, and ability. Until eventually I could work as well as Ten of Nineteen, and one day even better.
That day, I was chosen to be assigned to an underground base on a small planet called Mercury by its inhabitants. The Borg database informed me that the nearby star was called Sol. Mercury's colonists had come from another planet, the third out from Sol. This planet was called Earth. There was much information in the Borg database about Earth, and especially one group of its inhabitants, called Starfleet. But I was instructed to focus my attentions on Mercury and its colonists, and I did so.
As I became more and more familiar with that which I was observing (and noting that I was repeatedly ignored for reasons that I did not understand), I only gradually noticed my disconnection from the Collective. Until one day, I found myself alone, wondering why I had been abandoned. Surely I had not failed the Collective in some unknown way? There must be some way to return to it, to rejoin it.
One day, a starship filled with many different species arrived at Mercury, and some of its crew were sent down to the underground base. Somehow they knew that I was there. And they wished me to join their ship's crew. With so many others to choose from, I did not understand why only I was chosen. But, if it proved to be useful towards returning to the Collective, I should accept the offer of service with them. And I did so.
Unlike those on Mercury, I found that I was at least marginally accepted. I was assigned what was called a laboratory, to serve under a person called K'Mara. I did so, and we seemed to work well together.
But I was not permitted to work continuously day and night. I was instructed to take time off, not work, and I did not know what to do with this time.
While experimenting with different activities aboard the ship, I met an Andorian named Rez. Who attempted, more than any other had, to be more than slightly acquainted with me. At first, I resisted it, wishing to remain as much Borg as possible. But, like my gradual disconnection from the Collective on Mercury, I found that his preference to my company produced a feeling of comfort and calm inside me. As if I had rejoined the Collective, only I hadn't. This alien concept was called friendship. Why it did not exist within the Collective, I didn't know. Perhaps there was no need for it there.
My work in the laboratory and my friendship with Rez progressed in equal amounts. I found that I enjoyed my time both while working and while with Rez. When the time came, I would report it to the Borg Queen. This could only be seen as a beneficial addition to the Collective. How could it possibly be interpreted otherwise?
But one day things went terribly wrong. There was an explosion, and K'Mara lay on the floor. She did not move. I tried to resuscitate her, and failed. I picked her up, and carried her to the infirmary. The doctor was there. I explained what had happened and he agreed to help her recover from her injuries. But there was one problem: her left eye had been damaged to the point of uselessness. Without it, she would likely cease to exist. I offered my left Borg visual implant, even though it meant that I would cease to exist in the process. There was one condition however, I stipulated: If the transplant operation was a success, any memories of me would be suppressed. I did not wish to be remembered, since I would no longer have any opportunity to rejoin the Collective. The condition was accepted by the doctor. However, I did not inform him that my memories would be transferred to my Borg visual implant. This did not seem important, since such memories could not be accessed by the person receiving the implant. During the operation, my consciousness receded into darkness. An experience that non-Borg call death. Only I did not die.
There was a banging sound, interrupting the dream. I wanted the dream to continue, but it faded abruptly, and I was forced to awaken.
"All right, all right," I said, annoyed. "I'm awake."
I sat upright, rubbing my right eye. The laser from the Borg implant was aimed at the face of an unknown crewmember. Male. Tall. Security, but low-ranking. Trying to hide his nervousness.
"Your evening meal," an unknown male crewmember said. "Nothing fancy."
"A prisoner would hardly expect homeworld cuisine," I said. "Especially one from as far away as Romulus."
He showed me a tray with plates of food on it, some vegetables, a few fruits, a piece of meat, and a glass of clear faintly golden liquid.
As I looked at it, I remembered that I'd only requested Rez's presence. Perhaps that had been refused since I was incarcerated. Or maybe he was just busy and had sent this crewmember in his stead. Either way, I wasn't happy about it.
None of the tray's contents looked familiar to me. "What is all this?"
He told me, pointing at each item. "Haven't you heard of these before?"
I shook my head. "But a prisoner eats what's given them or starves. I'd rather not starve."
He handed me the tray through the slot designed for such things.
I noticed he was staring at me. Mostly at my left visual implant. "Is there something wrong?"
"Are you a liberated Borg?" he asked.
I shook my head. "It was recently transferred to me from a Borg. It saved my life." Since he refused to stop staring, I said, "Please inform the head of security that I wish to speak with him." Whether I was rude about it or not didn't matter at the moment.
He nodded.
"And one more thing: what is your name, rank, and species?" I asked.
He hesitated. As he did so, the laser from my Borg implant scanned his eyes. One blink, and I had a scan of his retina.
"So that I can thank the head of security for your assistance," I clarified.
"Ensign Shaal, Bajoran," he said.
"Thank you," I said. "You may go."
He turned and left.
I ate while I waited. It wasn't exactly tasty, but it was edible and therefore satisfactory.
Rez arrived as I finished my meal. "Is there a problem, K'Mara?"
I sighed. "Thank you for the food."
He looked puzzled at the tray on my lap. "But I hadn't ordered any for you yet. I was about to. Who brought it to you?"
"Ensign Shaal," I said.
"One moment," Rez said, taking out a small tablet from his pants pocket. He entered a query. "There is no record of any such crewmember. You're certain that was his name?"
I nodded. "He didn't want to give it, but I said that I needed it as a reference when I thanked you for his assistance. He also said he was Bajoran."
Rez made a face. "I warned the captain that security procedures had to be tightened."
"You think they beamed aboard from a nearby ship?" I asked.
"More likely they came aboard when Four of Twelve did," he replied. "It would've been the best chance to do it. Especially since Mercury was the last time we had a stopover. I remember that it was busier than usual at the Underground Base's transit station. Mostly from Earth. Some returning from offworld vacations, others leaving on it. Transports between surface and orbit were quite full."
"How could you track them down?" I asked. Then the Borg implant's laser focused on a set of fingerprints on the edge of the tray. I showed them to him.
"This should help," Rez said.
"I also got a retinal scan," I said. "Processing now."
"And?" he asked.
"Matches known Bajoran visual parameters," I said.
"I'd like to download the results," Rez said. "If I may."
"I'm a prisoner," I said. "You don't need my permission."
"Still," he said.
"Granted," I said.
A few seconds later, he had the results on his tablet. It wasn't even that uncomfortable. But I wasn't sure that I ever wanted to experience it again. Once was enough.
"Thank you," Rez said. "I'll send these to Starfleet Intelligence. Hopefully I'll get a response by morning, ship's time."
"I wonder, though: why would the ensign need contact with me?" I asked.
"To verify your identity," he replied. "Someone needed to know you were onboard. Someone who wasn't a member of the crew."
"But I'm listed in the ship's database," I said. Paused. "Oh. Someone who couldn't access it without it being noticed and reported to you. Someone who might still be onboard."
"I checked for any missing escape pods," Rez said. "None. And both shuttles are accounted for in the shuttle bay."
"Look for any missing EV suits," I suggested. "And any missing transwarp communications equipment."
He glanced at me and nodded. "I'll also check with the comms officer on the bridge." He waited.
"Anything else I can help with?" I asked.
"If all goes well, I'm going to recommend your transfer to Security," Rez said. "I could use someone like you."
"More than you already have?" I asked, amused.
"Much more," he replied. "And by the way, I'll be the only one to contact you tomorrow morning. No substitutes."
"Good," I said. "I prefer dealing with the real thing."
Rez smiled a little. "Here. Let me take that tray."
I gave it to him.
With that, he nodded at me and left.
But what he didn't take was the comm badge that had been attached to the underside of the tray. I tapped it and it chirped.
"Ensign Shaal here," a male voice said quietly.
"This is Lieutenant K'Mara," I said, also quietly. "We need to make a deal -- or I report your location onboard to the head of security."
"What sort of deal do you propose, ma'am?" he asked.
(written 12-19-2013, 12-20-2013, 12-22-2013, and 12-24-2013)
What I'm really curious about is: how is all this going to snowball into a place where snowballs can't exist (Nukara Prime)? Wish I knew so I could gloat about having foreknowledge about it ... but no such luck. My creative crystal ball only haphazardly works. No amount of fussing and ranting and raving at it will cause it give up its secrets prematurely.
I used to say that improvisation was like either jumping down stairs in the dark (and trusting that the stair you need to land on will be there when you need it to be) or bungeejumping off of a bridge, trusting that the rope won't break at its farthest stretch from the bridge. A little scary sometimes, but it does inspire creativity in ways one could not even begin to predict beforehand. So continue to jump into the unknown I will.
And absolutely so... I'm trying to piece together the final chapter of the piece I've been posting, which was intended to be a novel manuscript (or at least, an initial draft of one) I got stuck at this point when I was first writing it, but, my entries on the LCs has given me a better insight into the characters than I had at the time, and I'm gradually getting the details out of them (but talk about pulling teeth...)
Something to be aware of, is that imprisoned Romulans are more likely than not to kill themselves... I assume that K'Mara has no urge to do this, as her going into the cell was her cooperation with Rez, rather than outright incarceration, but it's definitely something to be mindful of for how confinement may affect her Romulan psychology.
Not saying that Shaal *isn't* Drake. Outside of "Temporal Ambassador", though, how often does he travel away from Earth? If he did, it would have to be for a fairly important (and clandestine) reason. Hmm. Maybe it is him. After all, he's supposed to be at that meeting with K'Mara, according to Rez. But why disguise himself as Shaal prior to the meeting? She's going to meet him anyway. I'm thinking Shaal (if it's someone disguised as him) must be someone else. I was thinking more likely he's actually a Vulcan (and one who's opposed to Tovaz's plans), and a good actor. Problem, though: ears. K'Mara should've noticed them right off ... but she didn't say anything. I'm thinking she's a bit on the devious side. Just a bit.
Thanks for the Bajoran/spiritual info. Forgot about that (haven't seen "Deep Space Nine" in awhile). I was thinking more in terms of the freedom fighter/terrorist Bajoran that was at DS9 for one episode. Not all of them are *just* spiritual. But if that's later on than my story, I may have some editing to do on what I've already posted. Then again, seeing how religion and warfare have gone hand-in-hand in the last 2000 years at least here on Earth, it's possible that the same may happen from time to time on Bajor. The religious establishment on Bajor just might not be that willing to own up to it (except amongst themselves).
Sounds like you need a dentist to help you out creatively.
Didn't know this. Thanks for the info. Will keep it nearby. Then again, she might not be a pure-blooded Romulan, so the non-Romulan characteristics might be able to block out the suicidal-while-incarcerated tendencies (for instance, if she happens to be part-Vulcan and maybe part-human). I tend to avoid pure-blooded characters. I like the mixtures. They make characters more ... interesting.
Another curious thing in the story (to me anyway): Tholian defecting from the Assembly. Why? Is it like that one Voth scientist contacting the UFP/KDF to report on what's happening among the Voth scientific community? Or is the defecting Tholian on the run, trying to stay alive, trying to stay away from Tholians sent to hunt them down (and either kill them or capture them and bring them back to the Assembly). What sort of information would a defecting Tholian be able to share that Section 31 might find ... useful? That meeting on Nukara might end up being more than just two-sided. It might end up three- or four-sided as well, and make the "Babel" episode from ST:TOS seem simple in comparison.
I'm going to have to keep a copy of this message in my story file folder on my computer. Good brainstorming material.
Passable surgical modifications have been seen in-Universe since Kirk's days
Certainly possible, there was shown to be a Pah-Wraith cult, rather than the conventional belief of following the Prophets. I think that while there were indeed the freedom fighter/terrorist types, they were a reaction to the Cardassian occupation. Although, I suppose there had to be some folks already like that prior to the occupation, who were able to form the early resistance cells and teach the others how to fight back...
I'm getting there, but it's been slow progress...
I forget which source I saw that in, but it stuck in my mind that the shame of being captured would drive the majority of Romulans to suicide, although as mentioned, K'Mara accepted/chose to be put in the cell, so she would be aware that she is not a true Captive.
I'm somewhat similar, in that I will do a 'fusion' character (such as my Human-eases Cardassian engineer) if they come to me, but I don't aim for mixed characters intentionally.
That's what I'm looking forward to finding out :cool:
Good points. You've definitely seen more ST than I have ... and more of the post-ST:TOS shows. Thinking of Franklin Drake as something like Odo would make the former more able to sneak into places where he might not otherwise be welcomed into. Kind of like a commonly ignored panhandler happening to be near important meetings (borrowed from "The Man With the Crooked Lip" from Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century).
"Oh no, you're a changeling!"
"I don't know who this Ono is. My name is Odo."
I get the feeling I need to lurk more deeply into the Memory Alpha and STO Wiki websites than I have been. Or, I could have you shapechange and do the lurking there for me.
Since she's not *consciously* aware of Romulans' shame in being captures (which may not be genetic, but socially conditioned from childhood by their Romulan peers and elders), she wouldn't know about it ... yet.
I guess I prefer mixed-genetic/heritage characters because of my own real-life ancestry: British, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish. With possible but as of yet unproven: French (protestant), Swiss, and Cherokee. Or as someone once said: "Mutt."
My initial thought, was that Drake was actually a series of clones, like the Vorta, but since Sander wrote him as a Changeling who had abandoned the Great Link, I don't think of him as anything else
My earliest memory is watching Star Trek, and I grew up wanting Kirk's job -- not to be Captain Kirk, but to do what he did.
I agree with you 100% there, a person's perspective certainly changes their perception of an organisation. I always got the feeling that the recent Bajorans were very much 'made what they were by the Cardassian occupation, but there must have been some elements in their society to begin with, or they would have had no hope of forming the resistance...
That would make sense :cool:
I have something of a mixed ancestry myself, but I've never consciously developed characters based on that :cool:
Hmm. I was going by the fact that Drake was just human (nothing fancy physiology-wise). Clone or changeling presents some interesting possibilities. Changeling clones, perhaps? Or would that overpower the story? Probably. I'll have to brainstorm and see what's doable without ruining things.
Not me. I just liked watching him in each episode (until I got to Star Trek V, and found that his ego had exceeded his acting -- and directing -- abilities; thankfully he seemed back to normal in Star Trek VI (and he didn't seem to mind the teasing/ribbing that he got on Rura Penthe, when the girl gravitated to him, but not his fellow inmates from the Enterprise). My favorite character was and still is Spock.
Bajorans sound like the occupied countries of Europe during WW2. Sadly overly submissive to the German occupation forces ... until you learned about the Resistance in France and the partisans elsewhere in Europe. Then you knew that not everyone had given up hope that they'd be liberated by the Allies someday. No matter how nasty the occupiers may be, there will always be pockets of resistance. Which also goes for those who don't fit in in American grade schools and colleges ... we may be looked down upon, brow-beaten, bullied, teased, etc., but if we're strong enough on the inside, we'll survive somehow. I should know. I was one of those on the receiving end of negative opinions/actions.
On Chapter 4 (currently being drafted): I've tried to keep our conversations here at this website handy and they've helped quite a bit (hoping they've helped you too; I'd hate to be the only beneficiary of them). I've also gone back to STO Wiki and Memory Alpha to make sure my info isn't too far off-base. I don't mind being a little different from the canonical STverse, but too much and I lose interest. It isn't my own universe I'm creating a story in, after all; it's Roddenberry's foremost and the other ST writers' universe. I'm just grateful that I'm allowed to play in their sandbox from time to time.
CHAPTER 4 --
I was awake and sitting up on my uncomfortable cot before Rez returned to the brig the next morning.
"Good morning, K'Mara," he said. "Slept well?"
I shrugged. "I would've slept better if I'd been a stone pillow. Incarceration doesn't suit me."
"Nor any of your species, from what I recall," Rez said. "Like the ancient Japanese, who preferred death to both dishonor and captivity. Though it's been hypothesized that it was mainly limited to the Samurai warrior caste."
Whoever they were.
"I take it that you received the information you requested from Starfleet Intelligence?" I asked.
Rez nodded. "It didn't elucidate any further than what you and I had already concluded. There is no Shaal in Starfleet or elsewhere in the Federation."
"Yet there's one onboard this ship," I said. "If he was telling the truth, that is."
"Which we won't know until he's been found and questioned," he said.
Shaal was playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. He'd admitted to me yesterday that he'd been assigned to this ship by Franklin Drake. He'd embarked at Mercury Underground Base under the aegis of the captain himself. With most of the attention on Four of Twelve, few eyes would've thought to look around and wonder what a Bajoran was doing on Mercury -- and why that Bajoran would've been added to an already-full crew roster of a visiting Federation starship.
"I don't suppose a Bajoran's presence would've raised any flags," I said.
"Not within the Federation," Rez said. "Though they are less common in Sirius Sector than they are in Beta Ursae." He paused. "Which is where the real Shaal died."
"Died?" I repeated. "But that's impossible."
"Died," he said most definitely. "A century ago. On Bajor. The imposter posing as Shaal likely used some sort of surgical modification. Enough to deceive the security scanners that every Federation ship uses to check each and every individual arriving and departing from them."
"Is such modification illegal?" I asked.
"Depends on who did the operation," Rez replied. "Records, even on computer networks, can be forged well enough to appear legitimate."
"But someone must've escorted them onto this ship, someone whose authority couldn't be questioned," I protested. "That leaves either the captain or Tavoz."
"If only we could ask," he said. "But we can't let them know that we know. Careful observation will have to do for the time being. Until we have enough facts to support our hypothesis."
Especially since any claim that the captain had done something against regulations had to be as ironclad as possible. If such a claim turned out to be wrong, the one making the claim could end up in a place worse than this brig -- and for a very long time.
"Before we beam down, could I have something to eat?" I asked as I stood.
"You'll have to wait until we beam down to Nukara," he said. "There should be non-Tholian refreshments at the base there."
"Let's hope you're right," I said. I noticed his antennae seemed a bit agitated. Something bothering him. "What else happened overnight?"
"Franklin Drake was reported killed by an unknown assailant," Rez said.
I tried not to stare. "Inside Starfleet Intelligence?"
He shook his head. "At Earth Space Dock. He'd just met with Admiral Elias and was on his way to the transporters. Someone attacked him from behind. His security escort was knocked aside with ease. Which, considering how muscular they were, was quite a feat. One of them managed to fire his phaser at the assailant, but missed. Resuscitation was useless. Drake was definitely dead. ESD's Chief Medical Officer is currently performing an autopsy to determine cause of death."
"Then the meeting has to be canceled," I said. "I can't meet with a dead man."
"He made a vid recording prior to his murder," Rez said.
"Which I can interact with?" I asked.
"To a limited extent," he replied. "He will speak and then wait for questions. When one is asked, the recording is searched for the pertinent information to answer it. Almost like having a normal conversation."
Not quite. "What if the information isn't there?" I asked.
"The question will be relayed back to Section 31 via transwarp communications," Rez replied. "There shouldn't be too much of a delay. Perhaps a few minutes at most."
"And the Tholian defector?" I asked. "They can't be there in-person." I paused. "Or can they?"
"Of course not," he said. "An encrypted vid link will be set up by the time we beam down to Nukara."
"The Tholians won't like that," I said. "They'll be suspicious."
"They won't be there," Rez said. "We have been granted this meeting on what is nominally neutral territory. As long as we behave and say nothing that could get back to the Assembly, it should be safe enough. Emergency beam-out will be available, but hopefully not necessary."
"Sounds like you've planned for almost everything," I said.
"Except for the unexpected," he said.
"Which would be?" I prompted.
"If we knew, we would be able to plan for it," Rez said. "You don't think that Starfleet is omniscient, do you?"
"Sometimes it does seem to be," I said.
"The same could be said for you, K'Mara," he said. His chest badge chirped. He tapped. "Rez here."
"Report to transporter room three," the captain's voice said. "Our hosts have given us a limited time on Nukara. One hour."
"Insufficient, sir," Rez said.
"One hour," the captain repeated. "Don't waste any of it."
Rez sighed. "Yes, sir." And tapped his chest badge. "Complications."
"You did say that you couldn't foresee the unexpected," I said. "I wonder what other ones there will be."
"None, hopefully," he said. He took out the cuffs. "Only temporary."
"I thought you trusted me," I said, looking from them to him.
"I do," Rez said.
"I knew this wouldn't be easy," I said with a sigh, and held out my hands. "Keep any sharp implements and power weapons away from me. I'm Romulan. I might turn suicidal."
He smiled slightly as he cuffed me. "Not you. I know you better than that."
"Wish I did," I said.
"You will," Rez said. "If Tavoz is correct about the recovery of your suppressed memories."
"Unless he's lying," I said. "In which case, some or most might be gone for good."
"Organic memories cannot be destroyed, unlike data in a computer network," he said. "We just think we've forgotten something. But it's still there. Just not easily accessed."
"I hope you're right," I said. "It's frustrating having a past that's still mostly hidden from me."
Cuffed, he escorted me from the brig to transport room three. The EV suit was already there, waiting for me.
As promised, the EV suit fit me quite well. Definitely designed for female anatomy. It felt odd looking out of the visor covering my face, but at least I knew that it would do its best to protect me from Nukara's atmosphere and terrain. Without it, my lungs would be poisoned and the rest of me would be burnt to a crisp in seconds. I was shown how to activate it and told to do so before we beamed down. I was also informed that the meeting area at the base for non-Tholians had no chamber with air-locks to keep out Nukara's environment. EV suits would have to be worn at all times.
We beamed down, arriving in a plaza-like area, with several tent-like structures scattered about it. I was escorted to one of them, and entered it between a pair of thick doors. The interior was sparse. Just a table, two terminals with one individual vid link each at its center, several chairs, and a portable replicator in off to one side.
I sat down in one chair, with Rez sitting next to me. The security escort remained at the entrance, weapons holstered on their backs. The cuffs were removed, but I kept my hands below the table. Just in case.
The terminal on the left lit up. There was a pause due to encryption, and then a red quartz-like arachnoid about the size of this table appeared on its screen, giving off what looked like clouds of superheated steam. This, then, must be a Tholian. Its two small yellow eyes took some getting used to and the fact that it had no facial expressions I could interpret.
"Greetings," it said, the terminal's auto-translator converting Tholian into Standard. "I am grateful that you have come so soon. You may call me Tsalene."
"I am K'Mara," I said.
"And I am Rez," Rez said. "We are waiting for one more participant."
The second terminal's screen lit up, encryption interrupted as on the first terminal, and then a male human's face appeared on it. This then must be Franklin Drake when he was still alive. He didn't seem much older than Rez was, but he might've used both rejuv and plastic surgery to keep his appearance younger than his chronological age.
"Greetings to all," Drake said. "I trust we are all present." He paused. "Good." On-screen, he walked around his desk and over to a nearby screen that took up most of the wall it was on. His fingers touched one area and the entire screen lit up. "It has only been a month since the signing of the Typhon Pact between the Tholians and the Gorn, the Breen, the Tzenkethi, the Kinshaya, and the Romulan Star Empire."
This was news to me. Of course.
"This was created to take advantage of the weakened state of the Klingon Empire and United Federation of Planets after repeated attacks by the Borg," Drake went on. "Section 31 learned of this from Tsalene, a defector from the Tholian Assembly." The touch of his fingers on the wall screen brought up an interconnected squares filled with information that I couldn't read from where I sat. Then the vid increased in size, ignoring Drake as it did so. "Infiltration of the Assembly has been impossible -- until now."
Tsalene spoke, and it was obvious they weren't too happy about what Drake had said. "I have no desire to return there. Any suggestion to the contrary is nonnegotiable."
"Since it would be far too dangerous for Tsalene to do so," Drake continued, as if he'd expected this sort of response, "a holo-projector has been developed, designed and built to make a non-Tholian appear to be a Tholian." He went back to his desk, and tapped on its top surface. A small flat box appeared, a grid of buttons covering its own top surface. "This has been tested and the risk of discovery by actual Tholians has been deemed to be acceptable." He pressed a series of buttons. His human body vanished, to be replaced by that of a Tholian. Then one of his legs pressed another series of buttons and his human body reappeared. "This is only a prototype, however. The only one of its kind. It cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands."
Those being the Tholians'. Who had no hands to speak of.
"There is a cave entrance into the nearby Tholian underground complex," Drake went on. "The fake Tholian must activate the holo-projector before going inside." He looked at where he thought Rez must be. "I cannot stress how much caution must be taken in this operation, Rez. You may opt out if you wish, but I'd rather you didn't, since we have few other options to replace you and they may fail where you have the best chance to succeed."
"I understand," Rez said.
"Good," Drake said. "K'Mara will accompany you as your prisoner. As I learned in the Temporal Ambassador Incident, Tholians are least suspicious when their numbers are superior to those of non-Tholians. They may ask about K'Mara, but I see no reason why they would. They will, however, expect you to take her to the prisoner holding cells on the lower level."
Tsalene again expressed their unhappiness: "One Tholian with a non-Tholian prisoner would still seem unusual. Two Tholians would be more likely to be ignored. It appears that I will have to accompany you after all. Much against my better instincts. I should have stayed from you humans. You will risk much with little thought to the consequences to those involved, whether they are also human or Tholian like myself."
"It's possible that Tsalene will disagree with this plan," Drake said.
"Indeed I do," the Tholian said. "But it is possible that not undertaking this operation might be the worse of the two options."
"In which case, Tsalene is welcome to join you," Drake went on. "In fact, I was hoping to make this suggestion in-person. Hopefully I will be able to, if all goes well."
His terminal screen dissolved into static. Then cleared, then turned dark. I got the feeling that someone had taken an interest in our little meeting. Someone who was a member of the Assembly. This neutral ground wasn't going to stay neutral for long. But why hadn't Tsalene's also gone dark?
Perhaps the Assembly had hoped that we would be foolish enough to reveal what we were up to. The encryption would probably have tipped them off. It had taken them this long to break through it.
Rez tapped his chest badge. "Granville, this is away team. Do you read me?"
No answer.
He turned to Tsalene's terminal. "Disconnect. I repeat, disconnect. Immediately."
The Tholian refused.
The tent's doors opened a little. One of the security escort's ducked her head inside. At least I think it was a female. Hard to tell with an EV suit on. "You'd both better come out here," they told us.
The Tholian Assembly had sent a force to attack and subdue us. There didn't seem to be any other possible answer.
Rez and I stood and hurried over to the doorway.
It wasn't the Tholians. It was Romulans like myself, in EV suits, but with the Romulan Star Empire patch on their shoulders.
They didn't seem overly pleased to see Rez. Their leader, a male with short white hair in what must be a typical Romulan hairstyle, turned from him to me.
He spoke in Romulan, not Standard. "I am U'lal. You'd best come with us. A squadron of Tholian ships has just arrived at Nukara Prime and gone into orbit. Their weapons are aimed at its surface."
I went back to the table and grabbed Tsalene's terminal. "Still there?" I asked.
"Yes," the Tholian said. "Who has arrived?"
"Both the Romulan Star Empire and ships from the Tholian Assembly," I said.
"Who hate each other with a vengeance," Tsalene said. "Perhaps there's a chance we'll be able to escape."
"We?" I repeated, startled. Rez was gesturing urgently to me. I gestured back that I wasn't ready to exit with him yet. "Are you somewhere nearby?"
A Tholian beamed down inside the tent. "Near enough. However, this has not gone as I'd expected it to," Tsalene's voice came from the terminal. A metallic scraping that might've been a sigh. "The cave may be the only safe place to go."
"Safer than here?" I asked.
"Much safer," Tsalene replied.
I sighed. "Wonderful." Tsalene and I joined Rez, who looked like I must've lost my mind. Nope. Just most of my memories.
"Is this --" Rez asked me and I nodded.
"We must beam up now," U'lal said. "If we stay here any longer we will all die."
"But leaving Nukara this way would be suicidal," I explained in Standard to Rez and the Romulans. "Tsalene suggests that it would temporarily be safer to go to the cave nearby."
"Impossible," U'lal said.
"The Tholian ships will destroy yours," Tsalene's voice said from the terminal. "These are not lightly-armed ships. These are the most powerful in the Tholian fleet. They will destroy us where we are, but not if we go into the cave. We must go there immediately. Understood?"
Unwillingly, U'lal nodded. "We will accompany you."
"Good," Tsalene's voice said from the terminal. "Follow me." The Tholian headed straight for the cave as fast as their arachnid legs would go.
Well, Drake got the result he wanted. We were going into that cave. Just possibly not for the same reasons.
Just before we entered the cave, Rez activated the holo-projector, but its aimed encompassed more than just himself. We all now looked just like Tsalene. Hopefully it would deceive the real Tholians. But I was getting less and less certain of that. Being a prisoner back onboard the Granville suddenly seemed quite pleasant in comparison.
"We need the terminal's volume on, but not loud enough to get a Tholian's attention," I told Rez, turning its screen toward him.
"Allow me," he said after he hid the holo-projector in a pocket that didn't seem big enough for it. He touched the screen, entering commands I couldn't see. "That should do."
Now the volume was enough for me to hear it, but hopefully not anyone else. Like a loud whisper in the middle of a storm. Little comfort, but better than nothing.
Inside the cave wasn't much cooler than outside. Like stepping out of a roaring fire and into a pile of still-hot embers. Especially since there was a Tholian guard near the top of a stairway down to the second level of the caves (still outside the Tholians' underground base).
The guard said something.
"Halt," Tsalene whispered to me. "Identify yourselves and your purpose for being here." Tsalene provided false identities for us and a fake purpose, and I repeated them aloud as if they were the truth.
The guard said something.
"Permission to enter granted," Tsalene whispered to me.
Someone bumped up against me just then, and I noticed it was one of my security escorts. Then I looked at his face. It was Shaal.
He smiled slightly, put a vertical forefinger to his lips.
I nodded, not sure whether I felt better that he was there, fulfilling his part of our deal, or whether it made me even more nervous than ever.
We went past the Tholian guard and headed down the stairway. It abruptly ended at the start of a rough passageway which led still deeper into the system of caves on this side of the Tholians' complex. Then it opened into a large cave with a lift in front of us, and a doorway on either side.
"Now what?" I whispered to Tsalene.
"The lift," Tsalene's voice whispered back from the terminal. "I know how to operate it."
"I just hope it's as deceived as that Tholian guard was," I whispered.
"It's a literal-minded machine," Tsalene whispered. "It does what it's told, provided the command is allowed by the system."
"We're taking the lift," I quietly told Rez. "Tsalene will operate it for us."
He didn't look exactly thrilled by that, but he didn't argue. Just nodded once.
The lift doors opened and we stepped inside it. Tsalene pressed on the control console. The lift doors closed, and it quickly descended.
How much further down did we have to go? One level, apparently.
The lift doors opened again, and this time we looked out on a wide open rectangular area, with a long walkway perpendicular to us and stairs going down off to our left. Still, no one had stopped us yet. As long as the holo-projector worked and the terminal worked, we would be fine. The static interference that had affected Drake's terminal hadn't affected Tsalene's. It just seemed too good to be true.
A much larger Tholian climbed the stairs and turned towards us.
"Tholian commander," Tsalene whispered to me. "They aren't as dumb and easy to fool as ensigns are."
"Are there a lot of them?" I asked.
"No -- but more than the Tholian captains, who are ever more powerful," Tsalene whispered.
"Like a pyramid," I whispered.
"Correct," Tsalene whispered. "The Tholian Queen -- like in the Borg Collective -- rules over all."
"Can we fool a Tholian commander?" I asked.
"You can't, but let me try," Tsalene whispered.
We all watched as Tsalene approached the Tholian commander and spoke with them. The commander looked past Tsalene, at us, then back at Tsalene. It took longer than I expected, and then Tsalene returned.
"The commander has agreed to let us take the stairs down to the prison level," Tsalene told us. "However, they insisted on coming with us."
"They suspect something," I said quietly. "Otherwise, they wouldn't have insisted."
"Possibly, but refusing them would be even more suspicious," Tsalene said.
" 'Easy is the descent into hell'," I quoted from somewhere.
"Excuse me?" Tsalene asked.
"Never mind," I said.
The stairway wasn't wide enough to walk beside the Tholian commander, so they went first and we followed them down. Halfway down, the stairway turned left, still hugging the wall. As we descended, I could see the web-like cells in the middle of the floor below. Only one was unoccupied. There were two doors, one at the nearby corner, near the bottom of the stairs, and another on the opposite side, along the same wall. Both were guarded by what Tsalene called Tholian lieutenants.
Just when we thought we'd done it, the lieutenants opened fired. The Romulans, except U'lal, fell, turning back into their Romulan bodies as they did so. U'lal only escaped by retreating and putting the rest of us between him and the lieutenants. I could understand. Saving one's skin is one of the strongest instincts, no matter which species you come from.
Perhaps they'd known all along that most of us weren't real Tholians. Or they'd just wanted to reduce our numbers so that we were less of a threat. In any case, the lieutenants stayed where they were, but their weapons were still aimed at us -- but not at Tsalene.
The commander turned to Tsalene. I would almost swear the former bowed. But you don't bow to a defector. One that had to hide off-planet to stay alive. One that risked everything to return.
"They're welcoming me back to the Assembly," Tsalene said.
"Unlikely," Rez told Tsalene. "You're a defector; not a hero."
"That's what I told them," Tsalene said. "I expected to be executed on sight. But I've just learned that there's been a revolution here on Nukara in the last few hours. The old Queen and her supporters were killed. They were waiting to see if I would return to replace her."
"Replace her?" I asked. "But why?"
"Because I'm her eldest daughter," Tsalene replied. "Which means that I am the new Queen. Effective immediately."
"What happens to us?" U'lal asked her. "Do we become the food for your own children?"
"I could try to free you," Tsalene replied. "Send you back to the surface."
"Do so, then," U'lal said.
"But then they will kill me and the next-youngest female will become Queen," Tsalene said. "I cannot change the rules of the Assembly. I must abide by them."
U'lal pointed his disruptor rifle at her. "If we are to die, then I will take you with me. That is my choice which I will abide by."
Tsalene looked like she was stuck between a bad choice and worse one. She quickly spoke with the Tholian commander and an argument broke out. Each seemed ready to attack not just verbally, but physically as well. The lieutenants moved away from their doorways, their weapons moving from us to Tsalene and back again, as if not quite sure.
"I choose to abdicate," Tsalene announced. Then fired at the Tholian commander, who froze in what might've been surprise, and collapsed. Dead. She then turned to the lieutenants and fired, killing them. They hadn't time to react to what must've seemed like the last possible option open to her. Perhaps it had been the first time a potential Queen had refused to be one.
She hurried back to us. "Two revolutions in one day. Tholian history will never be the same. Come with me. There is only one way to escape. It's the way I used before."
Tholians were crowded the top of the stairway above us, rushing down it as fast as possible. Some were already firing at us. But they'd tried to all come down at once, and it was causing a jam, delaying their progress.
I didn't have much time for what I decided to do, but I chose to do it anyway.
I went to each of the prisoners. They looked up at me as if I were an impossible vision, one that denied the lost hope each felt within themselves.
"How do I free you?" I asked them.
"I don't trust Tholians," a female Ferengi said and turned her back on me.
"I'm not one," I said. "This is a holo-disguise. I'm a Romulan."
"Worse," the female Ferengi said.
I went to the next prisoner, a male human. "How do I free you?"
"I'll believe you're who you say you are," he said, "if you go over to that barrel behind you, up on the shelf there, and destroy it. The codes are inside. Destroy them and you free all four of us."
"You're a fool to trust her," the female Ferengi told him.
"It's a chance I'm willing to take," he retorted.
The female Ferengi just shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "It's your neck on the line, not mine."
I grabbed U'lal's rifle and fired at the barrel. It exploded. The walls of the web-like cells disappeared.
"You weren't lying," the female Ferengi told me.
"Not all Romulans can't be trusted," I said.
Then one of the Tholians on the stairs fired at her and she fell. She grabbed onto me, one last look at her liberator, and then she collapsed, dead.
The other three, including the male human, joined us. The shots were getting closer. Another prisoner fell, as did U'lal.
"This way," Tsalene called from one of the doorways, the one opposite the stairway. It bore the burn marks from the Tholians' shots.
We followed her through the doorway.
A short square-S-shaped hallway and then another room. There were three ensigns and two lieutenants in it. They didn't last long. And then we were through another doorway and into another short hallway. I would've been lost had I been here alone, but Tsalene hopefully knew where she was going.
I kept thinking we would eventually head upwards, back to the surface. But there must be more to this underground base than I thought there was. Maybe it grew larger, the further down you went. Like descending a pyramid from tip to base.
"How did you escape the last time?" I managed to ask with what little breath I had.
"Like this," Tsalene replied as we entered a large shuttle bay.
There were three shuttles. They looked like stretched-out triangles lying on their sides. She led us into the nearest one. As she did so, there were shots from the doorway behind us. The male human turned to try and block their shots. He fell. Then the rest of us were inside the shuttle, and Tsalene was already powering it up.
More shots hit the outside of the shuttle, but didn't break through its shields.
"Hold on," Tsalene said, and the shuttle rose, turned around, its bow now pointing where its aft had been. The roof above us slid open just enough to allow access to the shuttle. She aimed it at the narrow opening, just barely scraping through it.
Now we were in a wide, flat, and low area about half the size of the shuttle bay. There was an opening at its far end and the shuttle flew right at it. Then doors tried to slide shut, to prevent our exit. Tsalene fired a photon torpedo at it. Both doors exploded, pieces flying in all directions. The echo, if we'd been outside the shuttle, must've been deafening. The shuttle shot out of the opening and we found ourselves inside what looked like a dormant volcano, with the Nukaran sky high above us.
Tsalene aimed the shuttle straight up, and the floor of the cone dropped away precipitously. The mouth of the cone rushed towards us and then past.
So far so good. Hopefully.
But waiting high above the non-Tholian base, almost outside the atmosphere was a ship so large it made ours seem like a tiny insect in comparison. A Tholian Orb Weaver, according to Tsalene. Over 400 meters long. It turned towards us and fired its beam array as it increased its speed.
"I take it abdication is a rare occurrence in the Assembly," I told Tsalene.
She laughed, an awful sound coming from a Tholian. "Not just rare. Unique. And the penalty for refusal is death."
"But you escaped before," I said. And hadn't told us who you actually were before we went into the caves. I didn't say that aloud, though.
"The old Queen was still alive then," Tsalene said. "They need a new Queen. But they can't elect another one until the previous one dies or is killed. I'm still alive. And that infuriates them."
Beyond the Orb Weaver were more ships. Most were also Orb Weavers. But there were even larger ships, and few that Tsalene called Tarantulas, the largest in the Tholian fleet. But a group of smaller ships didn't approach us. Instead they were criss-crossing ahead and to our right, an orange mesh that grew and grew. Almost mesmerizing me as I watched.
"They're building a web," I realized, wondering where that information came from. My past, or from Four of Twelve's memories? "What happens if they complete it before we can escape them?" Especially since the shots being fired at us were getting far too close for comfort. Any one of them would probably do more than just damage us if it weren't for Tsalene's weaving the shuttle this way and that.
"You don't want to know," Tsalene said.
"But where are the Imperial Romulan ships?" I asked.
"What's left of them are over there," and Tsalene gestured ahead of us.
I saw them. Few and forlorn, adrift on the edge of the battle. Heavily damaged and surrounded by the wreckage of their other ships. And we were headed right towards them.
"I hope you know what you're doing," I said.
(written 12-24-2013)