Farenia thought it was a good time to pay Project 42 a visit now that almost all the repairs had been finished. Perhaps this entity could even help them out with a certain issue, though she didn't have her hopes up. Punching in her command codes, she opened the holodeck doors and entered, her breath catching at the rather nebulous entity that was still being compiled before her. At least the rest of the lab space was somewhat familiar - it was similar to the Jupiter Station holo-engineering labs.

"Hello? Project 42, I presume? I'm Captain Farenia Meowlith, Commander of this ship. I'd like to talk with you if you're able."

The eyes of the entity opened and as it stepped out of its maintenance frame it became more solid looking, definitely more humanoid. The image adjusted itself so that it was covered in a body suit, it's form becoming thin and willowy, and most definitely female at this point. Though many of the finer details of the face had yet to be defined, 'she' now had features at the very least, some of which might even be recognizable as a mixture of her 'maternal' contributors, though for the moment her skin remained blue and somewhat translucent.

"Hello Captain, it is a pleasure to meet you," the newborn entity said to Farenia. "I am Project 42, at least until my father chooses a name for me."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well," Farenia said with a polite smile. This is what was consuming so much power, huh? "Is everything going well? Do you think you'll be finished soon?"

"Everything is well, and I am now stable enough to leave the holodeck," 42 confirmed with a nod. "Father said he would return soon, but I promised to wait for him before attempting to leave."

"A good idea," Farenia nodded. "Then if you're up to it, I have a task for you. Perhaps it could be considered an interview of sorts."

"An interview?" 42 said, curious to what this meant. Strictly speaking, she knew the meaning of 'interview', but why would the Captain feel the need to do this? Wasn't she the one who asked the computer for a Science Officer? "You wish to test the depth of my knowledge as well as procedural competency?" she asked in return. Still, she didn't understand the purpose of such a test as this was what she was designed for, but if this was her Captain's wish, then it was her duty to do as commanded. "I will do whatever is necessary."

"I want to know how well you can think outside the box, as it were. On top of that, I think you might be the only person that has a chance of doing this. The computer has been working on it for about a week now and it's turned up nothing." Farenia took a deep breath and continued. "We encountered an ancient starbase a while ago and obtained a lot of information and starcharts. I want you to use all that you can to pinpoint the most likely location for the homeworld of the Drej."

Taking the suggestion of using 'all that she can' to to its most literal form, 42's eyes grew heavy lidded and remained barely opened as she interfaced directly with the computer. Screens all over the workspace within the holodeck began to flicker with images and starcharts as she referenced the search the computer had been performing, the search speeding up as she focused on the parameters obtained thus far. "Processing," she stated, the lights all over the ship dimming as she rerouted power to the computer to search even faster.

Farenia glanced around nervously. Yeah, Ari will probably be pissed but Farenia needed answers now - not in the expected 14 years the computer estimated.

The images on the screens continued to flip by faster and faster, other non-essential systems around the ship shutting down to give this search priority. A large terminal near 42 lit up with the ancient starbase and the space around it. "Extrapolating probable paths," 42 said, the terminal zooming out to a wider map of space, and lines appeared and disappeared on the map as she worked through likely travel routes, starting from this space station and attempting to work back to a starting point based on certain energy signatures that had been documented. As the probability of certain routes became more and more likely, the lines remain lit on the screen and she continued the search from the new point, working further and further towards their goal. "Processing," she continued.

The doors to the room opened and Arivek walked through, stopping in his tracks as he saw what was happening. "What's going on?" he asked, setting down the PADDs he was carrying in his hands, taking a few steps towards Farenia.

And there was her XO, ready to yell at her some more. At least he did it in private for the most part. "I asked her to look at some star charts and see if she can figure out something for me and she's taken it to a rather extreme level. I just hope she doesn't break the ship - we've almost got her back together."

Arivek stood there for a moment, mulling the situation over in his head. He certainly wasn't happy about it, but what was done was done. He walked over to his daughter. She seemed to be fine, just working 100%. He turned back to Farenia, "What did you ask her, if I may ask."

"To find the most probable location of the Drej homeworld based on the ancient star charts we obtained from that station as well as our own star charts." Farenia replied, looking over the flashing readouts. At the very least, it looked like she was getting results.

The hologram stood there for a few moments. He wasn't boiling with anger, but he was a bit concerned that the Captain made this request without talking to him first. But now wasn't the time to voice that, as the relationship between the two officers was already tense. The last thing he wanted was to break that relationship permanently. "Understandable," he just said, walking back to where the Captain was standing. "Has she found anything conclusive yet?"

Motioning towards one of the displays with lots of lines drawn across it, Farenia nodded. "It looks like she's actually found it. Or at least narrowed it down to about a parsec. We could scan that easily from a distance." She was relieved that Ari wasn't yelling or berating her again. She knew that she should have consulted with him about this first, but she needed answers and didn't have much time. "Sorry about not conferring with you first. I wanted to see how well she could do on her own and she's doing amazingly well with both interactions and task completion. It just worries me that she's using so much..."

Just then, the computer lights flickered and an alert went off. "Warning - power reduced to life support by forty percent."

"...power..." Farenia finished, dread starting to settle in.

Arivek sighed. This is what he was afraid of. "You definitely should have conferred with me first. I would have set her on a power grid isolated from the ship's. But that's beside the point now," he said, walking to a console on the wall. "Project 42, we need you to stop."

He waited a few moments, but the program didn't seem to respond to him.

"Warning," the Computer chimed in once again, "power reduced to life support by seventy percent."

"Y'all won't last long," he said as he walked over to his daughter. "Project 42. Akira, please stop. You're going to hurt someone."

Abruptly, all searches stopped, which automatically restored all ship functions to normal. 42 opened her eyes and looked at Ari. "What did you call me?" she asked softly.

"It's your name," he said with a half smile, looking at his daughter.

"My name?" She smiled brightly in response, pleased to have a proper name now, Akira! Would it be just Akira or would she take her Father's surname, or one of her mother's name? Well, only the human one had a surname, Carter, and she didn't much like the sound of that... "Thank you Father!" She wanted to hug him; she didn't know why she wanted to do that, maybe it was because Maica liked hugs, but she managed to refrain as she knew Ari was still somewhat unsettled with contact with her, though why she still could not figure... "Apologies, Captain, I could not find it. I did narrow it down to an area of space, but please do not ask me to resume the search, it was quite unpleasant," the being now known as Akira said to Farenia.

"Akira Zhuri. The name suits you, I think." Farenia replied with a smile. "And don't worry about the search. You narrowed it down so far that we won't have to do much searching at all. Thank you. Now my next question is which department do you want to be a part of? Science or Operations? I have a feeling you'll excel in both."

"You asked for a Science Officer," Akira stated, but then she looked Ari, almost as if seeing if it was okay to define her own path despite the specific request. "If it's alright, I would like to explore being an Engineer. Though I have not yet given it a try, I believe I have inherited some of your skill from your contributing coding, I have this deep desire to work with my hands, but I am content to fill the roll for which I was requested," she said to Ari, hoping she would see approval from him, that it would please him to know his daughter was an Engineer as well. Perhaps Operations was the right choice, she could be an Engineer but still play Scientist when the need called for it.

Arivek took his daughters hand and smiled, "You can be anything you want, my dear," he said. He wasn't sure how and he wasn't sure why, but there was suddenly his part of him that yearned to be closer to her. She...was him, in separate form. A child, a living entity. His own flesh and blood, so to speak. And in this moment, he felt nothing but extreme love. And a tear rolled down his cheek.

Akira tilted her head curiously, her free hand coming up to wipe the holographic moisture off his cheek. "Have I upset you again?" she asked, worried that he was going to distance himself from her again. He was the only person in her rather brief existence, save for the Captain who she had only just met, so it hurt that he kept pulling away from her.

"No, darling. You haven't," he said as he pulled the woman into an embrace. "You have made me proud and so happy."

Akira was surprised by this, especially given his earlier responses, but once the shock wore off she smiled brightly and put her arms around him. After he finally released her, Akira once again addressed Farenia. "Captain, with your permission I would like to give Operations a try," she stated, the happiness radiating from her smile.

Farenia nodded, serious again. "Then as soon as you're ready, I want you in familiarization with the department and ship and doing bridge officer training. Commander Zhuri will administer your qualification exams. Commander Eneas Clio will be in charge of your department, but I want you ready to take it over as soon as possible. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am. The holodeck is no longer supporting my development, so I can leave to begin familiarizing myself with the ship immediately. Though I should probably refrain from active duty until my development is complete. I am nearly complete; I estimate that I should be operating independently of the computer system within 24 hours," Akira informed Farenia.

"Excellent," Farenia nodded, pleased. "I look forward to seeing you around the ship. Just... not in reports of you being in showers... ok?"

"Why would I be in a shower?" Akira asked, dumbfounded by this statement; she was a hologram, she had no need for a shower!

"Don't worry about it, sweetie," Arivek said, giving Farenia a light glare.

Farenia just smiled innocently and made ready to leave. "Oh and get with the quartermaster to get a room assignment. Civilian quarters."

"Why do I need quarters?" Akira asked, even more confused than before. "Can't I just stay with you, Father?" she asked Ari. If she had to have quarters, then it made sense to simply stay with Ari.

Farenia paused in the doorway and glanced back at the two. "If that's what you decide, it's fine with me. If either of you need me, I'll be in my ready room for the next three hours reviewing data. And forward that map you came up with to me so I can study it." And with that, she disapeared, the doors closing behind her.

It had only been a day or so since Clio had inherited half of the ship's senior roles by way of some less-than-desirable decisions made by Starfleet Command, but already she was reeling. With so much work to be done and so little time to rest or sleep, she found herself more than a little unsteady, both physically and mentally. And yet she put off seeking help until she'd gone to stand up from one of her four desks and instead ended up sprawled across the deck with three junior security officers staring at her, likely wondering whether their new boss was a drunk or just a clumsy mess.

Clio had let those young officers help her back up but quickly shooed them away so that she came into sickbay alone. As usual, the bright lighting momentarily stunned her senses, and she blinked as she brought up her hand to shield her eyes from it. Even if she weren't so short on sleep, the sickbay lights generally bordered on blinding. She stumbled slightly as someone brushed past her, a small misstep that should have been easy to recover from, but instead she tumbled down again, swearing under her breath and deciding to stay put this time until someone realized she was there.

"Is this the level of care we're providing here?" A somewhat irate voice rang out, followed by a fit of harsh coughing, and the sound of footfalls approaching Clio. Ian knelt down next to Clio and held out his hands to her, turning his head and clearing his throat as he did. "Sorry. Are you alright, uh... Ma'am?" He couldn't see her insignia from this angle, and he didn't want to ride the military crazy train that came from addressing someone outside of the military's rigid protocols dealing with rank, and thanks to a streak of bad luck that saw him confined to quarantine since the day after his arrival on the Katana, he knew next to nobody aboard the ship. Which was hardly a good way to start off his newest assignment. "If it's any consolation, I'll be having the nurses severely flogged once they get back from the mess hall."

"I'm not sure flogging's necessary, but I appreciate the thought." Clio had no idea who this new person was, but with all the changes to the roster recently that wasn't terribly surprising. She took advantage of his offered hands to get back to her feet, more than a little ungraceful but at least she got there. "I probably would have fallen anyway. I did earlier."

"Fine, fine. Ruin my fun." Ian returned in a mock-peevish voice, making sure Clio was steady on her feet before taking a step back and motioning her towards a bio-bed. "Although now there might be a stern lecture for you." He added, his expression becoming more lighthearted, less severe. "And not just because I like giving superior officers the business from my moral high ground. So, what's going on?" he asked her, pulling his tricorder from his lab-coat pocket but not glancing at it. Some of the most important information a doctor could gain initially came from the patient themselves, and in this age of superior diagnostic technology, some doctors tended to neglect that.

For once, Clio didn't need any prompting to sit down on the biobed; she felt infinitely safer seated than she did standing. "I'm dizzy, can't keep my balance. Intermittently nauseated. And my chest feels like I've spent two or three days coughing up a lung." She did not, however, have a cough, so Clio wasn't sure exactly what Ian would make of that.

Separating the scanning peripheral from his tricorder, Ian scanned Clio, making sure to direct the scan towards her brain, inner ear, and the organs in her torso. "Alright. Have you been getting enough sleep lately, have you been eating regularly, are you currently on any medications?" He could think of several simple things that could be causing the symptoms she was experiencing, anything from an inner ear infection to low blood sugar, or even the fact that high-ranking officers had a tendency to not get sleep, didn't eat enough and generally worked too hard. It had even happened to Ian himself a few times. He glanced down at his tricorder for the first time, and his brows furrowed for a moment before he tapped in a command for the device to access her medical records for comparison.

Clio snorted at him, somewhat amused by the idea of actually sleeping enough. "I currently run four departments on this ship, so I'm lucky if I get more than four hours a night, but I take care not to miss any meals. I have a fairly rapid Vulcanoid metabolism that requires a high protein diet with very few simple carbohydrates, and the only medications I take are lorazepam and hydrocortilene." Obviously Clio had spent enough time in sickbays through her career to rattle off answers quickly. "My significant medical history includes migraines, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, and various traumas that I'm sure you already have listed on that tricorder."

Ian's face took on a stern cast. "Sounds like you're working far too hard, getting too little rest, and are experiencing far too much stress, and it's taking a toll on your body and mind." He opined, checking the readings he'd taken with his tricorder. "And keep in mind that I'm the one guy aboard who can relieve anybody of duty." His expression softened slightly. "But that's a last resort. I'm going to prescribe you a sleep inducer device that will help your mind enter deeper sleep states faster so that you can get the most out of the sleep you do get. And you'll be doing a sleep study here tonight so I can configure it to your brainwaves. I'm also prescribing deep tissue massage once a week at least." He said with a smirk. "Either here or in the Holodeck. Stress causes a buildup of lactic acid in the muscles which results in pain and tension, and deep tissue massage helps get rid of the buildup, and it might help with your migraines, as well."

Clio nodded slightly. All of that made sense, and she appreciated that there wasn't a jump directly to using medication to control symptoms. "That sounds fine to me, but I can't exactly leave all of my work for today unfinished." And there was a lot of it, so some might still go unfinished, but she couldn't spend the rest of her shift in sickbay.

"And yet you're hardly in any fit state to be walking around the ship unattended..." Ian said, pursing his lips and studying the ceiling for a few moments. "Which leaves us with a limited range of options. Can't have you passing out and getting yourself hurt. So, it's either be escorted everywhere, carted everywhere on a hoverchair, or set you up with some office space so you conduct in-person business via holopresence." He was really trying to be fair here, and meet the needs of his patient without filling her with stimulants so she would be able to get through the day. "Keep in mind that, if you take another fall, I'll relieve you of duty faster than you can say 'Impromptu Vacation.'"

Considering the options she'd been given and the determined tone of Ian's voice, Clio bit her lip for a moment then sighed very lightly. She didn't quite know how to explain how an escort constantly watching her would only put her on edge and make her feel worse, so she decided to opt for the easiest option to choose at the moment. "If you can provide a private space for me to work that would be acceptable, but there can't be anyone looking over my shoulder when I have the intelligence data up. Remote monitoring is fine as long as there's no cameras looking at my screens."

"You're free to use my office." Ian said, jerking his thumb in its direction. "I haven't completely moved in yet, so there's some clutter, but the holopresence system is all set up. Oh!" He paused and tapped his tricorder against his head a few times. "In all the rush, I completely forgot to introduce myself. Ian Dodger, new Chief Medical Officer. I'm not normally so absent-minded." He said, a purplish blush coloring his cheeks with a bruise-like hue. He switched his tricorder over to his off-hand so that he could offer her his right. "They've had me in quarantine for the past few weeks; it seems like I might have forgotten some of my manners."

"That's all right. I didn't introduce myself either." Clio, however, could occasionally be that absent-minded, especially when her brain felt so scrambled. "Eneas Clio, Chief... well, Intelligence Officer officially. Chief Security Officer, Chief Science Officer, and Chief Operations officer for the time being. The clutter won't bother me. All I need is a desk to work at and access to a bathroom."

Rolling up his sleeve to access his wrist PaDD, Ian tapped its surface a few times, unlocking the door and turning on the interior lights in his office. "If you would like, I could lend a hand with Science. Administratively, that is. Biology, chemistry and math are the extent of my science-y skills. There's only so much arse-kicking that needs to be done around Sick Bay on a ship this small, except maybe pimping my intern, and the Hologram can do that in my absence." He didn't know Clio well, or even very much at all, but pitching in to help her seemed like a nice gesture towards a fellow chief staff member.

"I think I'd appreciate that. Crewman Dedjoy is already doing most of the hands-on work there, so really it's only administrative that I'm working on anyway." Clio hopped off the biobed, steadying herself against it for a moment. With the offer of extra help handling the science work and Akira soon taking over Operations, that would cut her work almost in half. It made sense to take advantage of it. "I should get back to work or I won't get anything done at all. Thank you."

"And I should get back to terrorizing my staff." Ian said, shutting his tricorder and slipping it away into his lab coat pocket. "If you're finding yourself lacking for entertainment, pop in for the scenario I'm giving my intern in a few hours. 'Gaping disruptor wound with residual nadion charge.' It's always high comedy when they forget to disperse the nadions before going to work with an autosuture. Just, 'boom!' and everyone's covered in gore." Physicians who saw a lot of combat medicine often developed morbid senses of humor, and Ian was no exception.

Despite the gruesome mental imagery, Clio chuckled a little. "Maybe another time. Gore doesn't generally bother me, but I'd rather not take any chances with it today." Still amused by the thought of the doctor terrorizing his new intern, she carefully made her way toward the offered office space to get some work done.

Ian watched her go, his alert eyes following her movements. He didn't exactly have a lot of patients under his care at the moment, not with a crew of 150 personnel, but on the plus side, he now had the time to devote more attention to the individual care his patients needed. In some ways it was like being a small-town doctor, rather than working in a busy sick bay like that of starbase 357.

[OFF]

Farenia came in after hours to check up on Clio as she'd heard that her favorite officer was sick and confined to sickbay for the night. Looking around the room, she easily spotted Clio but didn't want to disturb her just yet so she watched and waited a moment, almost hoping someone would tell her to just go away.

"I know when I'm being watched." Clio hadn't looked to see who it was that had come in, but even with her defenses in place it had never been hard to know when someone was watching or studying her.

"Sorry," Farenia replied, shuffling slightly. "If you don't feel up to having a visitor, I'll leave. I was just hoping to see how you were doing and if I could help in any way."

"I don't mind if you stay." Clio glanced over at Farenia, a little puzzled as to why the captain was visiting. Despite her confinement to sickbay, she'd actually gotten all of her staff assignments posted and most of her paperwork done before handing the office over to Ian so he could take a look at the science administrivia and do his own work. Now she had just a PaDD in her lap, working on Akira's curriculum for the next day.

Farenia took the few steps to Clio's biobed and leaned against the foot of it a bit, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Confined to sickbay for overstress and you're still working. Hve I mentioned how awesome you are?"

Clio paused in her work, looking up at Farenia with the PaDD stylus hovering just above the PaDD's surface. "I have to do something or I'll go crazy in here."

"True..." Farenia thought that one over a moment. It was a valid argument - she'd likely be doing paperwork as well if she was stuck in sickbay. "Isn't there anything else you'd rather be looking at though? Like a video or a book... Or porn?"

"Porn? In the middle of sickbay?" Clio had to laugh at that, even as she tucked the stylus away and set the PaDD down. "I tried reading for a bit, but it made my head spin. Working on Akira's lesson plan was less taxing."

"Makes sense I guess. And the porn was just a suggestion. Have you met her yet? Akira, that is?" Farenia asked, still worried, but more social than official.

Clio shook her head slightly. "I was going to go see her today, but after I fell on my face trying to get up from my desk it didn't seem like a fabulous idea."

"I'm not sure if you'll be annoyed or fascinated by her, but she's an interesting person, to be sure. I'd recommend patience. She was pretty much born the other day, after all." Farenia chuckled softly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think there's a magic cure other than sleep, and you can't manufacture more hours in a day." Clio sighed and rubbed her eyes, not sure she remembered a time when she wasn't at least a little tired.

"Well... There's always a good sensual massage... Those tend to help one get some good rest and relaxation..." Farenia replied, glancing around sickbay innocently.

"Yes..." Clio raised an eyebrow at her, having suddenly realized just what Farenia was on about. "I'm not sure this is the right place for that sort of thing."

"Holodeck then? Or my quarters?" Farenia offered with a sly grin. "Captain's perogative."

"Your cabin is likley more secure than a holodeck." Clio glanced toward Ian's office, wondering for a brief moment if they should tell him she was leaving. He had given her the option of an escort earlier, and surely there was no better escort than the ship's captain.

"Yeah, there are only three people that can override the locks and all three are currently in sickbay." Farenia commented. "Do I need to tell the Doctor I'm kidnapping you for some R&R?"

"It's probably a good idea..." Clio wasn't normally one to be so exacting when following her doctor's orders, but since she'd already taken two falls today she wasn't keen on running off either.

"Doctor?" Farenia called, heading over to the CMO's office and tapping on the doorframe. "I'm kidnapping your patient to make sure she gets some proper down time, if you don't mind."

The door to Ian's office opened to reveal the doctor himself, in a set of civilian overalls that were covered in insulation dust and carpet fibers, a plasma torch in hand. "Sorry... Captain." He said, trying to block her view of the hole he'd made in the floor of his office and the lengths of plasma conduits that he'd hooked into the ship's power grid. "Couldn't quite hear you... It sounded like you said you were going to kidnap my patient and drop her down in a salt mine?"

"Yes, I'm going to make sure she relaxes," Farenia started before catching a glimpse of the construction happening in the office. "Does Engineering know you're tearing up the floor and... Are you installing EPS conduits? You are a Doctor, right? Not an engineer?"

"oh, yes, well, relaxation is good." Ian said absently. "And I'm sure she'll be in good hands... Well, she better be, or else you'll be hearing about it from me." His features sharpened a bit as he said this -- Clio had come to be under his care because she had been overworked. "Karōshi went out of style centuries ago." Then he demured, glancing back at the mess he'd made of the floor of his office. "Oh, yes, I'm tapping the power input for my office replicator and installing a, uh... soda and ice cream bar. No need to bother engineering about it, I'm sure they're busy with more important things than the weird new doctor's strange hobby..." He said, his cheeks coloring a light lavender hue. "Everyone loves ice-cream, right?" He finished lamely.

"Hobby... huh... Just make sure you get engineering to look it over and give you clearance before you reroute power to it, ok? We don't need to lose another doctor in a sickbay explosion because of a ruptured conduit." Farenia replied, still unsure and disliking the looks of things. She'd have to let Jenni know about it later just in case she hadn't heard.

"Oh, yeah... Alright.." Ian murmured absently, one eyebrow quirking as he mentally rewound what Farenia had just said to him to find what had been niggling him. "Wait. Lose another doctor in an explosion? No, nevermind. Curiosity killed the Catullan." He said, shaking his head to focus his thoughts. "Just... I have the ship's computer monitoring the commander's vitals. Nothing strenuous or stressful. No base-jumping holodeck adventures or impulse-boarding on the hull, or, I dunno, parrises squares."

"What about sex?" Farenia asked seemingly seriously.

That question might very well have stumped a lesser man, but having once been married to a Risian, it ended up being somewhat less befuddling to the befuddlement-prone Ian than the rest of the conversation had been. Hell, he didn't even blink when she asked. "Nothing too wild. No whips and chains, but light paddling isn't out of the question if there's cuddling afterwards." Ian's lips curled into a smug little smile and he inclined his head towards the captain to regard her through his lashes sassily.

"Thank you, Doctor. I think we'll probably be staying around the sensual massage range though." Farenia replied with a wink before looking back over to Clio. "Ready?"

"Well that's a silly question." Clio hopped off the biobed, considerably more stable on her feet than she had been only a few short hours before.

"You never know," Farenia replied with a grin. "I do have a dominatrix outfit."

"So do I, but I generally don't use it for casual sex." Clio's tone was matter-of-fact, even innocent. "Granted, mine was originally for undercover work. I won't get into details on that."

"Same here, actually. Does yours have the implanted recording devices in the vibes?" Farenia asked as she led Clio out of sickbay.

Tags

Repairs were pretty well finished and what countermeasures they could employ were in place and Farenia was back in her command chair, running her fingers over the freshly shined console next to her. "Helm, plot a course out of this nebula, full impulse. Let's see if the engines are back up to optimum performance. Engineering, have the warp engines warmed up. As soon as we clear this nebula, I want warp six." Tapping a few controls on the console, she smiled slightly as she saw all indicators flash green.

"Aye, Captain!" Jenni's voice declared through the open comm channel. Most of the systems were back to a functional status, but they'd still need time at a starbase to effect more lasting repairs. Band-aids would only hold for so long. "I can give you Warp Seven or Eight if you need it," she offered.

"Thank you Commander Matthews. I'll leave you in charge of what we work up to then." Farenia replied over the comms. "Helm, take us out."

"Aye, Captain," the ensign at helm replied, starting the ship on its refreshed journey. They moved quickly through the sensor scattering nebula and were soon breaking free of the gasses. The sight of the open stars was welcome... but there was something else. Something that made everyone's heart sink with dread. A large Drej battleship was sitting right in their path.

"Evasive maneuvers. Red alert." Farenia snapped. "Commander Mathews, I'll need maximum warp instead. Helm, plot a course to nebula NGC three niner four seven, mark two niner niner at best possible warp. Engage when ready."

As Farenia called out her orders, the massive battleship started turning towards the Katana and launching fighters, blue arcs of plasma glancing of their shields.

Down below in Engineering, Jenni found herself smiling. Hearing the call for maximum warp meant only one thing, Jennifer Matthews was truly home. "Aye, Captain," she called back. "I'll give her everything we got." With that, she began issuing orders to the engineers around her, calling for additional power to the structural integrity field and the warp drive. At most, she figured they could have half an hour of emergency warp before they'd need to slow down.

Arivek fidgeted in his seat, sitting directly next to the Captain, the traditional spot for the Executive Officer. He finally got used to seeing himself in red, but sitting in this chair instead of down in Engineering was driving him crazy. He looked at the console that was extended between him and the Captain. "Jenni, we're going to need to boost structural integrity on the dorsal spine," he said before realizing she probably already knew that. But he left it alone, he'd apologize later.

"Already on it!" she called back. In fact, she hadn't thought about the dorsal spine, but her memory did recall seeing damage out there when she'd arrived. Something about a sensor pod that was now missing. The entire field matrix would have to be realigned to compensate for the missing pod, but it wouldn't take an engineer but a minute to correct that oversight. Hopefully, they'd have that minute.

"I'd like us at warp now, please," Farenia called as a massive ball of plasma left the huge Drej ship and started towards the Katana. It looked like a miniature sun as it neared the aft of the ship. Then stars streaked by, the Drej ship and weapon fading into the distance quickly.

The relief was short lived however, as the ship then popped up on sensors, following the Katana at high warp. "Clio, start scanning for the source of their warp field and get a target lock on it. I'd like to knock them out of warp if possible."

You're gonna have to give me a second, Clio thought but didn't say, already having trouble keeping up with her four meticulously laid out console patterns across the tactical station. Science sensors showed her nothing, so she ignored them for now. Instead, she focused on the tactical sensors while an automated program collected as much data as it could for her to sift through later. "The whole ship is made of plasma. I can't find an energy source in this mess."

As the Drej ship gained ground at well over Warp 9, the Katana's own warp systems were slowly climbing in speed as well. "Anyone have any bright ideas? Observations? Wild guesses?" Farenia was monitoring the situation display between her and Arivek like a hawk as the two blips got closer and closer.

"Their warp field looks...strange to me," Arivek said, looking over the readout on the center panel. He stood and walked over to the rear consoles, bringing up a few sensor readouts. He tapped his badge, "Zhuri to Matthews. Jenni, take a look at the sensor readings I just sent to you. Does this remind you of the slingshot theory?"

"Standby!" she called back, moving to a console where she could study what he'd sent down. With the plasma makeup of the alien vessels, it was practically impossible to determine an energy source, but she could tell energy was being expended. "It does!" she called back over the line. "We can maneuver however we like, but they'll have to stop before adjusting and following us."

Farenia listened to their conversation absently, the tactical display next to her consuming her attention. Thankfully the new metaphasic shield emplacements had held up better than their normal shields. "Helm, course change. Move us about two degrees towards starboard. Let's see if they really can't turn." As she watched her tactical display, she saw the trajectory plot shift.... and the Drej's didn't. After a few seconds, it stopped altogether, then jumped back into warp, trying to correct for the course shift. "Excellent... Helm, randomize our path through the nearby stars as we head for..."

That's when the comms lit up like a christmas tree for a few seconds, pulling everyone's attention to Clio's station. "Was that a Klingon distress signal?" Farenia asked incredulously.

Amidst the burst of noise, Clio's ears caught a phrase in Klingon that sounded an awful lot like their word for 'distress'. Looking at her panel in disbelief, she played the message again. "Um... yes. It does appear that way."

"Let's hear it," Arivek said, looking over at Clio.

"Hang on. I'm trying to run it through the translation circuit." Having heard the basic Klingon phrases often enough to understand them, Clio wasn't exactly accustomed to translating messages. It took her a moment to find the translation circuits, but once she did the message cycled through rather quickly.

"Any ship in range. This is the IKS Veranus . We are under attack by an unknown force. Assistance is requested. Today is a good day to die." The message started to repeat itself, and Clio silenced it rather than play the entire thing again.

"It's rare enough for a Klingon to even admit they need help. Helm, set an intercept course at warp six and vary our route a fair bit so our friends can't follow us." Farenia ordered as she pulled up the starcharts to see that it would take them just over an hour to get there. The wrecks would be cold by the time they got there again, but at least they'd be able to investigate the situation.

The time had passed and everyone had been able to take a short break before the Katana came back out of warp into the remains of a battlezone. The gutted hulk of what appeared to be a Negh'var class Klingon Battlecruiser spun slowly in space before them and again, the enemy had already left the area after ensuring there was no one left alive. It was certain that the Klingons fought to the last person, at least, and judging by the angle at which the bow was crumpled, the Captain had tried to ram the enemy ship - a common enough Klingon tactic.

Pressing her comms, Farenia opened a channel directly to sickbay. "Doctor, I doubt we'll have any survivors for you, but please stand ready nonetheless."

"Understood, Captain." Ian said, looking at his intern and head nurse and shrugging slightly. It wasn't as if the ship had a huge medical staff, but since word had come down, they'd been on high alert, prepping sickbay and the shuttlebay if need be to treat incoming patients. Now all that work had been for naught. "I'll prep the morgue for autopsies if you require them. Sickbay out."

"Helm, bring us alongside her." Farenia continued. "Clio, get as detailed scans as you can." Then she glanced up at the Tactical station where a random ensign she hadn't met yet was manning the station. "Ensign, keep weapons ready just in case." Then she leaned in closer to her XO. "It looks like the work of the Drej again. Your thoughts, Commander?"

"There doesn't seem to be much left to scan." Seated at her usual place in the rear of the bridge, Clio had tactical, science, and intelligence sensor programs running simultaneously, absorbing as much information as possible. While she'd initially been reluctant to call one of the unseasoned junior officers to tactical, his being there did give her more opportunity to run scans and figure out exactly what had happened.

"Weapons signatures?" Arivek asked.

Clio checked her tactical readout and bit her lip, not liking what she saw there. "Drej plasma. Romulan and Borg plasmas leave a different trace... this is definitely Drej."

With a soft trilling and hiss, Ian appeared on the bridge, using the holopresence system to manifest himself at one of the unused consoles aft of the tactical station. He wasn't immediately necessary in Sick Bay, his orders to prep the morgue having been handed off to his head nurse, so he decided it would be more helpful for him to monitor the situation on the bridge instead. He knew better than to ask if the captain had ordered a scan for lifeforms yet, so he just waited, watching the Klingon vessel drifting.

The turbolift doors closed behind Jenni as she stepped out onto the bridge. She hadn't been summoned, but after all of the craziness, Jenni felt her place was here until they knew more. At the mention of the Drej, Jenni crossed the bridge to stand near the officer at the Engineering station to observe the readouts for herself.

"Assemble an away team with EV suits..." Was all Farenia got out before three full sized D'deridex decloaked off the opposite side of the derelict Negh'Var, right in the middle of the view screen. They were still at red alert because of the Drej and now a Romulan ship too? Farenia's gut had a sinking feeling.

And then things got worse.

Three Vor'cha battlecruisers, a Negh'var, and almost a dozen B'rel class Klingon ships decloaked.

"Fuuu..." Is all Farenia got out before the comms started ringing off the hook from both parties.

"Looks like we've just become very popular all of a sudden." Ian quipped quietly. Things were tense, to be sure, but at least the Klingons and Romulans were hailing them and not, say, raining destruction down on their little ship or each other. Ian had been in plenty of tense situations before, but the role of a doctor was fairly simple: Mend the wounded. If things went south, there wouldn't be any shortage of wounded to mend, so his role in things would be clear. "D'ya think they like root beer floats?"

Arivek looked over at the man with a confused look. He opened his mouth as if he was about to ask, but then thought better of it, turning back to the large view screen.

Jenni too was surprised at the doctor's reaction. Her gaze remained fixed on her console as she immediately sent out readiness requests to the damage control teams. Better safe than sorry at this point, especially since things could get ugly very fast.

Fielding calls from both squadrons of alien ships, Clio gave up on the universal translator and spoke to each commander in their own language, giving them all the same 'please stand by for further contact' message before clearing her board long enough to get a lifesigns scan of the derelict. "We're too late... there's no one alive over there." Not a moment had passed before her console lit up again with angry inquiries from both the Romulans and the Klingons. Trying to field the calls without anyone feeling slighted, she quickly grew frustrated and said in rather rapid Cervan, "I cannot speak to all of you at once. One at a time!" Pausing for the universal translators on each respective ship to translate the message, she then looked over at Farenia. "The Romulans want to know how we killed all of the Klingons without destroying the ship. And the Klingons want to know why we attacked their ship under a flag of truce. You have about thirty seconds before they all start shooting."

"Ok, the Romulans aren't as important in this situation," Arivek stated, standing as he walked towards Clio's station. "Let's talk to the Klingons first. Send them our sensor data before we get them on the phone. Let's show them the weapon signatures."

"Offer them our databases from that ancient station as well. Don't let on that we have a good idea which solar system the Drej are from though. That bit of information... They're likely to just try starting a war and getting wiped out." Farenia added as she stood and took a few steps forward to compose herself.

"That's the last thing the Federation needs," Arivek stated, looking back at the Captain, "Destruction of the Empire."

"Stand by." Clio quickly gathered the proposed data, sending it to both squadron commanders rather than just the Klingons. The Romulans were just as likely to start shooting, and she had no intention of giving them any reason to do so. "I'm not sure they're convinced..."

"Unless someone knows about some sort of cloaking device we have hidden away..." Farenia mumbled before nodding to the viewscreen. "Let's put them both on screen and see if we can't work this out then." When the screen flashed to the face of the two squadron commanders, Farenia put on her best Vulcan impression and addressed them. "I am Captain Meowlith of the Federation Starship Katana. To whom do I have the honor of addressing?"

"General Denova of the Klingon Defense Force. We demand to know why you have open fired on our vessel, despite having a treaty with the Empire," came the voice of a stately Klingon woman who looked as if she was about to rain fire and brimstone down on the next person who spoke.

"Commander Vriha t'Llaaseil of the Imperial Warbird Hachae. We are similarly concerned with what we have found here." The Romulan commander looked no less likely to rain fire and brimstone, though her tone was cooler than Denova's. "Is there not a treaty between our three peoples?"

Farenia nodded to each in turn before adopting a 'Vulcan Lecturer' stance. "Greetings to you both. As our transmitted data indicates, we are not the ones that fired upon the ship in question. As your own sensors can verify, the weaponry used was a high power energy-plasma effect that Federation starships are unable to produce with standard equipment. On top of that, the fact that we have zero damage from disruptors of any sort should corroborate this. Also, do you really think that this ship would even have a fraction of the strength needed to destroy a warship of that size, let alone necessitate the use of a distress call on a Klingon ship?"

Denova sat there for a moment in silence. While most Klingon men would have immediately spoken out of anger and rage, she was a bit more level headed. And this is what made her a great leader in the KDF. She could outthink all the others. "This is understandable," she said, before looking over at the Romulan Commander. "I do have to wonder what brings you to this area of space."

"We picked up a distress call from the Veranus. It did say 'any ship in range', and last I heard we were allies of a sort." Vriha clearly held some respect for the Klingon woman, grateful that Denova's first action wasn't to start shooting at her warbird. "We arrived under cloak in case the attackers were still here."

"How convenient that you were so close to the action, even being so far from home space," Denova stated, her eyes showing her distrust.

"Another reason for caution. I admit that if we had a cloak as well, it would have also been employed upon approach. We've also forwarded you both the databases from an ancient starbase filled with survivors of attacks from this new race, the Drej. They appear to be comprised entirely of plasma based energy." Farenia interjected, hoping to keep this meeting civil.

"And they're probably still around here somewhere." Ian weighed in. So that maybe all of the guns on the other ships weren't quite so inclined to be pointed in their general direction.

"The Veranus is far from home, as are you," Vriha said calmly, already looking over the information that Clio had sent. A plasma-based race with weaponry that far outmatched those on her warbird. "These... Drej are a concerning problem. With the power they seem to have, I find it surprising that your ship survived, Captain Meowlith. The Intrepid class is not renowned for its tactical capabilities."

"Indeed not," Farenia started, trying to figure out how to explain that one. "This ship does seem to have a knack for surviving what it shouldn't though. Possibly due to a few uncommon human designs resulting in... Unorthodox results."

"I have defeated enough human ships in my lifetime. My armada and I could make quick work of you," Denova stated, sitting back in her chair. "How do we know this information is factual?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Clio could take a lot of nonsense, but she wasn't going to sit in the back of the bridge and be accused of lying when she and others had damn near been killed getting that data in question. She got up from her seat there, incredulity and insult obvious on her face. "Tell me, General, how in the hell would we benefit from sending you false information? Between your ship and the Hachae, we are outmatched. Lying or altering the data would get everyone on this ship killed. Do you honestly believe that I would be that stupid?"

Farenia watched Clio as she spoke, her emotions carefully hidden, but inside she was both scared and cheering. Turning back to the viewscreen, she addressed the two captains. "My mate speaks true. What evidence do you have of deception on our part?"

"You humans are prone to lying. The only culture worse is the Romulans," Denova said, throwing a glance to her Romulan counterpart.

Vriha gave Denova a sharp look, distinctly annoyed. "I beg your pardon."

"Are Vulcans known for lying?" Farenia asked, brushing her hair behind her ears just to make sure they were in full view.

"I am not human," Clio added, also moving her hair behind her ears. Hers were not so pointed as Farenia's, so she would never pass as a Vulcan. "Prove you have evidence of deception or bite your tongue and keep your opinion to yourself!"

"Need I remind you that you have little authority here?" Denova asked, a vengeful smile spreading over her face. "The only ship here that can give mine any run for its money is Vriha's. And even then, she is extremely outnumbered. I did intend to imply that you were, merely asking what evidence you had that you weren't. You would do well to understand the difference."

"And you both assumed that we had destroyed the large ship now floating between us. Not a very logical conclusion." Farenia changed tracks then, trying to steer the conversation back to the Drej. "As for this new race, it seems that plasma exhaust and ionized nebula gasses throw them off rather easily. Metaphasic shields also prove more effective than conventional shields. We're still working on effective weapons, but the gas emitters are proven to be effective as seen in the records from the ancient space station we encountered."

"Mine was an inquiry as to whether Federation technology has indeed progressed that far. An erroneous assumption that you have since corrected." Vriha looked not at Farenia, but at Clio standing behind her. "As to whether we believe the information true, the Cerva have never attempted to deceive us, despite our many conflicts. And Federation reports that have been falsified carry a unique signature, one this information lacks. My next question is how to adapt Federation metaphasic shielding technology to work with a singularity power source. Our own attempts have not been successful."

"Commander Matthews, do you have any recommendations?" Farenia asked, turning to her Chief Engineer.

The engineer's eyebrow arched. She had little experience with quantum singularities aside from the normal irregularities within subspace. "Metaphasic shields are attuned to each ship's warp shell and the effect it has on subspace. While Starfleet and Romulan ships use subspace to travel, we interact with it very differently. Maybe if the shield emitters are polarized and the warbird's singularity matrix is adjusted to prevent tetryon buildup... it might be possible."

"That seems logical enough. However, I myself am not an engineer." Vriha glanced over her shoulder to an engineering officer at the rear of the bridge who was working on the problem presented. Receiving a nod in return, she turned her attention back to her viewscreen. "It appears to make sense to my engineers. I believe we'll try it."

"Excellent. Is there any further way that we can be of assistance to the both of you?" Farenia inquired somewhat pleasantly.

"You have satisfied my curiosity and potentially solved a problem that we did not have the answer to. I believe that is all we require." Vriha had little doubt that Denova would not be satisfied, but she saw no reason to continue the debate. "It would be best if we departed to warn our respective governments about this threat."

"I'm sorry," Arivek said, taking a stand next to Jenni. He looked at her with an apologetic face. He hated to openly contradict her, or to throw doubt her direction, but he couldn't allow information to be utilized if he knew it wouldn't work as expected. "In order for that to work, you'll need to be concerned about baryon particles, not just tetryon. Metaphasic shields have a tendency to pull baryon particles into them from outside sources. I don't think I have to explain to you why those would be bad entering your quantum singularity. You'll have to be conscious of that and deal with them or they could destabilize the singularity."

"Indeed there seem to be several challenges in the way. I propose we collaborate to get all ships here outfitted with..." Farenia was then interrupted by the alarms going off again. Stepping back to her chair, she glanced over the status readout. A Drej dreadnought was inbound.

Jenni hated to openly contradict Arivek as well, but with him being the Executive Officer and sensors reporting a Drej ship was inbound, she decided to keep her mouth shut. Certainly baryon particles were always a concern, but if they never entered a Starfleet warp core, then they certain wouldn't enter a singularity. For now, however, whether they were staying or going, her place was no longer on the bridge. She had an engine room to get prepared for action. With a nod, Jenni rose and entered the turbolift.

"The fun never ends around here." He flashed a crooked grin, then began tapping on the PaDD clinging to his wrist, putting in his own disappearing act. Sickbay was already prepped for Klingon casualties, and to some extent was prepared for Vulcanoids, but he wanted to be ready to treat full-blooded Romulans, as well, if it came to it.

"Looks like we have guests. They will dine in Gre'thor tonight," Denova stated, her eyes sparkling with the joy of combat.

"I wouldn't count on that," Vriha stated simply, having gotten a decent enough look at the sensor scans of the Drej vessels by now.

"They're charging weapons!" With the red alert having gone off as soon as the Drej ship was detected, Clio's shouted warning was more for the benefit of the young officer at the tactical station.

"Ready weapons and get those metaphasic shields online," Farenia called out as the dreadnaught popped out of warp like a giant christmas tree ornament lit up like a sun. It wasted no time in firing its main weapon at one of the Romulan ships, melting through the double hull so fast, there was no time for the singularity core to destroy the ship.

"Attack pattern Tango Three! Fire a full spread of torpedoes at will!" Farenia called out as the tip of the spear like behemoth of a ship started charging again and smaller ships a third of the size of the Katana were launched out of the sides.

"I'm crazy, not stupid. I've had those online since before I knew it was a Drej ship incoming." Despite their suddenly dire situation, there was a note of humor to Clio's response. She'd been firing the weapons too if it weren't for the young officer at the main tactical station. "The Romulan squadron is activating battle cloaks, but their weapons were online."

That was when the Drej fired again, this time on one of the larger Klingon ships. Thankfully they had their metaphasic shields up and escaped with some melted hull armor. The entire Klingon fleet opened fire upon the Drej dreadnaught and though it seemed to easily absorb the disruptor fire, it looked a bit like they weren't dealing too well with it, green flares replacing the electric blue.

The Katana dived into an evasive attack barrel roll loop, firing torpedoes at will at the frigates it was launching. Two of them burst into rapidly expanding plasma clouds shortly after and several of the smaller Klingon ships focussed on the others. "Coordinate our attacks with the Klingon battle group for maximum effect."

The third time the Drej fired, they hit one of the B'rel class dead on and all but melted it completely with what looked like a much more powerful blast than the first two. The only thing left was one of the wing disruptors and the rest of the B'rel class ships scattered and avoided the front firing arc of the dreadnaught.

After another minute of combat, the Katana was running low on torpedoes and had suffered a few close misses, but the Drej frigates were all destroyed and the dreadnaught was venting energy in several places. The Klingons had lost a Vor'cha and most of the B'rel class in the battle group, but they were still fighting with unabating viciousness. Thankfully, the Romulans were mostly staying out of the fight, occasionally doing hit and run attacks on the dreadnaught's aft quarter before vanishing again.

One of the badly damaged B'rel scouts took that moment to maneuver into a ramming attack, hitting ninety percent of the speed of light before ramming into the side of the dreadnaught right into one of the breaches. The subsequent warp core breach rocked the other ships and all but vaporized the dreadnaught, the scraps of it losing cohesion and decomposing into a rapidly expanding and cooling cloud of plasma.

Sighing heavily, Farenia relaxed a bit. "Drop us to yellow alert and signal the other ships our status. Did we take any casualties? Any major damage?"

"Reports coming in, Captain," Arivek said, still sitting in his chair. "We've had a single casualty, a few wounded. But all-in-all, we've made out better than our other engagements," he said.

"The Romulans fared better than the Klingons... looks like the battle cloak is a serious advantage when it comes to fighting Drej." While the Klingons had lost many ships from their squadron, most of the Romulan squadron remained... though more than a few bore new battle scars. Clio ran the data, looking over it. "Disruptors seemed to do the most damage... though there are some interesting readings where Romulan plasma weapons hit Drej plasma hull. And on the topic of weapons... we're going to have to restock our torpedoes at a starbase. We don't have enough left to fight off a Borg probe, let alone a Drej battlegroup."

Farenia tapped her status console a few times, looking over the damage readouts. "We're supposed to meet up with the Hera in two weeks. Let's see if we can arrange to meet up a bit sooner. The Captain's promised me some special torpedoes anyway."

Clio raised an eyebrow at her. "Captain Telvan has 'special' torpedoes. Why am I not surprised?" She shook her head slightly as she sent the query to the Hera, asking to move the resupply date up a bit in light of their situation. "Depending on their exact location, it may be a short while before they're able to answer."

The response came back immediately, however - They were near the nebula that ancient space station was in and could rendezvous within fourteen hours.

"...or they could be lurking nearby, almost close enough to overhear our conversation." Clio took a moment to check the Hera's position, finding them to be startlingly nearby indeed. "They're already en route. Estimated fourteen hours of travel time... less if we take up an intercept course to meet them."

"Send the group commanders of our new friends our flight plan and contact information and plot a course to meet the Hera." Farenia replied.

Having come aboard the USS Katana, there were several dozen matters of business that Chief Petty Officer Yu needed to tend to. Reporting to the starship's Command Staff was top of the itinerary for the freshly christened counselor. She may have not have been young in age, but this was a significant step upward in position with duties and responsibilities that far reached her initial days in Starfleet. However, she felt herself decently trained and ready for the journeys ahead of her and the winding road full of obstacles and challenges. Hundreds of questions filled her mind, but none more prevalent and relentlessly bothersome than the nagging ponderance as the whether or not Captain and crew would accept her aboard the USS Katana. Starship Counselors typically ranged from Psychologist and Psychiatrists with grandiose educations and the title 'Doctor' preceding them or those with a proficient amount of education, experience, and a graduate of Starfleet Academy. Ji-Nari had nothing but hard work and over a decade's worth of experience in Starfleet as an enlisted woman.

She had been everything from a musician to a cook in Starfleet, honing her people skills and listening to problems, offering advice before realizing that she was pretty darn good at it. Her time as a morale officer lead her down this path towards counseling albeit having to backdoor her way into such an assignment like the Katana. There was no way she would get onto a Galaxy class starship or an Excalibur, but this Intrepid class starship had gone through a handful of Commanding Officers and First Officers. Ji-Nari had no problem admitting that she had kissed a few ugly Admiral asses to get this assignment, but regardless of ow she got it, she had earned it in her own reasoning.

Meeting the Captain was important and was top on her list of things to do, but working top down was not necessary. Sometimes working from the bottom up was just as good. So, with a little reshuffling of what she was going to do, Ji-Nari was shown to her quarters, shown the office that she would be working out of, and started to get herself settled in. She spent a good hour or so giving herself a quick breakdown of the major 'players' aboard the starship Katana. Commanding Officer and all the Heads of Departments. Some of whom had been with the starship for quite some time. Commander Arivek Zhuri, the present First Officer aboard seemed to have been with the starship the longest consecutively though the Chief Engineer, Commander Matthews had served aboard for quite sometime before departing and later returning according to her service record. “I'll start with her” Chief Yu said to herself as she picked up a PaDD and headed out on a route for Main Engineering. If anyone is going to know this starship and crew, it will be her thought Ji-Nari.

Aboard the USS Merlin, two individuals stood outside the holodeck. One was the well endowed Orion Android Commanding Officer, the other was her wife, the ginger ex-Borg tinkering with the controls to link their holodeck with the Katana's via subspace communications.

"Alright, we should be good to go," Andy said to Maica after a moment, and the doors opened to a rather familiar workshop. Thus far, they were the only ones to enter, but soon Ari would be bringing their daughter. Daughter! wow, what a funny thought...

Maica was incredibly nervous. In her old body she'd be in the lab getting repairs by now but this body... She looked down at her open hands. Soon she'd be holding her daughter with this body. She didn't know what to expect or anything so she just wore a simple purple dress rather than her uniform. She didn't want her first impression to be that she looked like a christmas tree ornament. First impressions... To her own daughter. She'd seen some amazing things over her short life, so she shouldn't be surprised, but she was. She just hoped Akira had a good self actualization subroutine. Of course she would, Ari was the father and her other mother, Andy, had monitored the development of both. Their daughter had the best resources to build herself off of and a whole universe to grow in.

---

On the Katana, the new holographic life form walk along side her father to the holodeck. So far, Akira seemed to be adapting well to her new existence, though she was still tinkering with her appearance. She was no longer androgynous, now having a definite female form, though it was still a work in progress. She was still blue, but she had been playing with other skin tones, as well as facial features and even hair. At the moment, she had long black hair framing a sweet face with almond eyes, which to her seemed appropriate as he had given her a name that had origins with Earth Asians.

"What if they don't like me?" Akira asked her father, clearly nervous about meeting the two women who contributed to her creation. It was an understandable fear, especially considering that Ari had initially been reluctant to accept her.

"Your mothers are very loving people. They have big hearts and are caring individuals," Ari said, swallowing hard at the thought of Andy and Maica, two ladies who touched his life dearly. "It would be a chore to make them not like you."

"So it is a possibility?" Akira replied, not understanding the intent of his last statement.

"Technically, yes," Arivek said, stopping and looking at his daughter. He knew the kind of mind she had. It was intelligent, but not socially aware just yet. The best thing to do would be as upfront and honest as possible, without withholding any information. "But not for you. Your classification in their lives, and in mine, grants you full immunity to a lot of things. We, as parents, have what is called unconditional love for our children." Arivek smiled as he put his hand on his daughter's cheek. "It means that no matter what, despite whatever happens, we will always love you and care for you. And nothing could change that."

Akira gazed back into his eyes with such innocence, trusting his words completely as she leaned into his touch with a sweet smile. "Thank you, Father," she replied, now feeling better about this meeting. They arrived at the holodeck and waited for Ari to do what he needed to do to ensure the two holodecks were linked, then entered the room at his side.

Inside the room were Andy and Maica. Andy looked like her usual surly self, but her mood was betrayed by the death grip she had on Maica's hand; it seemed she was just as nervous about this meeting as her daughter was.

Arivek stepped forward towards the two ladies, "Good afternoon," he said, taking a deep breath and smiling. "May I present our daughter, Akira Zhuri, as she's come to be known."

Maica was really nervous as well but she was a diplomat first so she smiled her brightest smile and stepped over to Akira and swept her up into a tight hug without thinking. "It's so good to finally meet you."

"Hello," Akira replied shyly. "You have really big breasts," she remarked, looking down at said beasts smooshed between them, not realizing that this was not likely to be appropriate conversation material. "But I do not; should I alter my appearance?" she asked.

Andy just snickered at the comment; yep, definitely some 'Andy' mixed in there to notice the huge knockers right off the bat...

"I'm sure your mothers will love you no matter your appearance, but would like you to choose whatever appearance makes you most comfortable," Arivek said with a smile, but staying back. He'd had a lot more time with Akira than Maica and Andy, and he didn't want to interrupt their first meeting.

"They're not for everyone," Maica replied, letting Akira go and holding her at arm's length to study what she could see of the morphology of her body language. It was crude and incomplete, but she had a lot of growing to do. "I have them because I was originally built to be a sex slave. When I escaped from that, I kept them and went into diplomacy where they've served me well. You're going into Operations and Sciences, right? Might be best to keep yours petite."

"Jeez, you two, and here I thought I was blunt..." Andy said with a roll of her eyes as she took a step closer to get a look at Akira. It was true that the physical aspect of Akira's matrix was still rough, but just looking at her Andy could tell the rest of her was built pretty solid. For good measure, Andy would take a look at the back end of Akira's programming to ensure everything was stable and secure, but she could do that later; for now she was content with getting to know Akira's personality the old fashioned way. "You look good, kid; and she's right, big boob ain't all that great when you're crawling around Jefferies tubes for hours on end," Andy chimed. Not that Andy was sporting a huge rack, but it was definitely sizable enough to be an annoyance at times.

"Oh..." Akira replied as she nodded at such sage advice. "I will remember this. Also, I think your grammar subroutines are malfunctioning; 'ain't' is not a real word."

"Fuck, everyone's a critic," Andy grumbled.

"She's definitely my daughter," Arivek said with a chuckle. It was no secret that Arivek usually said whatever just popped into his head without thinking first.

"Well, it's not all that surprising she'd take after you so much," Andy remarked as she continued to look Akira over. "After all, you're an active hologram, and far more advanced than the back ups I made of Maica, not to mention she's had more exposure to you than us, so it's only natural you'll have more influence over her development than us," she rattled off. She was having a hard time approaching Akira as a parent rather than an Engineer; it was something she'd have to work through on her own time, for now she was doing good resisting the urge to run tests on the poor girl.

"I do not see how humanoid copulation is relevant to this conversation, and I thought such topics were inappropriate for open discussion," Akira commented, more than a little confused.

"In private company with those you trust, any topic is appropriate for open discussion," Maica insisted. "And besides, the mixing of DNA is very similar to how you came to be, if I understand correctly."

"That is not what I meant, and you know it," Andy said to Maica. Did this mean she would have to stop using her favorite word around the kid?

Maica winked to Andy before explaining it properly. "I believe there's a Vulcan pamphlet on the subject of curse words that you'll find enlightening. In the meantime, Fuck is normally a punctuation word that drives deeper the point of other words."

"Oh..." Akira replied, not really understanding what she meant at first, then the proverbial light went off. "Oh! Okay, I will be sure to look up this reading material," she said with a nod.

"Not to bright, is she?" Andy remarked with a chuckle. "Don't get me wrong, I can see her gears turning, but she still has a lot to learn."

Akira frowned. "I do not understand; I do not possess gears- Oh, I think I understand what you mean," she said, feeling more and more befuddled as this conversation stretched on.

"Yeah colloquialisms were tricky for me at first too. You'll get the hang of them pretty quick though." Maica commented. "Now go give your other mom a big hug, ok?"

"Wait, what? Who said I was okay with this?" Andy said, but it was too late, Akira already had her arms around her. "Okay, yeah...." Andy replied, giving Akira an awkward pat on the back.

"Am I doing this wrong?" Akira asked when she noticed Andy's uneasy reaction.

"No no, you're fine, I just don't do 'cuddly' all that well," Andy admitted bluntly.

"You do 'cuddly' just fine in bed with me," teased Maica before addressing Akira again. "But yeah, with most people she's a bit rigid."

"A bit like Father?" Akira ventured as she stepped away from Andy. "I have noticed that he seems to have quite an aversion to contact, but perhaps that is just with me?" By now she had come to accept that her creation was a bit of a shock to Ari, so she was starting to understand why contact with her was somewhat awkward.

That's when the holodeck matrix decided to flake out, sending a shimmer of failures throughout the room. Akira seemed to be fine and stable, but her father... Arivek simmered a few times, then with a look of surprise on his face, his physical matrix just decompiled and fell apart, dissolving into the air. Shortly after, the holodeck itself seemed to stabilize and return to normal function.

Then over the comms, Captain Meowlith's voice rang out, a bit more tinny than normal. "Attention all hands. We have lost our primary computer core and are running solely on about half of our bioneural gelpacks. Most automation is down. Please plan appropriately."

Akira's eye's darted around quickly, searching for answers that the computer could no longer give her, so she looked to her mothers, but with the computer down, so were communications, so the images of Andy and Maica connected from the Merlin's holodeck were now just that, images, unresponding ghosts of the real people they were. So no mothers, no father, Akira didn't know what to do and she was scared. "Computer, please, I need to talk to my father!" she said, but there was no answer, from the computer or her father. "Computer, connect me to Captain Maica of the USS Merlin!" she pleaded desperately. "Computer, connect me to the Bridge!" she cried out when her last command again went unanswered.

Now terrified, Akira moved to try to exit the holodeck, but the exit would not appear, and with the computer not responding, there was no way she could force herself out of the holodeck. Alone with the images of her mothers standing there gazing at her lifelessly, Akira cowered, hiding behind a worktable so she wouldn't have to look at them looking at her. "Computer, I need help," she whimpered softly as she started to cry.

--------------------
Bow Docking Port
--------------------

Nine hours later, the Katana was docked and coupled to the Hera, the bow docking port hooked to the aft of the Hera so they could transfer cargo easily. A centaur class was also there, taking part in the rendezvous to take on a few supplies as well. As the airlock doors cycles open, Captains Farenia and Telvan came face to face at last, their respective XOs standing behind them.

Shaking hands with each other, Enalia spoke first. "It's a pleasure meeting you. While we're resupplying you, I'd like to invite you and your senior officers to a dinner aboard the Hera. Traditional Federation Diplomatic fare will be served."

"Cooked by an actual chef," Angel added before Farenia replied. "She's promised only real ingredients for the dinner, nothing replicated."

"Thank you," Farenia replied with a wide smile. "I haven't had real chicken since the academy. Speaking of the Academy, did I hear right that you finally have a wife?"

Enalia blushed slightly and looked down at the manifest PaDD she carried. "Yeah, you could say that. I have those special torpedoes I promised you, by the way. There are only a dozen of them, but each one should be able to take out a Borg cube if you needed to."

Farenia nodded and glanced down at the PaDD as well. "Thank you. I hope we won't need them, but we've ran into some pretty nasty things out this way."

"Yeah, this area of space seems to be the bermuda's triangle of the galaxy." Enalia replied.

Ian stood quietly behind the ship's XO, checking information on his wrist PaDD. He had some medical supplies coming, as well as some research equipment to monitor the effects, if any, of the ambient radiation found here, both deleterious and beneficial. Ever since the incident on Ba'ku, the Federation was passively looking for sources of beneficial radiation. Exciting stuff for the squints in R&D, but not so much for an attending physician like Ian. He supposed that the tactical department would have its supplies first, because medical wasn't a high priority at the moment, but he wasn't complaining. Instead, he was just concentrating on being superficially pleasant through the... pleasantries.

Clio wasn't entirely certain why she'd been asked to join Enalia and Arivek at the airlock. She found it mildly concerning that her presence here with Enalia left the bridge in the hands of an officer with little command experience, especially given the recent Drej threat.

Jenni came rushing around a corner, trying not to make her entrance noticeable. She couldn't remember if she'd been asked to be present immediately after the dock, but there were supplies she needed to get aboard rather quickly in order to get some sections of the ship taken care of. But, seeing the two Captains and command teams just standing there talking, Jenni kept her silence and slipped into a position in the back of the group.

Soon the transfer arrangements had been made and Farenia and Enalia were wrapping things up. "I'll see you at dinner, 'Lia." Farenia commented with a grin.

"Bring your best bottle, 'Nia," Enalia replied with an even bigger grin. They then parted ways so that the crewmembers there could coordinate the actual transfers of supplies.

"Commanders Eneas and Matthews?" asked a Ferengi woman with Lieutenant pips. "I'm Lieutenant Illia and I'll be assisting with the transfer to your departments. I have torpedoes, conduits, raw materials, newer hand phasers, and some other things for you. I'll need you to sign for the special torpedoes and the four magnetic bottles full of antimatter. Most things can be transported over, but those things have to be moved by hand due to regulation. Do you accept delivery of these items?" the woman asked as she held out two PaDDs to the Katana officers.

"I hope you have a lot of torpedoes," Clio quipped with a hint of a grin, taking the PaDD offered to her and looking it over. She didn't know anything about these new 'special' torpedoes, and the manifest she was given didn't say much. She knew only that Farenia thought they might be helpful against the Drej, and that was what mattered. After adding her signature to the bottom of the form, she handed the PaDD back to Illia.

"A full complement for this ship, plus the special torpedoes. I hope you have storage space for the extras," Illia replied with a toothy grin. "And if you need more, we have over eight hundred for resupply jobs. I'm sure we can work something out."

"With the battles we keep getting ourselves into, more might be good. I don't know if you've fought a Drej warship yet, but believe me... you want as much firepower as you can possibly bring to bear." Though curious about the special torpedoes, Clio knew better than to ask in mixed company. The likely answer with such things was generally 'classified'. But she couldn't quite resist asking. "So those... special torpedoes. What's so special about them?"

Illia nodded helpfully. "When I get back to my office, I'll make sure the specifications are forwarded to your intel officer and then..." Glancing down at her PaDD, she paused a moment before looking back up with a shit eating grin. "And then you can brief yourself on the details."

While Clio gave Illia a very much unamused look, Angel chuckled behind Enalia and added, "You'll just have to wait and find out. She's not going to tell you, and Enalia threatened to space me if I said anything about them."

Jenni accepted her PADD and gave it a quick once-over. She didn't see anything entirely out of the norm, so she affixed her thumbprint and returned the PADD. "I can send over a few personnel to assist with the antimatter transfer."

Illia nodded and smiled politely. "Thank you. Please have them report to Cargo bay nine. It's where we've consolidated all the hazardous materials. Go down this corridor to junction twelve F, go right until you get to the Jeffries tube junction complex, and it's down corridor twelve bravo. You can't miss it. The rest of the supplies will be beamed over at the convenience of your cargo transporter operator."

"Which we're currently lacking, Last I heard." Farenia interjected. "Let's have Akira and Ensign Traxiden handle that. She's still a certified instructor in operations, isn't she?"

Jenni nodded to the Captain. "She is. I'll have them sent up right away," she told the Captain. Stepping back, Jenni tapped her combadge. "Matthews to Akira and Ensign Traxiden, please report to the Bow Docking Port. And bring an Antigrav cart."

"We'll also be needing sterile-field generators." Ian said, sidling up after finishing consulting his PaDD. Part of the reason he'd been sidelined shortly after coming aboard was because he'd been given an injection from a contaminated hypospray, causing him to have an allergic response that required him to be quarantined. He hadn't been happy about it, either. The Katana's sterile field generator had components that had been damaged in the rigors of its recent missions and, while it had been repaired to the point that it was now functional, would not hold out under the rigors of sustained use, especially if the ship faced combat conditions.

Illia nodded and checked another PaDD. "You're not scheduled for one but I think we can spare one. The Cenaurius had an extra and they traded it for a case of Romulan ale and a cask of amontillado. Is there anything else not on the resupply roster? Anyone?"

Farenia cleared her throat. "I could use some brandy if you have any to spare."

"We have some Vulcan brandy in stock, if that interests you," Illia waited for Farenia to nod before continuing. "We're normally not short on anything, but if you have any extra crates or panel covers, we could use both. Resupplying ships, they go out but never come back, you see."

"I'll see what we have lying around. Thank you." Farenia replied.

It was all set up. Ian's little pet project, his private soda jerk slash sundae sidebar had been hooked up into the ship's power grid via the power conduits coming off of the replicator in his office. Unfortunately, he wouldn't have access to real cream this far away from a planet or starbase, and it wasn't exactly a priority for farmers/ranchers to make these days because of the proliferation of replicators, but he could make due with replicated cream until the next time they docked. Once he'd made a slurry of flavorings, cream and sugar, he poured them into the machine on the back of the bar, and started it up. The churning was a little higher pitched than he remembered it making when he'd seen it demonstrated, but he was sure it was fine. In a few minutes, he'd have two gallons of perfectly-flavored dark chocolate and earl gray ice cream, perfect for an after-dinner dessert.

But it sure was making a lot more noise than he had expected.

And it was getting louder.

He took out his non-medical tricorder and scanned the device, then tapped his commbadge when he saw the readings. "Ummmm, Engineering? I'm afraid I may have made a bit of a mistake here..." He said, as the ice cream maker began flinging out pint-sized blobs of blast-chilled ice cream. "If you happen to have anyone free at the moment to come to my office, I..." And then one of the blobs of ice-cream pelted him in the face. "AAAaaaahh! Holy mother that's cold!" The small bar began to shudder like an ill-weighted washing machine on spin cycle, flinging ice-cream so hard against the picture window of his office that the impact of it resounded through sick-bay, startling his nurses and the poor, hapless intern Starfleet had given him to train.

Down in Engineering, Jenni was sitting cross legged next to the warp core. As the ship was currently at warp, there was no way she could perform the maintenance the magnetic constrictors so desparately needed. But, she could work on many of the secondary systems that were above the dilithium chamber. Its redundant systems made flushing the interior plasma buildup in the EPS relays an easy task. And, while she could just as easily delegate this task to another, Jenni wanted to perform it herself. She felt tasks like these helped her get to know the ship better, and with as much time apart she and Katana had, this was a necessary duty for her.

And the task was just as easy to abandon should something surprise her or require her attention, which was exactly what she thought could happen when the internal speakers chimed and the voice of the new Chief Medical Officer was heard. At first, she wanted to dismiss it, but the panic in his voice was what garnered her full attention. "Ensign!" she called out to the Trill across the room. "Finish this up, will you?"

Before catching the ensign's response, Jenni had leaped up and left Engineering. Rather than carry a toolkit, she sported a finely crafted pouch that was attached to her hip and hugged her right thigh. It carried most of the tools she'd ever need, and if a situation required more than what she had on hand, then it was time to call for backup anyway. "On my way!" she called back to the doctor, tapping her badge before running out the door.

A minute later she arrived in sickbay. "What seems to be the..." she started to ask, only to have her voice trail off when she spotted the commotion in the Doctor's office.

"I think I..." Ian said, only to pause , blocking another large glob of ice cream with a PaDD. "...Might have made a mistake wiring this thing up." His office, which might have otherwise seemed a bit spartan, and mildly cluttered, now looked like it had hosted a toddler birthday party or college food fight. "The instruction manual was in Breen, you see." He concluded, thying to move close enough to the device to shut it down. More ice-cream shot out as he approached, deflecting off of the PaDD he held and flying out the open door to splatter the display above one of the bio-beds. "I usually prefer my ice cream to be served at lower velocities." He added with a slightly nervous chuckle.

"Computer!" Jenni called out, grabbing a nearby pillow to shield herself as well. "Shut down power to the Chief Medical Officer's office! Authorization Matthews Bravo Foxtrot Two Three Gamma." The computer beeped in reply. Immediately the lights went out in the office, as did the visual displays, but the ice cream kept coming. "What did you do!?" Jenni asked, grabbing a spanner and rushing over to the ice cream maker. Unless she shut down power to the entire sickbay complex, this would be a little more difficult than she thought.

Ian's brow furrowed, his expression somewhere between hurt and petulant for a moment, not liking the implied accusation in the engineer's tone. "I tapped into the primary plasma relay to my office's replicator with a phase adaptor... Thingimajigger... and some conduit... I've done this sort of thing before, honestly!" He added almost defensively. Because he had. Given, he'd only done so on a seventy year old Antares freighter, but it wasn't like he was a total amateur at this sort of thing.

The ice cream maker was relentless. Jenni could feel the cold, wet ice cream begin to seep through the pillow. She now stood over the device, not caring at all about the drips falling on her already dirty boots and pants. Her eyes darted all around, looking for the aforementioned relay and... thingimajigger. Unable to see much around the pillow, Jenni glanced around it and saw enough of a conduit underneath a mound of rocky road. She reached out, grabbed it, and pulled. Almost instantly, the mechanical whir faded away, and so did the slinging of ice cream. Jenni lowered her shield and began to observe the, well, wet office. Nodding slowly, she looked up at the doctor and said with a tired smile, "Looks like your plasma flow wasn't being regulated."

"It... Wasn't?" Ian asked, taken aback. "I did all the calculations, configured the ohmage..." He wasn't stupid, after all. "It uses Breen technology to blast chill the ice cream to just the right temperature, so it can't just be plugged right in. I'm... Sorry. I should have called down and asked for help." It was a hard admission for him to make, because he hated to ask for help, had hated needing to call down to engineering for assistance with this trifle. Because it was a trifle. "I'm Ian, by the way. New Doctor, all of that."

"Jenni," she said back to him with a smile. "And, for the record, you'll find I'm very protective of this ship. But, I'll never tell anyone "no" if I can help it. In fact, I'll even volunteer to help in my off hours." With that, she withdrew a spanner from her wait pouch and tossed it at Ian. "Care to give me a hand getting this working for you?"

And even though it was a gentle lofting and from not too far away, Ian still managed to bobble and drop the spanner, only narrowly missing his foot and a large glob of ice cream lying on the floor. "Crap!" He exclaimed, stooping to pick it up. "I can appreciate your protectiveness of the ship... I used to have one of my own back before I joined Starfleet -- an old Antares Class. Was constantly having to pitch in to fix it." He said, kneeling down to lift up the carpet panels around the bar and open the access panel for the wiring trunk. Then he called up the schematics on his wrist PaDD and transferred them to the larger PaDD he'd been using to shield himself from the ice cream, setting it down next to him so she could reference it.

Jenni took a moment to study the schematics. "Antares class?" she asked. "I remember serving on one during my Academy days, but I can't say I've seen one in years. It amazes me that those things still fly. That must have been an interesting experience."

"It was." Ian said with a fond nod at the thought. "It was converted to serve as a dedicated medical vessel, operating in the Cardassian DMZ before and during the Dominion war as part of a civilian relief organization. When time comes for me to retire from the fleet, I hope to be doing much the same sort of thing." Because Ian was almost a pathological bleeding-heart do-gooder. He reached into the panel and began pulling up meticulously bundled wires and the phase adaptor and discriminator circuit. The latter was of Federation design while the former was decidedly Breen.

Jenni froze at the sight of the Breen technology. While she had grown past a lot, the one thing she hadn't overcome was the ruthless encounter with the Breen that completely changed her life. "There's part of your problem," she said, nodding at the circuit. "Breen technology doesn't integrate well with the Katana." She left out the part that the Katana herself was from a different universe and that even most Federation technology didn't integrate well with her.

Ian frowned and rocked back on his heels, raising a brow. "Another case of let the buyer beware, then." He said with a mild shrug, looking over the coils of wiring. "An easy fix, as it happens." He said, reaching over to flip off a circuit breaker and pick up his photonic caliper. "It takes Federation-issue phaser packs. But then people start asking, 'Why is the Doctor requisitioning so many phaser packs? Is he gearing up to fight a war? Is he a gun nut?'" He mused with a faint chuckle. "That's how rumors get get started, and you know how pernicious gossip can get on a starship." He delved in with the caliper and began removing the circuitry he'd installed. "So that's about fifteen hours of my life I'll never get back."

"I've heard of doctors with an air of bloodlust," she said with a gentle smile. She reached over and placed a hand over his, hoping it would get him to stop undoing his work. As great as her disdain for the Breen was, that was no reason to take it out on the doctor. "I'm sure we can find an alternative solution," she told him. "I can't tell you how many coffeepots I've installed where the heating elements were two hundred percent above normal and their origin came from somewhere other than a Federation replicator. Do you have any manuals or schematics for yoru parts?"

"Powers forbid. Bloodthirsty doctors?" Well, Ian had heard of his share of them, and not just the "gunners" in med school who would backstab other students at the drop of a hat, but it was a grim topic and not one that merited discussion while he was covered in freezing-cold ice-cream. And then she covered his hand and he stopped his futzing with the circuitry. "Um... Alright. I believe there's a schematic in here somewhere." he said, reaching his unencumbered hand over to the PaDD between them and paging through the user's manual to the section with the schematics for the device. "If nothing else, the merchants who sold me this device were obligingly... Um, what's the term? Anal retentive?"

Jenni chuckled at the term as she glanced at the schematic. "Sounds to me like they were taking advantage of a poor soul who wanted to make his own ice cream." After another moment of study, she declared, "Well, it looks like we can get this up and running, but it's going to take engineering a couple adaptors for you. I could have something ready in a couple hours and we can try to get this up and running for you."

"There's no rush." Ian asserted with a glance around his office. "It looks like I'm going to have tho spend the intervening time cleaning up my office anyway. It looks like someone decided to hold a children's birthday party in here and invited all the rowdy kids." His expression became amusedly rueful. "And my staff is never going to let me live this down, I know it."

"There could be worse things," Jenni said, reaching over to pull up her sleeve. As the yellow cuff was withdrawn, a purple tattoo in an elegant alien script became visible. "Like marrying this ship's last Captain on accident, for example."

Ian looked at her for a moment, incredulously, then chuckled. "Well, at least you didn't marry them on purpose. I made that mistake with a previous captain, only to learn that a captain's true marriage is to their ship." He concluded with a wry shake of his head and a self-deprecatory laugh. He was pretty much at peace with his ex-wife, at least until their next meeting (in however many years that meeting took to happen), but being at peace with her didn't mean that he didn't still have scars. "I felt like I should have asked for custody of the ship's shuttles in the divorce settlement."

"Well, he wasn't Captain at the time. But that's a completely other story in itself. Maybe one day," Jenni said, starting to push herself off of the ground and trying not to think about the patches of her uniform that were soaked and clinging to her body thanks to the melted ice cream, "I'll share the details."

"Until that day..." Ian said, rising and trying to gather up the shreds of what little dignity he clung to, and straightening his own sopping uniform, "I think I'm going to go to the Janitorial office and get a wet-vac and carpet shampooer." He concluded. "It wouldn't exactly be cricket to make my intern or the ship's janitors clean it up." He added. It was his mess, after all.

She smiled gently at him and gave him an assuring nod. "As soon as there's a quiet evening, I'll get the first round in the lounge."

With a chuckle, Ian said, "We can compare war stories. Just don't ask to see the battle scars, those are somewhat embarrassing." And then he slipped out of his office. "Alright, alright, enough with the staring." He told his nurses before leaving the sick bay.

[off]

[cleaned portion]

Az: So due to the resignation of our XO, a lot was written today.

Az: 26 January 2016 4pm CST: So there's a plan now to combine the Katana and the Hera. Basically, the issues that destroyed the computer keep happening and rather than trying to rebuild the ship, we scuttle her, transfer crew to the Hera, give the Hera a slight refit, and relaunch that way. I need thoughts and comments from everyone on this. If there's no response within 7 days from this post, I'll assume you're resigning.

http://hera.split-world.com/
http://katana.split-world.com/

Crysta: How dare he. :p Anyway... I'm on board the crazy train.

Ian: I'll be considering my options. Ian might be redundant on Hera, but they don't have a flight control guy, and I have a few good characters in my simming folder.

Ray/Yu: I've been having an up and down dog fight with depression and life, but I would like to continue on with you regardless of the direction we go.

Az: Due to overwhelming positive replies in person, we are going ahead with this plan. Also, the Hera has a news item resolving the prior mission and detailing the need for the refit. Anyone wishing to transfer to the Hera, please begin doing so. Though I gave a week, I will be deactivating inactive characters on the Hera this weekend based on disappearances prior to the temporary shutdown.

There was not a single shred of doubt in her heart; Jenni loved the Katana.

The corridors she now traversed may not have belonged to the ship she spent so many years aboard, but she learned years ago that ships had a soul of their own. In her career, she'd severed aboard many ships, including the Manticore-class Camelot as of late. But not a single one held a flame to the Katana.

Sure Jenni missed seeing familiar faces about, including the green-skinned Android, a spotted Intelligence Chief with Romulan ears, the ex-Borg with wild red hair... Hell, there were even days she missed the cat who became her accidental mate. Even now as her footsteps moved her ahead, Jenni smiled, recognizing landmarks on her journey to the science lab. Places where Maica had confronted her to coerce Jenni into dealing with her demons, where Jhu and Andy had provided friendship in a hard moment, and even where she and M'rayr had aimlessly walked about, conversing about this and that. Of course, behind these bulkheads, she and Arivek spent many hours in the Jefferies tubes, tweaking this and that.

Arivek...

Jenni loved the blue-skinned hologram like a brother, and she certainly knew him well. Though she'd convinced him to let Jenni connect with him and his newfound daughter Akira, Jenni knew that Arivek would certainly stall on making that connection. There was little choice other than to take matters into her own hands. She possessed not an iota of a game plan other than to just be herself and hope that Akira was open to meeting others. If she was anything like her mothers, then socializing shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Her expression twinged at the very thought. What if she's like Ari...?

Akira was in the science lab familiarizing herself with the systems for which she was initially programmed. She had been encouraged by the Captain that she needed to socialize to get used to working with others, but so far she had been mostly focused on learning to perform the jobs for which we was created. And she had been quite busy tinkering with her appearance, which at the moment was still very rough and undefined. She was definitely female at this point, though she still had blue skin. Her face had the most detail so far, with Asian almond eyes and long black hair to frame her sweet face.

She heard the door to the lab open and an Officer in yellow entered. Akira offered a bright smile and "Hello," but didn't really understand what to do conversationally from there, so she went back to studying some information on one of the consoles.

Jennifer shook her head. No, she was going to bank on Maica and Andy. If she was wrong, well, she'd run with it. Jenni arrived at the door to the science lab. Rather than open the door herself, Jenni decided to start on hopefully the right foot, and rang the chime. The door opened a moment later, revealing the room's sole occupant.

Jenni wore her best smile as she stepped inside. "Hello," she greeted the young woman. "My name is Jenni. I'm, uh..." her voice trailed off for a moment, trying to figure out how best to introduce herself without sounding like someone who could perform a thorough examination. The last thing Jenni wanted to do was to frighten Akira. "I'm a friend of your parents."

"Really?" Akira asked in an amazed tone, like this truly was some sort of mind-blowing news. "I have only just met my mothers, it was very exciting! My breasts are not as big as theirs, but apparently this is a good thing if I am to be an Engineer. Did you know that they can get in your way while you're working? I did not know this!" Akira exclaimed excitedly. "How do you know my parents? Where did you meet? Did you get to work together often? Did you know that my mothers are machines? Well, Mother Andy is only part machine, but that is fine. You are not a machine and that is fine too. You are very pretty, by the way, but not as pretty as Mother Maica," she continued to ramble on.

The human blinked, her jaw slightly heavy and her brown eyes wider than normal. She could feel a chuckle swell in her lungs, but her mind somehow regained control from the barrage of questions and snapped her jaw shut to prevent that outburst from escaping. "I..." Jenni shook her head and could no longer keep her laughter under control, though only a small giggle of relief escaped. She was certainly not at all like her father!

"Believe it or not," Jenni said, "I do know they can get in the way. I once had to help your mother Maica out of a Jefferies tube and it was not easy." Keeping her smile, Jenni continued, "I don't see your mothers as machines though. Andy and Maica are two of the most animated and wonderful women I've had the pleasure of knowing. And, I must say, you are as just as pretty as them."

"Thank you!" Akira said brightly. "I am still working on my physical appearance. There are many difficult choices, it is not easy," affirmed with a serious nod. "But the rest of me is mostly done. I still have a lot to learn, though, and not just about the jobs I have to perform; apparently I have a lot to learn about social interactions and holding conversations. But so far I have caused you great enjoyment, enough to laugh, so that is good, yes?"

"Yes, very good!" Jenni happily confirmed, though she was a bit concerned about Akira training herself to perform "jobs" on board the ship. "But, with anything, it takes practice. Talking with people and holding conversations, that is. And, I'm happy to help you with whatever you need."

"Thank you very much, I need a lot of help," Akira replied. "Miss Clio was supervising and teaching me some. She had her own duties to attend to and I have enough of the Science database to figure out quite a bit on my own, but I do not know where to get started with Operations. I told Father I wanted to be an Engineer like him and so we decided I would try to learn Operations, but I do not have any information on what to do there."

There it was again, the mention of duties and interests aboard the ship. "Well, I can help you there. But... Don't you feel like you're rushing into things a bit?" Many fears rose up within her, including the crew possibly thinking she was some form of Emergency Hologram series. If they could do it with medicine, allowing a machine to make life or death decisions for a patient, then why not expand the technology into other departments. If Akira were to give into that mentality, not to think that she would actually do it, then Akira risked not developing as a person.

"No, I do not think so," Akira said, looking very thoughtful indeed as she considered it for a moment. "It is what I was made for, why should I not get right to it?"

Jenni kept her smile, though the corners of her mouth dropped just a bit. "There is a difference," Jenni began, "between getting right to it and letting it consume you." Jenni knew this fact well, having once surrendered herself to duty and function. "I just don't want you to ignore Akira as you become one of the best scientists the galaxy has to offer."

"Why would I want to become the best scientist? I was made for Science, but I would much rather be like Father and be an Engineer," Akira stated simply, still seeming very confused. "And how can I ignore Akira? I am Akira, how do I ignore myself?" she asked.

Jenni wasn't sure how to answer any of those questions. "I'm sorry, Akira. I don't mean to confuse you. By trade, I am an engineer. Matters of the mind are best left to counselors. But, if you want to be an engineer, why don't you become one?"

"I will become an Engineer, once someone shows me how," Akira replied, as if all her problems were that simple. "And I have made an appointment to meet with the Counselor already. Father and the Captain have said that I need to continue to develop my personality and social skills in addition to professional skills, so speaking with the Counselor seemed a reasonable resource. I expect I will be spending a great deal of time socializing to learn what I like and what I don't like, so it is good for me that the crew are allotted personal time for such things. I am very much looking forward to meeting new and interesting people."

"That's good," Jenni said. "And, as for being an engineer, I can help you with that. In fact, it would be my pleasure."

"This is good! It means I will not have to come find you later to ask for your help!" Akira replied cheerfully. "I understand the basic concepts of what would be required of me in Operations, but I do not yet know how to carry out those requirements. It was not necessary for me to know how to make basic repairs or perform any other related functions when the science database was being built into me. I look forward to learning how to do these things. Please let me know when you have time to offer instruction and I will make myself available. I do not have a duty schedule yet since I am not ready for that responsibility, so I will be better able to adapt to your schedule than you are to mine."

"Any time is good, really," she confessed. "Just so long we're not in the middle of a crisis. Right now, I'm practically living in the Jeffries Tubes trying to get to know the ship a little better."

"You should not be living in the Jefferies Tubes, that could be a safety hazard," Akira said seriously. "Besides, it's my general understanding that humans prefer the comforts of beds over deck plating for rest."

Jenni blinked, surprised by the statement. Reminding herself that Akira would take things quite literally at this point, she said, "It's an expression. Basically, I spend so much time inside the ship that it seems like that's where I live."

"Oh, right," Akira said softly, looking a bit down. "Apologies. I am still getting accustomed to various expressions and colloquialisms, especially since they can vary so widely depending on culture. I will endeavor to do better in the future."

Jenni reached over and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing to be sorry for. I know you have a lot to take in, especially in a short amount of time. And, you're doing quite well at it, I must say."

"Thank you, I appreciate the encouragement," Akira replied. "I must say, it is very difficult learning to integrate into social settings while simultaneously attempting to define one's personality and learn how to perform certain job related tasks. You biologicals are amazingly complex to be able to manage so much naturally."

"Only through years of practice," Jenni replied. "Believe me, in our first few days of living, there's not anything we can do on our own."

"This is true," Akira said, nodding slightly. "Well, thank you for the conversation, it has been educational for me."

"You are most welcome," Jenni said with a wide smile. "And if you need anything, feel free to ask."

"And likewise, if you require assistance at any time, I would be happy to help," Akira replied with a smile, then stood blinking in thought. "This is the part where I say 'have a nice day'?"

The brunette nodded a confirmation. "It is indeed. I'll see you around, Akira."

"Bye!" Akira replied with a cheerful wave.

As soon as the meeting ended, Jenni and Arivek made their way to the nearest turbolift, each with their own destination. "Engineering," she told the computer. It waited for Arivek's input.

Arivek raised an eyebrow as he looked over at the woman he knew as his best friend. He could read her like a book, and this was one time that he knew exactly what she was going to say. "Go ahead," he said to her, waiting for her to get her feelings out.

Jenni waited for the lift to move, and gave it a couple of seconds to run before abruptly turning to her blue-skinned friend and said, "You... have a daughter. With Andy and Maica? What... How... When!?"

With a sigh, Arivek turned to her and leaned against the turbolift. "It happened last night, actually. Ferenia was intoxicated and asked the Computer for a Science Officer. There's been a glitch in the Computer's matrix that I can't figure out and it took her request literally. So it took my program, Maica's program and Andy's augments and created a very sentient hologram that has attached itself to me as a child."

Though he only said a few sentences, Jenni just had a whirlwind of visual images. "Oy..." she said at last, blinking and shaking her head. If anything, it just confirmed for her how much Katana had changed in recent months. "So, a Bolian/Trill/hologram/Orion/android hybrid. That's... that's just... wow." An amused smile appeared on her face as she looked back up at the Executive Officer. "How are you holding up with all of this?"

"Not very well," he said as he slumped against the turbolift wall. "Honestly, having children wasn't always my plan. And with me being a hologram, I somewhat threw that thought out of a window years ago. But now, this..." He became quiet. "I didn't ask for this, I didn't want this. I..." He looked at Jenni with tears welling up in his eyes, "I don't think I want her."

Jenni's eyes widened, shocked and nearly horrified by Arivek's confession. To be fair, she'd thrown the concept of children far from her mind as well, somewhere around the time her mother had been killed in that explosion. The pain she went through... she couldn't bear the thought of even one child of hers having to go down that same road.

But the thought of Akira... was that her name... being unwanted. That was more painful than anything she ever experienced. "Ari," she said gently, reaching out and brushing away a holographic tear. "She didn't ask for this either."

"I know," he said, quietly. "But...this isn't fair."

Nothing was really fair, at least nothing that happened to either of them over the last few years. Between the destruction of her Katana and the space/time displacement Ari had experienced, life wasn't nearly as they'd expected it to turn out. "I know," she assured him. "But, you're not alone. We've... we've got us."

Arivek leaned his had on Jenni's shoulder. "I don't know how I ever survived with you not on board," he said as he snaked his arm around his companion's.

She held him tight, just letting him feel the warm of a loving touch. "Ari..." she gently replied. Her reasons for leaving were her own, wanting to get away from the Katana and the Captain she'd accidentally married. Never once had she considered what it would do to her friends, or that they wouldn't be here when she returned. Even now, she wished she hadn't have left, but she could only have wondered what more would have changed around her. "I'm here now. We'll get you through this, just like how you helped me get through things a year ago."

"Thank you," Arivek said, thinking back on all the times they had together. "I'm so glad you're back."

"Me too," she said with a smile. "So..." she said, avoiding pressing a button to getting the turbolift move again. "When do I get to meet her?"

"I'm not sure just yet," Arivek stated. "She's still getting used to a lot of things."

"As are you, it seems," she pointed out. "How much time are you spending with her now, helping her adjust?"

"I've seen her a few times..." he said, his voice trailing off as he looked away. There was one thing that could never change, Ari couldn't lie while looking into Jenni's eyes. It just wasn't possible.

"Arivek..." Jenni said gently yet sternly, turning her head sharply towards him.

"Alright, twice," he said, sheepishly.

Jenni fought a sigh, not wanting to offend or set Ari off. Instead, she stood beside him and slid her arm around his shoulders. "You don't have to do this alone," she assured him. "I don't know the Captain, or the Intel Chief, but seeing you banter with them... I can tell they're part of the family now. Let the Katana family help you. Let me help."

"They could never replace you," Arivek said, wrapping his arms around his best friend.

She could only smile at that. "It's good to be home, if only to keep you from floundering."

[BRIDGE]

Farenia was back on the bridge after the resupply with the Hera was completed and they had just disengaged and about to get under way when suddenly the lights flickered a moment and some of the deck noise audibly went silent. Gravity then went down and the automatic restraints in the seats refused to engage.

"Report!" Farenia barked, hanging into the arms of her chair so she wouldn't float away.

"I'm not sure," called the crewman from the operations console. "It looks like the main computer just went offline though. I'll try and restore gravity manually."

As the crewman busied himself with a panel at the back of the bridge, Farenia tried to pull up anything on her own command terminal. Nothing but static came across her screen and by the looks of it, most of the bridge consoles were in the same predicament.

"Got it!" called the crewman as gravity was restored. Most of the critical bridge consoles returned to a functional state a few seconds after that. "I'm getting a status readout now. Main computer... is completely fried. The primary power coupling reversed polarity, seems to have exploded... and about half of our bioneural gel packs were taken out in the feedback. Life support is on backup systems. All automation is down. Warp reactor offline. Still no gravity on decks two and three. Comms are... external comms are functional for now. "

"Inform the Hera that we'll require a bit more assistance and concentrate on keeping critical systems online." Farenia ordered before tapping her comm badge to receive a disabled chirp. She then tried her command chair's emergency comms system and got a positive response.

Then over the comms, Captain Meowlith's voice rang out, a bit more tiny than normal. "Attention all hands. We have lost our primary computer core and are running solely on about half of our bioneural gelpacks. Most automation is down. Please plan appropriately."

The Bridge was alive with activity as the crew attempted to regain control of critical ship functions, but there was one thing that was getting overlooked in all the hustle and bustle, something very important that shouldn't have been overlooked...

"Captain, we seem to be connect with the USS Merlin for some reason," the comms officer spoke up after a while. Having been assisting an Engineer with a software repair, he failed to notice that there was still an open communication connection with the USS Merlin, and it wasn't until he had returned to his station to respond to check-ins from the various decks and departments that he finally noticed that the long range communication was still active. "I think I can activate the channel to speak with whoever is on the other side, but it would be audio only."

"Please do so," Farenia ordered. As soon as the comm clicked open, Farenia began to speak but didn't get very far. "This is Captain Meowlith if the..."

"-woman, I am working on it- oh wait, I think we finally got someone," came the voice of a very irate ex-Borg, clearly in the middle of a 'spirited' discussion with someone else on her end. "This is Master Chief Petty Officer Carter of the USS Merlin! We were talking to Arivek and Akira Zhuri through the holodeck when the connection cut out. Is everything alright over there?" she asked, the channel crackling with its unstable connection.

Farenia furrowed her brows in consternation. The fact that two of her crew depended on the existence of the computer network had slipped her mind in all the confusion. "Crewman Daniels! Get someone down to the holodeck NOW!"

Without even responding, the crewman started making random connections to the rooms near the holodeck in an effort to contact someone nearby.

"Please send your Captain my deepest apologies. Our computer core blew up and took out half our network with it. We're still trying to get everything sorted out." Farenia replied apologetically.

The weight of Farenia's words hit the Petty Officer like starship at warp, and it felt like all the breath had been sucked from her. "Akira and Ari, are they alright?" Andy asked. "Captain Maica and I, I guess you could say we're the 'maternal' influences in Akira's development, and we were meeting her today. Please don't tell us that she's gone. Or Ari, he's like family to us."

Before Farenia could reply, one of the operations techs called out. "Internal sensors are back online, but without the computer to interpret the scans... Here we go, holodeck. I'm reading it as active and... I'm picking up a single holographic lifeform."

"Captain, please... Do all you can to save our family." Maica pleaded over the comms.

Farenia knew that voice instantly - almost every single briefing in the ship's database was done by this woman. "Captain Maica, I presume. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but considering the circumstances..."

"There's not a Captain worth their salt who ain't willing to go to hell and back for their crew, so we know you'll do everything in your power to save them," Andy said, mostly for Maica's sake who was quickly coming unraveled at this news. "Plus, you've got Jenni Matthews over there; I trust her with my own life and Maica's, and I know she's a miracle worker. Just keep us updated, please."

"You'll be the first to know." Farenia replied. "If you have any data you think might be helpful, please forward it to us. And if we're not available, the Hera is the local command ship and Captain Telvan will know how to contact us."

"Aye, we're familiar with Telvan and the Hera," Andy replied. "Most of my research on Maica is still in the holodeck program we were using to interface communications, and I helped Ari maintain his matrix when I was Chief of Operations on the Katana, I left plenty of notes for whoever helped him after I left, but if I come across any other information that might be useful then I'll forward on."

"Thank you, I'll..." Farenia got out before Crewman Daniels interrupted her.

"Captain, we have visual confirmation. Akira seems to be ok and is currently residing completely in the holodeck matrix. There's no sign of Commander Zhuri. It seems he was most likely running on the main computer core itself." Daniels delivered the news morosely.

"We'll be standing by so you and your crew can get to work. Good luck," Andy said. On the Merlin, she gave Maica's hand a squeeze, knowing her wife would be devastated by what they were hearing. Andy was rattled as well, but she was trying to be strong for Maica.

"Thank you. Katana out." As soon as the call was ended, Farenia set about doing what repairs she could do herself while directing repairs. "As soon as we have communications with engineering, I want to talk with Commander Matthews."

[EQUIPMENT STORAGE, DECK 3]

Once the new stock of torpedoes were stowed and ready for use, Clio had started securing the other equipment they'd garnered from their meeting with the Hera in the storage area nearby. She'd only just finished securing the last crate in place when the lights abruptly went out, followed quickly by the artificial gravity. Grabbing for the secured crate, Clio squeaked in surprise, barely managing to secure a handhold and keep from drifting up to the ceiling. While her night vision was better than some, she couldn't see in pitch darkness to get out of the room. Just as heart racing pulse was the only sound she heard, the lights came on as quickly as they'd gone off.

The gravity, however, stayed offline. If she weren't alone, it might have been comical. With no one around to distract her, it was instead rather terrifying. Taking a breath to steady herself, she carefully pulled herself closer to the crate, tucking her legs alongside it in hopes of not being flung free and crushed if the Katana started moving with any sort of speed. Then she freed one hand and gingerly tapped her communicator badge, only for it to give the 'no connection' alert rather than the usual chirp.

[ENGINEERING]

To say that she was startled was an understatement. After days of hard work with repairing the ship, Jenni quickly found herself dismayed when power was cut, the warp drive went offline, and her tools began to float out of her waistpouch.

"Lopez, Kr'ozzu!" Jenni called out as she tried to push herself towards a console to keep herself from floating too high. Falling from the top story of Engineering would be nearly fatal to anyone. "Get emergency power online now!"

No sooner had she given the order did the power kick in. Evidently, someone else had thought of it first. It was clear that power was out, and the computer was offline as the lack of information on all of the consoles told her more than she wanted to know. She immediately directed three people to the computer core to focus on efforts there. "Engineering to bridge!" she called out. There wasn't a response, prompting her to believe that the communications systems were out. She needed to focus there first. Only so many could work on the computer at a time, but at least they could focus on power generation and communications.

She worked with Crewman Santiago for the next few minutes on the communications array, nodding at status reports as they were shouted out by the Engineering staff. Finally, lights flickered into existence. Boldly testing the system, Jenni tapped her combadge and called out, "Engineering to Bridge."

Farenia was relieved to say the least to finally hear the voice of her chief engineer. =/\="Commander, we're showing that the main computer core is gone and that we're only running on half our bioneural net. Can you confirm? What's your status?"=/\=

Jenni rushed over to a nearby console to press a few buttons, only for the interface to rudely buzz at her in response. "We must be on the half of the net that's not running. Main power's out, same with the warp drive. I've sent a team to check out the computer, but I haven't heard back yet... Wait... gone? What the hell do you mean, gone?"

=/\="The logs we have show that the main EPS coupling for the computer core reversed polarity and exploded. We're getting zero response from any systems in that area. That kind of gone."=/\= Farenia clarified.

"You've got to be kidding!" Jenni called back over the comm. "There's absolutely no reason why the EPS coupling should reverse polarity. Unless..." her mind trailed off, considering the ship's history. This was one of the only ships in Starfleet whose quantum signature didn't match the universal constant. Because of that, the very laws of physics didn't apply to the Katana. And if this was such a matter, then they were all in trouble. "I'm going to check it out." Jenni tapped the badge on her breast, closing the channel. Gathering a couple tools and two of her best engineers, they shot out of the room bound for the computer core.

[BRIDGE]

Ending the conversation with Engineering, Farenia tapped her comms again to try and reach sickbay. "Bridge to sickbay, Doctor, are you there? what's your status?"

=/\="Aye, Captain."=/\= Ian answered after a few moments, his voice reverberating unnaturally, as if from inside a tunnel. There was a din of activity to be heard underneath his voice as the Sick Bay crew were following the orders he'd set them to. =/\="Bio-beds are out of commission here, and the medical replicator shorted out and decided to replicate a river of blood for some strange reason. We're prepping for low-tech triage and treatment down here... Well, I don't know, Belding, get a bucket or shoot it with a damn hand phaser. Get creative!"=/\= His aside to his head nurse sounded testy, even if trying not to sound testy. =/\="Are there any wounded?"=/\=

"Reports are still coming in, but stand by." Without letting her finish speaking, another explosion went off not far from the bridge, sending feedback into the consoles at the back. Farenia ran to a console she hoped was still working and what she saw made her heart sink. Antimatter storage was starting to lose cohesion.

"Signal the Hera that we're abandoning ship. Ask them to get all trapped crew and to get Akira transferred to their systems immediately." Farenia went back to her own command console and tapped the emergency intercom. "All hands, this is Captain Meowlith. Abandon ship. Abandon ship. If you are unable to get to an escape pod, set your communicator to emergency beacon mode so the Hera can transport you off." Nodding to the rest of her bridge crew, whom had frozen in shock, they once again moved into action, making sure everyone got off the ship.

[EQUIPMENT STORAGE, DECK 3]

"Abandon ship?!?" There was no one around to hear that exclamation, but Clio couldn't help herself. Such an order meant one thing in Starfleet, and that was critical failure of the vessel. What the bloody hell had they been hit with? She didn't think even the Drej had a weapon so powerful as this. But there would be time for speculation and discovery later. Right now she had to get away from the storage crates, or the Hera's transporter beam might try to beam it over with her. With a carefully calculated push against the crate, she drifted to the middle of the room, activating her communicator's emergency beacon. Less than a minute passed before the familiar sensation of the transporter beam washed over her... and then deposit her several feet above the Hera's transporter pad. She barely had time for a yelp of surprise before unceremoniously slamming downward like an unfortunate cartoon character.

Amidst somewhat amused chuckles from those already materialized, an officer she didn't recognized reached down and helped her up before quickly pulling her off the pad to let the next group materialize.

[HOLODECK]

Akira sobbed as she watched more and more of the lab around her destabilize. She was terrified, having watched her Father blink out of existence, and now she was slowly degrading as well, bits of her flickering out and back in as the holodeck computer began to break down. The ghostly images of Andy and Maica had long since vanished, so now she was all alone, dying alone...

Then suddenly, there was Ari. Like her, he looked incomplete, and he said nothing, simply grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into a a tight hug. "Father!" Akira cried out as she sobbed into his shoulder, holding him tightly as together they flickered out.

[COMPUTER CORE]

Jenni had just climbed out of the Jefferies tube on Deck Seven, only to be met with one of the worst fires she'd ever seen. However that EPS relay exploded, it was enough to both knock the emergency systems offline and start a cascade reaction that had taken out three sections of the deck. If there was still a computer left, it would take a miracle to save it.

She turned around to give her fellow engineers orders to seal off what remained of the deck (it was her hopes that limiting the oxygen supply would take care of the plasma fire so that they could get in there and assess the damage) when the emergency alarm went off. Captain Meowlith's words reverberated throughout her mind, body and soul. "No..." she gasped, spinning back around to look at the plasma fire. Her worst nightmare was playing again, except this time it was just as real as the first.

This time, there would be no lucky shot to save them, or crewmembers from a ship with the same namesake. No, no. This was it. Jenni's heart sank as she shook her head. She refused to accept this as reality. This plasma fire was not enough to destroy the Katana.

Think, Jenni!

She blinked, realizing the source of the alarm. Antimatter containment. The ship could survive under a multitude of conditions save a small handful. The top of that list was nothing short of anything to do with the warp drive.

Jenni spun around again. "Get to the escape pods," she told both crewmen, knowing that this could be the last time she saw them. She'd seen too much death, too much destruction. Jenni would regret this day. "Go!" she chided again. "Now!" As they both took off, Jenni did the one thing she knew to do... and that was get to Engineering.

[BRIDGE]

Another call came through. =/\= "Bridge, Engineering, I need help!"=/\= called a Crewman Greenfelt. =/\="I'm down at the holodeck and I can't get in. Door overrides aren't working, manual releases are locked, and whatever program is running in there is degrading; if either of the Zhuri's are still alive in there, they won't be for long. I could blow the door open, but that might destabilize what's left of them. I either need help or an order to abandon them and evacuate; Captain, what do I do?"=/\=

Farenia was already at one of the last functional Ops consoles on the bridge when that call came in. "This is Meowlith. Interface the matrix controls to the bridge and I can route the whole thing to the Hera. Holodeck six is standing by."

=/\="Right, I'll try..."=/\= came Crewman Greenfelt's response, followed by a few choice expletives as he tried to get the unresponsive computer to do as ordered. =/\="I think I'm going to need a beam out as well once this is done; the smoke is getting pretty thick, I think the fire has reached this deck... Alright, I got it, you should have control now. Transfer the whole holodeck matrix to the Hera, I think it's the only way to preserve what's left of the Zhuri's; we can untangle them from the program running once they're in a stable holodeck."=/\=

"Got it. Activate your emergency beacon and get out of there." Farenia made short work of the transfer, the progress bar only took a few seconds and the receiving team gave the green light and went about stabilizing the entire matrix.

=/\= "Aye aye, Captain, see you on the Hera,"=/\= Greenfelt replied, then cut the channel, his emergency beacon activating so he could be safely beamed away.

"What's the status of the evacuation?" Farenia demanded of the two remaining crew other than herself.

"Hera reports that there are only four people aboard left and that they have Akira safely transferred," Came the call from the back of the bridge. Farenia glanced around. There were three people on the bridge and they should have been the last ones aboard. "Commander Matthews is in Engineering keeping the magnetic bottles functional."

"You two signal the Hera. I'll make sure she gets off too." Farenia hit the emergency intercom again as the two were transported off to safety. "Jenni, we're the last ones aboard. I highly recommend taking the next transporter off of this boat."

=/\= "Almost there!" =/\= Jenni called back over the communications system. She'd made record time moving from Deck Seven down to the lowest most deck. With the computer down, and now the auxiliary computer, Jenni's best hope laid with a PADD, tricorder, and a toolkit. She worked frantically with each antimatter pod, trying to find a way to override the computer's connection to the containment system. There was a reason why each one was regulated by an automated system. Human hands and minds just couldn't keep up.

"I'm not leaving until you do," Farenia called out over the remaining comms.

Jenni moved on to her Plan B. It was her last resort, as it meant that there was truly nothing more she could do for the old girl. She absolutely refused for this to be the end, and she'd keep fighting for as long as she could. There had to be a chance! =/\= "If I can at least get the emergency hatch controls working!" =/\= she cried back over the comm. =/\= "We can eject the pods, and Katana will still be here. I can still save her!" =/\=

Farenia shook her head at such stubbornness. "Negative Jenni, we've tried ejecting them several times. Just get out of there." Punching up the external comm line to the Hera again, she opened a voice channel. "Hera, this is Meowlith. Please transport myself and Matthews in engineering to your bridge."

The voice of the Hera's transporter operator came across. "Stand by, we're having trouble locking on to both of you... Got it." With that, the shimmer effect of a Federation transporter took over and one bridge faded to be replaced by another.

"Shields up! Helm get us out of here!" Enalia called immediately, the warped remains of the Katana on the viewscreen, all lights out and plasma fire gouts coming from one of the nacelles.

Jenni screamed as she was encased in the transporter beam, "NO!" In mere heartbeats, she was plucked away from Katana's antimatter pods and deposited on the bridge of the Nebula class starship. Shock covered her face as other emotions swelled up inside her. Tears welled in her eyes as she scanned the room, spotting the Katana's Captain. She had not a moment to say anything by the time she collected her bearings and the ship launched to warp.

As soon as the Hera made it to warp one, the antimatter containment failed.

The shrinking image of the Katana was replaced with nothing but white from the explosion.

"Incoming shockwave," Helm reported.

"All hands, brace for shockwave," Enalia called out over the ship's comms.

By this time, they were far enough away that the shockwave had dissipated enough to only cause a minor disturbance to the Hera.

The viewscreen cleared to show nothing but traces of duranium dust. The USS Katana was no more.

Jenni had watched the explosion on the viewscreen. Kris, M'rayr, the Breen, Arivek, her violin, the last five years of her life. All gone, in the matter of a second. The engineer felt both heartache and air escape her lungs and not return. Her posture gave way, dropping to Jenni to her knees. She tried to fight it, to contain her composure on the bridge.

Judging from the cries and tears that followed, it was safe to assume she failed.

[BRIDGE]

As the Hera moved through space at a whopping warp four, a call came in. =/\="Captain, this is Ensign Gestalt at Holodeck six. We're having a bit of trouble separating the entities in the holodeck from the background program. We could use the help of someone from the Katana that knew a bit about all this."=/\=

"Roger that. I'm sending them your way." Enalia replied to the call before nodding to Farenia and Jenni. "Do you two mind lending some help?"

Farenia nodded as she headed for the turbolift. "Not at all. Send a message to the Merlin though, if you could. Ask for Andy and Maica and explain the situation to them. We should be able to do a sort of telepresence setup with them and get their help too."

Jenni had been working to collect herself for the past few minutes, and somehow she managed to hear the call from the holodeck. Entities...? Her eyes shot open as her mind instantly thought of Ari and Akira. She hadn't even thought of the possibility that they would have to be pulled out of the ship's computer. Her heart sank further as she realized how much she'd forgotten her friends and had cared so much about the ship itself. Hopefully, this was a chance to correct a grievous error. She rose to her feet and followed her Captain into the turbolift.

[HOLODECK SIX]

By the time Farenia and Jenni arrived at the holodeck, Master Chief Petty Officer Andrea Carter was already present as a holographic projection, working with Crewman Greenfelt and Ensign Gestalt on an open panel to access the holodeck. The entire matrix was incredibly fragile at this point and they couldn't yet isolate the Zhuri's from the lab program, but the hope was that once they got inside the holodeck that they could piece the living entities back together, assuming they could even get inside without crashing the program.

"Jenni!" Andy exclaimed when she saw Jenni walking down the corridor with Farenia. She strode over to the woman to give her a hug. "I'm so glad you made it out okay," Andy said, her voice sounding raw, like maybe she had been crying. Then she stepped back to brief Jenni and Farenia. "Uh, Maica will be joining us later, she's a bit emotional right now and... if Ari or Akira are as bad off as I think they are, I don't want her seeing them that way. Besides, she's got a ship to run. Anyway, I think we've almost got the lab program stable enough to enter, but timing will be crucial once we're in there. We need to extract Akira and Ari as quickly as possible in case the program implodes. Hopefully once they're in a more stable environment we'll have a better idea of what's going on with them. We're getting intermittent life sign readings, sometimes we only see one signal, sometimes two, and sometimes we can't read them all..." Andy was trying hard not to sound defeated, but this was a deep hurt for her; she and Maica had just learned they had a daughter, had just met her, and now it was possible that she could be gone, along with Ari who they loved like a brother. She knew Jenni would be hurting over this loss as well, but Jenni was the only other person who knew the intricacies of Ari's code, he trusted so few to help maintain him, so Andy needed Jenni here now.

Jenni wished it was the real Andy, not just a hologram, but seeing her red-haired friend was enough. She instantly detected Andy's raw voice, and she was certain that the next Jenni voiced herself, it would be just as raw. She nodded as she joined the engineers by the door to take a look at what was going on inside the holodeck. "It's like their lifesigns are like frequencies. Merging, overlapping, and sometimes inverting the other," she remarked, trying to stay focused on the task at hand.

"That's what's been making this so difficult," Crewman Greenfelt replied with a heavy sigh. "But I think we've got the lab program as stable as we're going to get it; enter at your own risk," he cautioned.

"Alright then, open it," Andy said, taking a deep breath to steel her resolve. "And remember to keep the doors open so my projection can continue to run off the ship projectors, otherwise I could destabilize the program."

"Got it," the crewman replied with a nod, then sent the command overrides to open the door. The great doors parted and the Engineers could finally see the mess of what was left of the program. The lab was a disjointed mess, pieces phasing in and out, entire chunks of the room missing and displaying the holodeck grid, and what was left was just... wrong, misshapen and twisted. At first glance, neither Akira nor Ari appeared to be in the room, but Andy stopped short as she entered, seeing a coil of light through her eyepiece only that represented the core of what was left of Akira and Ari.

"Be glad you can't see what I can see," Andy said, looking visibly pained by what she was seeing. "It looks like they've sacrificed non-essential functions to preserve their core matrix, the essence of who they are, so there's no visual component left, just raw data," she explained as she circled an area that seemed to be otherwise empty, but she was simply getting a better look at this raw data floating in the midst of this broken program. "They are so twisted up in each other, I bet he was trying to protect her..." Andy had to swallow back the bile she suddenly tasted, even had to wipe away a stray tear that somehow found it's way to her cheek, then she cleared her throat and forced herself into action.

Protect her... Those two words echoed deeply in Jenni's mind. While she first nearly panicked at the sight of Andy circling the empty holodeck, she was proud of Arivek for not abandoning his daughter. She knew all too well how concerned he was as to Akira's existence, and his involvement with her moving forward. This was proof he indeed had a heart.

"Computer, recognize new command, Teleconference Exclusion," Andy started, doing her best to turn off her 'mommy' emotions so she could play Engineer for now.

"Command recognized, state parameters," the Computer replied.

"Isolate Communications hologram Carter Alpha One-Two and exclude from all holodeck related commands; treat entity as a biological entity," Andy rattled off, already having made a similar command prompt for her holodeck so it would know when and when not to act on commands.

"Parameters accepted. Run command?" the Computer replied.

"Affirmative," Andy stated, and the computer chirped in compliance. "Now, I need a bounding box," she stated, and again the computer chirped, with a blue wire frame cube appearing before her. She began to move the box and reshape it, adding new points to help the box fit around the swirl of data she saw. "Computer, render the data inside the bounding box as visible to biological entities," she said as she continued to work. The computer gave a long drawn out chirp as it struggled to comply with the command, but soon everyone else could see what Andy saw, a twisted swirl of light. Occasionally a second light could be seen within this torrent of data, but it was dim and fading fast, and in this form there was no way for anyone to know if it was Ari or Akira that was fading...

But now that the Zhuri matrix(s) were visible, Jenni and the crewmen were able to join in to lend a hand, reshaping the box to ensure that it contain every last wisp of data so it could be isolated from the rest of the broken program. Ultimately, it was up to Andy to ensure that they were ready to move forward as she was the only one who could see if there were any bits outside the bounding box, but once she was satisfied, it was time for the next step, and all they could do now was hope and pray that whoever was still alive in this broken form wouldn't give up on them now.

Jenni happily and eagerly worked with the other engineers to modify the bounding box, hoping with every adjustment that she'd see a shred of familiarity of two of the people she loved the most. She wouldn't give up. Not now.

"Computer, isolate data within bounding box, close everything else outside the box," Andy said. Again, there was another struggling response from the computer, but soon the fractured lab space disappeared so that all they had was the Zhuri matrix conglomerate and an empty holodeck grid. And of course the computer recognized the earlier command Andy had entered, so she remained in the holodeck as well. "Well that's one hurdle down, where do we go from here?" she asked, feeling more emotionally raw than she had been before; this was hitting her harder than she had expected and she didn't know how much longer she could hold herself together. She looked to Jenni to see if she was willing to take charge of the situation for a while.

"It's the data patterns," Jenni whispered. With a stronger voice, she offered, "Like DNA. The computer can't distinguish between the two matrices because there's too much of Arivek in Akira. The Katana's computer used a backup of Maica's matrix, Arivek's matrix and whatever you had lying around in the Engineering lab to create Akira. If Katana's computer could create life from the three, then we need the same raw stock in order to help the computer distinguish Akira from Ari."

"I made a lot of backups of Maica when her old body is failing, so there's no telling which one was use to make Akira, let alone if it was some sort of amalgamation to create the spark of true awareness!" Andy replied, running a hand over her mass of fiery curls. "But..." Andy looked thoughtful for a moment and then began making motions with her hands like she was at a computer terminal accessing information, which in her holodeck she was. "I do have some data on Ari's matrix from when I was helping him with his sensory upgrades, and then they sent me an image of Akira's matrix shortly after he informed us of her creation. Neither cover the full expanse of their matrices, but it might be enough to help the computer separate them. I'm uploading the data now," she said.

Jenni instructed the Hera's computer to create a computer workstation of her own so that she could monitor the data transfer. She also made sure each of the sample matrices were isolated before running a quick diagnostic so that the computer would know the differences between them. "That should do it," Jenni remarked.

As the computer began separating the two entangled matrices, it looked as though the efforts to untangle them were successful, but just as the two were finally starting to pull apart, and series of warnings and errors began to flash across Jenni and Andy's workstations.

"Fuck!" Andy blurted out as her fingers flew over her console to ascertain the problem. "We're losing one of them!" And right before their eyes, the light representing the essence of life for the smaller matrix dimmed and flickered out before either Jenni or Andy had a chance to stabilize it or halt the separation, leaving one sad and lonely matrix, rattled but stable, next to the lifeless stream of data that had just been extracted from it. "No..." Andy said, feeling like all the air had been sucked out of her; when this was all over, she was going to need a lot of alone time with Maica to even begin to deal with this. Alerts were still sounding off on their consoles, but Andy couldn't even hear them anymore; like an out of body experience, this all simply felt too surreal to be real.

"Shit!" Jenni shouted, seeing the same thing happen. Her fingers began to fly across the console, trying to undo what was just done. Sadly, very little was left. Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn't know who just died, but her gut already made an assumption. Jenni would refuse to accept that inclination as she did her best to help the computer reassemble the remaining matrix. "Integrity at eighty percent and rising!" Jenni shouted. "We should be able to reinitialize momentarily!" she called out to Andy, trying to make eye contact. "Andy!"

Jenni had to call her name once more before Andy finally snapped out of her daze. "Oh, r-right," Andy said uneasily once she realized what Jenni was trying to do. "Computer, create an avatar for the surviving matrix; humanoid, blue skin, gender neutral. We can fix the appearance once we know who survived," Andy remarked as they worked. The computer chirped in affirmation and created a blue humanoid form around the surviving matrix. "Integrity restored, initializing matrix now," Andy said, waiting with breath held to see who was going to wake up.

It took a while for the blue skinned hologram to do anything; even though Jenni and Andy had managed to stabilize the matrix, there was still quite a bit missing that the computer as well as the life within had to recreate to be able to function properly. Minutes ticked by and finally its eyes opened, only to fill with tears at the sight of the dead matrix still floating nearby.

"Father..." Akira said with a sob.

Jenni's heart sank. That one word from the matrix informed them all the unfortunate truth. "Computer," said Jenni, fighting back her own emotions. She knew she wasn't going to keep it together too much longer. "Apply these changes to the visual avatar," she muttered as she entered an image of Akira into the computer's active memory.

With her last bits of strength, she used her panel to collect the data that was once her best friend to save into a file. As she typed in Arivek's name, Jenni lost it, tears streaming down her face once more. First the Katana, now Ari. It only took a heartbeat to realize that someone else was affected more than she. And, with that revelation, Jenni abandoned her console and embraced Akira, offering a moment of comfort to someone who'd lost her father.

Akira held onto Jenni tightly as she sobbed. Andy didn't know whether she wanted to go scream or cry or just go catatonic, so she did the only thing she really knew how to do: she made an excuse. "I, uh, have to go tell Maica what happened," she said simply, wiping away tears in her eyes as her form blinked out of the holodeck.

Seeing one of her mothers disappear like that made Akira cry all the harder as she struggled to come to terms with what happened. She had been so scared, and even though Jenni was holding her she felt so alone now.

"Why did this happen?" Akira asked Jenni.

Jenni took a moment to glare at where Andy's form once stood. She only hoped that meant Andy and Maica would soon arrive. "Something happened on Katana," Jenni said, stepping back. Jenni pressed both of her hands on Akira's shoulders for no other reason but to keep herself steady. "The computer just stopped... We lost antimatter containment..." Jenni shook her head. "Katana's gone. There's nothing left. I wish I knew why."

Akira's lip quivered as she sniffled and nodded. "Father.... Father protected me as everything began to fall apart around us. I tried to get us out, I tried my best, I really did, but I couldn't do anything!" Akira said, trying her hardest to be brave, but by the end of her plea she couldn't hold back another pained sob. But then she remembered the remains of Ari's data that Jenni saved. "Can- can I have his data?" she asked.

Jenni nodded. She backed away from Akira and returned to her console. After having the computer replicate a data core inside the holodeck, Jenni transferred what remained onto the translucent cube. As she held what remained of Arivek in her hand, Jenni stared at the object for a moment. For the first time, she could actually touch her friend. In fact, it was rather depressing, knowing that Arivek had to die to return to some sort of physical form. Jenni returned to Akira and held out the cube.

It was then that one of the Hera's science officers came up to the until now silent Farenia with a PaDD. Nodding to the offer she took it and began reading the Hera's sensor logs regarding the incident. Stepping forward, she addressed Akira and Jenni. "The Hera got some good scans of what went wrong and it lines up with what we could make out on the bridge. Apparently, the EPS conduits that came from the universe that the Katana originated from started depolarizing and the quantum signatures started forcefully aligning with those in this universe. Being one of the largest, the one feeding the main computer went out first, causing a chain reaction. It doesn't help much, but... At least there's an explanation. I'm sorry."

Knowing didn't make any of their losses any easier, but the understanding that came from this knowledge would eventually give them the means to accept and come to terms it. Akira looked down at the little cube of data in Jenni's hands, all that was left of her Father, then she reached out and touched the cube, absorbing all the data into herself directly. She flickered out once as her matrix figured out what to do with this data, but she snapped back almost immediately, and though there were no changes to her appearance, there was something different about her now. She looked at Jenni with the same guarded gaze that was a trademark of Ari's features.

"I know you," Akira said to Jenni. "Or he did, quite well, and in two universes..." Akira closed her eyes, shaking her head as she resolved this dual sense of self that occurred from absorbing Ari's data. "He wanted you to know he was sorry for leaving, and for all the things he had trouble saying; you were a true friend, thank you."

Jenni could only offer a weak smile. She had no doubt that her words were genuine. "I have been," she said weakly, knowing that there was a bit of Ari still alive within Akira, "and always shall be your friend." True strength began to mount behind her smile. As with all children, there were hints of their parents in their mannerisms, emotions and actions. In this very moment, she saw a spark of Arivek behind Akira's eyes. His life was not lost, it was his sacrifice that opened a new universe for Akira to explore.