Somehow, Tul managed to find his way back to his quarters. Inside, the lights were off and he left them that way. He found the couch and collapsed onto it, his head in his hands.

Sure, he was angry. At the captain and Jhu for putting the ship at such great risk. But he felt there was more to it that that. Despite being the supposed XO of the Katana... Tul simply didn't feel like a member of the crew. He was a pawn to be toyed with; hurt and deceived as someone else saw fit. This wasn't why he was in Starfleet.

I shouldn't have let them get to me like that. I shouldn't have left Jhu in charge of the bridge.... Tul told himself, agonizing over his outburst on the bridge. He also knew he shouldn't have let the captain pull the wool over his eyes so easily. He should have, at the very least, expected that something like this could have happened. But he hadn't considered the captain's blatant disregard for protocol and Starfleet.... No, Federation law. The rules that governed Tul's very existence.

Tul got up and walked to his computer. He knew communications were down but he opened it anyway. Behind the typical screensaver of the Federation's logo was a picture. It was Elsie Donovan, Tul's wife- now separated. She stood on the top of Andoria's highest icy peak. It was his favorite picture. They had served together on the Rio Grande before it was decommissioned. Afterwards, Tul chose to stay in Starfleet and Elsie returned to her home on Earth. If the comms had been working, Tul was sure he would be sending her a message right now. He'd say he was coming back.

But the comms were down. Further, he was still an officer on the Katana and he had some duty left to her. Tul slammed the lid closed on his computer as the picture became too painful to look at. He didn't want to yearn too much for his content past.

Rules and regulations words and entire passages from Starfleet's rulebook spun in Tul's head. He paced the length of his quarters, counting the number Kerouac and his chosen officers had broken. The captain clearly had no fear of Starfleet Command despite his orders for Jhu to jam communications. They were in the Gamma Quadrant and Starfleet would have to reach far to catch them. Tul was convinced that, if threatened, Kris would chose to take the Katana and run. Whatever he chose to do, Tul would have to do himself.

If the captain could so carelessly ignore the rules, could he? Would Tul challenge the Kris at his own game?

"Computer, inform me once communications are reinstated. And when the captain returns aboard"

[OOC Az: For context, Maica's lyre is identical to the one I built myself. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1bz1wu9zj4216zv/2013-07-27 19.09.13.jpg]

It had been several hours since Maica had beamed back to the ship and she had been busy the whole time. While she was on the planet one of her acquaintances had tried to get in touch with her so she had about 20 messages piled up. Most of them were expressions of worry since they couldn't contact the ship directly and had had to leave a message in queue at the wormhole communications array. She had called them back and after an hour chatting with the Caitian had finally calmed him. She had spent the next half hour after that tuning and preparing her lyre. She was a bit worried about how well it would play in the planet's humidity, but her tuning should compensate for it just fine.

Apparently a lot had happened on the ship as well. There were rumors of communications failures and exploding terminals. Jhu had even been supposedly seen half burnt to death, storming through the halls. Maica liked this ship - it was exciting. She did have to wonder about those on the short end of the stick, though. The Andorian XO, for instance. She knew she hadn't endeared herself any to him and her own feelings aside, as a diplomat she was feeling bad about that. She vowed to take him a peace offering once things settled down.

Soon though, she was beaming back to the planet's surface with her lyre and in her normal uniform. Hopefully her new friends wouldn't mind her change of clothes.

A village was waiting for her to guide her back to Sanctuary where Shira and the Elder were joined by several musical artisans tuning their instruments. There was a harpist, a lute player, 'Pan' style pipes, and Shira held a flat drum. Some of the Arboreal children were frolicking around them, dancing cheerfully to the lovely sounds being produced, even if they were just tuning.

"Welcome back, Maica," the Elder greeted warmly, inviting the lovely Android to join them with a gesture of her hand. Shira paused in her drumming to give her dear friend a hug in greeting.

"Thank you Elder. It's good to be back." Maica was smiling as bright as she could as she hugged Shira. She pointed to the figure painted on her lyre. It looked similar to the forest people which was complete coincidence, but she still thought it was neat. I've been meaning to introduce her to you. Taking a seat in the group of musicians, she plucked her strings, checking her tuning again and going through a few quick exercise melodies. It sounded like she would mesh well with everyone, but she worried she would have trouble following along in any group playing.

The artisans around her started taking cues from Maica's tune and they joined in without any prompting. It didn't matter that none of them had ever heard what Maica was playing, their uncanny ear for music compelled them to create amazing harmonies and accompaniments with Shira keeping a brisk tempo.

Since the others seemed amazingly adept at harmonizing with her, Maica decided to swing right into a Caitian ballad she had learned, her voice singing the lilting lyrics with the complex pluckings of her instrument. now and then she would bend a note at just the right time, amazed at how well the others could sing impromptu with her.

The Elder applauded lightly. Such lovely music! Even without understanding the words Maica sang, there was much the story told just through the melody. The artisans seemed pleased with the tune Maica had introduced them to and were eager to hear more.

"You are a talented musician," the Elder said softly, "and having been to so many world, undoubtedly you have come across a wide variety of music. We would love to hear more."

"Thank you Elder. It's a hobby I've kept from my early days that I've enjoyed. I'm happy you all enjoy it as well." Plucking a few more strings, Maica went into a Vulcan sonata, wanting to see how well they would handle that and hoping they would enjoy what most would call emotional wailing of love lost.

Oh, such a hauntingly beautiful tune... The lute player and the harpist opted to not play so the focus could be on Maica's playing. Instead, they hummed in along with the background 'mood' the pipes were generating. Shira's drum beat like a heartbeat, creating a stirring movement accented by the percussion of the lute player tapping out a rhythm on the back of his lute.

Maica was flat out amazed at how well they could match her - even she couldn't match something she had never heard that well. As the sonet ended, she went right into an old human melody about standing stones. She had to quickly remodulate her vocal processors to get the haunting melody just right, but she felt they deserved the full effect of this song as it was one of her favorites and she did her best to sing it in the language the Elder used as well. As she sang powerfully, she was on the verge of tears herself as the last of her notes echoed.

The Arboreals let Maica play alone, feeling the song had more power in its elegant simplicity, cooing softly in their enjoyment of the song she had offered. Once she was done, they felt it was time they shared their own music. The offered up their vocalizations in a lively melody, harmony and contrast blending together seamlessly along with the lute and drum, the harp and the flute accentuating the melody along the way.

Maica couldn't do anything but sit there and softly tap a finger against the soundboard of her lyre. The melody was amazing and it seemed to carry her to something she couldn't identify. It felt so good though. She just knew that if she could listen a bit longer she could find something she was missing, but alas the song came to an end all too soon. She had nothing to match that so she sat quietly waiting to see what they would sing next.

The Arboreals offered up two more songs for Maica's enjoyment, then pleaded for her to play more. For hours they 'traded' in music, one after another until the Elder called for silence. They had to remember where they were, and there was a schedule to keep. Shira excused herself for a moment to assist the other Caretakers to get the little Arboreal children into their hammocks for bed. To help lull the children to sleep, the musicians played a lullaby, so soft and soothing, pure serenity in creation.

"We are grateful for what you have shared with us," the Elder said softly as she watched the Caretakers tend to the children in this protected garden. More specifically, she was watching Shira. Shira loved her job, loved helping out in Sanctuary, but the Elder could still see that longing in her eyes. Once Shira made that inevitable choice to leave and said goodbye... she was going to be so missed, but that little sapling was destined for more than this world could offer. Oh, Shira was going to be missed, but the Elder knew it was for the best.

“You're very welcome, Elder. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity. It's been an amazing experience.” As contented as Maica was with today, she would have had to have been blind not to see the sad look on the Elder's face as she watched Shira. It was subtle but the look was there and she thought she had a good idea of why. Maica had seen that same sadness in others' eyes before. Shira had tasted her dreams and she would never truly be happy here. “Elder, if I may be so bold... Would you be opposed to a small team of diplomats and scientists coming here? They would be able to help protect your people from invaders like the Ferengi and to continue the cultural exchange between our peoples. It would also allow you and Shira to send messages back and forth if she chooses to join us when we leave.”

"Ferengi?" the Elder asked, a bit confused. "You mean the ones who took Shira?" The Elder thought on this as the musicians continued to play their lullaby for the children. "I would not mind learning more about your people and have the opportunity to contact Shira if she choses to leave. And on that note, she has not yet decided to leave, though I believe that is a conclusion she will come to on her own. Just do not do anything to encourage the decision prematurely, I do not want that decision to weigh heavily on her either way." The Elder looked over at Shira, considering the offer for protection quite seriously. "How big a team are you suggesting? I don't mind interacting with those of your crew, the exchange has been enlightening for both of us, but we are still wary of outsiders. And once our cloak is repaired, we will take greater care that we are not discovered, so I'm note sure what kind of protection you could offer us."

Maica could understand the Elder's wishes regarding Shira's impending decision and nodded at that, speaking instead of the possible team in a hushed voice so as to not disturb the children. “No more than a dozen people and with your cloak, it may be that we could offer you no real protection and you would be protecting our people instead. They would be able to tell if someone had found your planet and call for help, though.”

The Elder thought on this for a moment longer. "This is not a decision I have to make right now, is it?" she asked. She wanted to consider a while longer and talk with some of the villagers first. She would not make this decision unilaterally, it was not their way. "I can see the benefits of such an arrangement, but it's not something I can decide right now, not without speaking to my people first."

“I wouldn't want you to make a hasty decision. Normally, I'd give you a personal communications code and frequency to contact me through, but I'll speak with Captain Kerouac about it and see if I can convince him to come back in a week or two.” She couldn't help but smile at the Elder. The android considered group decisions like that to be the best course for all involved in most cases. It made diplomacy long and drawn out, but better to come to solutions that were in the best interest of the people as a whole.

"We would appreciate that," the Elder said with a smile. The musicians had finally stopped playing and were gathering their things to leave. Shira returned to get her drum and to give Maica a hug. "I promise, I will talk this over with my people and give it the attention it deserves. And we look forward to seeing you again soon."

Maica hugged her friend tenderly before standing and preparing to go. “Thank you Elder, for everything. I hope to see you at least once more before we leave.” Bowing, she left the sanctuary before tapping her commbadge and calling the ship for a transport so as to not disturb the children with the light from the beam.

Weeks ago, Doctor Landon Milo was Chief Medical Officer of the Black Hawk, he had a comfortable desk and a flexible schedule. Before that, he had spent time as Chief Medical Officer of the Venture and briefly, the Resolute before that. He had left all of it, abandoning the cushy position of Chief Medical Officer to do what he was meant to do. He was trying to save lives, the lives of those who nobody seemed to really give two damns about. He took this special assignment on Teplan, one of the fronting Doctors handling the situation on the planet. The issue quickly became a serious matter. More recently, it was an epidemic.

Doctor Milo walked into his makeshift lab and office, tossing his satchel aside. He found the curly haired ensign at one of the stations. "Report" ordered Landon as he took a stance behind the ensign. "Good news please" he said with a sigh. Recently, there had been nothing good about the news coming in. Ensign Callaghan was still fresh to the situation, having arrived on Teplan a few days ago. Good for him.

"The Vulcan starship T'Mal has reported that they are bringing medical equipment and relief personnel, they are still a couple days out, Doctor" replied Caddy with a sigh. He knew how much stress the young Doctor was under.

Landon shook his head. "It's not enough. We needed those damn Starfleet Medical supplies. The piracy on those trade routes have only made matters worse here. We have Doctors, nurses and technicians spread thin on this planet as. Are there any other starships in this area?"

Caddy quickly went to work. "There are plenty of non-Federation staships operating in the area, Doctor. However, very few have issued any replies for our requests" replied Caddy Grimly.

Heartless savages thought Landon as he ran his fingers through his hair. "How can the Federation expect us to make any difference on this planet when they can't even send armed escorts with their damn convoys. There's not going to be a Teplan alive on this planet if we don't get a handle on this new strain of the Blight" said Landon with a shaking of his head.

Caddy nodded. I don't like seeing death anymore than you thought Caddy.

Landon picked up on the man's thoughts. "I know, Ensign. I am well aware of your discomfort being here. But you are the best linguists available. That's why I snatched you up as soon as I could" explained Dr. Milo. "Ensign, send out another message and transmit it in every damn language we can. Hell, transmit it in archaic language...Xindi, Iconian... fuck, I am about ready to go burn something and send smoke signals" added Landon.

This caused Cadddy to snort. "Actually, Doctor, I do know how to send smoke signals."

Landon was about to reply when his communicator chirped. He quickly tapped it and responded. =/\= "Go ahead" he answered.

"Doctor, we need you in you in the Jua province" came the voice of Doctor Melissa Hampton.

"On my way" said Landon as he headed to the small transporter pad. He looked at Caddy "Send those transmissions, Ensign. If anyone comes by... just take a message."

Caddy went right to work sending the transmission out, broadcasting it in any language that was in the databanks. He also began sending it out in some dead languages.

Ryan hand transported in from a different province, wanting to leave the latest test results with Dr Milo. He was sporting too long hair and several days worth of facial hair, and a pair of well worn scrubs. Walking into Milo's office he was shocked to see Caddy. The two's barely budding, whatever it was, had been cut short when Ryan had been sent here to Teplan. "Caddy!" The months separation didn't stop Ryan from pulling Caddy into a hug.

The hug took Caddy by surprise. He had been too occupied looking through information on a PADD that when his name was shouted, his head only had just come up to see the Doctor running at him. Arms were around him and squeezing him. What the hell?! thought Caddy as he was taken aback. It had taken him a few minutes to take everything in. "Ryan?!" shouted the Ensign, baffled and blushing.

"What...why... Ryan!" he shouted again, dropping the PADD and squeezing back in the embrace. "What are you doing here, Ryan?" asked Caddy. "Are you working on the Teplan crises too?"

"I've been here. I thought we were going to be stationed together after Ba'ku and then I got the orders that they needed a surgeon here. You didn't get my messages?" Ryan asked.

Caddy felt a small pain in himself. His lip quivered slightly and he let out a sigh. "I did not. Not a one. After Ba'Ku... something happened and my orders were changed. I was recalled back to Akagi and was there for a short while. Then I took a Leave of Absence, Akagi was reassigned to another quadrant and I ended up here."

Ryan gave Caddy a concerned face. "Stupid Starfleet. I tried to let you know where I was going. There's no room for non medical transmissions here. I've been on communication blackout." Ryan reached out and grabbed Caddy's hand. "It's really good to see you."

"You too, Ryan" replied Caddy, his face turning a lovely pinkish shade in his cheeks. "I haven't smiled as much since you've left. I wish I had received your messages. They would have been comforting."

"Me too. I uhhh, well it doesn't matter what I thought. Are you stationed here at the main center of operations?"

Caddy nodded. "Yeah, because the Federation only has a minor presence in the Quadrant and because we do not know much about the species in the area, I've been assigned here to monitor communications. Mostly, I try to call out to passing ships to render assistance to us. However, most of them are slamming their doors in our faces."

"I've noticed." Ryan pushed his bangs out of his eyes. "If you could get a message to Earth for me?" It was a selfish request, but Ryan didn't care. He hadn't been able to talk to his adoptive parents or sister in months. He at least wanted to make sure they knew he was alright.

"To Earth?" Caddy sighed. "Well... maybe? I mean it would be going via subspace and bouncing from communications station to communications station. By the time whoever it is that you want to send a message to you actually received the message... let's just say it's a wait."

"It's worth a try." Ryan gave Caddy his adoptive parents address. "I have a few if you want to get something to eat?" Ryan asked hopefully. He really did want to catch up. He feared he'd never see Caddy again; when he'd received no reply to his messages, he'd assumed that Caddy wanted to break contact. It was a shock to learn otherwise, a lovely shock.

Caddy smiled but shook his head at the idea of eating. "I'll hold off on the food. I haven't really had much of an appetite since I got here. I think that being around all this death has kind of been rather unsettling. Doctor Milo lost twelve patients yesterday, not a one of them looked to be much older than a teenager" said Caddy grimly.

Ensign Callaghan looked at Ryan with a nervous smile. "At least there is something to brighten my day" side Caddy. "Pull up a seat and let's get to work, Doc."

Ryan nodded his understanding. He didn't like being around all the death either, but it didn't affect his appetite. He'd seen a lot of death as a doctor.
He grabbed himself a protein bar and pulled up a chair. "It really is good to see you." Ryan had to reiterate. He'd missed Caddy more than he realized, and now he couldn't stop staring.

"Nice to see you too, Ryan" replied Caddy, staying focused on his task rather than the man at his side. "So, who is the message to. Girlfriend?" asked Caddy nervously bitting on his bottom lip.

"No. I don't have a girlfriend." Ryan was quick to assure Caddy. "My sister. She'll pass it on. I just want to let her know I'm ok and I'll write when I can. Oh and tell her Doctor Sexy Alligator is fine. She'll know I'm ok for real then."

Caddy looked at Ryan. "Sexy Alligator? Not the nickname I'd give you" added Caddy as he started working at the console. "I'm ready to record the message, when you are" informed Caddy.

Ryan chuckled. "Not for me, this actual stuffed alligator, I had him on the floor of the Akagi. Anyway." Ryan gave Caddy the short message to send off. "Thank You. I really appreciate this. I can breathe a little easier now."

"I missed you" said Caddy quickly. He looked at Ryan for a response.

"I missed you too." Ryan looked around, not because he was embarrassed, but because he was technically on duty. Hugging a friend was one thing, but what Ryan had in mind was quite different. Ryan got out of his chair and went over to Caddy, kneeling in front of him. He placed his hand on the side of Caddy's head, gently petting the ginger curls he'd missed so much. With a smile he slowly leaned in, then captured Caddy's lips with his own, drawing him into a slow kiss.

The fingers in his curls felt so good. However, Caddy was taken aback by the kiss. It caused him to pull back and instinctively raise his arms, to form a barrier. "I'm on duty, Ryan" said Caddy dismissively as he looked away and focused on the console. "It took me a while to sleep at night after Ba'ku" added Caddy.

"I know. I'm sorry." Ryan stood up and stepped back. "I'm on duty too. I couldn't resist." Ryan ran a hand through his hair. "I had the same problem, I found it hard to sleep alone. Where are you staying? I don't have much free time at all, but can I see you?" Ryan felt renewed nervousness, as if Caddy and him had just met.

"There's a camp set up not far from here. Doctor Milo, a few others and I have been sleeping there. It's not comfortable like Ba'ku."

"Ok. Well I'm several miles away at the surgical tent." Ryan smiled at the mention of Ba'ku. "I better get back."

"Walking away from me again?" said Caddy with a sigh. "I was falling in love when you left."

Ryan stopped. "No. Caddy. I never intended to walk away." He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I think I was falling in love too. When you never wrote back, I thought you'd moved on. I tried to too, but it didn't work."

"Don't leave me" said Caddy with a small sigh. "I thought you moved on too. I never knew what we were... if we were anything, and then there was nothing. You were gone and the color just faded from my life."

Ryan ached to pull Caddy into his arms again. The timing was absolutely horrid. "I'm not going anywhere Caddy. I promise. I don't know what we are either, but it's not nothing."

"No, Ryan" said Caddy firmly, nearly shouting it aloud as he stood up. "NO" he added sharply and quite firm. "It's not nothing. It is more than anything I have ever felt inside for someone. When you're not around, I can barely breath let alone live. I thought about you almost every night, longing to be held in your arms. You can't say it is nothing... you won't convince me of that" the ginger curly haired ensign said.

"Caddy. Caddy. Shhh" Ryan carefully reentered Caddy's physical space, but didn't try for more. "It's NOT nothing." Ryan emphasized the not. The depths of Caddy's feelings were intense, Ryan almost felt like he was drowning in them, but he would happily die that way. "I have wanted to hold you, every night. I've been walking around in a daze, just numb. I even thought of just leaving and trying to find you. If there weren't so many damn lives on the line I would have! Damnit I'm not going to lose you again."

Caddy smiled "I wish we were on Ba'ku again."

Ryan smiled too. "Yeah, that was nice. I'd settle for a warm bed and some real food. I hope we get some reinforcements soon. This is really wearing on me." Ryan ran a hand through his hair again. "So, are we ok?" He asked hopefully.

"We're okay" said Caddy with a small nudging at Ryan. "Now, get the hell out of here. I have work to do" added Caddy, brushing his curly bangs away from his face.

Ryan smiled, not even flinching at Caddy's little nudge. "Ok. Thank you for getting that message out for me. I'll come by again as soon as I can."

"Please do" said Caddy heavily. "I don't know how much longer I'll make it here with all of this death around me."

Ryan nodded. "It's not easy. Hang in there." Ryan smiled. "Ok I really have to go now." He finally pulled himself away and headed back to work.


LtJg Ryan Rose
Surgeon

Ens Cadwallader Callaghan

Arboria

Shira had been giving a great many things a lot of thought since she had been returned home. She was thrilled to be home, to let her family know that she was alright, but somehow the reunion felt hollow. It just didn't feel right that she would be leaving her new friends. Everything happened for a reason, she had to believe that if she was to put her capture by Marg behind her. But what was the reason for her meeting these people? What was the purpose of becoming such good friends with them so quickly? If all things happened for a reason, why become friends with them if she was just going to leave them and never see them again? There had to be a reason...

She sat alone in her room, swinging gently in her hammock as she sorted through her things. Mostly, it was more star maps she had made and stones she was polishing to make into beads for more weaving projects, but now those maps and beads felt childish. She had been on a starship! She had traveled among the stars and they had machina to help her study the stars like she never could on this world! But surely, she could not go with them, could she? What would she do, she couldn't communicate with them. But she wanted to go. She gently fingered one of her star maps and dreamed, wished, hoped, and yearned.

Could she really do this? Could she leave behind everything familiar for this starship? What if she couldn't return, could she give up her family? Could she give up her responsibilities to the Elder and Sanctuary? Somehow, she didn't think Elder would mind, but still... could she do it? Shira didn't know, but she wanted to do it, she wanted to leave. Now, she just needed to know if it was possible.


USS Katana

Aboard the USS Katana, Commander Kristopher N. Kerouac sat impatiently in his Captain's chair. *Tap* *Tap* *Tap* his fingers went as he melodically tapped his finger tips along the arm rests of his chair. The rhythm started to remind him of something, of someone that he was not sure that he was truly ready to say goodbye to. However, a promise was a promise, and this particular promise was one that he meant to keep. The latest report from Engineering, Operations, and Science personnel down on the planet's surface was that completion of repairs would be done in the next several minutes.

I cannot wait any longer thought Kris as he rose from his seat and headed to the Turbolift. Typically, Kris would not be working this shift. However, he wanted to be on the Bridge. Looking over at the blonde Vulcan at the science station, Kris nodded. "You have the Bridge, Lieutenant."

"Aye, Captain" replied Lieutenant T'Val with a small smile. She knew the Captain was going down to the planet's surface to see Shira. They had brought her home. Home thought T'Val with a lost gaze at the viewscreen. Someday the blonde half-Vulcan thought to herself.

Arboria

The tingling sensation soon vacated his body as the blue aura soon faded. Commander Kerouac was in the village where he had left Shira and the Elder. He had told them that he would return to say good bye to Shira before Katana broke orbit. In his hands were not a tricorder or a phaser, but rather a small circular pot with delphinium flowers of a lavish blue, protruding from the dirt. "Shira" Kris called out to the young Arboreal, his voice carrying with a gentle humming to his tone.

The villagers knew by now who he was calling for, and one of the villagers beckoned him to follow, leading him through the labyrinthian city towards the area that was Shira's home. The Arboreals didn't really have houses or anything of that sort, but rather areas that were curtained off from other areas for a sense of privacy, but no walls, no confinement. The forest was their home, why did they need to build fancy buildings?

Shira looked up from her star maps when she heard the hum of a village approaching. When the fabric around her space was pulled aside, Shira let out a pleased squeak at seeing Kris being led in. She set aside her belongings and fluttered closer to greet him. Oh, she was so happy to see him again, she was beginning to get worried she would never see him again!

Kris, being lead to Shira, took a quick breath before proceeding forward and offering the potted plant to Shira "Gift. From Kris to Shira" he said with a small smile. "Shira will be missed by friends" added Kris. He had no idea if she could even piece together what the hell he was saying. However, he was encouraged to not treat her as if she were mentally slow. She was quite intelligent, but the communications barrier was incredibly frustrating.

Shira took the potted plant, cooing lovingly at the offering. So pretty! She looked up at him, taking in his words. She understood their names, she understood 'gift' and 'friend', but little else. Still, his tone spoke volumes to her. He was sad. Was this... Was this goodbye? Was he leaving now?

"Sad?" she asked as she hugged the potted plant to her chest.

Kris looked at the small girl and thought about how he would explain. "Sad" he said but quickly added "And happy."

Shira tilted her head curiously. How could a person be sad and happy? Probably the same way she felt happy about being home, but sad that she was leaving her new friends. "Shira happy, Shira sad," she said.

Kris looked at Shira and then pointed to the flora and fauana of Arboria. "Shira, home" he said with a shrug. He then pointed up to the sky, to the stars above. "Kris, home" he added. He looked at her with a smile. "Shira and Kris, home?" he asked looking back up to the sky. He was trying to ask her if she wanted to remain of Arboria or if she wanted to return to Katana with him. He wanted this to be her choice, without him pushing her.

It was true? she could go with him? Her mouth opened to reply, but no sound came forth. She stood there paralyzed for a moment, unable to speak or move, all she could do was wonder if she really could leave her people behind to follow this dream of hers. Was she brave enough? Oh, she had to! Sure, she would miss her people, her world, but if she didn't take this opportunity then she would always wonder about what could have been.

"Shira home?" she asked, pointing to the sky, to confirm that the opportunity was real.

Kris approached Shira, gently crouching down and extending his hand towards her. "Shira, Kris, Sabby, Maica, all... home" said Kris with a smile. "Even Asshole" added Kris, thinking about the First Officer that he was struggling to work with. However, things were actually starting to look as though they were going to work.

Yeah, she didn't know what that last word meant, but she liked the rest of it! Shira smiled and nodded excitedly. "Shira home!"

Kris pulled the small Arboreal close to him, in a full embrace. He tapped his comm badge with a smile on his face. "Kerouac to Katana, two for transport."

Shira wriggled from his embrace, as pleasant as it was. She may not know what his words meant exactly, but she recognized the pattern. That's when the blue lights would take them away. But she couldn't go right now! she had to say good bye and get her things! "Stop!" Shira said, then grabbed a satchel she used to gather herbs and emptied it out, hastily filling it again with her few belongings. Then she took his hand, pulling him out of her space. She didn't know the words to convert what she needed to do, but she wasn't leaving without at least saying goodbye to her family.

The transport was disrupted, and ended quickly from the USS Katana. "Kerouac to Katana We're apparently not quite ready to leave yet. Please lock onto my signal and stand by. Notify Lieutenant Commander Zanaar that I am on the planet for the time being."

Shira ended up dragging Kris all over the village hunting down her parents so she could say goodbye to them. It would have gone considerably faster if she had just flown off to find them, but she didn't want to let go of Kris' hand. She was so scared that this was some sort of strange day dream and that the offer wasn't real, that she wasn't leaving to find her new home on the Katana. If she let go of his hand, would the illusion end? would she find herself sleeping in her hammock just wishing to leave?

She finally found her parents in one of the many gardens planting seedlings. She sang to them excitedly about how she was going away with Kris, how she would live among the stars like them. It was a tearful farewell, but a joyful one. Her parents were sad to see her leave, but they were still happy that their child would be living her dream. From their basket of seedlings, her mother drew forth a root and handed it to Shira. The reverence with which Shira took the root signified that this was an offering of great importance; it was a piece of the Elder! The Elder knew? Of course she knew, how could she not? Then this meant...

A song sounded out throughout the forest, a farewell from the Elder and all the villagers. What a wonderful send-off! Shira smiled then squeezed Kris' hand. Now she was ready.

Kris squeezed her hand back gently. "Katana, two for transport. Energize."

Maica had been working on her report to Starfleet for several hours now. Half the information she had written was flagged for possible removal based on several things she was waiting on to happen. One of them was Shira's decision to leave or stay. She had sent a message to the Captain informing him of the Elder's impending decision on if her people would allow a diplomatic and scientific team to stay, requesting that they stop back at the planet in a week or two if it was possible. She should have also requested notification of anything that happened on the planet surface that may need her attention, but since she wasn't a bridge officer she should have expected to be left out of that loop.

Instead, she started setting up the transfer process between her UT and the main computer. She could at least preserve the translation matrix she had created. It wouldn't take but a few seconds to upload, even with it being so large and complex. Thankfully she had that functionality. It was the only system on her that could easily interface with any other external system. As soon as that was complete, she set a copy of it as an attachment for her report and hid the main copy away on the main computer.

In another area of the ship, Shira was making herself at home. She had been returned to her quarters that she would share with Sabby, who seemed to be on duty at the moment which Shira didn't really have a problem with since she needed a few moments to herself to really absorb what she was feeling. She still couldn't believe she was back on the ship, it still felt so unreal. Even as she was unpacking her things and settling into the space, she just felt a bit of a haze. She still wondered if this was all just a dream. Well, if it was, she was going to enjoy it while she could!

Bored and reminiscing, Maica punched up Shira's location purely out of habit, expecting the computer not to find her on board. To her surprise, the computer actually registered her as being in her quarters! This couldn't be right though... Punching up the comm system, she opened a line to there from her console. "Shira?"

Shira looked around, wondering where the voice was coming from. "Maica?" she asked, having easily recognized the voice. But where was Maica?

Are you coming with us? Did Kris ask you to? If Kris had asked her and not invited Maica along, she would have to discuss that with him in private later. For now though, she was just overjoyed to hear Shira's voice. If she was staying, she was probably still naked from her time with her people so just in case, she started punching up a Roman toga style design similar to the Elder's so she could replicate something hopefully more comfortable than those sundresses.

Shira smiled, but instead of returning with a reply in song, she decided to use her words. If she was to live here, then she would have to get used to using them! "Shira home," she said proudly. Still, where was Maica?

"Welcome home, Shira." I'll be there in a moment. Please wait for me. Quickly punching up the toga-robe hybrid she had found, she overlaid the sizing and a blue pattern and sent it to the replicator, as well as a commbadge and panties. She wouldn't be able to use it well yet, but she'd at least be easier to talk to through the ship. Grabbing the clothes almost before the replicator was finished, Maica all but ran to Shira's quarters with them.

Shira waited patiently for Maica as she continued to tidy up the things she had brought with her from her world. When the door chimed, she nearly panicked, until she remembered that the foreign sound merely meant that someone was at the door and she was to let them in. Maica! She fluttered to the door excitedly, trying to remember which button would let her in. She received several error sounds before eventually finding the right one. The door swished open and Maica suddenly found herself accosted by an overly excited Arboreal.

Maica caught and hugged Shira tightly as she tried to step through the door, nearly dropping the clothes she had brought with her. I'm so happy you're here. I brought you something pretty that I hope you'll like.

Shira hummed excitedly as she finally allowed her friend inside her quarters. Then she saw the length of fabric Maica brought with her. Oooh, so pretty! They didn't use colors and patterns like this on her world! Then she saw the panties and remembered what this was all for. That's right, these people did not like their bodies to be on display. Even her brief return to her world had made her forget that she shouldn't move about the ship naked. She smiled and quickly donned the clothes Maica had offered. Oooh, it was so soft! And so much easier to wear than those silly garments Maica had given her before! Once everything was pinned and tied into place properly, Shira smiled at Maica.

I like this very much, you have my gratitude.

You're very welcome. Maica had saved the commbadge for last though. Smiling brightly, she pulled it out of her pocket and pressed it to Shira, pinning it just right to her new outfit.

Shira was intensely curious about this adornment Maica had placed on her clothes. She recognized it right away as the emblem the rest of the crew wore. She had often seen the crew tapping it and talking. This was how they communicated with each other when they were not together! Thank you so very much, she sang happily. She would learn to use it later, but for now she was still just trying to adjust to the transition. This was her home now!

Maica hugged the forest girl again, humming happily. She looked like a full member of the crew already, though there was still paperwork to be done. She'd do it and send it to the Captain later for approval. It would also have to be approved by command, but she didn't see that being an issue. What would you like to do now? Have you eaten? Do you want to see the plants some more?

Shira shook her head. I'm settling in, she replied. Now that she would be staying here, she was working on making this space feel more like home, although she wasn't sure how she was going to hang a hammock in here, and she couldn't just rearrange the space without speaking to Sabby first, she didn't want to be rude, but she would figure it out eventually. But I will need to go to the room with the plants later, to plant this, she continued, showing her the root from the Elder. It's a piece of Elder, so I can always carry my people with me.

Oh my... That's fantastic. Though you might want to plant it in here to keep it closer to you. If it's ok with your roommate, I'm sure we can set up a small growing station. Do you need any help settling back in? Maica was in awe over the root - she had no idea her people could do that and wondered if this was how they reproduced.

The root will do better around other plants at first, Shira explained, though the 'how's and 'why's were a bit harder to explain, and once the new plant is established I will bring it back here. She tucked the root in a pocket created in the folds of her new dress and continued to unpack. It was mostly cloth she had brought with her, more star maps that she intended to hang on the wall, but she also brought tools of her people's trade for making more cloth. Just because she was living on a starship didn't mean she intended to give up the skills she already had! She had no doubts that she would find things to occupy her time with here, but she would keep these skills as a hobby, so she would never forget where she came from. What will I do now that I am here? she asked as she put her things away.

Taking a seat at the table, Maica thought about that for a moment. Well, you're exceptionally skilled with plants and starcharts so I would assume one or both of those. What do you want to do?

what you said sounds appealing, Shira replied. I did leave my world to live among the stars, it only makes sense that I should continue to study them.

I recommend learning our language as quickly as possible, then learning everything in astrometrics. Maica wasn't sure Astrometrics translated right, but it hopefully was understandable. Would you like to try using some old language labs to learn faster?

Much of what Maica was trying to express didn't translate very well into the Arboreal song, but that was all the more reason to work on learning their language. She found the PaDD that Sabby had given her and handed it to Maica. It was loaded with a child's vocabulary primer that she had been using to learn some of the basics. I need more of this, she informed Maica. She was almost through with the first primer and needed more if she was going to learn how to speak.

Waving Shira over to the desk computer, Maica turned it on and pulled up the language labs she had used in a prior diplomatic mission. She loaded the stored translation matrix into it so it would listen to Shira and at least try to obey her if needed. Repeat after me "Computer, load Maica language lab." It loaded the language lab perfectly as expected. The learning curve on this was a lot steeper than the children's lessons, but she felt Shira could handle it quite easily. Tapping the program off, she let Shira bring it up herself.

"Kom-pew-tur," Shira said. The enunciation was poor, but the word was more complex than anything else she had tried to say before. Lucky for them, it was enough to alert the computer that she had a request, and it chirped in confirmation as she had heard many times before. "Lllload Maica lllang-" For a moment, she couldn't remember the rest of the word, but even as she continued to try to say the word, it was becoming clear that it was still a bit too complicated for her limited phonetic skills.

Tapping a few keys, Maica renamed the command to something simpler. Sorry, try this "Computer, Shira lessons."

Shira nodded and tried again, applauding excitedly when the computer brought up the lessons. And this will help me learn to speak like you do? she asked.

Nodding, Maica had a serious look on her face. It will, though it won't be easy. I know you can handle it though. Just in case, this can somewhat understand your song, as well.

I understand, Shira replied. Then Maica showed her how to turn access the different lessons and how to track her progress, and finally how to turn off the computer when she wasn't using it. Thank you. I will work hard to be understood and to make myself useful.

Thank you. Maica couldn't help but pull Shira in for another hug. The forest girl had impressed her at every turn and she knew she would be impressed again with this.

Noah liked being around plants and flowers, there was a calming affect to it that he enjoyed. Even since his fight - if you wanted to call it that - with Kyle, he needed all the calmness he could get. He wasn't sure where their relationship would be going, but he couldn't fully put his focus on that at the moment. He had a job to do and if anything that was a good distraction. He wasn't one to wear his emotions on his sleeve and he believed, fully, while on duty that you left your personal problems at the door. So, he did just that. While in hydroponics, he carried a PaDD and a tricorder. He was looking at what the Katana had in the way of plants and flowers. He would scan them and then inventory them, at lot of them he already recognized.

As he rounded one of the shelves he saw a young woman who was slight in frame. He had been caught off guard and immediately took a step back, she hadn't seemed to notice him and he didn't recognize her. Was this the women that was brought on board? She had to be. This time he stepped forward, put the PaDD and tricorder down and inched another step forward. "Hello," he said. His voice was deep and slightly muffled. When it was determined his hearing couldn't be fixed his parents became proactive and got him into speech therapy. Though if someone listened to him it could be clearly heard his speech patterns were not normal.

Shira gasped, startled by this new person in the bay. She abandoned the plants she was tending to so she could see who had disturbed her. Humming curiously as she took flight, she fluttered closer to inspect him better. After she'd had a good look at him, she pointed to herself. "Shir-ah!" she enunciated the name Kris had given her. It had worked last night with Jhu and she had made a new friends as a result, so maybe this one would be a new friend too!

Noah watched her lips intently, he watched as she enunciated the word carefully. "Shir-ah," he repeated. He had just hoped he got it right. A soft smile tugged at his lips. He lifted his hand and pointed to himself. "No-ah," he said simply. He then raised his hands and spelt out his name in sign language then pointed to himself again.

Shira was intensely curious with what he was doing with his hands. None of the others had tried to make similar gestures. But he pointed to himself, just like when he said his name. Was there a connection between the name and the gestures? "Noah," she repeated, but did not try to repeat the gesture.

"That's right." Noah's smile broadened. "I'm Noah," he repeated as he pointed to himself. He knew it would take some time to communicate, but he was a patient person and he also understood what it would take to learn to communicate. It took him years after all. He wanted to help anyway he could. "Do you like plants?" he asked as he pointed to the young woman then to the plants that were next to them.

Shira pointed to herself and then to the plants, not really understanding the point of the gesture. Did he want to see the plants? Maybe he wanted her to show him the plants? She could do that! She took his hand and led him to a growing station with some aromatic herbs and a few flowering plants. She ran her long, deft fingers through the various plant growths, an affectionate and loving gesture as she hummed a gentle song to the plants. They had become so happy since she had arrived. They were healthy and well cared for, but now they had someone to talk to and were happy.

He had been a bit confused when she took his hand and led him to a different plant station. He looked to her and then to the plants. They seemed different, lively perhaps. He watched her lips and noticed the way she pursed them. Was she humming? He was starting to piece it altogether which was something he was used to doing. He learned very early on on how to connect the dots. He looked to the girl and smiled.

Shira smiled in return. She was so happy tending to the plants and she was pleased to be able to share this with her new friend. She pointed to him and then to plants, chattering curiously to see if he wanted to help.

Communication was still a bit iffy, but Noah was thinking that he was getting the hang of it. He knew his commbadge was going to be no good and he tried his best to read her lips. What she was saying was lyrical and it was hard to decipher, but the hand gestures, the changes in expression on the face told him a lot. He let what she said sink in, piecing it together. "I'd be glad to help," he said. He loved doing stuff like this, it was a great way to relax and just let all the worries of the day drift off. He watched the young woman and then mimicked what she did. He figured if he did that, it would establish more of a friendship.

Shira continued tending to the plants alongside Noah, humming pleasantly as she pruned bad leaves and buds from the various plants. Her nimble fingers moved like magic through the healthy foliage, giving each plant loving, attentive care. She looked over to Noah to see how he was doing. He did seem to be enjoying himself, but there was something off about him. She hadn't quite made the observation that he couldn't hear, but she had noticed that something wasn't quite right; he was enjoying himself, but he wasn't happy. In fact, he seemed quite sad. Why was he so sad?

Reaching out, Shira gently tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. Once he was looking at her, she thought for a moment about how to convey her concerns, then she again reached out and touched his chest, letting her hand linger over his heart. She knew she couldn't communicate with these people in a way they could understand, so she let her eyes do the talking. Why? Why was her new friend so sad?

The touch was gentle and though he didn't flinch, it caught him off-guard. He searched her face, her eyes, it was a questioning look. He let it sink in as he worked out what she was asking. But, how would respond? How did she even know? He always tried to remain composed, he was always ready with a smile even in tough situations. A positive outlook or a spin on things are what get him through the day and most situations. His smile faltered slightly. Though he and Kyle seemed to work things out, it all still nagged at him. There were promises, but then again there always were. Did he even try to explain this to the young woman. He lifted his hands to start to sign, but he knew that wasn't going to totally work. Not until he could make her understand what each sign meant. At first he pointed to his wedding band and then his heart. "My mate," he said. He made an angry face and shook his face then said, "argument." He then softened his features so Shira would not get frightened or upset.

The ring obviously meant something, Shira gathered that much, and he was obviously upset. She didn't know how to help him, all she could do was lean over and give him a hug. It was the only way she could think of to encourage him to not give up hope, that one day things would be better.

The hug was unexpected, but welcome. A hug was such a simple sentiment but a powerful one and well... he needed the hug. He returned the embrace by wrapping his arms around the woman. He thought he was going to crush her, she seemed so fragile but he knew that was absurd. After a few moments he pulled away. He put his finger tips to his chin then pulled away and said, "thank you." He smiled.

She may not have understood his words, but she understood the sound of gratitude. Shira smiled warmly as she got back to tending to the plants, happy that she could help him in this one way.

Noah watched for a long moment as Shira went back to tending the plants. She was so kind and giving and it seemed hard to believe there were people on board who objected to her being here. There was this part of him that wanted to protect her from any harm that may fall on her, there was now that connection. Were they friends? He couldn't be sure, but she seemed to accept him. After another moment of watching her work with the plants, he turned back to the plants as well and started to help. The two worked in silence, both doing what they loved.

Sabrina had spent time after her shift in the holodeck, playing hoops with a group of scientist. Now she was back in her and Shira's quarters and had time to relax. She'd finished her EPS exam, and had a small break before another class started. This was cause for minor celebration, which meant splurging and having a water shower. Sabrina sang to her hearts content as she got herself clean under the spray of water.

Shira was drawn to the bathroom, her insatiable curiosity demanding to know what Sabby was doing and what was that awful noise she was making. She understood that non-Arboreals had songs in which they used their language rather than pure intonation to express themselves, and that it was art rather than direct communication like the Arboreals used, but still... Shira could not think of any reason that anyone would be singing such a terrible tune. Not realizing it was possible that there was nothing wrong with the tune but merely Sabby's singing, Shira went to investigate. She was somewhat put off when she found a strange, clear door separating her from Sabby, but thankfully she was not limited by gravity and rose up to peek over the door.

And there Sabby was, under the spray of the water and singing to her heart's content. But why? What was the purpose of this strange activity? Perhaps this had something to do with what Jhu and Maica had shown her in the magic room that made the hot spring. Maica had sat under a small waterfall and it seemed to help her relax. Perhaps this was something similar? So, standing under this fountain of water was helping Sabby to feel good? Then why did it sound like she was dying? Well, that's what her singing was implying to the young Arboreal.

Sabby reached for the shampoo and spotted Shira in her peripheral vision. She let out a short squeal of surprise. What was Shira doing?
"Shira. Out please." she wasn't terribly offended, but Shira needed to learn the concept of personal space before she got herself into trouble.

Shira gave Sabby a wilted expression. Oh, had she done something wrong? "Sorry sorry," she was with a slight whimper as she withdrew from the little peepshow. She hadn't meant to do anything wrong, and she had no doubt that later Sabby would explain what she had done wrong and why, but for now she just felt bad.

Sabrina went ahead and finished her shower, though she stopped singing and simply got herself clean. She then wrapped a towel around her body, and another around her head before coming out of the bathroom. She noticed right away that Shira appeared upset. Sabrina smiled at the woman, hoping to show her that she wasn't mad. "Why did you come into the bathroom?" Sabrina asked. Perhaps that was the best place to start this little chat.

Shira listened carefully to Sabby's question. She was still having trouble understanding a lot of things, but she understood 'why' and 'bathroom'. "Mmmm," she hummed as she thought about how to respond. "Sabby song, mmm, hurt."

Sabby wasn't sure if Shira meant she thought that Sabby herself was hurt, or if Shira though Sabrina's singing hurt her ears. Either way it was funny. Sabrina laughed. "My singing is bad. I know." Sabrina then pondered how to bring up the subject of personal space in a way that Shira could understand. "People don't usually like it when you watch them shower. It's private." Sabrina wasn't even sure how much of that Shira would understand, but she had to start somewhere.

Her singing is bad? So she wasn't hurt, she just couldn't sing? Oh, well that's a relief! Shira didn't understand much of the next part, there were a lot of words she just didn't know yet. But something about the way Sabby said 'private' caught Shira's attention. "Private?" she asked, hoping Sabby would clarify.

"Yes. Only Sabby shower. Alone." Sabrina tried not to use shortened language with Shira, but sometimes she just couldn't think of another way.

Private, only Sabby shower? It didn't help that Shira didn't know what a shower was. Was that what the fountain of water was called. "Water alone?" She blinked, trying to make more connections. "And toilet alone?" She had remembered that awkward lesson with painful clarity. This had to do with what Maica had tried to teach her about modesty, why people wore clothes. Shira didn't quite get it, but she didn't have a problem with complying even though she didn't understand just yet.

"Yes." Sabby nodded and smiled. She wanted Shira to understand it wasn't just with her though. "Kris shower alone, Kris toilet alone. Maica shower alone, Maica toilet alone. Kyle, Noah, everybody shower and toilet alone." It might not be strictly true, but it should get the point across.

Shira nodded seriously. That made sense, she supposed. The way they lived wasn't like how she lived on her world. They covered themselves to hide their bodies, it made sense that they would take care of these needs alone. Now to sate her next bit of curiosity: "What... water? Shower?" she asked awkwardly, sort of pantomiming water spraying from the shower fixture. "Wash?" she continued. Was this how they bathed? but the hot spring Maica showed her, what was that for?

"Yes." Sabrina smiled. "The shower is for getting clean, for washing. Do you want to learn how to use it?"

Learn? Yes, she always wanted to learn new things! But she still didn't see the point in it. She washed her hands regularly, just like Maica showed her how to do, why did she need to wash all over? It wasn't like she got all sweaty and gross like humans, and if she hadn't done anything to get dirty then why did she need to wash? Although getting nice and wet wouldn't be a bad idea. She missed the high humidity of her world and her skin had been feeling rather dry.

"Show," Shira said.

"Ok." Sabrina smiled and led the way back into the bathroom. She then opened the shower door. "This is the hot water." She indicated the manual control, then stepped back a bit and turned it on, so Shira could feel how hot the water was, it steamed.

Ooh, how did they get the water so hot? Although she did like the feel of the steam, but she didn't dare step into the steaming water; she didn't want to cook herself! "Hot," Shira said. Then she played with the manual control until she figured out how to turn on the cold water. "Cold," she said, seeming pleased that she found it all on her own.

"Yep." Sabrina decided that the easiest way to show her the rest was just to go ahead and let Shira watch her shower. She was still wrapped in only towels anyway. "Watch" She then stripped and stepped fully into the shower, and set the water to the temperature she liked. She put shampoo in her hands, then into her hair, being deliberate about it so Shira could see exactly what Sabby was doing. By the time she got to the conditioner she explained. "This helps to make your hair soft."

"Hair?" She had learned this word in her lessons, but she didn't know if she could use this stuff in her hair seeing as it wasn't actually hair, it was grass. But she supposed it wouldn't hurt to wash it.

"You'll probably need to figure out what to use on yours." Sabby explained, pointing to her hair. "hair." then to Shira's "hair. Well grass." How did one wash and condition grass. Perhaps Shira wouldn't have to condition.

Shira nodded, then pointed to herself. "Shower," she said. She supposed she was ready to try this. She started to remove her clothes, being none too shy about being naked. It was a natural state for her, why should she be shy about it?

Sabby stepped out and wrapped herself back in the towels. She was used to Shira's utter lack of modesty by now, and while she wasn't especially modest, she wasn't completely comfortable being totally naked around the woman without needing to. She did stay to make sure Shira didn't need her help though.

Shira entered the shower after adjusting the water to a temperature closer to room temperature. She didn't want the water to be hot and thought that tepid would be a good starting place. Letting the water fall over her was a strange feeling, but enjoyable. Certainly better than dousing herself with a bucket of chilly spring water like she did on her world.

"Mmmm, nice," she hummed.

Sabrina smiled. Even Shira's humming was far more pleasant than her own attempt at singing. When Shira was done Sabrina showed her how to turn off the water, then she showed Shira where the towels were.

Ahhhh, so this was what these strange cloths were for! They were so soft and plush and dried her off so quickly! These people of the stars had some amazing things! Shira dried herself off then, following Sabby's example, found her pajamas. She wasn't sure she really liked these garments or why they were necessary, but she wore it because it was what she was supposed to do.

Sabrina sat down to write a letter home and left Shira to entertain herself.


Crewman Recruit Sabrina Corbin
Repair Specialist

Shira
Ship's pet

ON:

After leaving the arboretum, Noah found himself wandering around. The Katana was not a large starship by any means, but still it would be prudent to know where things were by memory. Plus, the roaming would give him time to think and it was time he sorely needed. Kyle had been right about one thing and that was he worked to hard. Even though he had defended himself stating why, he couldn’t deny the fact he kept himself buried in stacks of PaDDs for hours upon hours.

Once an academic, always an academic.

At least that was what he told himself.

He and Kyle had made up, for now anyway. They would be in tight quarters for as long as they were on board the Katana so anything was possible at this point. They would be okay, at least that was what he thought. It was just an argument, but a major one. It certainly wasn't the first argument they have had but it was the first time that Noah actually kicked Kyle out. Or at least that was the intention. When Kyle was ready to hand over his wedding band that caused him to take pause. Did Kyle really think things would end so easily? That caused Noah to take pause, what did that actually mean for their relationship. Did Kyle not put as much into it? Did he not put as much into it? The problem was the two were apart more than together and that was maybe the issue. They never really talked, at least not indepth and now, now they were playing house, on a starship, that was tens of thousands of light years away from Earth. It was overwhelming for him, so he was sure it was overwhelming for Kyle.

But now it was time to put those thoughts away and focus on other things.

He had been really disappointed he couldn't participate in the away mission. While being inoculated he ended up having an allergic reaction to whatever was in the compound. He laid him out for almost two days which meant he obviously couldn't go anywhere. Being confined to sickbay had been no fun, but it was something he was used to. As a child he was in and out of medical centers and doctors offices. It had been the norm for him, so it was odd to be confined to sickbay for a different reason. He was a reasonably healthy person so there was no need to ever be in the medical bay. But, it wasn't all bad and boring, he got to know the medical staff a little bit better, which was always a plus if he was going to be working with them on occasion.

If he was going to be honest with himself, he was glad that he was going to be practicing science but he already missed being a medical doctor. He had worked hard to get his doctorate of medicine and it almost seemed ashame to let it go to waste. He just had to be sure to keep up on his certifications. He was hoping Doctor Cohen would work him into the sickbay schedule soon, but right now so much was going on, it would have to wait. He had just hoped the chief medical officer didn't forget. Noah wasn't a man who pushed, he figured if he mentioned it once it shouldn't have to be mentioned again. At least that was in theory. He knew people forgot all the time, it was the nature of the beast. Humans just couldn't remember everything, only using 10 percent of the brain was a curse, a hindrance, a limitation. There was so much potential, 90 percent of it wasted.

This was what happened when he was left to his own thoughts and with nothing to work on. He thought about things like percentages of brain usage and how much wood would a wood chuck... wait how did that go again? He shrugged.

He had wondered what an empath would make of all his random thoughts. Typically, he was much more focused but typically he had a PaDD in front of him. Which reminded him, he had a schedule done for his department... finally. Well, he had one done two days after boarding but there were complaints and concerns and people didn't want this or that and whatever. At first he wanted to say too damn bad but didn't, of course. He didn't want any adversarial relationships with his staff. So, he compromised. A good leader would, right? He had some serious doubt a captain of a starship would compromise so easily, but then again he or she didn't have to work out shift schedules. Maybe it was good to be captain.

Speaking of the captain... uh no... let's not go there!

Noah shook his head, no he didn't want to go with that line of thinking. That led down a path he did not want to go down, so he just pushed it out of his mind. There was no use thinking that.

Moving on.

After some time he ended up on deck 14, he truly did wander all around. Stopping and getting his bearing, he spun on his heel and headed back from which he came. The day had been a long one, so instead of going to his office he decided to head back to his quarters. A nice, hot shower and a book would be just wanted he needed to relax.

OFF:

Lieutenant Noah Evans, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Science Officer

With all that had happened recently and the humidity on Shira's planet, Maica was a bit worried about her 'health' It may have been her interactions with the crew, but she had felt pretty unstable lately and her self diagnostics couldn't do anything without something to diagnose. This was why she now found herself seeking out the Chief Engineer, hoping she had a few minutes to spare for her.

Stepping into Main Engineering, she wasn't sure if the activity was the normal bustle of daily business or if something else was going on. Maica saw Jenni at a console though, so she headed to her quickly. "Jenni, do you have a bit of time you can spare? Is this a bad time?"

Jenni had been monitoring the progress of a Level 2 diagnostic on the magnetic field coils. Nothing in particular was out of the ordinary, but now that the refit had finally been completed, final checks needed to be performed.

Looking up at the sound of the familiar voice, Jenni smiled, absolutely thankful to be suddenly freed from the boredom a progress bars. "Of course, Maica. What can I do for you?"

Glancing around nervously, Maica spoke in hushed tones. "I've been feeling rather unstable lately, what with all that's happened. Could you give me a quick checkup?"

"Certainly!" Jenni picked up her nearby tricorder and tool kit and placed them on the console, deliberately covering the diagnostic readouts. "I've been looking forward to the next chance to work on my bedside manner." She indicated to Jenni to take a seat at the console.

Sitting at the console, Maica tilted her head down so Jenni could open up her cranial access panel. "Thanks Jenni. I keep having flashbacks to my early days and with all the troubles I had with building a translation matrix for Shira, once it finally did click and work right Jhu had to do a hard reset on me. My self diagnostics haven't turned up anything, but I'm worried something is destabilizing what with all the emotional fluctuations I've had lately."

"Emotional fluctuations?" Jenni asked, opening the tricorder. As she began to scan, Jenni commented, "If you weren't an android and you looked like your age, you could probably chalk it up to puberty." Smiling, she added, "I wouldn't recommend actually going through it though. Quite the roller coaster..."

"That might be a good guess... Not even at the Academy have I been through such social stresses and crew interaction... I just did my job and what was expected of me and moved on. Here though..." Maica thought about that a few seconds. "Do you think I'll survive this "puberty'?"

Jenni's tricorder found results that were inconclusive. Leaving it open for now, she set it on the console and pulled out an optical data feed. "We all do," Jenni replied as she carefully opened the cranial access panel and located the necessary port. "Some not so scarred as others." She carefully attached the optical feed and put the console to work. "Other than taxing your processors and walking around planets with high humidity, have you done anything else out of the ordinary?"

"Other than the near mental breakdown during that bridge meeting, not that I can think of." Maica replied.

So far, the console wasn't giving Jenni much direction. Jenni began to peer inside Maica's head, literally, as her equipment continued to work. She whistled, possibly seeing the source of the problem. "I'm seeing some oxidation and carbon scoring in here," she announced. Reaching for her tricorder, she isolated the makeup of the oxidation and began to scan the rest of Maica to see how widespread it was.

"Hooray for having the best synthetic skin latinum can buy but being substandard inside that skin... Is there anything you can do about it? Has it made its way to my holomatrix array?" Maica was genuinely worried now. If she had already started to corrode, who knew what else could be wrong.

Jenni took a moment to focus her scans. "No," she said, giving Maica a comforting smile. "Everything's on the surface... Well, just below the skin. We can control that. I recommend an oil and chemical bath without most of your skin if possible, and I can develop a new coating for your circuits."

Hearing a series of beeps from behind Maica, Jenni walked back over to her console to see what the advanced diagnostic had found. "But you've definitely got a few bugs that've developed since your last checkup."

Maica couldn't help but groan at the prospect of shedding her skin but more worrying was the bugs Jenni had found. "Bugs? what kind of bugs?"

Jenni didn't immediately reply. Normally, she could multitask, but she wanted to be absolutely sure before answering Maica.

"Jenni?..." Maica was getting more concerned with every passing nanosecond.

Her typical smile had vanished from her face when she turned to look at Jenni. "When you were working on your translation matrix, your cortical processors were pushed beyond their limits, almost to the point of fusing the positronic relays. I think you've found the limits to your internal systems." Before Maica could react, Jenni shifted gears. "The good news is that I think I can design new parts and start with some upgrades. You know, start cycling out some of those substandard parts. But it will take time."

Maica was absolutely stunned. She turned to Jenni, her head still open for all to see. "What? Positronic... I thought I was just a... A Federation holoprogram matrix running on a Ferengi holosuite core... What... Why is there posi... isn't that unstable?" She was quiet for a moment, trying to process all this. "What am I really?"

Jenni knelt in front of Maica, gently holding the android's hands. "You're a person who has become much more than anyone like her kind. Envelopes are not pushed without sacrifice or cost. Fortunately, we've caught it early." She looked into Maica's eyes, hoping to catch a spark or a twinkle or something. "The holomatrix is the basic of your programming and processing, yes, but it takes a lot to keep it running in a small environment. Holosuites are packed with processing equipment, which obviously do not fit in your body, hence the positronic components. If those go, the holomatrix destabilizes, and... well... I don't want to think about 'and' ..."

Maica sat still holding Jenni's hands as she spoke, a pained and scared expression on her face. She felt so small and weak and if she could cry, she would right now. Nodding to Jenni, she took a moment to reply. "You... you can fix me, right?"

"Of course!" Jenni said immediately, restoring her trademark smile. "It will take time, but we'll get better than when you were first activated."

Maica tried to smile back. "Thank you. My life is in your hands. What's the first thing we need to do?"

"First," Jenni said, reaching for a spanner, "I'll have to reroute some of functions. It'll free up some of the burdens currently on the holomatrix and processing units. This'll give me the time necessary to make the new parts. Hopefully, I'll be able to make some upgrades in the process so that'll be another nine years or so before you have to do this again."

Turning back to the console, Maica lowered her head so Jenni could get at her a bit easier. "I have a question... Did you ever think you would perform brain surgery on an android?"

Jenni chuckled, moving behind Maica's head and started to work. "This might tickle," she warned, activating the spanner and starting to work.

"Okay..." As Jenni worked, Maica could feel little sparks of something turning on and off inside her brain. She wasn't sure what was going on exactly, but she trusted Jenni with her life, so there was nothing more she could do until it was all over. Overall, what she was doing was helping, though some cognitive abilities were missing for a few seconds at a time.

"How's that?" Jenni asked after a few minutes of work. She shut off her spanner and glanced at the diagnostic readouts. "Core processing temperature is lower by three degrees, which is good. Processing speed also seems to be faster. Can you verify with a self-diagnostic?"

Slipping into her full diagnostic mode, Maica spoke emotionlessly. "Please stand by." Several seconds passed before she spoke again with an automated response. "Core temperature reduced 4.2 degrees during peak load. Processing speed increased by 72 million processes per second. 3 anomalous subroutines found. All physical functions within nominal parameters."

Jenni was taken aback. It had been easy for her to accept Maica as a person, even with having to maintain her as an android, but it wasn't until the automated, emotionless response was heard did Jenni become unsettled. Maybe, as she worked on the new, updated components, Jenni could work on migrating some of Maica's personality into those automated reports.

"It's a start," Jenni said, shutting off the diagnostics on the console. She grabbed a PADD and inputted some information before handing it to Maica. "I highly recommend taking this bath before the day is out. I'll work on replicating enough of the protectant coating to keep the oxidation from spreading and I'll start on those upgrades. Just know it's going to be a few days before I have the first one ready."

Blinking at the PaDD for a second, Maica took it and tucked it into her cargo pocket. When she spoke, she was back to her normal self thankfully. "Thank you. It'll be difficult skinning myself, but I'll do what I can. I've never actually tried before..." Smiling sheepishly, she waited patiently for Jenni to unhook her and close her head back up.

"Your skin is as porous as any human or Orion," Jenni suggested. "You might try with the skin on first, followed by a sonic shower. Then we can try the protectant coating and I can help you with the skin. For now..." she glanced back at her toolkit that was covering the magnetic coil diagnostics. She didn't want to finish them, but she had assured her team she'd take care of it before the day got away from them all.

"... For now, I'll let you get back to your diagnostics. Thank you so much." Smiling as brightly as she could, she gave Jenni a quick hug and got out of her way.

Well, Shira had done it again... She had gotten lost. one would think she would learn to stay where it was safe, stay where she should be. Or at the very least she should have waited for an escort. Maica told her to wait for someone to take her where she needed to go. But how long was she supposed to wait? what if no one came? It would have helped if they had given her some way to call for an escort, so she had to manage on her own and that got her lost, wandering aimlessly until she found someone willing to help her.

Lieutenant JG Darzen Kail was moving a little faster then he really should have been. He was almost at a run, but the modulator he was carrying was needed in Engineering immediately. It was still warm from being replicated. He rounded a blind corner at quite a clip, looking down at the machinery in his hands just at that moment, and plowed right into a young woman he'd never seen before.

The fact that he'd never seen her before was inconsequential, but he thought briefly about it as he landed on his ass on the floor with an umph, the piece of machinery dropping into his lap and digging into his legs. All of his hair flew into his eyes and it was a moment before he could even see what kind of damage he had done. He went ahead and finished the fall, flopping back onto the floor on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Shira tumbled to the ground several feet from where their bodies had collided. Having already been in the air, she quite literally went flying. She offered a muffled whimper as she rubbed at her head, having hit the floor with a solid 'thunk'.

"I'm sorry!" He called from the floor. He was starting to be able to breathe again and sat up slowly, wincing and lifting the modulator off his legs. "Ow... I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" He parted his hair so he could see who he had run into.

Shira looked up at the man who had run into her, her vision a little off kilter. She winced and again rubbed at her head, muttering something incomprehensible under her breath.

He blinked at the girl in front of him. If it was a girl. It mostly seemed to be made up of twigs and leaves. He shook his head, trying to clear away the image, but when he opened his eyes again it was still there, looking rather like a crushed fairy, not that he really knew what that should look like. He looked down at his legs where the modulator had landed on him and realized that he was bleeding through his suit. The modulator had somehow poked him though his suit, hard enough to break skin.

The little forest girl was still a bit woozy, but she managed to collect herself enough to sit up. Ow, that had hurt! Again, she rubbed at her head, her expression disgruntled and annoyed, but once she noticed that the man who had bumped into her was also injured, she became concerned. She moved closer to examine the damage to his leg, cooing softly to reassure him that she wasn't trying to hurt him. Oh, it didn't look to deep, but it was still bleeding pretty profusely. Wow, these creatures bled a lot! How did they survive if they bled so much when injured? No matter, she could help him until he could see a healer. She grabbed the hem of her pretty little sundress and traced out a wide strip, cutting the frilly fabric as though she had an invisible blade. Now with a colorful strip of fabric cut free of the skirt, she began to bind the wound firmly so he wouldn't bleed so much.

Darzen was speechless and blushing. The wound was to his upper thigh, a rather personal space to bind. Somewhere in the back corner of his mind someone was talking about faeries and Celtic myths and humans. Darzen ignored the voice. "Hey... oh... well... okay... ow... jeeze shouldn't I buy dinner... oh hello... um... thank you?" He squirmed until she was done.

Why was his face getting all red? Such a curious reaction! Perhaps he was unwell? She reached out to touch his face, feeling the warmth of his skin with the back of her fingers. Hmmm, he was warm and a bit clammy, and his breath quick and shallow... He must be ill! They had to go find the healer before he got any worse. She grabbed his hand, but flinched in surprise at how chilly his hands were. Oh no, this couldn't be good!

Darzan pulled his hand back. "Hey now! Who are you? What's your name?" He worked his way to his feet, hardly even feeling the wound anymore. He waited a moment for her to answer and then furrowed his eyebrows and turned a little to limp over to his modulator he had been carrying. "I'm sorry I ran into you. I was in a hurry and not looking where I was going... and that corner... It should have traffic signs or something. I'm Darzen Kail, thank you for the bandage," he rambled, not sure what to do. He'd never been very good with people, it's why he worked in Operations.

Loss of coordination, and even though she couldn't understand his words, she could tell he had an irregular speech pattern, that much mean he was ill! This was a grave concern, she had to help him find a healer right away! With a flutter of her wings, she floated off the ground, and with a wave of her hand, the modulator he had been carrying rose off the ground to float in front of him to take. Shira slowly backed away from him, beckoning him to follow her back to the lift.

He took the modulator out of the air and stared at her for a minute. He'd heard of creatures that had telekinetic abilities, but he'd never seen it in action. It was a rather strange experience. He limped down the hallway after her, his train of thought slowly coming back around to the task at hand. "Hey! Hey flying lady! I... I have to get this to Engineering. I can't go anywhere else..."

Shira, of course, didn't understand a word he was saying, but she did understand that he seemed reluctant to go with her. Okay, she would go with him to make sure that he was alright.

Once he was sure that his new silent friend was not trying to get him to go to sick bay anymore, he turned and limped his way, as fast as he could, to Engineering. It took several moments longer then he anticipated because the more he walked on the injured leg the more it hurt so by the time they got to Engineering he was really moving slowly and the wound had bled through the tightly wrapped bandage and down his leg.

Someone noticed immediately, of course, because Darzen had gone sheet white in the effort to get the modulator to Engineering, although the best part of the whole trip was when the Engineer ordered Darzen to sick bay and then ordered Shira to go with him, which was really all she wanted in the first place. And even though she could not understand what the officer barked at them, his intention was clear.

Shira was glad that Darzen was finally going with her to see the healer. He was limping pretty badly, though... She didn't know if she could offer much help, but she worked herself under his shoulder to take some of the weight off his injured leg and helped him to the nearest lift, releasing him so she could find the symbol for the infirmary on the map on the back of the lift wall, setting the moving room in motion. Then she looked back at Darzen. "Shira," she said, pointing to herself to let him know she was introducing herself.

He smiled warmly, watching her. "Shira? That's a pretty name..." He touched his chest, pointing to himself. "Darzen," he told her. "So you do speak. Do you understand me? Or is your name all of it?" He chuckled a little. He refused to actually look down at his leg, afraid of what he might see. He suspected that when the modulator punctured his leg it might have hit an artery.

"Darzen," she repeated softly with a smile, then she pointed to the symbol on the map for Sickbay. "Help Darzen," she said. She was worried, he didn't look so good. She wished he would have come with her earlier. His wound hadn't looked so deep, but it really was bleeding quite badly.

He nodded. "Yeah... we should definitely go to sickbay. I can call them and see if they can transport us." He looked down and for a moment couldn't focus on anything. One hand rose slowly and tapped the combadge. =/\= "I... I need immediate transport for two to sick bay." He reached out and grabbed Shira by one arm as they disappeared and reappeared in sick bay. Darzen had all he could take and dropped like a stone to the floor.

The sudden transition to sickbay was quite alarming for the young forest girl, but she was more concerned about her new friend than to worry about how they had gotten here. Already people were crowding around, making her feel so useless, but at least he had help now. "Help, help Darzen," Shira pleaded with them softly.

Liam moved as the transporter cycled, "What happened?" He asked approaching.

The wound in his upper thigh was deeper then it looked. The corner of the modulator must have dug in deep when it landed in his lap and had managed to nick the major artery there. He was bleeding out and quickly. The turnicate was really the only thing that had kept him going this long. It had stemmed the bleeding enough that he had the time to get to sick bay.

Liam and a nurse quickly moved Kail onto the bio bed. "Should I prep the OR?" The nurse asked.

"No we don't have time to move him and prepared, I'll handle it here. Push 20 cc of erythrocytosol and then prep 10 units of trill blood." He said already cutting away the blood soaked uniform and tourniquet to get a better look at the wound. "I need to repair the artery, vasosticher, it was almost lucky the wound was the way it was, he had easy access to the damaged artery and within a minute the major blood loss had stopped and he could address the more minor tissue wound.

"There, now that I don't have to tell the Captain to find a new Ops Chief, what happened?" He asked Kail.

Darzen was just starting to come back around again. His leg was numb completely from where the doctor had been working on it, thankfully. "I think... I ran into a fairy..." he stammered, sitting up a little to see the shredded uniform and the small scar on his leg. The dermal regenerators making short work of the wound once the artery was closed. "And I was carrying a modulator... which as you know is kind of a heavy thing with a lot of sharp, pointy edges... anyway, I dropped it into my lap when I fell and I think it might be the culprit for the puncture. It didn't hurt that bad, so I took the modulator to Engineering. The more I walked the more it hurt. I should have just had the damn thing transported to Engineering in the first place..."

"Well, that would make more sense in future." Liam said as he finished treating the wound, "By fairy I assume you mean Shira." He said.

Shira perked up at the sound of her name. She didn't understand much of what they were saying, but she knew the name Kris had given her. "Darzen better?" she asked.

Liam laughed, "Yes, Darzen is better." He said, there was something childlike the way she spoke, he still wasn't thrilled that she had near free reign of the ship but so far it seemed that things were going smoothly. "Well, it looks like everything is better, how do you feel Lieutenant?"

"Is Shira the fairy girl's name? And I feel a little woozy but I might just need food. I promise I will get something to eat." He looked around Liam at Shira again. "Does it eat? Do you eat? Food?" He made a gesture at her, simulating eating food. "Where did we get a fairy?" he asked Liam, softly.

It was a good thing Shira was still learning about speech or she would be insulted about being called an 'it' rather than 'she'. Or maybe not, her kind were pretty laid back about such things. Either way, she understood the gesture Darzen was making and recognized the words 'food' and 'eat'. Was he asking if she was hungry? Well, she supposed she could eat a little with her new friend! "Shira and Darzen eat," she replied with a chipper smile.

"It's a long story. You're free to go, but your sugars are low food is a good idea." He said.

Maica was heading back to her quarters after a nice trip to the holodeck. She could replicate the lubricant stuff that Jenni had prescribed her, but she had needed help applying it and working it in so she had enlisted the aid of her holoprograms to do so. thankfully, it was easy enough to clean up once she was finished and had disposed of the container in a replicator already.

On her way back to her quarters though, she heard something. Something just imperceptible but clear and vibrant none the less so she started tracking the source down. It was a passionate sound that stirred something in her. A violin piece she didn't recognize. Something new? 12 doors later, she was standing before the source of the sound. She didn't want to disrupt the person playing, yet she wanted to meet them. This was a dilemma. Should she press the door chime and interrupt the person or stand out here staring at the door like a stalker? Like a stalker? Well that thought settled that.

Pressing the door chime, Maica paused her respiratory functions as the music cut off.

There was a long pause between the time the music shut off and the door swished open to reveal a woman with a disarrayed mop of fiery hair. Her eyes were mismatched, blue and green, but the blue eye was clearly an implant, it's artificial iris having never been concealed to match her natural piercing green gaze. Above the blue false eye was a Borg eyepiece on her brow, and her hands were encased in a silvery exoskeletal frame. The woman met her visitor with a scowl.

"Somethin' I can do for you Lieutenant?" she asked in a surly tone as she tugged at the hem of her casual suede jacket before crossing her arms over her chest.

Now a bit unsure of herself, Maica glanced around nervously. "Sorry, I heard your violin playing on the other end of the deck and I couldn't identify the piece and I just wanted to meet you... I'm Maica."

"Get your ears checked, I didn't hear no violin," Andy replied in a gruff tone, but allowed the woman to enter her quarters anyway. Once Maica was inside, there was no sign of a violin, just cramped quarters with stand issue Starfleet decorations. The only indications that anyone even lived in here was a series bows and a quiver mounted on the wall and a Borg alcove next to her bed. "I'm Andy," the ex-Borg woman introduced herself.

"Internal diagnostics report full range of operation to my auditory sensors. I'll see my engineer later though, if you insist. So you're ex-borg? Does that mean you require high level maintenance as well?" Maica took it all in stride, looking around the room and smiling warmly at the beautiful redheaded woman.

"Ah, so you're the android!" Andy said excitedly, but she already knew that. One glance at the seemingly Orion woman and Andy knew what she really was, but she also knew that people didn't like it when she used her eyepiece to gain information they didn't want her to have, so she had a tendency to keep quiet on such things until someone else broached the topic. "C'mere, lemme get a good look at you!" Andy said as she practically shoved Maica into her desk chair and began looking her over, pointedly ignoring the question about her being ex-Borg or her own need for maintenance. But Andy just looked, she didn't touch Maica; she may have lacked tact, but she knew better than to touch something that wasn't hers. "Maybe I can check your ears while you're here," Andy mumbled as she looked the Android over.

Maica felt a bit like a zoo exhibit at this point and was appreciably nervous as she wondered if she was going to be taken apart. 'Umm... oh my... no, I don't think that... oh goodness... Maybe we should wait for Jenni..."

"Ah, so Jenni's working on you?" Andy asked, nodding approvingly. "She does good work, you're in excellent hands. I'm guessing she's the one that suggested the new protective coating you're covered in? You know it works better to protect those corroded circuits if you apply it under the skin not over it, right?" But she was more or less done making Maica uncomfortable and backed off, flopping lazily onto the couch.

"Um... yeah... It's hard to peel my skin off and harder to get it back on... I'm not built for easy disassembly. She told me my skin would soak it up well enough for now though. She's making some replacement parts for me now since I melted a few..." Maica wasn't sure about this woman, but she seemed to know her way around a circuit and likely had a tricorder built in somehow, so she stuck it out.

"I'll contact her to see if she needs help manufacturing the replacement parts," Andy replied with another nod. "It's good she's opting to use crafted materials rather than replicated; it takes longer, but it's well worth the effort, but an extra set of hands can help speed up that process for you. And you deserve the extra effort. It's just a shame to see the cheap materials that went into you, your design is really quite elegant. Fucking cheap bastards..." Overall, Andy liked the Ferengi, they amused her, but it did piss her off to see the poor elements of Maica's construction. "And I'll see if I can come up with a solution to the problem with your skin. Applying the protectant as you did will work fine for now, but you'll need something better down the line."

"Yeah the Ferengi that created me was more concerned with how well I would perform as a sex slave than anything else... hence the light aluminum frame, substandard gel-muscles, and hodgepodge electronics... On the bright side, he didn't skimp on my universal translation systems or tonal reproduction or synth-flesh. i take it you're an engineer as well?" Maica was starting to relax now that she was sure she wasn't going to be tinkered with unasked, so she leaned back in the chair a bit and resumed her normal warm smile.

Andy's thought processes completely flatlined for a moment at the mention of 'sex slave'. Score! No, bad Andy! This woman was a person, not a sex slave anymore! "Yeah, I work Operations though. Ship efficiency and operation management suits me better than working warp cores, but I'm still an Engineer. And to answer your earlier question, I do my own maintenance, not that there's much of it nowadays."

Maica didn't miss that look when she mentioned being a former sex slave. Was it lust or just... "That's good at least. I'm a diplomat so I leave the maintenance to others. I don't even know how a lot of me is built, to be honest."

"I could teach you if you wanted," Andy offered nonchalantly. "Or I could write the necessary subroutines and code them directly into your memory engrams. Although either way, should probably wait until after you've had some repairs, it's best to learn on a system that's working properly."

"I'd rather go with the first option. I'm sure you wouldn't want someone in your brain reprogramming you to do stuff. Back to my original reason for being here though... I know I heard a violin and I know you know I heard it." Maica said, now more relaxed.

"Fair enough," Andy said with a shrug, then shifted uncomfortably where she sat. "And I don't know what you're talking about."

With a longing look on her face, Maica sighed heavily. "I sing and play the lyre now and then so I was hoping there was someone besides myself that played, is all. That siren's call must have been my imagination I guess."

Andy groaned. Damned, she just looked so cute pouting like that! That kind of temptation should be illegal! "Must be," Andy mumbled, trying desperately not to give in to Maica's desire to hear her play. She didn't like playing for other people!

Plucking at her uniform top so it came undone, Maica's voice took on a much more seductive set of dulcet tones. "I think I would do just about anything to hear it again, but if you don't know anything about it..."

Aww, now that was just plain evil! "Can... Can I see your schematics?" Andy replied dumbly, then winced. Aww, damn, that was completely lame! "Fuck," she muttered once she realized that Maica had won rather effectively.

Pulling a PaDD from her cargo pocket and set it on the desk with a decidedly wicked smile, Maica undid her top just a bit more. "Would you like the guided tour as well?"

"Yes please," Andy said, going into total 'perv mode', then she shook her head and stood. "Shit, fuck, no! You can't play me like this woman!" But even by this point Andy knew she was fighting a losing battle. The schematics were right there and Maica was even willing to give her a hands-on tour, that was just to wrong! But so right! Mmmmm.... No! Must resist!

Falling back on her best pouty look, Maica stood, tucking the PaDD deep into her now half open top. "Well... If that's how it is then... I just wanted to hear you play..." Slowly, she turned with a roll of her wide hips towards the door.

"Alright! Fine!" Andy said in a huff. She reached behind her couch to get her violin. "I'll play, but I'll have you know I ain't happy about this," she grumbled as she opened the case and pulled out the beloved instrument. She retrieved another case that had her shoulder and chin rest which she quickly set on the violin. Despite her rough demeanor, it was obvious that her violin was something precious to her, she handled it with great care and loving reverence. It was almost strange to see such warm emotions on Andy's face, so contrary to the personality she had displayed so far. "Just, don't tell anyone about this, alright?" she said, almost embarrassed about the fact that she could play.

Setting the PaDD back on the desk, Maica sat back down elegantly with a warm smile on her face. Her gamble had paid off and she hoped another was about to as well. "Thank you, I won't."

Andy ran her fingers over the rosin for her bow, the resin helped to dull the sound of her metal fingertips on the strings. It was one thing that had nearly broke her about what had happened to her. She could live with not being able to call herself wholly human anymore, but she would break down if she could never play her violin again, and after her assimilation it had made her cry to hear the abrasive sound her metal fingertips created. Practice had reduced most of the unpleasant sound and the rosin helped with the rest.

Andy cast Maica an uneasy glance before she raised her violin to her shoulder. She really didn't like playing for other people. So few people had ever heard her play, it was something that was wholly hers and she wanted to keep it that way. The last person to hear her music... well, she wouldn't think about that now... She raised her bow and set it on the strings. Playing her music, it was like baring her soul, she expressed all the longing she held deep inside through her music, a secret beauty struggling to see the light of day. She would never deny that she held so much of herself in, but in doing so she closed off her heart from the beautiful things the universe had to offer and her music reflected that.

As Andy played, Maica was swept away with the music. The raw emotion, the passion, the soul of it moved her to her very core. Something inside of her exploded and screamed out 'This is it! This is what you are missing!' If she had ever doubted she had a soul, this music proved she did beyond a shadow of a doubt. It may have been some of the lubricant from earlier, but for the first time in her existence the android cried a tear. A tear of joy at having heard the soul of another resonating so vividly through her own.

Andy stilled her bow, only then noticing that Maica was crying. For a moment, she wanted to ask if everything was alright, but somehow she just knew that Maica was fine, more than fine even. Suddenly, all her reservations about playing for someone else melted away. She would play for Maica, and offered her another song. One day, she would take Maica to the holodeck to hear the full orchestrated version of this song, but for now this was enough.

It felt like Maica was melting but she didn't care. It just felt so good to ride the waves of bliss Andy was throwing at her.

After a few more songs, Andy paused in her music, approaching the enraptured android to wipe away the stray moisture from Maica's cheeks with the backs of her fingers. Most people expected Andy's exoskeleton to feel cold, but it wasn't; her fingers and the metal encasing them were so pleasantly warm.

"Are you alright, Maica?" Andy asked quietly.

Taking the ex-borg's hand and pressing it back to her cheek, the android smiled with more life than a collection of circuits had any right to. "Am I... Are these tears? Thank you. I didn't know it was possible for me to cry."

"You're a person, ain't you? Of course you can cry," Andy said, as if Maica had suggested the silliest thing in the world. From a purely engineering standpoint, Andy could see how this might surprise Maica if tears were not something she was meant to produce, but through the use of her implants Andy could see quite clearly that Maica had tear ducts to simulate more natural blinking, so it was reasonable to conclude that she was capable of crying she had just never been stimulated to the point of tears before.

Standing, Maica pulled Andy into a tender embrace, her hands rubbing over the other woman's back as she pressed herself softly against the fiery haired woman. Kissing her ear, Maica spoke softly as she felt her own body heat and simulated pulse respond to that of the other. "Thank you then. Do you still want that guided tour?"

Nice! Wait- "Only if that's what you want," Andy replied, pulling away from Maica slowly. She didn't know why Maica's tears had evoked this kind of reaction from her, but Andy quite suddenly didn't like this trade. Maica had been built to be a sex slave and it had been almost humorous to trade her schematics and a 'guided tour' for some music, but after seeing Maica cry Andy didn't want that anymore.

Maica was awash with emotion as she spoke, passion in her voice - something else she wasn't directly programmed with. "I want to feel real and alive. I want to make love true love for the first time. I want to be held tenderly. I want to know what it's like to be treated not as a thing, but as a real person. If you don't want to, I'll understand - we've only just met after all. But either way, will you please at least hold me? i don't want to let go of this feeling just yet."

Andy set her violin on her desk and pulled Maica close, idly stroking the android's hair as she thought. "Are... Are you sure you want me to do that for you? I mean, I ain't exactly the cuddliest person in the 'verse," Andy said. It wasn't that she didn't want to throw down with Maica or that she doubted her own ability to give Maica what she wanted, Andy just wan't the emotional sort and she just didn't want Maica to be disappointed, but it still spoke volumes about Andy's character that she was asking; she was turned on at the thought of getting a chance to play with a real android, but Maica wasn't just an android and she deserved better.

Pulling her top off, Maica traced the ragged seam on her left shoulder. "This is where my arm was ripped off. I've seen the darkest dregs of society. Since joining Starfleet I've seen a lot of good, but it's pale compared to the pain of my first 3 years." Looking into Andy's eyes pleadingly, Maica continued. "You've shown me a glimpse of the good that society can achieve. I'd love nothing more than to see what else you can show me. Cuddly or not, you're the one that's moved my soul and I want a chance to experience something that might help erase some of that pain."

Andy said nothing, but rather let actions speak for her by leaning in to brush her lips against Maica's. She still didn't believe she was the right person for what Maica was searching for, but she couldn't in good conscience say no to her either. She had stoked this passion in her, even if wasn't intentional, she was responsible. Slowly, Andy kissed the naive android. Fuck, she was going to a special level of hell for this... Well, she might as well enjoy it if that was the case!

Pressing softly into the kiss, Maica closed her eyes and revelled in the tenderness with which Andy kissed her. For the first time, this was her choice. Her decision. She was doing this of her own free will and she felt like she had wings as the excitement raced through her. She was the one that wanted to undress her partner so she did, pulling Andy's suede jacket off of her before running her fingers through that bright red hair. "I just have one question. Do you need sleep?"

----------=One Hour Later=----------

It took a moment for Andy to catch her breath enough to answer, but when she did it was with her trademark smirk. “Not bad, not bad at all…” she answered smoothly. though in truth, it was amazing and she didn’t know if she could handle that kind of treatment too often, it was rather intense. “Those are some pretty interesting tricks you can do,” Andy conceded with a chuckle as she gathered her lover closer.

Giggling a bit more, Maica kissed Andy’s cheek. “I was built to be the galaxy’s best sex toy. Even now as a diplomat, I’d be ashamed if I didn’t have a few tricks handy.” Snuggling in closer, she wrapped an arm around Andy, hugging with it tenderly.

“Sneaky woman,” Andy muttered as she kissed the top of Maica’s head. “My sex toy now,” she declared as she closed her eyes as if to go to sleep.

“Oh am I now? Well you’d best take good care of your new toy lest she get tired of you.” Maica said with mock seriousness and a smile. “You don’t want her wandering off. You might not get to see her impressive collection of real alcohols and music.”

“How could you get tired of me, I’m awesome!” Andy boasted. Shit, sex toy and alcohol? Double score! “And I take good care of my toys, thank you very much,” she retorted, feigning insult at the insinuation otherwise.

Resting her head back on Andy’s shoulder, Maica had to agree. “Well, yeah you are pretty awesome. I might stick around for a few hundred years.”

“Oh, might? Might?! Fine, I see how you are,” Andy said with a fake pout, wiggling away from Maica.

Blinking at Andy, this was unfortunately when Maica’s innocence had to take over and in full seriousness she asked “Is this the part where we fight then have makeup sex?”

“We can if you want to,” Andy said with a shrug. “Make up sex is usually awesome, by the way,” she informed the naive android as she pulled her close again. “And I can be an ass from time to time, so we’ll probably fight a lot.” It was only fair that Andy warn Maica; she really did make a fool of herself sometimes and Maica deserved to know it.

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll often likely be frustrating as well. Like I said, I’m a diplomat, and i tend to ramble a lot.” Maica warned back.

“I can live with that,” Andy admitted as she pulled at the blanket to cover them up. “So, you happy with your first time as a willing participant?” she asked. Maica had asked for ‘make love’ and Andy still wasn’t entirely sure if she had delivered, but if Maica enjoyed it then that was the important part.

“Very much so. Thank you again.” Snuggling in with Andy under the blanket, Maica thought back over the day’s events. “For the first time ever, I feel truly alive. Remind me to have Jenni check me over though - it felt like I melted… well… everything.”

Andy actually felt a bit hurt. “What, can’t ask me to check you over? Ain’t like I’m here and Jenni ain’t, you know…” Andy groused. not like it really mattered, right?

“Sorry. I’m used to going to one engineer and she’s making parts for me and i forgot just how amazingly awesome you really are.” Maica apologised sheepishly. “So um… did anything melt?”

Andy looked at Maica long and hard as she focused her implant sensors on Maica’s various processing systems. “I see some fusing of the positronic relays. I can bypass them if you want,” Andy offered as she sat up, intending on getting her toolkit.

Sitting up as well, Maica nodded. “If you don’t mind, please. And can you explain this to Jenni so she won’t kill me later?”

“Heh, sure,” Andy said casually as she got up and went to her desk to get her toolkit. She returned as sat next to Maica and got to work. She didn’t need to ask where the separation in the cranial plates were, she could see them, as well as the seams in the skin. Her hands were gentle as she removed the parts obscuring her access to the positronic relays, her attention to the little details was something often unexpected, but her work was quick and efficient, rerouting the relays and setting the cranial plate back in place. “How does that feel?” she asked.

“That feels strange as always, but better. Thanks.” Maica would run a self diagnostic, but she didn’t feel it was an appropriate time for it.

Andy put her tools back into her toolkit and set it on the night stand. “Do you need to sleep?” she asked as she pulled Maica back down on the bed.

Slipping back into bed with her lover, Maica couldn’t help but giggle. “I need a power reset every few years, but not sleep.”

“So does that mean you’ll be watching me when I sleep?” Andy asked with a smirk. “‘Cause that’s just creepy.” Although it did give her some thoughts about things she should discuss with Jenni about Maica’s upgrades. As she heard it, the Maddox type Android made by Maddox himself was able to fully emulate human actions, including eating and sleeping. Andy wondered if she could get her hands on those schematics to see if there was anything she could use to help Maica.

“I’ve never tried it, but I think there’s a subroutine for pretending to sleep… There are a lot of things like that in the original holomatrix I was built off of that I’ve never used or disabled. If you want, I could try to sleep?” Maica was a bit unsure now, but if Andy wanted her to try, she’d do her best.

“No, that’s alright,” Andy said casually, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. As it is, I’m not all that tired, I just get lazy after sex, so I don’t want to do anything right now.”

“Fair enough. Are you hungry then? I should probably replace my lubricants, if you want anything.” Maica sat up a little at the offer.

“You have to do that regularly?” Andy asked. “that kind of thing is supposed to be a closed system, you shouldn’t have to replace them,” she continued, going all ‘engineer’ on Maica. But it had her interest and she sat up, looking about for her clothes. It seemed there was one more thing she would have to fix about Maica. “Hey, I technically didn’t get that ‘tour’,” she teased. “Can I check you out while you relubricate? I promise, I won’t mess with anything, I just wanna look.”

“Open system, closed system… You noticed the lubricants at my crotch, right? I just want to top things off is all.” Getting up, Maica headed to the replicator still nude. “Maica Seti Four.” she said to the replicator. Taking the plate of bio-nutrient sticks and glass of fine silicone lubricant, she sat at the table. “Where would you like to start then?”

“Gimme a second,” Andy grumbled as she fumbled with her dresser to find a pair of flannel sleep pants and a tank top. She meandered over to her desk to pick up the PaDD with the schematics, then she saw her violin and opted to put that away first. “How the hell does your system convert the lubricant into something that is safely ingestible?” she asked as she continued to look over the schematics as she put her violin away.

Sipping at her drink, Maica thought about it. “It’s only an organic silicone based fluid. It’s no more harmful to most than cooking oil. As for the snacks, they’re to help ‘heal’ my skin.”

“Silicone has a low toxicity,” Andy said idly as she tucked her violin case behind the couch. “I’m probably the only one who can go down on you without… Wait a sec, how the hell does your system run on only a silicone lubricant, that don’t make no sense!” Andy stood in the middle of her living room for a moment scratching her head in bemusement as she studied the schematics. “Your creator was fucking retarded, no wonder you’ve got so much corrosion and material fatigue!”

“I don’t know… Data only needed some silicone lubricant… And my systems can process anything. As for energy, that’s what my micro-fusion reactor is for. What else would I need?” Maica wasn’t sure if she should be offended or impressed, so she decided to just act ‘normal.’

“No, I wasn’t talking about power, though I have some complaints about that as well…” Andy grabbed her toolkit, approached Maica and pulled up a chair so she could sit beside her. She ran her fingers up Maica’s spine, looking for the parts indicated on the schematic that would open Maica up so Andy could get a better look. “This might feel weird, but it shouldn’t interfere with what you’re doing,” Andy said as she took one of her tools and separated the skin over the casing emulating the ribcage, locating the latch that opened her up so she could examine Maica’s inner workings. And true to her word, she just looked, she wasn’t going to mess with anything. “You are a beautiful, horrible mess in here, girlie…”

“I am what I am. From what the engineers that interrogated me when I fled to the Federation said, I’m not that bad off. A lot of it isn’t the best, but it’s workable. I’ve had no complaints until now, at least.” Sipping at her drink, she popped one of the sticks into her mouth and chewed. “Besides, you should see human organs. Those aren’t too pretty to look at either.”

“Yeah, I know,” Andy muttered distractedly, “but it is an efficient system given that we’re biological. And you deserve better than just ‘workable’.” Already, she was forming ideas for improving Maica’s internal workings. “Yeah, I’m definitely working with Jenni on this project. I’m going to make sure you don’t have anymore problems for a long time.” Her tone was surprisingly affectionate despite the fact that she was talking mechanics, but Andy had no regrets about that.

Tapping Andy’s nose with her finger, Maica had a serious expression on her face. “Just remember that if you change me too much, I won’t be the same person. I also might not be able to function the same, either. Honestly, I’d rather keep these parts. They’re a part of me.”

Andy reach up to trace the scar over Maica’s shoulder. “That ain’t your original arm, but that don’t make you any less of who you are. this ain’t my hand or my eye, but that don’t make me any less me,” she continued, wiggling the fingers of her right hand then motioning to her eye implant. “In the medical field, organs and limbs get replaced all the time, it don’t make us any more or less than we already are. It ain’t no different than the Katana going through a refit. Many systems are swapped out for more efficient upgrades, but at its core the Katana is still the Katana, just like I will always be Andy, and you will always be Maica. Who you are ain’t something that can be mapped on a schematic.”

“And where does my core end and the rest of me begin? Replacing faulty parts is one thing, but upgrades for the sake of upgrades… You don’t replace a lung or a heart if it’s working fine.” Maica countered. Taking Andy’s hand in hers, she kissed the back of her fingers. “Besides, I’m used to eating and drinking like normal people.”

Andy wasn’t sure if she could explain to Maica’s satisfaction that she wasn’t trying to replace or upgrade parts just for the sake of replacing them, she was trying to improve Maica’s quality of life! And it wasn’t like there was a major overhaul planned, Andy just thought they would swap out parts as necessary, but doing so with superior materials and systems that would last longer and run more efficiently. But if Maica didn’t want that, it was her ultimately her choice.

“Alright,” Andy said as she closed the android up and sealed the skin. “I said I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do.”

“I’d love it if you did work with Jenni to keep me going smoothly, but any major changes I want final say on, ok? That’s all I’m asking.” Maica said, looking deep into Andy’s eyes. “And I wouldn’t mind a built in tricorder…”

“Do you really think I would do anything to you without asking first?” Andy asked dubiously, but Maica’s request for a built-in tricorder was making Andy smile, though she tried to resist.

“Sorry, I’ve just had a few overzealous engineers over the years that treated me more like a power coupling or engine part. My own creator treated me like a strip of latinum to be made. I just don’t want to be seen as another system to maintain, is all.” Maica explained further.

“But, you’re an android, you’re always going to need some form of maintenance, but really is that any different than me going to Sickbay for a routine check-up? You are a machine. You’re a sentient machine and as such you have every right to decide what happens to you, but you can’t fault an engineer for looking at a machine and seeing a machine. I sit balanced between human and machine, but I also have to deal with fear. Does it matter that I was only assimilated for a couple of days? Fuck no, I still get met with fear and it still don’t change the end result of what I am today. I will always need a doctor like a normal human, but I will always need mechanical maintenance too. But all people will see is the Borg, so I understand what you feel, but you don’t do yourself any good by trying to pretend otherwise either. You are a machine, a very beautiful machine with a soul as real as any other sentient life I’ve ever seen, but a machine none the less, and I just want you to be capable of living a long and full life, never having to worry about breaking down because your creator was a cheap asshole who couldn’t spare a few extra bars of latinum for quality parts. Is that so wrong of me to want that for you?”

After a speech like that, all Maica could do was smile and shake her head no as somehow another tear rolled down her cheek.

“Alright, stop that, girlie, you’re gonna make me get all mushy and I can’t stand being mushy,” Andy groused with a scowl, but still she wiped the tears away with the gentlest of touch.

Nodding, Maica replied with a quiet “Thank you.” It was amazing the things she had experienced with this woman. She didn’t want to upset her though, so she did her best to compose herself.

“You’re welcome,” Andy said uneasily. She never knew what to do with gratitude… She stood and returned her toolkit to her desk then got a steaming mug of coffee from the replicator. “So, you really want a built-in tricorder?” she asked with a smirk. “I thought you didn’t want upgrades for the sake of upgrades.”

Looking away sheepishly, Maica had to admit to that one. “My optical sensors are hardware and software set to only see the normal range for an Orion… It’s annoying at times…”

“Well, if it’s just a software issue, I might be able to fix that for you real easy. But all the hardware is there, right? I mean, the software just limits your visual cortex?” Andy asked in clarification as she began to work on the PaDD.

Maica nodded at that. “And a small EM trigger lock that has to be manually cycled to release them from mode 9.”

“oh, well that’s an easy fix, I can have you set in less than five minutes,” Andy said as she set her coffee down and found her tools once again. “I don’t even need to open you up, easy peasy…” Andy said idly. “Ain’t no tricorder-vision like I got, but it’ll do until we can get you a proper upgrade,” she continued as she bypassed the EM trigger lock in Maica’s eyes and rerouted the functions through Maica’s autonomic pathways. “There, is that better?”

Blinking and looking around the room anew, Maica stared into Andy’s eyes, seeing her in new colors. “Your eyes aren’t the same color. I couldn’t see that before.”

“Is that good or bad?” Andy asked, uncertain if she meant the change was good or bad, or if Maica thought it was good or bad that her eyes didn’t match.

“Good I think. I thought they were both green, just a few shades different. It makes me wonder what else I’ve been missing…” replied Maica.

“Well, they were both green once, but ain’t been that way in a long time,” Andy said casually. “My first implant was standard issue blue, but at the time we were more concerned with getting me functional than aesthetics, so we never matched the color to my natural eye. Some time later, I got an upgrade, but by that time I had gotten used to the blue. The doc tried to give me matching eyes, but it just felt weird. It felt like I was looking at a stranger in the mirror.” she put her tools away and returned to sit by Maica to sip on her coffee.

“That makes sense.” Sipping at her drink, Maica realized something. “Is the fairy on my lyre green or blue? And Shira… She’s green, right?”

“I have no clue,” Andy answered bluntly. She had never seen the lyre and had never met this Shira person that the crew had rescued.

“I know the XO is blue - Andorians are supposed to be blue. I wonder what his blue looks like…” Maica mused over that, wondering just what she could see now. “IR spectrums are all working. As are thermoptics. I assume the UV is working - that seems to be the setting at least.”

The Andorian? Well, that was easy enough to show her. Andy pulled up the personnel file for Tul Zanaar on the PaDD and held it up for Maica to see. “That seems about standard for the ocular replacements as well. The extra features I get are from my eyepiece, but if you really want a built-in tricorder, I can make that happen,” Andy said sincerely.

Looking over the image, she realized that Commander Zanaar wasn’t anything like she thought he looked like. “Eventually, yeah I’d like that, but for now, I think I should get used to this. Thank you.”

Andy shrugged. “No big deal, and it took me a long time to get used to everything I could perceive, but then again my brain is mostly biological, so that can get complicated. Shouldn’t take you that long to get used to it, though.” Not like Andy would rush her into anything… “But this is good right? I mean, I don’t look weird, the Andorian looks alright?”

“The Andorian looks less mean. As for you…” Leaning closer to Andy, Maica gave her a kiss. “You look even more beautiful.”

Andy actually blushed. “Uh, thanks, I guess…” she said awkwardly, then quickly took a sip of her coffee.

Munching on the last of her bio-nutrient sticks, Maica washed them down with the last of her drink. “We need to do this at my place next. It seems the normal gift among the Diplomatic Corps is real alcohol, so I’ve got a large collection of random bottles that I think you would enjoy.”

“Booze, my kind of lady,” Andy said with a smile. She would never say no to free booze.

“Just be careful. Some of them are outright dangerous, if not lethal to most people.” Warned Maica.

“Is that a challenge?” Andy inquired, highly intrigued by this collection. As it stood, she wasn’t like most people, she hadn’t met a liquor she wasn’t able to tolerate.

“Not a challenge, just a warning. I don’t want all the water in your body processed into alcohol by drinking something bad. I’m told it’s a very mind numbing way to die…” Maica was of course referring to the drink she had shared with Jhu some time ago that had to be mixed with water a few drops at a time.

“Water? what is this water you speak of?” Andy replied in jest. “There is no water, only caffeine.” but seriously, this booze sounded hardcore! She had to try it. “Anyway, it hardly sounds like the worst way to go.”

“Then I look forward to serving it up for you.” Maica said with a smile.

“Awesome,” Andy said with a wide grin. “So where are you quarters anyway?” Andy asked with another sip of her coffee.

“Actually, they’re just a few doors down from yours. If you wanted to go there now, we could.” Maica got up and set her used dishes back in the replicator, watching them disappear.

“Then get your clothes, we’re wasting daylight!” Andy said as she hopped up to go fetch her own clothes. If Maica’s place was just down the way, then she would probably just stay in her pajama pants and throw on her boots.

“Ah. Clothes. Right.” Picking up her clothes and slipping them on, Maica got dressed.

Andy snickered at Maica. How could a person, an android none the less, forget about clothing? “Lead on!” Andy said excitedly as she slipped her boots on, but didn’t bother to tie them.

Maica led Andy down the hall to her room and upon entering the sparsely decorated diplomatic quarters slash office, she pointed out her lyre on its stand and the coffee table covered in mostly unopened bottles. “Welcome to my quarters.” Picking up a black bottle, Maica offered it to Andy. “Want to start with something brewed from blood?”

“Ah, nothing wrong with a good bloodwine,” Andy said approvingly as she glanced around Maica’s quarters, quickly commiting a number of details to memory.

“Actually, that’s a very special gift from a Caitian ambassador. Mrowvyll juice if i remember right. It’s brewed with blood and something like catnip.” Picking up a bottle of Saurian ale with more dust than glass, Maica brushed at the label. “This is one of my oldest bottles. Over 200 years old. Apparently that’s not old enough for the man I got it from…”

“200 years still ain’t too shabby,” Andy said, amazed at the collection Maica had. Forget being a diplomat, this woman needed to be a bartender! “Most Earth liquors turn to vinegar with that kind of age to it,” she thought aloud. then she looked over at Maica. “Alright, where’s the one that will kill me?” she asked excitedly.

Picking up a tiny bottle with a built in eye dropper, Maica cradled the bottle in her hands as she walked to the dinner table. “Mind replicating a pitcher of water and 2 glasses?”

Andy did as she was asked and replicated the water and the glasses, joining Maica at the table. “That’s all you got?” Andy asked disbelievingly as she caught sight of the small bottle.

Pouring water in both glasses, Maica unscrewed the bottle and dropped 2 drops into each glass before sealing it back up. “Now we just swirl it in and wait 30 seconds or so.”

“Why wait?” Andy asked as she watched the water in glass, waiting as if it could perform a neat trick.

Picking up her glass and swirling the clear liquid, Maica spoke softly. “So the chemical reaction can finish.” Sipping at the glass, she analyzed the taste and smiled. “It’s ready. Another drop and it would have evaporated.”

“No way…” Andy said disbelievingly. That was so neat! If this shit was that potent, then she was probably going to regret this, but what the hell, BANZAI! Andy knocked the glass back.

“Oh my…” Maica really hoped Andy wouldn’t regret downing that much at once. She doubted her own systems could handle it that well. “Please tell me you can still breathe…”

“I can…” Andy said uneasily. She placed her hands on the table as though she needed to steady herself. She probably did need some help staying upright. “I think I’m tasting colors,” Andy said absentmindedly as she started playing with her tongue. Alcohol had always had strange effect on her since her assimilation.

Giggling a bit, Maica helped steady her. “Jhu was able to drink 2 whole glasses, but she drank them slowly. Why don’t you sit down?”

“Hm, what?” Andy asked distractedly. the room felt like it was shifting sideways. It was just her perception, at least she hoped it was or she was going to have to run a diagnostic on her inner ear functions. Ok, time to sit down...

Setting her glass down, Maica caught Andy and helped her into a chair. “I always heard that cyborgs had trouble with drinking.” Sitting in the chair next to her, maica sipped at her drink again. “Care for another glass?”

“Never had trouble drinking,” Andy said absentmindedly, “just get weird reactions when I get drunk and my tolerances are usually pretty high…” She waved off the offer for a second glass, seeming fascinated by some strange floating lights in her field of vision. Well, she was only seeing it with her natural eye, her artificial eye was such a killjoy.

Finishing her glass, Maica reached over and picked up a flowery, misformed bottle filled with an amber liquid. Maica poured a little of that into Andy’s glass. “Try this then. It’s a mild hallucinogen.”

“Fun,” andy said, eagerly drinking the offered liquor. “By the way, did you ever find your fairy?” Andy asked. Alcohol also had a tendency to interfere with retrieving memories stored in her cortical array, the Borg tech unable to properly process the inebriated signals from the remaining biological processes of her brain. Which explained why she got the question wrong.

“I did. She’s apparently blue.” Pouring herself a shot of the amber liquid into her own glass, Maica drank that, analyzing the flavor. Yes, this was that same stuff that made people see sound. Heading over to her lyre, she picked it up and strummed a few notes on it, watching for Andy’s reaction.

Andy grew a wide grin. She only got half of the experience; she only had one real eye and only half a real brain, so it diminished the effects the alcohol had on her, but it was still more than enough for Andy to enjoy the effects.

Happy with that response, Maica started playing a soothing melody, her voice adding to the song after a few bars, singing of life and love in an ancient Gaelic tongue.

Andy dared to ruin the moment by humming along. Drunk or sober, Andy was utterly tone deaf when it came to her own voice. She could not carry a tune to save her life.

Andy’s horrible humming wasn’t an issue for Maica - it actually brought a smile to her face as she played and sang. soon though, she finished the song and set the instrument carefully back into it’s cradle. “Would you like to try something else?”

“Noooo….” Andy said lazily. she could tell she wasn’t metabolizing that first drink all that well, so she was probably going to get weepy in a bit. but not yet! She hopped up and grabbed Maica’s lyre, setting it on the table. “Ok, check this out…” she said as her hands hovered over the strings for a moment before beginning to tapping them. She wasn’t plucking the strings properly for a lyre, the sound was so soft but quickly built up into an amazing sound.

Maica almost freaked out when Andy grabbed her lyre. Flexing her hands and making grabby motions with them. She let Andy play though. That was her baby and she worried, but she hoped everything would be ok. She played it well, for not playing it right. The sounds were very amazing. She just hoped her lyre would be ok.

Andy continued playing her little medley, remaining mindful and gentle about playing the foreign instrument despite the heavy level of alcohol in her system. “I had a girlfriend with a piano once,” she said, on the verge of going through a ‘low’ phase. “She fell in love with my music, but she couldn’t stand me. I used to play with her piano strings like this when she played. She could never figure out how I could do it, but she let me keep doing it because she liked it so much,” she rambled. “She was the only one besides my tutor that ever heard me play,” she added sadly.

Her mood softening at the confession, Maica couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness for Andy. “Then I consider it an honor and a privilege you’re playing for me. Thank you.”

Andy stopped playing rather abruptly, slumping into her chair as she wiped some moisture from her eyes. Dammit, she hated it when she got moody on the drink, but ain’t never felt a booze do anything like this to her before! She was never drinking that potent shit again...

“Fucking hell,” she muttered, feeling like a total wuss for letting her emotions get the better of her. But damn, she just felt so low! “She left me when she found out what happened to me,” she explained under her breath, as though it was all the excuse she needed to get so moody.

Licking the tears away, Maica kissed Andy on the lips softly. “Then she isn’t worth worrying about. Besides, if you were still with her, would you be here with me now?”

Andy grumbled something that might have been an agreement to her statement, but it was hard to tell under all the scowling. Dammit, now this woman thought she could use logic and reason on her? Fuck, she was drunk and wanted to be unreasonable!

Kneeling on the floor next to Andy, Maica squeezed the other woman’s cybernetic hand tenderly. “Besides, I don’t think I could share you with a fully biological life form. You’re too special.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Andy asked gruffly.

“It means that I think I might feel closer to you because of what happened. You know what it’s like to have to rely on your mechanical parts.” Maica replied softly.

“Ain’t like I wanted to be this way…” Andy grumbled, but she couldn’t really argue with Maica’s reasoning. Most people didn’t understand what it meant to rely on her Borg components, didn’t understand that it was litterally life or death for her. How many times had she been asked why she hadn’t made herself look more human or have more of her modifications removed. It just wasn’t that simple! “I guess I can relate,” she admitted hesitantly.

“And I would prefer not to be made of aluminum alloys and substandard parts filled with corrosion. The point is that we are what we are.” Kissing over Andy’s exoskeleton hand, Maica purred a little. “And you’re quite the beautiful creature.”

Andy scoffed at Maica’s assessment. Even if she believed her, Andy didn’t want to be ‘beautiful’, she just wanted to be Andy, not a thing to be fawned over. “Whatever,” Andy said, picking up Maica’s lyre and returning it to its rightful place. “I should go back to my quarters, maybe regenerate to get this alcohol out of my system,” Andy said. It wasn’t that she was trying to avoid talking about all that mushy crap but… no, she was totally avoiding talking about her feelings.

Standing and setting her bottles back in place. Maica looked a bit crestfallen. Apparently that was a bad topic of discussion. “If you prefer. I’d love to keep chatting though. Whatever you want to talk about, I’ll be here for you.”

“Ain’t nothing to talk about,” Andy said as she shuffled towards the door. “I played some music for you then we had sex, big deal. Ain’t like we’re dating or nothing…”

Maica quickly turned to face Andy. “Do you want to then? Go on a date, that is.”

Andy paused at the door. “I’ll think about it,” Andy said, which was much more than what she really wanted to say. But she wasn’t going to shove her foot in her mouth by saying more, so she quickly left Maica’s quarters so she could return to her own quarters.

Maica had mixed feelings over what had just happened. On one hand, she just met someone that instilled emotions and feelings she had never felt before and she was pretty sure she was deeply in love. On the other hand, what the hell was she doing? She had no desire to get into drama and she didn’t want to bother the rest of the crew.

Then a thought occurred to her… Should she follow Andy? For a moment, the thought of losing her just like that almost made her panic and she was torn between being rooted in place or chasing after her.

It occurred to Andy that Maica might come running after her. She seemed the type, so it wouldn’t have surprised Andy. and yet, she almost seemed disappointed when Maica didn’t come after her. She shrugged the feeling off, kicking off her boots once she was in her quarters, then heading for the bathroom so she could brush her teeth. Then it would be bedtime and another day of work ahead of her. Then this night would be forgotten. Not like she could ever truly forget anything anymore, but she could pretend...

Maica couldn’t take it anymore. She had to at least do something. Leaving her quarters and rushing down the hall, she pressed the door chime before realizing what she was really doing.

Andy rolled her eyes. With a mouth full of toothpaste, she went to the door and opened it. “wha’nao?” she asked as she chewed on the bristles of her toothbrush.

Now standing before her, Maica was unsure of herself. “Andy, I…” Taking a deep breath, she just blurted it out. “I love you.” The ensign walking past her in the hall paused momentarily as she said it. It won’t be long before THAT got around the ship...

“Fuck me,” Andy said with a heavy sigh and another roll of her eyes as she pulled Maica inside. “Wait a minute,” she said as she disappeared back into her bathroom to rinse out her mouth. Fucking hell, she just knew how to find ‘em, didn’t she? Nah, forget that, the weird ones always found her! Not like she wasn’t weird enough as it was… She came marching back out a moment later. “Maica, ain’t no way you can love me, you only just met me,” Andy insisted. Hell, she probably didn’t even know what love was!

Wringing her hands, Maica looked around the room nervously. “And when you process as much data as I do, a few seconds can seem an eternity. Having just met, I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. That doesn’t make sense, does it…”

Andy remained silent for a long while. She could relate to what Maica felt. She could remember back to the days when her thought processes were completely biological, how slow and inefficient the connections were, but now things were sharper, more in focus, but also strangely dull and distant. the more she became focused and analytical, especially when she was working, the less she felt human and the more time felt like it was coming to a halt. All that she could think and do in those seconds scared her and she would have to distance herself from her work and remind herself what it meant to be human. And that usually meant playing her violin. For Andy, it was a precarious balance and she didn’t even want to imagine what it must be like to feel an eternity every second like Maica did.

“Tomorrow night, 2000 hours, your place. We’ll have that date, just cool your jets, I ain’t going no where…” Andy finally relented.

Smiling and giggling a bit, Maica bounced on her heels happily. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll be there and ready. Thank you.” Nearly overflowing with joy, she rushed out of Andy’s quarters, heading back to her own.

Maica was going to break Andy’s eye if she made her roll her eyes anymore. no matter, that was tomorrow’s problem...

It had been bothering Maica for some time how poorly her and the first officer got along. She still wasn't sure why she had flipped out on him earlier, but hopefully she could at least have a decent professional relationship with him. This is what had brought her to the door of his quarters late at night holding a bottle of blue liquid wondering if she should ring the chime or just walk away. This seemed to be one of her few courses of action for dealing with personal relations outside of her sex programming, but it was something else she was well programmed in - pouring drinks for people. She had yet to have a complaint and with as many bottles of real alcohol as she had been gifted in her short life, it seemed a waste not to let at least someone she knew enjoy it while she enjoyed their company. This was one of those bottles too. It was a rare Andorian ale aged almost 40 years she had gotten from one of her mentors during a routine conference to Andoria. She was in her final year of the academy and doing her assistant missions and the fact that she had gone down to the surface with just her uniform on had greatly impressed the envoy.

But this was no time for reminiscing. This was time for decisive diplomacy. Steeling herself, Maica took a deep breath and pressed the door chime.

Tul was surprised by the doorbell. He didn't have many visitors and he certainly wasn't expecting anyone. He was half tempted to ignore it, whoever it was would probably leave eventually. Instead, his curiosity got the better of him. Who could possibly be at his door at this time? Tul dropped the cover over his most recent canvas and pushed the easel against the wall to clear the center of the room. He almost answered the door when he realized he was still wearing a paint-splattered shirt. His uniform jacket was nearby so he pulled it over his shoulders.

Finally after what seemed like a good few minutes after the bell first rang, Tul answered the door. Another bout of surprise greeted him as the door opened, revealing ship's ambassador. His last, and only, encounter with her hadn't ended well. She was one of the very last people Tul expected at his door "Maica? Can I help you?" he asked after a moment.

Holding up the bottle, Maica smiled politely. "Interested in sharing a drink with me? I'm sorry about what happened the other day and I'd like to make peace with you if possible."

Mildly confused, Tul said "That isn't necessary, I...." he broke off, if she was going out of her way to make such an attempt, he could try too "Oh, alright, come in and have a seat. I'm sure I have some suitable glasses..." he backed out of the doorway and headed for a small cabinet across the room.

"Thank you." Stepping inside and looking around, she couldn't help but notice the covered easel so on her way towards the much taller Andorian, she decided to inquire about it. "May I assume that you paint?"

Tul set a pair of glasses on the table. He glanced over his shoulder at the covered work and shrugged, "I dabble occasionally," he answered modestly.

Uncorking the bottle and letting it breathe a moment before pouring a liberal amount in each glass, Maica slipped into a chair next to the table. "Apparently even androids can't work 24/7 these days so I'm glad you have something to distract you from stresses, even if only occasionally. May i see it when you're finished?" Picking up her glass and swirling the blue liquid for a moment, she breathed in the aroma. Her olfactory analysis told her a lot about the blue alcohol, but she couldn't help but wonder if Tul would enjoy it.

"Perhaps," Tul answered as he took the chair across from Maica. He picked up his glass and sampled the blue liquid. The ale was very good. "This is excellent, thank you for sharing," he took another sip and set the glass down. "What takes up your spare time?"

Maica sipped at her drink before responding. "I have a lyre I built that I enjoy playing. Other than that, I read a lot. When you don't sleep, there's lots of free time to be had."

Tul nodded, "Have you considered playing for the crew?" he asked, curious. He had heard of other crews across the fleet putting on the occasional concert but had never seen one.

Shaking her head no, Maica sipped her drink. "I've played for others privately and to aid in diplomatic relations, but never as part of a crew. This is honestly the first time I've been fully a part of a crew. I've almost always been assigned out of starbases and traveling in smaller ships. Besides that, I wouldn't know where to begin playing for a larger audience."

"Just a curiosity," Tul said. He set his empty glass on the table, thinking about what else the diplomatic officer had said. "How do you find life full time on Katana then?"

"Incompatible with continued peak operational performance of my components. It's also stressful, emotionally distressing, and fascinating. I'm just glad I haven't been shot at yet. And your time aboard? I can't imagine you've had the best time." Maica queried, pouring a bit more in Tul's glass.

Tul picked up his glass but didn't drink, instead watching the blue liquid swirl around the smooth sides. "That is the best description I've ever heard of life on a starship. I'll remember it," he commented. Uninterested in answering the question Maica put to him, Tul took a long, slow sip from his glass.

"At least it's never boring, right? That's one thing I've found I dislike. Boredom." Maica said wryly before finishing her drink and pouring a bit more into her glass.

"I can agree. Kris seldom allows things to idle around here," Kris? Oops. Tul's antennae waved. He hadn't enjoyed real alcohol in a long while and the ale was starting to get to him. Reluctantly, he placed his half-full glass back on the table. "Commander Kerouac," he corrected.

"Whatever his name is. I envy your ability to get drunk at times. As a diplomat I get gifted these bottles all the time, but I've never been able to get 'drunk' so I'm often unsure why." She could enjoy the alcohol but not the effects of it and that thought was starting to make Maica a bit melancholic.

"A biological downfall we take far too much pride in," Tul said, guiltily toying with his glass, "it isn't that impressive. Indeed, many of Earth's fictional heroes were immune to the effects of alcohol." He frowned, he didn't know what that had to do with anything. "As for ambassadors handing out liquor bottles.... Perhaps it's a Diplomatic Corps unwritten rule?"

"Probably." Finishing her second glass, Maica set it back on the table. "If you want though, I can get real alcohol by the case. If we ever have a party, I plan on bringing out the Romulan ale and kali-fal."

"Those are still illegal in the Federation," Tul quoted, but without any seriousness, "Sounds like one hell of a party, though."

"Illegal to trade. Not illegal to accept as a gift, I hope. You're right though - it tends to make a nice party." The green android reminisced.

Tul finally finished his ale. His head felt fuzzy, which was strange, he hadn't had that much to drink. "Someday. Maybe if we make it back to Federation space in one piece."

Scooting the bottle closer to the middle of the table, Maica got up and readied herself to leave. "It's late and you look like this Andorian ale is hitting you pretty hard, so I should probably head out. Is there anything I can help you with before you go?"

Tul also stood up, his Andorian physiology allowing him to keep his balance perfectly. "No, I can manage. Ah... Thank you, Maica, for taking the time to stop by. I appreciate it," he said, offering his hand to shake.

Smiling her warmest smile, Maica shook the taller man's hand. "It's always a pleasure."

Shira was becoming quite familiar with Sickbay. She had been here several times for tests and even once to help Darzen. She knew it was called 'Sickbay' now and the healers were called 'Doctors' and 'Nurses'. And Maica had told her that now they would help with her eyes. Shira was nervous about what Maica had explained to her. They would make her sleep and cut open her eyes? But how would she be able to use her eyes if they cut them open?! She tried to remind herself that they had medicine that was beyond her understanding, and she had seen first hand the power of their medicine when the Doctor fixed up Darzen, but it was still unnerving. She sat patiently on the biobed with Maica as they waited for the Doctor, but it was obvious she was nervous.

Maica was right there with her and would stay there as much as they would let her. She wished there was something she could do about Shira's nervousness, but the only thing she could think to do was hold the forest girl's hand and hum a lullaby to her as they waited for the doctor. The last week had brought up several vacancies in her programming these past few days and she realized now that she had never been truly nervous like Shira was now. Oh sure, she could act it, but she wasn't sure if she was even capable of the emotion now that she thought about it. What was it about this forest girl that brought all these things to the surface of the android's mind? That was another question a self diagnostic couldn't answer.

Liam saw Maica and Shira enter and grabbed the tablet from his desk before moving into the main part of sickbay. He nodded to the two and gave Shira a friendly smile, noticing she looked more nervous than usual. "Have you been able to explain the procedure to her?" Liam asked the Diplomatic officer.

"As best I could. A lot of it doesn't translate at all to her people's song and her English isn't far enough along yet." Maica squeezed Shira's hand again as she spoke.

"I thought so, this might help." He turned the tablet to Shira and pressed the control, it was a simplified, almost child like animation of the procedure, glossing over some of the more gruesome seeming bits that would occur while Shira was asleep. "Once we are done, the lights," He paused pointed at the overheads, "won't hurt your eyes." He finished pointing to his own eyes.

The concept seemed pretty unbelievable to Shira, and she wasn't sure she really understood, but she would trust that these healers, the Doctors, knew what they were doing. She didn't know if there was anything that could truly alleviate her nervousness, but she was ready. Well, as ready as she could be. It wasn't like she had to do much except fall asleep. She nodded to Liam as she returned the tablet.

Smiling at Shira, Maica turned to Liam when she nodded. "It's your show Doctor. Should I wait here?" Maica was nervous as well as she had never even seen a video of surgeries and had never had a doctor work on her so wasn't sure what to actually expect other than what was written in the procedural database on it. That was a far cry from actually seeing it though.

"Yes, Nurse Onolla will get Shira ready for surgery and then we will begin." He said to the Bajoran nurse.

While Liam and the rest of the medical staff got the surgical bay prepared, Nurse Onolla took Shira and Maica back to a private exam room where Shira could get changed into a medical smock. Once the Arboreal woman was changed and situated on the biobed, Onolla returned to affixed a biometric sensor to Shira so the biobed could keep track of her vitals. Then began the task of testing Shira's light tolerance levels. Maica had done a good job explaining this part, so Shira was well prepared for when the Nurse began to adjust the light levels, and informed her when the light was becoming uncomfortable and eventually intolerable. It was an imprecise test, but more exact results would require a more communicative patient to better cooperate with more precise testing methods. Luckily, the isodermic light filters Doctor Cohen intended to insert into Shira's eyes could be adjusted a fine tuned once inserted, and as Shira became more communicative she would no doubt find ways to tell the medical staff if and when she needed the filters adjusted.

"Do you intend to wait for Shira to come out of surgery or do you want someone to call for you?" Nurse Onolla asked Maica once Shira was more or less ready.

"I'll wait, thanks." Smiling warmly at Shira, Maica didn't want to leave her new friend until she was sure everything was ok at the very least. She was here to translate, but if something were to happen... Well, she wanted to be there to help Shira, either way.

"I've got to take her back to the surgical bay now, but we'll return her here after we're done. And we'll contact you if anything goes wrong," Onolla assured Maica.

Sitting down in a chair, Maica smiled to the Bajoran woman too. "Thank you. I'll be here."

"Come, Shira," the Bajoran woman said kindly, offering a hand to the frightened young Arboreal.

Shira couldn't understand much of what Onolla had said to Maica, but her tone was comforting. Shira looked to Maica for one last bit of comfort and a hug. Scared. Will be here when I wake? Shira hummed.

I promise I'll be right here when you're done. Be brave and you'll be fine. Maica hummed with a smile and a hug.

Shira left her friend and went with the woman with the wrinkly nose, sparing a glance back at her friend as they left the room, still frightened but resolved.

[Later]

Liam stood next to the biobed back in the main sickbay, "The anaesthetic should wear off soon, it took some tweaking to get the levels right. She seems to metabolize anaesthetics quickly, I've noted it in her file for any future treatment." He said to Maica. "Everything was successful though."

"That's good." Squeezing Shira's hand, she patiently waited for the forest girl to awaken.

Shira woke moments later, gripping the hand that was gently squeezing her own hand. Her eyes felt so heavy and her head felt funny. She didn't like feeling this way, but she supposed there was no avoiding it.

As Shira slowly came too, Maica was there to help her sit up and sing to her a million questions. Do you feel ok? Can you see? Is the light too bright?

Shira had yet to open her eyes, though it was not for a lack of trying. everything just felt so heavy, like she was stuck to the bed and her eyes were swollen shut, but these feelings were fading fast. Feel strange. Everything is so loud, Shira answered sluggishly, but she finally managed to open her eyes. Everything was so blurry, but she couldn't tell if it was her eyes or her head that was making it so. Blurry, she added as she tried to blink away the haze.

A bit worried, Maica spoke to Liam as she squeezed Shira's hand tenderly. "Is it normal for things to be loud and blurry? Is she ok?"

"It's the after effects of the anaesthetic it should clear up in a few minutes." He said checking the readings again.

Nodding to the doctor in thanks, Maica relayed the message as best she could to Shira. It's normal waking up from this. It'll fade soon.

Shira nodded as she continued to blink away the haze. But the doctor was right, for soon her vision started to clear up and she wasn't feeling so strange. She looked around, taking everything in. Were they under normal light or light that she could tolerate? She couldn't tell, but then again things were still a little hazy. Is light bright? she asked Maica. If it was, then the filters were working great because she was seeing everything fine.

Maica nodded and smiled at that. They are. Can you see well?

I can see Shira confirmed with a slight nod.

Giggling, Maica squeezed the forest girl's hand tenderly. That's wonderful. How do you feel? are things clearer?

Liam ran another quick scan before taking a few tricorder readings of Shira's eyes. "It looks like everything is working." He said, pulling out a pen light he testing Shira's eyes. A barely noticeable greying as the lens adjusted to the increased light. "Looks like we're good."

Shira smiled, blinking as the filters adjusted the intensity of the light throughout Liam's test. "Thank you," Shira enunciated carefully, taking his hand to give it an appreciative squeeze.

Tul's replicator was on the fritz. He was off duty for the night and had, initially, planned to enjoy a synthohol drink. However, instead of pale blue Andorian ale, the replicator was leaking a noxious green fluid. It wasn't stopping. The floor at Tul's feet was already wet with the stuff. To make matters worse, Tul's one-time human mate, Elsie Donovan, was watching from the computer screen. Of course she had chosen to call at this precise moment. And, of course, she was giving a constant, unhelpful commentary.

"You haven't been an engineer for almost ten years, Tul," Elsie said as he pried the replicator's faceplate from the bulkhead.

"I still have all the training of an engineer. This is a simple fix..." Tul muttered back, separating wires as he searched for the replicator's problem.

"You should call a real engineer," Elsie remarked.

Tul ignored the comment. "How's Earth? Seen your parents?" He asked, trying to distract her. The green flow from the replicator increased, spilling over his boots.

"Good and every day," Elsie answered, "I'll call an engineer for you." She shifted on the screen, trying to see around Tul.

"You can't," Tul said, glancing back at the screen.

Elsie smirked, "Watch me. Computer, summon the Chief Engineer to the First Officer's quarters."

=/\= Affirmative =/\=

Surprised that the computer actually responded, Tul started to turn away from the replicator. As he pulled his hand back, he caught on something and pulled it loose. The foul green liquid turned into a torrent, splattering his uniform. Tul stuck his hand over the spout, trying to steam the flow. Despite Elsie's laughter from the screen behind him, he was thankful the liquid wasn't hot.

"Hold on, help's on its way," Elsie said. Clearly enjoying herself at the Andorian's expense.

Down below in Engineering, Jenni stood over the Master Console on the second level of Engineering with the ship's best Antimatter specialist. "I don't get it," the Petty Officer replied, looking at the diagnostics. For the last half hour, he and Lieutenant Matthews had been trying to figure out why output had dropped to eighty percent. The injector model was new, only a couple weeks off the assembly line.

"It's gotta be in the firmware," Jenni supposed. "Something incompatible with our systems."

"We can't just rewrite firmware in the middle of a deployment--"

"We're going to have to," Jenni countered, cutting him off. Before either of them could get another word in, the computer interrupted with the summons to the First Officer's quarters. "You've got to be kidding," she muttered. A glance behind her and down through the opening informed her that several of the engineers in the room had glanced up at her, almost smirking.

Jenni snapped at them. "Shut it!" Other than the briefing, she hadn't met the XO. Jenni had no idea what was going on, nor why it was the computer that summoned her. "Here," she told the Petty Officer, quickly keying up a virtual environment on the console with a copy of the injector's programming, "see what you can find."

A minute later, she arrived at the XO's quarters. To her surprise, the doors opened immediately, not even giving her the chance to press the door bell. "Hello?" she cautiously asked, stepping inside. It was then she saw the commotion by the replicator.

Jenni stepped into action, rushing over to the replicator, almost slipping on the green slime. "Replicator on the fritz?" she asked, reaching inside the open panel while the Andorian man did his best to plug the spout. Surely the main power feed was nearby...

"Yes," Tul answered with a grimace. "In fact, this entire room seems to be..." Tul moved aside, trying to get out of the engineer's way. He was painfully aware he had neglected his XO/Department Heads meet and greet duties.

"I am sorry I pulled you away from your post for this... I thought I might have been able to fix it myself," the Andorian admitted.

"If it's one thing I learned about the Katana so far..." her voice trailed off as her focused shifted to finding the power feed for the replicator. Whatever the replicator was dispensing smelt rotten, almost to the point of inducing her own vomit. In desperation to stop the flow, Jenni grabbed the first piece of conduit she could find,, then yanked.

Instantly, the green slime stopped spewing and all indicator lights disappeared. "Is that," she finished, pulling out her hand and showing a corroded conduit, "nothing is an easy fix."

"Thank you, Chief," Tul said. He had quite a mess to clean up at the base of the replicator. "I'll let you get back to your shift and put in a repair request through the proper channels for the rest of this." He edged out of the green mess and closed the cover of his computer as the chief engineer left.

Shira sat alone at a table in the mess hall listening to people talk. Sabby had brought her here once before to learn how to socialize after she had the filters put in her eyes so she could tolerate normal light levels, but Shira wasn't quite ready for too much interaction just yet. This was, however, a great way for her to listen to idle conversation, to expand her vocabulary through immersion. She sipped neatly at her tea as she worked on a PaDD with her language lessons, listening to the sea of information around her. In a strange way, the sound of talking created its own music, subtle to hear but no less welcome to the young Arboreal's ear. It helped her to feel that she and these humans were not so different.

"Shira," Tul said as he walked up to her table, surprised to see her in the mess hall. He only visited the place seldomly. Yet he did enjoy the background banter of the crew as he, too, typically sat alone. "May I join you," he asked, pointing to the seat across from her with an antennae.

"Tul sit with Shira," Shira said neatly as she set down the PaDD with her lessons. She looked thoughtful for a moment as she searched for the right phrases. "Tul is well today?" she asked, doing her best to imitate the polite conversation she had been hearing.

"Tul is well," Tul smiled, taking a seat across from Shira. Her language had progressed amazing well since the last time he'd seen her. "How is Shira?"

"Adjusting," Shira replied with a sheepish smile. "Eyes feel strange," she informed him. Her eyes were still a little swollen from her recent surgery, but it was all okay according to the doctor. "Shira misses home, but happy to be here," she continued cheerfully. "But Shira wants to be made useful. Can Shira learn..." Oh goodness, what was the name of that lab? She was stretching the limits of her vocabulary as it was, she didn't know if she could remember the name, let alone pronounce it properly. "Can learn to use star lab?" she settled on saying. It was awkward and clumsy, but understandable at the very least.

"Astrometrics?" Tul said, more confirming the name of the place for himself than questioning Shira. He mused silently for a moment. Her ability to learn was clear and her grasp of language would only get better. He couldn't think of a better introduction to the workings of the ship than Astrometrics. "I certainty do not see why not. I will have to speak with Lieutenant Evans... I'm sure he wouldn't have any objections," Tul answered finally. He made a note to visit with the science chief as soon as possible.

Shira smiled brightly. "Thank you!" she said excitedly. "Shira likes Tul," she said after a moment of thought, "Tul does not make words simple when speaking to Shira."

"You're welcome," Tul said, pleased by her open excitement. "Hm? Oh. Now how would you ever learn the harder parts of our language if I made it too easy for you?" he grinned and his antennae waved slightly, "Here, break the word down. 'Astro' 'met' 'rics.' Astrometrics"

"That word is on Shira's practice list," Shira said, showing him the PaDD with a long list of words that were just outside her current level of enunciation. "The plants like to hear Shira practice hard words. But in here, Shira can listen to people talk, hear new words, hear how things are meant to sound. Then people speak to Shira and make words simple. Sometimes Shira can't understand, but simple words are more frustrating. Shira is still learning, not stupid."

"Keep practicing and, someday, you may just surprise such people. They will have some learning of their own to do, then," Tul said then looked up, surveying the mess hall around them. "Have you heard anything new in here today?" he asked.

"Shira has added many new words to the list," she said with a smile. "There is still so much to learn."

"Same goes for all of us," Tul smiled slightly, "I suppose I should let you get back to your lessons."

"Are people afraid of Shira?" the Arboreal woman asked as he tried to leave. "A man in yellow, he had a weapon. He never touched it, but he kept watching Shira. Another asked him about..." Shira had to check her list for a word she didn't know, "telekinesis? They looked at Shira with that word."

Tul stopped trying to get up. He looked over the chattering crew scattered through the mess hall then back at Shira. "Yes," he answered, straightforward and simple. "Despite our mission and supposedly advanced selves, we fear anything we do not understand. Some of the crew know and understand you less than, say, Maica or the captain. I suppose Kerouac and I will address the crew about some of these issues."

"But what does that mean?" she asked. "Shira does not know 'telekinesis'. Why does that word make people afraid of Shira?"

Tul frowned. To his knowledge, there were no sufficiently powerful telepaths aboard to demonstrate this to Shira. "Telekinesis is the ability to move objects, like your PADD there, without touching them. Simply by using your mind. Some alien species have this ability, but can, usually, only move and lift objects amounting to their body weight, or less. You may not remember when we rescued you from that planet. But you, Shira, demonstrated telekinesis powerful enough to push multiple fully-grown humanoids away from you. You even tossed Crewman Corbin a few meters away."

"Shira was scared, the mean man was hurting Shira," she said in defense of her actions. "The... telekinesis?" She sounded uncertain about this term, but now that she knew what it meant, she would use it. "Ability is like having extra hands, it is not meant to hurt people. On Shira's world, the Guardians use it to protect, like the man in yellow had weapon to protect. Shira use ability for other things, but Shira does not want to hurt people."

Tul raised his hands, he hadn't meant to offend Shira. "I know that, and so do the people who have tried to make you feel at home here. The security officer was doing what he thought was right. Like I said before, many of the crew don't know or understand you. And that understanding will only take time."

"Is Tul afraid?" Shira asked innocently.

"Now? No. At first? I believe I might have been, yes," the Andorian answered.

"Shira never wanted to hurt anyone," she reaffirmed.

It seemed Maica had been visiting a lot of crew surreptitiously carrying bottles of suspicious liquids lately. Here she was though, pressing the Captain's door chime with a bottle in tow. This one was a tall bottle of Saurian brandy that she hoped Kris would enjoy with her.

Commander Kristopher Kerouac was sitting at his desk with a look of concern worn heavily on his face. He was glancing over a PADD with information on it. However, the text felt like a wall when Kris tried to look over it. It pertained to the Jem'hadar and the planet Kendi. This was not the sort of situation that Kris wanted to throw his starship into. At one point, Kendi had been a good hold for Dominion forces in the Gamma Quadrant. It was a Jem'hadar cloning facility, had a Ketracel-white production plants, and once had shipyard or two in near by sector.

Kris had been walking around his quarters when the chime rang through his quarters. "Come" he said firmly, calling out to whomever was wishing to see him this evening. Personally, he was hoping that it was Doctor Cohen. However, when the doors to his quarters came open and Kris looked up, he saw the jarring green synthetic skin of his Chief Diplomatic Officer whom had been promoted rather recently.

"Lieutenant Maica" Kris said with a small nod. "Please, come in" he added.

Stepping inside, Maica looked around a bit as she held up the bottle. "I was hoping to share something with you, but if you're busy I could come back later." She didn't miss the dour expression on his face, but didn't want to comment directly on it since she hadn't been informed of anything mission related yet.

Alcohol he thought as he observed it. He had been sober for a short while now, ever since his first couple days on Katana. This would certainly be a test of his strength. He did not want to offend the Android by turning her away or turning down a drink with her. However, he also knew what a good bottle of Saurian Brandy could do to him, and it was not pleasant. The many nights with persons that he did not even know their name... or even their species sometimes. There were even times that he was unsure what sex or gender his nightly companions were. After a bottle of Saurian Brandy or a good glass of Romulan Ale, an orifice was an orifice.

He flashed a smile at her. "You may be a Diplomatic Officer these days, Lieutenant, but you're still a damn good Counselor" said Kirs taking a seat on a sofa. He gestured for the Lieutenant to join him. "Join me. I could use the company, Maica and also your opinion on some of this crap that I'm dealing with."

Smiling warmly, Maica replicated 2 glasses and poured a shot for each of them before sitting next to Kris. "I'll do what I can. First though, this brandy is almost 200 years old so be sure to enjoy it." Handing him one of the glasses, she held hers up in a toast. "To the future."

Kris accepted the glass and raised to toast with Maica. "To the future. May Starfleet learn to never give me another command" said Kris with a small chuckle. "And may I always have this wonderful crew with me on my voyages in this God forsaken Quadrant."

"And here's hoping they never give me a command in the first place." Knocking back the shot, Maica enjoyed the analysis her tongue was providing of it. "Now what is it I can help you with?"

"You may have noted a change in our course..." Kris began. "A shuttle will be disembarking to head to Teplan. We will be heading to the planet Kendi to answer a automated distress call. However, it comes from the Jem'hadar and it has me on edge."

This was rather worrying to Maica. "Yeah that would be cause for concern... I don't know much about the Jem'hadar other than what we learned at the academy. They pretty much said that diplomatic relations with them directly are all but impossible. Also, I didn't know they even used automated distress calls. Don't they die before battle and fight to reclaim their lives or something?"

Kris nodded "They used to blast our starships to pieces even when it was uncalled for. They didn't believe in crippling, just destroying" said Kris as he remembered the friends that he lost during the war. "The distress buoy is suspicious. However, I have to remind myself that everything is has changed since the war. We're allowed to explore this Quadrant now. The Vorta now know the truth about the shapeshifters, their Gods aren't immortal and perhaps they finally see that they aren't even Gods. The Dosi are no longer under Dominion control. The Cardassians are working along side us, and who knows what the Breen are up to. Is it possible that some Jem'hadar have turned away from the Vorta?"

"From reports I've seen, the Breen are little more than pirates on the galactic scale. As for the Jem'hadar turning away from the Vorta... It's implausible but not impossible. I would think it would be worth checking out, but it could just as easily be a trap." Maica poured another glass for herself and the Captain, sipping at hers rather than downing it fast this time.

Kris took another good drink from the glass of alcohol. "Well damn. You know there's something wrong when the Assitant Chief Intelligence Officer and Chief Diplomatic Officer are on the same page. Weaver voiced his concerns as well. He gave me the same warning, that it could be a trap."

"Not surprising. Intel and Diplomacy are very similar fields. We diplomats just interrogate people more socially. On that note, what do you think of this brandy?" Maica replied, taking another sip of her drink.

"One of the best Saurian Brandies that I've ever had, and believe me when I say that I have had a lot of it in my life time. Though, I can't really have much more than this. I don't want to get drunk" said Kris politely.

Maica smiled rather seductively at that, looking over the rim of her glass as she finished it off. "Only if you're sure. I wouldn't mind seeing you drunk though. Especially after leaving me on the ship to ask Shira to come with us by yourself."

Kris countered with a dismissive gaze. "Lieutenant, you wouldn't like me when I am drunk. It helps me forget my pains but only causes more pain when I sober up. I've have shared my bed with many guests because of a little too much to drink."

"Believe me when I say I've dealt with a lot of drunks like that." The sudden sour note in Maica's voice should tell her feelings on that. "What about the shuttle crew then? The one to Teplan."

"Doctor Cohen is leading the Teplan team. He's taking Crewmen Corbin, Lieutenant T'Val, Lieutenant and Sirigh with Lieutenant Collins piloting the shuttle. There's a bunch of medical and science personnel on the planet already."

"Technology speeds up the advancement of the Blight, doesn't it? Good thing I'm not going. I wouldn't want to be the cause of any deaths. How are they doing their medical stuffs without equipment though?"

"The medical supplies that the Ferengi stole are rather archaic in a sense. This is an unusual situation that calls for unusual means of treatment. The supplies are various vaccines with syringes rather than hypos. There are some medicinal plants in the supplies as well. The Doctor in charge on the planet is a Doctor Milo. I've read his personnel file. He's a pediatrician by education and practice. However, he's also served as Chief Medical Officer on a few starships and has a unique interest in alternative medicines."

"It sounds like they're well prepared then. Is there anything you need me to prepare or look up before we get to the distress call?"

Kris nodded. "I could use just about anything and everything. I've never had to personally deal with the Jem'hadar or a Vorta for that matter. I won't be down on the planet myself but should we have a confrontation down there or while in orbit, It would be advantageous of me to know what to say and how to say it. Jhu is already giving me everything I could possibly need as far as how to defend Katana from an attack but I need to know more about avoiding an attack."

"I'll see if there's anything I can find in the records, but I doubt I'll find too much. As long as you study their culture a bit and look at the differences between theirs and ours, you should be fine in any negotiations." Maica thought a bit more about it, adding a couple notes. "The Vorta are as wordy as the Jem'hadar are blunt. The Vorta deal in possibilities while the Jem'hadar thrive on absolutes."

Kris nodded "I'm afraid that if the kettle starts whistling, my words would simply fall on deaf ears" replied Commander Kerouac with a small conflicted gaze at his Chief Diplomatic Officer. "We may really need your help on this one, Maica" he added as he neared the end of his glass of Saurian "You may have to cut me off soon, I'm starting to feel a little buzzed."

"I fared pretty well in the simulated debates against various Vorta back in my training. I was able to wear out and confuse them 3 times out of 50 so if you need them distracted for a few days..." Setting her glass back on the coffee table, Maica sighed heavily. "I just hope my repairs are done by then."

"How long do you think it will take for those repairs?"

"You'll have to ask CPO Carter and Lt Mathews about that. I assume several days to make the parts, but I'm not an engineer."

Kris let out a small chuckle. "Yeah... nor am I. So, how is Shira doing?"

"Learning in leaps and bounds. I figure in 2 weeks time she'll know English better than most others on this ship. It amazes me how far she's gotten every time i see her." Maica replied.

Kris nodded "That sounds like our little Arboreal" said Kris with a smile.

Smiling back, Maica nodded. "That it does." Standing, Maica made to leave. "It's getting late. Is there anything else I can look up for you? Do you want to keep the rest of that bottle?"

Kris flashed a smile back at the android, "I think I had better keep it. I could use a little extra something to calm my nerves, Lieutenant. I think I assigned you enough to deal with. Have a good night, Maica" replied Kris as he retired for the evening.

2000 hours… it wasn’t that much longer, but for Maica it felt like an eternity. Just 5 more minutes. Her hair was styled, her dress was perfect, and she had even colored her nails. She hoped she had plans that Andy would enjoy, but she just couldn’t help but wonder if dinner and dancing in her quarters was enough. Just in case, she had the holodeck reserved and a few different programs ready. It would all depend upon what her date felt like doing, though. The thought occurred to her that she might not like dancing or couldn’t do it anymore, but Maica could teach her or something… Looking at her internal chronometer again, she realized that worrying was getting her nowhere - only 47 milliseconds had passed since the last time she looked…

Andy had been waiting outside of Maica’s door, using her eyepiece to watch the spastic android freak out over each minute detail. She leaned against the bulkhead across from Maica’s door, snickering as she checked her watch. 2000 hours! Now came the real tough choice: arrive on time or be ‘fashionably’ late? Poor girl would probably blow a gasket, literally, if Andy showed up late. She sighed and, deciding to cut her sex toy a break, stepped forward and hit the door chime.

Staring at the door like a deer caught in the headlights for a moment, Maica composed herself and smoothed out the front of her dress. It was a lavender silk number that hopefully left a little to the imagination. “Come in.” she called out, the door opening.

Andy stepped inside, her hands hidden behind her back. “I’m not early, am I?” she asked, knowing full well she wasn’t, but it was still so much fun to tease Maica. She took in the sight of her date. She looked like a vision in her lavender silk, it made Andy feel awfully under-dressed. Andy wore a simple fitted shirt of the deepest blue and baggy, cargo khakis. Well, at least she was wearing the pants that weren’t covered in dirt and grease! “You look nice,” Andy said, leaning in to kiss Maica on the cheek.

Smiling brightly, Maica leaned in a bit for that kiss but turning her head at the last moment so it landed on her plush lips instead. “You’re right on time, beautiful.” she said in her sultry voice. “I hope you like Earth delicacies. I have several lined up and dancing afterwards. Or if you prefer, we could go to the movies on the holodeck.”

“There is the slight possibility that I might have something planned on the holodeck. Maybe. If you’ve been a good girl,” Andy said, slipping a sprig of jasmine into Maica’s hair. A bouquet of roses just wasn’t Andy’s style… “So, what kind of delicacies do you have planned. I hope there’s no shellfish. I’m allergic,” Andy lied, just to irritate Maica.

Looking a bit crestfallen, Maica glanced at the replicator. “Oh… I guess the large crustacean is off the menu… That’s fine, we can replace it with something else. Do you enjoy land animal steaks?”

“I’m kidding,” Andy said. “As far as I know, I’m not allergic to anything. I love seafood, but shellfish can get really messy with the exoskeleton, though.” Poor Maica, Andy was seriously going to make her implode! Alright, she would be nice from now on! “Really, I’d love just about anything you put in front of me. The greasier the better!” Andy enjoyed a good cheeseburger from time to time and wasn’t afraid to admit it.

“Oooh, then meal plan C it is. A triple cardiac arrest burger with extra toppings from a 20th century Earth restaurant called Culvers. The buns are grilled with butter and they’re dripping with enough grease to lubricate a warp core.” Maica took Andy’s teasing in stride this time, having something that would fit perfectly. “And on the side, half a huge pickle and deep fried potato wedges.”

“Oh, I got this one replicator pattern, a double cheeseburger with bacon and deep fried cheese… It’s like a little piece of heaven!” Andy said with a wide grin. “Oh, have you ever tried pizza fries? Chili-cheese fries were really popular about the same time as burgers, but I found this one pattern for pizza fries that blows all that out of the water!” Andy could see that Maica was definitely a ‘girly’ girl, but she knew how to have fun too. But she did worry if Maica was trying too hard to please her. Time would tell, but she would enjoy the date for now.

“That sounds rather unique. i’ll have to try that sometime soon. I assume you’ve had french bread chili pizza? A Denobulan supposedly created it while on Earth by combining texas chili with a normal french bread pizza and it was a hit for a while.” Maica was starting to get a bit hungry from all this talk about food - yes even as an android her belly could rumble, and thus it did for all to hear. Blushing, she placed her hand over her tummy. She knew Andy had heard, but hoped she wouldn’t say anything about it as it wasn’t one of her favorite functions.

“Well, if has chili and cheese, I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll like it,” Andy said as she nudged Maica towards the table. “Now let’s get you fed, you look like you’re wasting away.” Andy knew Maica couldn’t waste away for not eating, but it was just something to say.

Giggling lyrically, Maica headed to the replicator, punching up the planned dinner and setting the plates on the table. 2 glasses and a pale bottle of wine were already on the table waiting for them. “I hope you don’t mind mixing cheeseburgers and Scottish Ale. I’m told it goes well with seafood and beef alike and isn’t nearly as intoxicating as most drinks I have.” Sitting at the table, she surveyed the dinner before them. The burgers had to have been at least 3 pounds each and double that for the potatoes.

“Good night, woman, how much do you think I can eat?!” Triple cardiac arrest? No fucking kidding! But what a way to go! “This looks awesome, and Scottish Ale sounds fine. A burger like this, I’d settle for a beer, but the Scots make great ale.” She plopped herself into a chair and made herself comfortable. She hoped Maica didn’t intend on much talking going on because this kind of burger demanded one’s full attention.

Pouring the ale, Maica surveyed her behemoth of a burger, trying to figure out how best to eat it. “I don’t suppose you cut these big ones in quarters, do you? Oh well - still easier to eat than either that plate sized burrito or the lobster.” She was happy that Andy was happy and even a bit pleased with herself that she had impressed the other woman. She just hoped she could eat with that smile plastered on her face.

“You can cut it. If you’re a wuss,” Andy said, picking up the monstrosity and taking a hearty bite, completely unashamed of the fact that she would probably make a huge mess in the very near future. “So plan B was a burrito? You know, I have another replicator number for these phenomenal chili and cheese enchiladas. And I know this guy in the power distribution center who makes the BEST tamales.”

Not to be outdone, Maica picked up her burger with both hands and bit into it wholly, chewing away at the mix of ingredients. This was greasy enough for her to use as lubricant! Swallowing, she mrrred at the flavor. “This is better than I had hoped. We’ll have mexican next time, ok?”

Andy would have answered, but she was quite busy wrangling control of her burger. Damn this was awesome!

Smiling knowingly, Maica munched away at her own burger, enjoying both it and her time with Andy as they ate.

Andy watched Maica as she took a swig of her ale. She was glad that Maica had loosened up and was now enjoying herself. Andy knew she wasn’t always the best company to be around, but she was really trying for Maica’s sake. She seemed like a good kid; she deserved to be happy. “So, you got dancing lined up for later?” Andy asked after another swig of her ale. “I’m not sure that will be much fun. Never had much coordination for that, before or after the Borg did their thing to me.”

Clearing her mouth, Maica set her burger down and had a drink of her ale to wash the burger down. “Yeah, I hoped you would be ok with dancing and I think i can teach you a bit, but if you prefer to go to a drive in movie… That seems to be more your thing, honestly. Sitting behind the wheel of a convertible.”

“You’d think that, but no,” Andy said as she munched on her potato wedges. “I know some people have a thing for 20th century vehicles, but I don’t. They’re inefficient and toxic with their petroleum based fuels. If I went to see a movie, I’d go to one of those… uh, is it a cinema? Or just kick back on the couch so I can make out with my cute date. Anyway, I’ve got something in mind I think you’ll like.”

“Oh? I do have a holoprojector behind my desk I use for meetings if you want to use it for a movie.” Dipping a potato in some sauce, Maica nibbled at it. “What do you have in mind, though?”

“Oooh! I have a copy of Evil Dead II if you wanna watch that!” Andy said excitedly.

Maica couldn’t find a reference to that in her memory but it sounded like a pretty scary horror movie and she was up for that. “Sounds good. Is it really scary? I enjoy a good scary movie now and then, though I haven’t seen many.”

“Well, that’s where it gets complicated. It’s supposed to be scary, but I find it fucking hilarious!” Andy said with her trademark smirk. “You don’t see actor dedication like that nowadays. it’s all holodecks and special effects! Acting is dead.”

Scoffing, Maica couldn’t help but smirk back. “You should attend one of the fancy balls I’ve been to. There’s nothing but acting at those. Not a real smile in the lot.” Taking a drink, Maica continued. “That does sound wonderful, though I should probably take offense. I’m made with some of those holodeck programs.” Yeah, Maica was teasing back finally and her smile showed it.

“You couldn’t catch me dead at anything fancy. I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to even wear a dress uniform,” Andy said thoughtfully. “Guess that’s the good thing about being Non-Com, I technically ain’t Starfleet, so unless I’m a department head, I don’t have to go to cheesy dress social events.” And since she wasn’t a department head, she didn’t have to bother with those kinds of things!

“Then I’ll be sure to invite you to them as my date from now on.” Nibbling at her potatoes, Maica was almost serious as she said that, though she knew Andy would probably never take her up on that.

“You can invite me, but unless it’s an order, I won’t show up,” Andy said without a hint of remorse. She just didn’t like those sorts of things. She never liked being in the spotlight. Even being recognized for her accomplishments made her uncomfortable. She didn’t do what she did for recognition; Andy worked hard because she liked to work with her hands and keep busy, and dammit, someone’s gotta do the work! “Hey, if you’re about done, I wanna show you something,” Andy said as she downed the last of her ale then cleaned off her hands. She rose from her chair with an excited little hop. “hurry hurry hurry!”

“Ok, hang on…” Maica took a big bite of her pickle, her mouth puckering at the sour tanginess of it. Chewing and swallowing, Maica stood and wiped her hands on her napkin. “There we go. Ready.”

“Alright, c’mon!” Andy grabbed Maica’s hand and led her out of her quarters and to the nearest holodeck. She punched in the program information and activated it. She was quite nervous about showing this program to Maica, no one had ever seen it before, but it seemed right. Entering the holodeck, they walked into a run-down concert hall. The seats were all worn down and dusty, some of the fixtures needed replacing, but the stage looked brand-new. It was well lit, but still empty like the rest of the hall. “Take a seat over there,” Andy said, pointing to the middle of a row closer to the stage. “The best acoustics in the house are there,” she added, running up to the stage and hoisting herself up.

Making her way to the indicated seat, Maica sat down and looked around the concert hall. It looked strangely familiar, though she guessed a lot of them looked alike. The seat she sat in was dusty and worn, but it held her well and didn’t squeak, so that was good. Clasping her hands in her lap, she waited for Andy to start with great anticipation.

Andy disappeared stage left for a moment to set things up. A grand piano appeared on the stage, but Andy had no intentions of playing it. She could, but her skill at it was all technical, she wasn’t musically driven to play the piano. She just used it to help with composing. Her pianist girlfriend had played a number of songs for her, recordings to accompany what she intended to play for Maica now.

She walked out onto the stage a few minutes later with a cello and a chair. She set the chair at center stage and sat, settling the cello against her body. She set the bow to the strings and began to play, the piano seemingly playing itself in accompaniment. She was quickly swept up into her music with a wide grin. She really loved this song; it felt like some sort of… Oh, she didn’t know, it really moved her, made her feel like she had accomplished something with the creation of this piece. As she played, she was joined by recordings of herself adding to the overall grandeur of the song. It was just so moving… and somewhat sad and bittersweet, but it still made her smile every time.

To say that Maica was moved was putting it lightly, This was better than yesterday by at least a thousandfold. She was still a bit sad though. Andy was on stage rather than sitting here next to her and though she could feel the cybernetically enhanced woman’s emotions in the music flowing around her, she had been hoping to do something with her rather than one of them performing for the other. It still moved her though. She was once again crying tears of joy.

As if she was able to read Maica’s mind, or maybe she had simply had this planned all along, Andy crooked her finger to draw Maica up onto the stage. “C’mere,” she said with a lopsided grin.

Oh my. She wanted Maica on stage it seemed. Standing and making her way to the front, she stepped up the stairs onto the stage, nervously looking out at the empty seating as she approached Andy.

Andy rose from her chair and knelt down by the edge of the stage to offer Maica a hand and lift her up onto the ledge. “What’s the matter, girly?” she asked when she saw the tears. She hadn’t been able to see Maica crying because of the spotlights, but she could see the tears now. “Are you alright?” For the most part, Andy had the emotional depth of a kiddie pool, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care for other people’s emotions.

Nodding, Maica spoke softly. “Yeah I’m fine. Just crying over your music again. You know how I am.” she said with a smile as she got up on stage with Andy.

“So you liked it?” Andy asked as she returned to her chair and hugged her cello close. “Well, I’ve got more, but if you wanna hear it, you gotta work for it,” she stated, pointing her bow towards the piano. “You can play, right?”

Glancing over the grand piano, Maica nodded. “Only one set of keys? Easily. What am I playing?”

“The sheet music is up there,” Andy said as she plucked at her cello’s strings idly. “Just start playing, I’ll do my part and follow your tempo.”

Wiggling her fingers, maica sat on the bench and adjusted the sheet music, running through it in her head. It looked like it would be an elegant piece that deserved to be played with passion. “I just need a moment to warm up.” Rubbing her fingers across the ivory keys, Maica pressed them softly, working up to a crescendo in an exercise designed to familiarize herself with this particular instrument. Yes, she could play this piano and felt confident in her finger movements so she started playing the music before her.

Andy watched as Maica worked her way through her exercises, enjoying the expressions her little toy made for her. ‘She really does have the soul of a musician...’ Andy thought with a smile. It saddened Andy to think Maica had been limited to the sexual gratification of any paying customer. But not anymore. Andy made it her mission to help Maica become something more, to help her experience new things, to help her grow. It wasn’t enough to merely exist, Andy had learned that the hard way and her music reflected that; Andy wanted Maica to know the pure joys of being alive.

As soon as she heard her music spilling from the piano, Andy took her cues and started playing. The cello accompaniment at this part was very subtle, the focus mainly on the piano, but that was good. It gave Maica the chance to settle into the melody and set a comfortable pace. Like before, pre-recorded versions of Andy appeared on stage to add to the sound. Parts of this piece had been written and recorded while she was still recovering from her assimilation, so at several points, Maica could see what Andy looked like at varying stages of her recovery. It wasn’t something Andy liked to share, but she knew Maica would understand the significance and what it meant in terms of her music.

The song was elegant, but also had a lightness to it, something Andy had very much needed at the time she had written it. As the song built up to its crescendo, it became a swirling expression of unadulterated joy. So long ago, Andy had been in a dark place, so desperate for a reason to live. Her music had given her an outlet for her sadness and became a doorway for the light to come inside. Now she wanted to live and had finally found someone she wanted to share that with.

Having memorized the music and movements needed for the piece during her exercises, Maica looked around at the various recordings of Andy as she enjoyed the music. Some had more borg implants than others. This piece was composed and recorded shortly after being freed from the collective! This was an emotional record of her recovery. Maica was moved even more, knowing this was a piece of Andy’s soul. The history of her recovery and reintegration back into life.

As she played, Maica let the music sweep through her, her own playing adding to the passionate and powerful emotions flowing through the music. She felt alive. She felt real. She felt more ‘human’ than she ever had before. And Andy had shown this to her.

As her song came to its conclusion, Andy looked over at Maica, her expression unreadable. But to look at Maica and see her expression… it was… Andy couldn’t put it into words, but she wanted to see that in Maica all the time...

Maica gazed deeply into Andy’s eyes. Would she enjoy it? Would it be ok if it was unfinished? It wasn’t a very good piece, but now she knew what was missing. She knew how to fix it. She could finish it now thanks to Andy. As she sat there she was reliving it, rewriting it. her mouth opened but no words came out. She wanted to ask Andy if she could but was afraid of what she would say.

Andy could see the hesitation in Maica. She was struggling with something, that much was clear. Whatever it was, Andy knew it was important to Maica. ‘Go for it,’ Andy thought as she nodded to the woman at the piano. Whatever it was, Andy would be here for Maica to help her figure things out.

That nod was all Maica needed for encouragement. Standing, she walked around the piano with a dazed look on her face. “Computer, add instruments, characters, and my writing desk from program Maica zeta 334795 Alpha 54792. Access code 13 alpha bravo positive omega.” Around her appeared the requested items, not much out of place on the stage. Stepping over to the desk she started writing furiously as fast as her fingers could move. It was missing passion. She cut out whole sections and replaced more. This was the song of her life and though it may never be finished, it was going to get a big jump right now.

As she wrote, the Maica clone sitting at one of the massive harps looked around confused. Her 2 massive harps were here but where was here? and what the hell was with her original? She needed to be synchronized soon… She hated not being kept up to date… Looking to Andy, she smiled warmly. “Hi, I’m Maica V2. I play the backup harp. May I ask your name?”

“I’m Andy and I play the cello,” the ex-Borg woman replied with an amused grin. She could tell right away that this was no mere holo-character. V2 was displaying self-awareness beyond what most holographic creations possessed. “I’m banging Maica V1. We’re here on a date.”

Facepalming, the Maica clone looked over at the original and shook her head. “Yeah I need another update soon… Too bad they’re manual or she’d do it more often, I’m sure. So how long have you been dating and how did you get her to break what was practically a vow of chastity?”

“I could show you,” Andy said with a shrug, then she looked over to her date. “Hey Maica, if I start messing with your doppelganger, does that count as cheating?”

Looking up confused, Maica thought about it for a moment. “I suppose not, but I’d like to be there so I can remember it too.” Pulling the printouts off the desk, She headed to the music stands before all 3 of them, setting several sheets on them. “I hope you don’t mind but I changed the bass harpist portions to cello. Could you play that part, my love?”

“Don’t see why not,” Andy mused as she looked over the music. “I’m seeing a lot of Vivaldi’s influences in here,” she commented as she shuffled through the sheet music, revealing that not only was she a gifted violinist/cellist and composer, but a classically trained musician at that! “Yeah, I think I got this,” she said with a nod as she set up the music on her stand.

looking over the music, Maica V2 spoke confidently. “Anything you can play, I can play. I see I have a bigger part too. I like big parts…” Maica rolled her eyes at that as she took her seat at her harp.

“Andy, please remind me to update the euphemisms out of her…” Stroking her harp, she started the first movement of the piece and as her clone started playing counterpoint, she smiled at how the piece was coming together already. Just another bar and Andy would be joining in.

“Oh yeah, nothing phallic about V2’s statement at all… “Hey Maica, don’t forget to remove the outdated euphemisms from your doppelganger,” Andy reminded just as Maica started to play, but stifled her laughter. Instead, she listened carefully for her cue and joined in. Most people would have needed at least one practice round to familiarize themselves with a new piece, but like Maica, she was picking it up right away. Maybe next time, she would come back and help Maica flesh the piece out with more strings, but right now it was beautiful and Andy was proud of Maica’s composition.

The difference in passion that the 2 Maicas played with would have been noticeable to a deaf Ferengi. Despite that, they played amazingly well together. If there were lyrics, Andy was playing them on her cello, telling of all the things that Maica had gone through in her life. The pain and suffering yet inability to change her fate followed by her escape to the Federation. Her time in Starfleet with all the pomp and circumstance diplomacy brings, and then the past 2 days… Yes it was amazing that it had only been 2 days. that last piece was a flying emotional rollercoaster flying around the 3, aswirl with emotion. Maica was playing the higher pieces - the melody and rhythm. V2 was driving the undercurrents in the lower notes to counterpoint the whole thing. There was just one thing missing though… The violin piece… She’d have to finish it later and see if Andy could help her with adding that piece in. The violin would tie the whole thing together, moving it from an already outstanding piece to what she hoped would be excellence.

It was amazing to hear the differences between the two Maicas. Andy could only smile as she continued to play. Who Maica was, and who she was now… And her music was just the first part of what she was becoming. Andy couldn’t have been more proud of her!

As the piece came to a close, it ended on a long flourish of notes, all 3 having to play hard to keep up with the music. And then it ended. Maica only hoped that Andy enjoyed it as much as she had. Even V2 was visibly moved by the piece - not to the same extent, but moved none the less. She spoke softly, looking to her original. “Did you seriously write that from our composition? What the hell have you two been doing to lead to something so… so like that?”

“Magic,” Andy whispered dramatically, then sat up straighter in her chair as she twirled her cello around. “Seriously, she wrote that, I saw her do it. And she got laid, that’s what led to that. I blew her mind!”

“Apparently so…” V2 mumbled.

“I’ll blow your mind too, if you’re up for that,” Andy said with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.

V2 grinned seductively at Andy for the suggestion. “I’m sure something will blow…” Maica had to interrupt them at that point. “Please tell me I don’t act like that anymore.”

“I like her!” Andy declared with a grin. Of course, she liked Maica as she really was now, but V2 amused her. “Can I keep her?”

“Only if you memorized her program name and access code.” Gathering up her papers, she set them back on the desk. “Thank you for letting me do that. Care to finish our date now?” she asked with a smile.

“Oh, is it time for us to dance?” Andy asked as she stood, taking her cello off to stage left even though it was just a part of the simulation and would disappear with the rest of the program. “And I am using ‘dance’ as a euphemism for ‘have sex’, of course.”

When Andy came back, Maica pressed herself to the former borg woman while V2 played something akin to turbolift music. “I think I know a few dances like that. Would you like to go to your room, mine, or just do it here and make my copy watch?”

“Kinky,” Andy replied with a smirk. This was a unique brand of crazy that Andy was really having fun with, but she still worried that Maica might just be humoring her, an attempt to keep Andy around by pleasing her. Andy knew it was something she was going to have to address eventually, but for now she was just going to enjoy the moment. “I think I chose door number 3,” she nodded with certainty. What a way to end a date!

Her heart pumped as her legs shifted the orange/yellow board beneath her feet as she zipped back and forth across the water, the salt water spraying her. She knew it wasn't real in her mind, but that thought wasn't at her foremost thoughts as the wave died and she dropped down onto the board, dropping her legs over the sides. Her green eyes gazed at the beach, a beach she knew well from her childhood. She spent a lot of time surfing Point Break in Queensland, Australia. Surfing had become her third home, the first being in the skies and space, and firstly would always be Australia. She smiled as she laid down and turned her board around, paddling back out into deeper water, just past the breaking zone for the waves. It wasn't long before she spotted a big one beginning to form. She began paddling fast to gain speed. Soon she felt the wave propelling her across the water. She hopped to her feet on the board. Again, she zipped back and forth across the wave as it began to break.

Soon, there was a shift in the current that was unexpected. Hayley stumbled and on instinct bailed from her board off to the side. She expected to hit the water as she closed her eyes. Something was off. She wasn't under water, as she opened her eyes, she, was nearly upside down in a red substance. 'What the blasted hell?' she thought, as she began to struggle to upright herself. She breathed heavily as she finally got her head above the gelatin substance. Her hand took a small piece and ate it. "Jello? The bloody hell? I hate Jello," she sighed, knowing it would be next to impossible to get back to shore in Jello. "Computer, end program."

The computer chirped in acknowledgement as the beach, and Jello disappeared, dropping Hayley to the deck. "Computer, what in bloody hell happened with my program?" she asked, approaching the control panel of the holodeck. "Unknown."

Hayley threw her hands up. "Of course. Do you know anything?"

"Please be more specific."

She hit the comm panel. "Lieutenant Collins to Engineering. Could you please get a team to check out the holodeck systems? I just went for a swim in bloody Jello!"

"Understood. Engineering out."

Hayley spotted a piece of Jello fall from her wet hair. 'Lets hope my shower isn't Jello she thought angrily as she stepped out of the holodeck and headed to her quarters.

After his shift, Tul was on his way back to his quarters. As he stepped out of the turbolift, a curious occurrence caught his attention. A small, fast moving, furry ball of some sort of creature shot down the corridor from the direction of the senior staff quarters. It crossed Tul's path and headed towards the opposite end of the corridor without slowing. Wanting to know what it was and where it was going, Tul followed. He was fast enough to reach the bend in the corridor before the creature disappeared. He managed to catch sight of the thing as it rocketed into an open bulkhead panel a few feet ahead of him.

As Tul stepped toward the open panel, he noticed someone was already tending it. He didn't know if she had seen the small creature or not. Her back was turned to him. "Excuse me," the Andorian XO said, waiting to be noticed.

"Yeah?" the surly red-head answered without looking up from her conduit manifold calibrations. "What can I do for you, Commander?"

Tul paused, unsure how she had identified him so quickly, and without turning around. Choosing to 'roll' with it, he answered, "You seem to have a small visitor in your bulkhead, there."

"Shit," the woman said as she finally abandoned her work and removed herself from the bulkhead. "Commander t'Dharvanek's cat likes to hide out in the Jefferies tubes. He comes out eventually, but he could get hurt inside the bulkheads." Her eyes darted about, seemingly looking through the bulkhead to find the cat.

"t'Dharvanek's cat? I didn't realize any of the senior staff had pets," Tul said, unholstering his tricorder. The animal appeared on his screen for a moment but bolted off again. "There it goes. That thing is going to make a mess of this ship..."

"No kidding," Andy said as she knelt by the opening in the bulkhead. She looked over at Tul. "You want I should go get another team, try to flush the little bastard out? Or do you think we can handle a single stray?" They should be good to handle this by themselves, right? It was cat, how much trouble could it realistically get into?

Although he spent most of his duty shifts with Sirigh, the sudden introduction to another ex-Borg momentarily surprised Tul. What he had mistaken for use of a tricorder had been the workings of one of her implants. "Er, no. We can handle it. At least as long as it remains on this deck," Tul answered as he joined her next to the open panel, "Crewman....?"

"Chief Carter," she corrected, not really caring what he called her. Most higher officers didn't regularly associate themselves with the non-coms, so Chief Petty Officer Carter couldn't have cared either way if Commander Zanaar knew her name or rank or not. "There's another access a few meters down. I'll try to go in this way, you keep watch here in case he comes back this way," she suggested.

"Of course, Chief Carter," Tul knelt next to the panel, peering inside. "Here kitty, kitty," he coaxed, mimicking what he'd seen humans do around cats before.

As silently as she could, she removed the other access panel and worked herself inside the bulkhead. They had the little varmint now, it couldn't go anywhere. "Alright, I see him. You want me to try to shoo him your-" She cut herself off when she saw the cat chewing on something he shouldn't have been chewing on. "Oh no! No no no no no no! Don't you chew on that!" Andy said loudly, hoping to scare the cat and get him to stop chewing on the ODN cables.

Startled, the cat backed up and ran in the opposite direction. The easiest exit was Tul's panel and he took it at full tilt.

To better hear Carter, Tul had stuck his head in the open panel. When the scared animal came his way, he tried to back out quickly. The best he managed to do was bang the back of his head on the top of the access and grab the cat as it darted past. However, his hold wasn't firm and the furry devil turned on him, biting into Tul's hand. It hurt. The Andorian let go with a grunt of pain and the cat disappeared down the corridor.

"Damnit! We need phasers, chief."

"Just gimme a second, I gotta check these ODN lines, see how bad the damage is," Andy called out. This was a major network of cables from the labs a deck below, they couldn't be left there damaged. For now, it seemed the damage was minimal, the cat had only damaged the insulation around the fiber optics. It would still need to be replaced, but it was not a priority at this time. "Alright, close up that hatch so the cat can't get back in," Andy said as she crawled out of her own hatch and sealed it up. "Lets go get us some phasers..."

Tul flicked drops of blue blood off his hand as he fit the cover panel back into its slot. "There is a weapon's locker near the turbolift. But" Tul recanted, "I don't know the physiology of cats. Do you? What will a phaser do to it?"

"You think I know anything about cats? I can't even keep a potted plant alive, let alone a pet!" Andy said with a scoff as she joined her superior. "Even light stuns can be powerful, and a cat ain't that big... If you're worried about it, I can rig a phaser to reduce the stun output," she offered as they started towards the weapons locker. "Or we could try to corner it with forcefields?"

"Force fields," Tul said, "with those, it won't be able to slip by us again." They were also less dangerous to the critter than phasers. Tul didn't want to find out what Jhu would do if anything happened to her pet.

Andy reached into her cargo pocket for her tricorder. She didn't often need to use one, she had a whole load of sensors in her eyepiece that functioned in the place of a tricorder. But her eyepiece couldn't operate the forcefields. "Might I suggest all pets be tagged with tracers so this don't happen again," Andy suggested as she scanned for the cat.

"I'll recommend it. Though one would think the quarters of an intelligence officer would have more security measures than this...." Tul checked his screen, "I think it's down at the other end of corridor again. We should hurry, before it finds it's way onto the turbolift,"

"I'm already locking down the lift, sir," Andy said as she input the commands into the tricorder. "Locking down all doors accessing this corridor and activating forcefields. He's got nowhere to run." they could deactivate and reactivate forcefields as they moved along the corridor, but she was not letting this fucking cat get away!

The unlikely duo walked from force field to force field until they reached the end of the corridor. Jhu's cat was, indeed, trapped behind the last field. As they neared the field, Tul stopped a couple of steps short, "I'll lower the force field, chief, and you jump in and catch it."

Andy made sure the forcefield behind them was in place before handing the tricorder off to Tul. "Right, just jump right in..." Andy muttered as she eyed the cat. Spiteful little bastard, this was all just a game to him, wasn't it? Cat's were evil in Andy's opinion. Jhu should have been lucky she wasn't trying to kill the damned thing.

"C'mere, kitty, I ain't gonna hurt ya none too bad," Andy said quietly as she approached the forcefield. Static sparked as the invisible wall went down and Andy jumped, making a mad grab for the feline. She got a good hold on it, but the cat was out for blood, quickly maiming Andy with several furious bites. "Fucking hell!" Andy cried out as she tried to get a grip on the fur ball that didn't result in claws and teeth digging underneath the exoskeleton encasing her hand. "Get it off me before I kill it!" Andy bellowed rather bluntly to Tul.

Tul dropped the tricorders and stepped in. The cat was little more than a blur as it and Carter rolled around together. Once he had a clear shot, though, he took it. This time, Tul's grab was good. He managed to get a fist-full of scruff and drag the animal off of the chief. Suspended in air, Jhu's cat seemed powerless. It's tail curled to it's belly, it didn't seem to have any more fight. Tul offered his free hand to Carter, "Are you alright, Chief?"

"I'll live," Andy grumbled as she accepted the assistance, taking his hand and rising to her feet. "Damn, he got me good though," she mused as she inspected the damage to her hand. There were several deep lacerations, but nothing a quick trip to Sickbay wouldn't fix. "Little fucker is going out an airlock the next time I catch him outside Jhu's quarters."

Tul nodded his wholehearted agreement and tapped his badge, "Commander t'Dharvanek... Report to your quarters." He closed the channel and pointed at Jhu's door with a cat-filled hand. "We might as well wait for her."

"Yeah, right," Andy said as she collected the tricorders, pocketing her own. "You know, this is why they shouldn't allow pets on ships. I didn't mind the cat getting into the tube system, ain't like it can get into any trouble there when everything is sealed up, but getting into the walls and chewing on the ODN lines? Shit, now I gotta replace those lines..."

What? That was unusual in the middle of the day. "Uh... okay? I'm on my way down." Wondering just what was going on, Jhu left her office and took the nearest turbolift down then walked the remaining short distance to her cabin, where she saw Lydek suspended in Tul's hand. She stared for a moment, then her eye traveled to the maintenance notice on the door. "Aw hell. They let him out again."

"Oh, no no no no no!" Andy said sternly when she saw Jhu glance to the maintenance notice. "Don't you go blaming this on my maintenance teams. This cat has gotten out on his own before. Anyway, my crews ain't responsible for him being a pain in the ass."

As much as he was personally enjoying the exchange, Tul was tired of holding the cat. He stepped toward Jhu and dropped the creature in her arms. "Find a way to keep him in your quarters, Commander. I don't want to hear about or, much less, be involved in another of these incidents," his hand hurt, although the injury he sustained was minor to Chief Carter's.

Lydek yowled and sank his claws into her arm, protesting the rough transfer, but Jhu barely flinched. "Actually, this is the second time someone has opened the kennel and let him out. Both tines a repair team was inside, and he certainly can't open the kennel from inside it. It has a puzzle lock and a forcefield on it."

"Then that cat is fucking Houdini reincarnated, I shit you not!" Andy insisted vehemently. There was no way any of her teams were letting the cat out. But she was going to look into why Jhu needed work teams in her quarters so often.

"If that were true, he'd still be running around. You'd never have caught him." Jhu patted Lydek's head. "I'm sorry he hurt the two of you, but that's what cats do when they're frightened."

"Frightened, my cybernetic ass! That thing is evil!" Andy declared. Yeah, she was most definitely NOT a cat person.

"He is not!" Jhu replied defensively, holding Lydek close to her chest. He purred as she did so. "He's a sweet boy... all you had to do was offer him food. Or I don't know, call me instead of terrorizing him!"

Tul was still standing between the two women. At the rate the conversation was escalating, he felt his position was less than safe. "Commander. Chief. Please. Both of you should return to your duties."

Andy glared at Jhu for a moment. "Yes sir," she said to Tul, turning on her heels and walking away. Her mind was definitely set: if she ever saw that cat again, she was killing it!

Bitch, Jhu thought crossly as Andy walked away. Nonetheless, she smiled sweetly and nodded. "I will, once I put Lydek back and change the lock on his kennel. And maybe add a cattle prod to keep people from letting him out."

Tul watched Carter leave before turning to Jhu. "Alright Commander. And consider changing the identification tags for the door. He could just be walking out..." Curiously, Tul tentatively held his hand out to the cat.

"I'll do that too." Jhu watched as Lydek sniffed Tul's hand then purred, nudging the hand with his head. "He really is a good cat. Please don't let Carter hurt him... he's the only family I have here."

"Her maintenance on this deck is almost complete. I will have a brief word with her, though," Tul scratched the critter's chin gently. He really wasn't so bad.

"Thank you. I'll put him back now... and I think I still have a dermal regenerator I borrowed when Liam wasn't looking. If you want it." Unlocking the door with Lydek in her arms proved difficult, so Jhu guided him up to her shoulder, where he primly stepped around her neck and draped himself across both shoulders in a secure fashion.

Tul was impressed with the cat's training but he shook his head. "I'm off duty so I'll stop by sickbay. Have a good rest of the day, Commander."

"You too." Relieved that Tul hadn't gotten angry with her, Jhu slipped inside her cabin to lock Lydek back in his kennel.

Tul left Jhu's door and walked back to where he'd first seen Carter. "Chief?" he called, not immediately spotting her.

"Yeah?" Andy said, peeking her head around a corner. She had opted to head for Sickbay before returning to work, but she had still heard Tull call for her. "Can this wait? I gotta run by Sickbay then get back to work," Andy said hastily.

"I'll walk with you, I'm on my way to sickbay as well. And this will only take a moment," the Andorian XO said, falling into step beside her. "Commander t'Dharvanek will take added precautions to keep her cat in her quarters. However, Chief, if you see him escape again... Please call security. One point of pride for this boat is it's lack of casualties. Including animals."

"Fine," Andy grumbled. It almost looked painful for her to agree to his orders, but she wouldn't argue with the man. "But if he chews through anything, I can't make any promises. He's lucky he chewed on fiber optics and not a plasma line. I can't be held responsible for animal stupidity!"

"I wouldn't expect you to be, Carter," Tul said, "Hopefully, this incident won't happened again."

"Good," Andy said as she handed his tricorder back to him. Damn, she hated cats...

Andy looked at her hand with disgust. She wasn’t disgusted with her hand, but rather what Jhu’s cat had done with it. The little fucker had done quite a number on her, his bites having left several deep lacerations that had worked up under the exoskeleton. Sonofabitch, those little talons had hurt too! They were like little razors, worse than papercuts! Dammit, she hated making a trip by Sickbay, but she didn’t want to risk an infection given how dirty and sweaty her hands were from work, so as soon as she she and Tul had left the cat with Jhu, she headed straight for Sickbay.

Maica had been stalking the halls for a little while now, trying to familiarize herself with all the various emergency equipment. environmental suits, weapons lockers, medkits… This was something she hadn’t needed to do but once before and though she knew how to use them, she wasn’t familiar with their locations on the Katana. It was while doing this that she saw Andy down the corridor. Chasing after her, Maica called out, the injuries to her hand obvious as she approached. “Andy, what happened? Did you get in a fight with an animal?”

“Uhh, yeah, something like that…” Andy said with a grumble. “Jhu’s cat didn’t like my assessment that pets belong in their master’s quarters and not inside the bulkheads chewing on ODN cables. He kinda took offense when me and Blue boss-man tried to catch him.”

“Awww… But Lydek seemed like such a sweet kitty… Why would he do that?” Maica said as she carefully took Andy’s hand and looked it over. “It doesn’t look as bad as it feels, I’m sure. Let’s get you to sickbay before infection sets in, though.”

“Fucking hell, it hurts!” Andy groused. “I’m been assimilated and this still gets to me. What is it about claws that makes ‘em hurt so bad?” she asked rhetorically as they continued on their way.

Pulling Andy along the corridor towards sickbay, Maica snickered a bit. “It could be worse. It could have been a rutting sehlat tearing into you.”

“You know what, bring it on!” Andy declared. “Can’t make my day any worse than it already is…”

Maica just giggled at that. “You say that now. I’m sure we can find a crewmember with one, if you like.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Andy had no ground left to stand on. She couldn’t complain, so she settled for pouting. It may have been childish, but she was the one maimed by a crazy feline, dammit! Arriving at Sickbay, Andy quickly went over what happened to the attending nurse who was able to tend to the injuries without calling for the doctor, which was a good thing because Andy hated doctors and she didn’t feel like holding up the rest of her day waiting for him. “So what were you doing when I ran into you?” Andy asked Maica as the nurse patched up her hand.

“I haven’t served on many starships so I was familiarizing myself with the emergency systems on this one. Environment suits and things like that… How did you get talked into wrangling Jhu’s cat, by the way?” Maica asked.

“The damned thing got into the bulkhead where I was working, made a mess of things. I wasn’t about to let the nuisance cause more trouble, so me and boss-man went after it,” Andy explained. “Wait, why would you need an environment suit?” she asked after a moment.

Looking around a bit lost at the question, Maica didn’t actually know how to answer it. “I don’t actually know… It seemed like a good idea what with who knows what in this region of space. Would I even need one though?”

“That’s what I was asking,” Andy said as she watched the nurse running the dermal regenerator over her hand. “Probably though. I saw Jenni’s report about your condition after going to that one world, how the humidity affected you. We’ll have to fix that.”

“I was worried more about lack of atmosphere, but yeah high humidity environments are a hazard too.” Maica replied. The captain hadn’t said anything about the distress call from the Jem’hadar being secret or anything, but she thought it best not to discuss it anyway. They didn’t need rumors spreading around. “How do you think I would fare in a spacewalk?”

Andy just shrugged. The nurse was done with her hand, so she flexed it a few times before excusing herself and letting the nurse get back to tending to other patients. “Dunno. All I know is I can’t do it anymore. Panic attacks,” Andy admitted.

“Oh my… What are those like?” Maica queried, walking out of sickbay with Andy. She supposed that meeting she had something like one, but couldn’t be sure without something to compare it to.

“Not fun,” was all Andy said. She looked over to Maica, considering if she should tell Maica why, she had panic attacks when doing spacewalks. “My dad died on the Tsiolkovsky, explosive decompression, then I nearly died when I flushed the cargo bay during the Battle of Sector 001, but the Borg modifications saved my life,” Andy said uneasily as they made their way down the corridor. “You’d think I’d freak out in the Cargo Bay where it happened, but I’m fine there, but you get me out on a spacewalk and I lose my shit.”

“No spacewalks for you then…” Maica couldn’t help but give Andy a hug in the middle of the corridor. “I think I might have had something like one a while ago in regards to my escape from Ferenginar. It wasn’t fun.”

Andy nodded as they walked. “Well, I gotta get back to work. I can score a break in an hour, we can grab a bite in the mess hall if you want,” she offered after a moment of silence. She wasn’t used to all this ‘relationship’ stuff, but she was willing to try for Maica.

“I’ll see you there then.” Smiling at her sexy new girlfriend, Maica gave her a kiss on the cheek and wandered off to finish her familiarization.

Andy rubbed her cheek, not used to such public displays of affection. Now she felt like a wuss. Good thing no one saw. Aw fuck, she left lipstick on her cheek! Time to go wash that shit off...

Something was wrong, and after mulling over Tul's outburst on the bridge Jhu didn't think it was just Kristopher's secret mission that had the Andorian officer in such a rage. Andorian or not, he was still a Starfleet officer. And Starfleet officers didn't storm off the bridge the way he had, not unless there was a problem. So despite her dislike of the man - and a healthy dose of fear of a fight breaking out - she looked up the location of Tul's quarters, finding them not far from her own. Dropping some food in Lydek's dish, she slipped out of her cabin and went down the corridor to Tul's. Hesitating for only a moment, she rang the chime... and waited.

Tul's door was becoming a rather popular place. Except for the past few days, he hadn't had any visitors since coming aboard Katana. Now, someone else had come by shortly after Maica's visit just the other day. He briefly wondered who it could be this time. Jhu? No, unlikely. Probably just Sirigh or another of the department heads. Tul stacked his PADDs and set them aside, standing up from his table as he did so. "Come in," he said. Tul almost dropped the mug he held as the door opened, indeed revealing Jhu. "Lieutenant, is there a problem?"

"Was I demoted when I wasn't looking?" Jhu asked humorously, smirking ever so slightly. She paused for a long moment, wondering how she should phrase her inquiry. "There's no problem, at least not with me or the ship. But there is one officer I'm starting to worry about."

Tul shook his head and pulled on one of his antennae, feeling incredibly foolish. "My mistake, Commander, you caught me by surprise," he said, "Please come in. Tell me about this officer."

"I thought so. I don't really visit people." Surprised that he hadn't started yelling or making other angry gestures, Jhu took a few cautious steps inside and let the door close behind her. "He's not an easy officer to tell you about because honestly? I don't know him very well. But he's been..." She paused. How the hell do I say it so he won't be offended? "Well, he's been snapping at his peers. Yelling a lot when it might not really be necessary to yell. I'm certainly not a perfect officer, but some days he makes me look like a cuddly teddy bear."

"A teddy bear?" Tul asked but refrained from commenting further, allowing the intelligence chief to continue.

"You're funny. But I'm really quite serious. I don't know this person very well, but it doesn't take much to see the strain." Jhu debated mentally for a moment whether she should tell him who she was talking about. "I mean, really... ordering people off the bridge then storming away before they can respond? Either you're a total nutcase or you're having a really bad day. I want to believe it's just a bad day. What's going on? And be honest. I'm not here to judge. I want to understand."

"Honestly? A total nutcase," Tul responded defensively, offended. He turned away and walked towards the replicator to recycle his mug. His intention was to put some distance between himself and Jhu. Just maybe, she would let it go and leave.

"Tul, I don't believe that. You're a good man or you wouldn't be first officer on this boat. Even I know that." Sensing he wanted space, she kept put while he moved away. "I'm trying to be friendly here, which is hard for me by the way. Would it kill you to try being nice?"

Probably Tul thought to himself. Instead, "Would you like something to drink, Commander?" he said gruffly.

It was gruff, but it was an attempt so Jhu smiled. "Only if you're having one. It would be rather rude to have a drink in your cabin if you didn't join me."

Unable to think of anything else, Tul replicated two Earth ice teas. He set both glasses on the table. "Make yourself comfortable," he added, waiting to sit to see if Jhu would take a seat.

Unsure if the invitation was genuine, Jhu quietly picked a chair and sat down, picking up the cool glass. "I'm not telepathic. But when you snapped at me earlier... I don't think it was really me you were yelling at. For one thing, I hadn't done anything to piss you off yet." She smirked slightly. "I'd have left if you'd actually given me a chance... but I have to admit I was entertaining notions of murdering Verak. I still can't hear out of my left ear."

Tul turned his gaze out the window above the table, still unwilling to talk about that day. "That no one did die was the one saving grace of that watch," he said, almost to himself.

"Agreed. So I do appreciate you stopping me... but I still want to hit him a few times, the smug little worm." Jhu sighed a little, sipping her tea. "I mean, I get it. He likes his protocols. But he was told to stop... and I'd wager you told him to back off too."

Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken, Tul fixed Jhu with a stern look. "I did not condone Lieutenant Verak's actions. He has been dealt with as was seen fit. As for you... I didn't agree with your actions any more than his, Commander, regardless of any order."

"I'm well aware of that, but what you don't know is that we had a secure route for him to call me if they needed us. I'm not dumb, you know." Jhu smiled a little despite his steely expression... or perhaps because of it. "I would have told you if you gave me a chance for a private conversation." She paused for a moment. "I know you don't like me. You don't trust me. I'm used to that. But I wouldn't let anything happen to this ship or this crew. Ever."

Tul rubbed his forehead, fighting off a slight headache. "Private comms aren't the point, Commander..." he searched for words, couldn't find any. Why hadn't he just left her out in the corridor? "The point is... none of this matters. Both you and Kerouac have used that exact line. Yet both of you, without fail, would do it again. Ship and crew be damned," Tul walked away from the table. "This isn't a ship, Jhu. It's one man's mission to destroy himself or save the galaxy. Too many of the senior staff are so swept up in his delusions of glory to see the cliff."

Jhu couldn't help it; she laughed at the statement, dissolving into very unprofessional giggles. "I didn't do it to satisfy his delusions of glory or to make you look foolish. I did it to keep Drake's claws off our ship! And to keep him away from Shira and her people." Tul didn't know about her history with Section 31, but she forged ahead anyway. "Starfleet Science wouldn't have been the only group listening. Section 31 has ears everywhere, and they'd kill us all to gain access to the Arboreals and their natural telekinesis. I don't care about glory or delusions of it."

Tul didn't know what to make of that, so he chose not to believe a word of it. "Section 31? Section 31 and tiny little Katana? You're as paranoid as they come, Jhu. If this ship had a counselor, you'd be on your way there."

"Starfleet counselors can't handle my level of crazy," Jhu replied smoothly. If Tul didn't want to believe her, she couldn't force him to change his mind. "But Section 31 is so very interested in this little ship, Tul. More specifically its second officer... who abandoned them and their precious misguided ideas of what constitutes protecting the Federation." She took a long sip of her iced tea, waiting for his reaction.

The Andorian XO had lost interest in the conversation. Jhu sounded as deluded as stories of her intelligence kind made them all out to be. "Spook stories haven't worked on me since I was very young. I'm sure your conspiracies will make for a fine thriller series on Earth. Someday, with a bit more work, Commander."

Jhu frowned, giving him a look that had the slightest hint of a glare. "It's not a story. It's the truth, and if you don't want to believe me... well. That's your choice. Someday we're going to need the skills they taught me though, and then maybe you won't be so quick to call me a liar."

"Perhaps," Tul said, "refill?"

Was her glass empty? Jhu looked down at it to discover it was, not that she remembered drinking so much of it. "Um... sure. But I really am quite serious. I still have the scar where the tracking device used to be." She unbuttoned the top of her uniform jacket, pulling it and the shirt collar aside to reveal a small jagged scar just below her left clavicle. "They're harder to find in soft tissue... and a helluva lot harder to remove when they're embedded so deep."

"Must've been painful," Tul retrieved her glass, "Computer, one ice tea," he ordered then returned it to the table.

"Extremely." She was pretty sure he was just humoring her now, but she continued anyway. "But not half as painful as the Romulan dagger I took to the shoulder... though the worst part of that was watching that poor ensign die a few minutes after he patched me up."

"My wife's dog bit me, once. That was rather painful. He didn't much care for the taste of Andorian blood but it didn't kill him," Tul, too, had a couple scars from the hound's jaws on his ankle but he wasn't willing to share them.

Jhu grinned a little. "My mom had a fvai, a Romulan canine similar to a Great Dane. Gentle old beast though, wouldn't hurt a fly." Given Tul's opinion about pets on starships, she decided not to mention her cat. "The scar on my wrist really is from a Dominion prison science experiment. Which is not a story I particularly like to tell."

Tul scratched one of his antennae, "For a super-secret Intel chief, you seem to share quite a few stories."

"Only the ones that make Section 31 look like the fools they are. Or the brass in general. They can make some really wild decisions."

"The brass? Sometimes," Tul said, although it wasn't his opinion.

"Not as common in the general fleet. It's quite all right if you disagree. Though you do have to admit whoever gave Kris this ship was off their rocker." Jhu snickered a little. "Anyway, you never said what's been bothering you so much. I'll admit I've got a hair-trigger temper... Dad always said I should have been a redhead. You though... you were pretty level-headed until a few days ago."

Tul's gaze hardened again though, this time, it wasn't directed at Jhu, "I prefer not to share my stories as readily as you do, Commander. Information and rumor travels quickly among a crew this size."

Jhu shrugged. "Anything you choose to say or not say stays between us. I'm not even going to tell anyone I visited you... I hate rumors as much as you do, and there will always be more about me than there are about you."

"I'm the first officer and I've made more than one scene in front of the senior staff. I'm sure I have my fair share" Tul shook his head, finally taking a seat across from Jhu. "This quadrant.... Being this far out hasn't been easy."

"First one was my fault and for that I apologize." Jhu sighed, shaking her head. "Being here is no easier for me than it is for you, Tul. Mistrusted, disliked..."

"I shouldn't have let you get to me like that. But thank you..." Tul took a precursory sip from his neglected tea and put it back down. "At least the captain trusts you, that's something."

"It's a miracle if you ask me." Jhu shook her head slightly. "Never asked for his trust and made no effort to win it. Yet, he does."

"Perhaps that's what he likes," Tul curled his hand into a fist meaningfully, "I believe I've finally convinced him not to leave me out of the loop. Next time."

"Maybe." Jhu didn't want to speculate on that. "I don't expect you to believe me, but I do wish I could have been more open. Only three people on this ship know who I used to work for. I don't want the whole crew finding out at once."

"Perhaps I believe you more than I want to admit to myself," Tul admitted, a line like that... Even he couldn't dismiss it. "Don't worry about me. As long as the captain is aware, I will not share anything I hear in good faith."

Jhu smiled ever so slightly. "He was the first person I told. Then Maica. And now you. Weaver doesn't even know yet... he thinks I'm crazy."

"Really? As another Intelligence officer, I would have thought he would have figured it out for himself. By now, at least,"

"You'd think so, right? But he doesn't even believe I can hear the warp core from outside engineering. He's more skeptical than you!" Jhu laughed a little. "The boy's an infiltration specialist... the type who thinks they're always at the top of the game. He'll learn."

"Hopefully soon. And without killing himself in the process. That is the last face this ship has left to maintain," Tul said, allowing himself a small smile. With this talk of Jhu's assistant, perhaps she had finally forgotten her initial reason for visiting.

"He'll never trust me again, but considering there's only three or so who do... not a big loss. For me anyway." Tul had never answered her question, but he'd said enough to figure out it was personal and too private to share just yet. So she decided not to pry... for now. "Trust is rather hard to come by in my line of work."

Tul felt a small pang of guilt at that. Jhu had trusted him with stories from her past, dispite his refusal to completely believe them. He hadn't made any gesture in return. "Alright, Commander.... If you really must know," he said, reluctantly reaching for the stack of PADDs at the edge of the table.

"Only if you're ready to share. Which you aren't... at least not yet."

Tul withdrew his hand. "We did get off to a rocky start. I don't know. Someday."

"We did. But if I can be friends with a man who openly insulted my heritage, I can be friends with anyone."

Tul was halfway through a gulp of ice tea. He coughed, "Who? What? As a man with a human wife, I'm not accused of racism very often. You should explain, Commander," Tul growled, Jhu had struck a sensitive nerve.

Jhu giggled at him. "Not you, crazy. Kerouac!" Now she couldn't stop laughing; the strange misunderstanding between them was too funny. "You never did that. Hell, you didn't even imply it! I'm just crazy and oversensitive, and I am working on it. Now quit giving me that look."

Tul relaxed slightly. "Alright. My mistake," he said, "that briefing still preoccupies me."" Jhu's laughter was infectious, causing him to crack another smile. "Maybe it's something I should work on. Stop laughing"

"Can't. The way you misread me is too funny." All the tension between them had come from not being able to read each other, and Jhu took a few minutes to calm down again. "Forget that briefing. Outside of it neither of us has done something that dumb to each other. Half the crew still thinks one of us will snap and kill the other though."

"I know. Apperances. Or something. Do we scare the crew that much?" Tul asked, "Is that a bad thing? It shouldn't be. Although, honestly, I may have harbored the same fear. For a little while," despite his reservations when Jhu first showed up at his door, Tul was enjoying the evening.

"Ancestry, more likely. Andorian... Romulan... both hot-headed and aggressive races..." Jhu paused, raising an eyebrow at Tul's admission of fear. He'd been afraid of that? "We can make it work in our favor."

The ship's Commanding Officer, Commander Kristopher Kerouac had been given his orders from the Executive Officer of Task Force 9. The Katana had been ordered to proceed to Teplan with medical supplies that they had reacquired from the Ferengi vessel, albeit Starfleet did not get the completely true report as to how Kris was able to 'negotiate' for their return. Regardless, Commander Kris Kerouac was just pleased to be able to help the people of Teplan. His starship's orders to proceed to Teplan was not what had been eating at him.

The Commodore had given Kris strict orders. He was to remain aboard his starship. The Commodore was quite firm with her tone of voice and Kris knew that she meant business. Lieutenant Commander Zanaar was of course made aware of these orders and would be ready to remind Kris of them should he get an itching to step foot on Teplan. However, while en route to Teplan, the Katana had received a distress call from the planet Kendi, a known world that had been under the control of the Dominion during the war. However, it was currently a world with a large Jem'hadar population. It had been the Jem'hadar that were requesting assistance from any vessel within distance of their transmitting buoy.

Now, Kris found himself in a predicament that he could not wiggle out from. As a Starfleet Officer he was sworn to help those in distress, regardless of who they were and what they did. The Teplans were dying by the hundreds each day. They needed the medical supplies that the Katana had taken into its cargo. However, Kris could not simply ignore the Jem'hadar. As much as he'd rather turn a blind eye or a deaf ear (No offense to Evans), Kris could not. He and his crew had to respond to both situations. I can't send a shuttle to Kendi. It's a Jem'hadar planet. The risk is too great. We will have to take Katana to Kendi. A Shuttle will have to transport our medical supplies and personnel to Teplan thought Kris as he awaited for the requested officers to arrive to the briefing room.

It didn't take long after her last Away Mission to finally get the Katana settled. She lost track of time a long time ago, but at last the refit had been completed. There were still systems to finish configuring, and actually Jenni was glad to have the staff meeting as a distraction. If there was one thing she hated about Engineering was calibration and configuring. Installs and repairs were more challenging. Configuring was simply busy work, just like maintenance.

Jenni was surprised to learn that she was the first to arrive in the briefing room. Well, the captain was already there of course. "Captain," she said, giving him a warm smile as she took a seat at the table.

Sabrina was nervous to be in the briefing room with all superior officers. She walked in and smiled before taking a seat, not quite sure why she had been summoned, but not about to speak up without being spoken to first.

Noah had been in his office when the call had arrived for him to report to the briefing room. He had settled in nicely - except for the incident with Kyle - into his job and into his quarters. Though it was still early, he found that Katana was slowly becoming home and that was a nice feeling. What would happen between he and Kyle, he couldn't be sure, but for now things were back to normal. At least at the moment. It was settled and that was all either of them could hope for. He walked in, PaDD in hand and smiled at Sabrina. The two women had become his friends and though he still was trying to communicate with Shira, the Arboreal female who was rooming with Sabirna. He felt there was a connection and Sabrina, well... she was just a pleasant young woman to be around. He was going to look forward to seeing her grow and learn and he knew she would do well in her chosen profession. Then he swung his attention to the captain and offered the man a light smile. He found himself attracted to the man, totally unintentional and totally caught him off-guard but it couldn't be helped. However, and this was a BIG however, he would keep that buried and to himself. Kristopher Kerouac was the first man he had really noticed besides Kyle and even then with Kyle a friendship blossomed into what it was. Kyle was attractive but it was different.

Oh god don't think of this right now you idiot, he thought to himself. He took the seat he occupied the first time he had been in the briefing room and set the PaDD onto the surface of the table gently. He cleared and focused his mind.

Hayley walked into the briefing room, wondering why she had been summoned. She normally had Alpha Shift off and she wasn't too thrilled about having her holodeck time interrupted. Being rather new aboard ship, she hadn't interacted with the senior staff save for a command for a flight change from the CO or XO while she was on duty. Looking around, she stood off to the side, not sure where or if she should sit down.

Kyle had been working out when he received the notification to appear, so he was very much out of uniform. He had two choices, show up on time in gym shorts and a sweaty tee shirt, or arrive late in uniform and cleaned up. So he chose that latter rather than the former Things between him and Noah had gotten better, marginally so, since their brief fight and Kyle really was trying to be more considerate. Still he didn't feel things had really turned back to the way they had been. He had to admit though, that making up had been mind-blowing.

He walked in uniform fresh, hair still damp from the shower. He took a seat as unobtrusively as possible.

Darzen Kail burst into the room late and out of breath, his blondish hair mussed. He stood in the doorway for a moment and got a handle on himself, smoothing his hair back into place as he looked for a seat. Most of him hated to be late but Darzen had a bad habit of it. The Trill finally slipped into an empty seat and started to study the people who were sitting at the table around him.

Liam entered the meeting and slid into a seat near the door. He had a pounding headache and had been trying to get caught up on the latest SFM reports on the blight, little progress had been made.

TAG Those Who Have Yet to Arrive
OOC Ray: Initially, I was going to have Shira present. However, after talking with Monoui, we have decided to leave her out of this briefing. I made edits to your replies Matt & Nicole. However, feel free to edit them again to your style.

Kris looked around the table. He made a note to smile though his mind was racing with thoughts of years in the past. His many days on the USS Denmark in the heat of battle with the Cardassians, the Breen, the Jem'hadar, the Sona and the various other species who joined or supported the Dominion. And now? Now, I have to take this starship to a Jem'hadar world. Right into the very heart of darkness Kris thought to himself.

He reached into the satchel that he had beside him, resting against his leg and pulled out three small cases. He slid them down and across the table in three different directions. "Matthews" he said sending the first one off. "Weaver" he said sending the second. Finally, he called out "Corbin" with the third and final container.

Commander Kerouac stood up from his seat with a smile on his face. "Let's start this meeting off with some much needed good news. Ever since the days of the first Captains of Earth Starfleet, these men and women had the honor to reward those officers serving under them. I am pleased to say that I have the honor to do this now" announced Kris.

He looked at the three, especially at Sabrina. "Sometimes, they don't have to be officers" added the Commander. He smiled and cleared his throat. "It is with great honor that I announce that Matthews and Weaver have hereby been promoted to the rank of full lieutenants with all the rights, duties and responsibilities. Congratulations, Lieutenants" Kris said giving them a small applause.

Sabrina joined in with sincere applause, proud to see her boss get recognition.

"Ms. Corbin" Kris began with a shake of his head. "Your first time off my starship as part of an Away Team, and you piss off the First Officer and use your heart when seeing another species in distress. You were placed on report for your actions and disqualified for the Arborial team. Good job, Crewmen. You have a lot to learn, but don't let anyone tell you to always go with the grain. Sometimes, you have to go against it and do things your own way" he added.

His stern voice changing and a smile swept across his face. "Normally, there is a long and grueling process for Crewmen Recruits to move into an apprenticeship and to hold the rank of Crewmen Apprentice. I think you have proven yourself, Crewmen. I think you have proven yourself enough to yourself, to me, and to this crew. You've done more in the past month than most young enlisted personnel do in their first year of service aboard a starship or other post. Therefore, I am waving off the apprenticeship is hereby promoting you to the rank of Crewmen."

Sabrina was too stunned to say anything at first. When it finally clicked she broke out into a huge grin. "Thank you sir, thank you." She wanted to hug him, hell she wanted to kiss him! But she highly doubted anybody would look well upon either of those two actions, so she tried not to squirm in her seat from excitement.

Noah grinned as well, that was good news indeed and he knew the young crewman deserved it. She just needed to prove to herself she could do it and when that happened everything else fell into place. With a nod to his head, he caught Sabrina's attention and mouthed the word, 'congratulations'. Now, the promotion for Kyle surprised him, not that Kyle didn't do his job or that he didn't deserve it but he had wondered if it was incentive for what his mate was going to be doing for the captain. But, it was none of his business and he wouldn't even ask about it. He offered a congratulatory smile to Kyle as well, they would have to celebrate later.

Kyle was a surprised as Noah at the promotion. it was in fact merely restoring what had already been his before the whole cluster fiasco that had started the downward spiral in his career and relationship with Noah. But no one here would know that but the CO and Noah. He looked over at Kris and said, "Thank you sir, not quite sure why you're doing this, but I'm grateful and sure won't turn it down."

Jenni had never been one to seek out promotions, but her lack of ambition did little to curb her surprise. If anything, she was more excited and pleased for Sabrina. Catching her gaze, Jenni gave her the warmest smile she had given anyone since coming aboard. Jenni took no credit for anything she'd done to help the young crewman and was extremely happy to have Sabrina on the engineering team. "Thank you, Captain," Jenni added right after that. She gently took the case and set it next to her PADD in front of her.

Commander Kerouac took a seat in his hair at the head of the table. "Matthews, Weaver, your promotions are well deserved. Your discovery of the Borg vessel on Arboria may prove to be highly beneficial to Starfleet Intelligence and Command. Now that we know that the Borg have been around, we can begin preparations. Perhaps, better improve some of the sensor systems around our outposts" explained Kris.

"There will be time for celebration later. Right now, we have some business to take care of. As you are well aware, there is a medical situation on Teplan that requires out immediate attention. The stolen medical supplies that we have reacquired from Daimon Marg's vessel may very well prove beneficial to treating the Teplan people. However, around of 0500, we received an automated transmission from the planet Kendi. Latest Stafleet Intelligence reports indicate that the planet was used by the Dominion as a Jem'hadar cloning facility. It appears that this is still in operation. However, under control of the Jem'hadar themselves" began Kris.

He looked at Doctor Cohen. "Doctor Cohen will taking an Away Team via shuttle to Teplan once the shuttle has been loaded with the medical supplies" said Commander Kerouac with a polite nod in his direction. "Ms Collins, your piloting expertise is going to come in handy here. You will pilot the shuttle carrying the medical supplies, Doctor Cohen and his team. Lieutenant T'Val, Lieutenant Sirigh, and Crewmen Corbin, the three of you will be going with Doctor Cohen to Teplan."

A grin came across Collins' face. She always jumped at the chance to pilot small craft. Many navigators wanted to pilot larger vessels but to her, real piloting came in the form of small craft. "I'll get them there without any trouble, captain."

"Understood sir." Liam replied, unfortunately going by shuttle meant he wouldn't have access to the ship, labs, or his staff, all things he'd been counting on to help the work in a cure, he hoped the teams already on the planet would be in better shape than he feared.


Sabrina wasn't sure why she was chosen for a medical mission, but she hardly cared the why, just that she got to go! She was worried she'd never see another Away Team after ticking the XO off. She just smiled and nodded to show her understanding of where she had been assigned.

Kris then directed his attention to the others. "Lieutenant Matthews, has selected to rest of you for her Away Team. Katana will be heading to Kendi where the ship will remain in orbit in order to provide a strong 'presence' to which we hope will deter the Jem'hadar from having any unwanted ideas."

"I am sure I am stating the obvious here, but this sounds more than a little suspicious to me and too damn convenient. I suggest we all have transponders inserted subcutaneously so we can be teleported back here if things get dicey."

Noah had no idea why he was going to Kendi and not Teplan. Did someone forget his expertise? Was he really slated to just play guard duty? The only thing he could think of remotely was the clones in the cloning facility. But what if they didn't even get to the facility. If he was just relegated to scans what difference did that make. He was a medical officer and a scientist, he had far more to offer then even his own staff. He was trained and cross-trained. He glanced over at Kyle and gave a look of dismay then his features become impassive once again. He would wait to see what Matthews had to say before he questioned anything. If there was no real role for him to play on the away mission besides doing passive scans and carrying a phaser then he wanted to stay on board. It truly was as simple as that, at least here he could do some good. But, he was open minded enough to at least see what was going to be said.

No one else may have noticed Noah, but Kyle did. He knew instantly his mate was upset, he could see it in his eyes, even when his expression turned neutral. He knew him well enough to know what Noah was thinking, at least in this case and he came close to saying something. But he stopped himself. His interfering would only make it worse. He gave the other man an understanding look, but stopped short of anything more than that.

Jenni took the silence from the Captain as a hint to explain the situation to the team. "The distress call was automated," she recited from her earlier conversation with the Captain. "And it, strangely, contained a lot of specific information on their situation. Apparently their tri-nucleic fungi cultures are under attack, the same fungi used in the creation of Ketracel White. From the sound of it, the Jem'hadar are looking at the beginning of a famine."

Lieutenant T'Val, who had been assigned to the Teplan Away Team was still listening to the detail of the Kendi mission. "Logically, if such a famine were to happen. This would bring the population of Jem'hadar on the planet down. No matter how many more clones they produce, without a stable production of white... their society for lack of a better term, would indeed collapse" informed T'Val.

Kris shot a look at the blonde Vulcanoid. Which would be bad why? Because, I'm obligated to respond to their distress call and I'd rather just let as many of them die off as possible thought Kris to himself. He knew better than to say anything of the sort. Instead, he directed his attention to his Chief Science Officer. "Doctor Evans, your science degree is in Botany and Ecology is it not?"

So, now Noah knew why he was going on the Kendi mission, it was all making sense and with that he felt better. It certainly was a complex puzzle, but every puzzle could be solved. "That's correct, sir," Noah answered the man. A straight forward answer to a straight forward question though his mind was already spinning with possibilities of a solution to the problem. First thing was first, he needed to brush up on the makings of Ketracel White.

Commander Kerouac looked at Lieutenant Darzen Kail "Lieutenant Kail, your service record shows that your concentration at the Academy was in Engineering where you've spent a few years afterwards. However, your Commanding Officers on the Persephone and Unification indicate that you had a strong knack for the sciences and an interest in solving complex puzzles. I'm sure that you'll be an asset to this team."

Darzen looked up from his PaDD, surprised at being addressed. He wasn't used to being in these briefings and often forgot that he was a senior officer, even though many of his past hosts had been leaders. He smiled. "Thank you, sir. I do have an interest as you say." He couldn't even explain how excited he was to be included in an actual away mission, but he didn't let it show.

Kyle had no real talent in engineering and less in science, so he pretty well knew what his assignment was gong to be. Guarding everyone's ass. One he had admired more than others but the whole crew was important to him now. And keeping people safe was what he did.

Kris took notice of the look on Weaver's eyes. He could only hazard a guess what the man was thinking. "Lieutenant Weaver, you probably can deduce your position on this Away Team is to cover the security matters as Lieutenant Sirigh will be with the Teplan Away team. Normally, I would rather send a handful of security officers to Kendi. However, I've come to respect your keen observation skills from Intelligence work. Officially, you're there to ensure the safety of the Away Team. Unofficially, we could use more updated Intel on the cloning facilities" said Kris with a flat tone.

"Thank you sir," Kyle replied,"officially, I'm just as good as a handful of security officers, unofficially, well I do have certain talents."

Noah knew of those talents, moreso then anyone in the room, thanks to his father-in-law of course. Though, he was pretty sure Kyle wasn't as ruthless with those talents, but Noah could never as sure. He didn't want to know and ignorance in this case was bliss. The less he knew, the better.

Commander Kristopher Kerouac took everything in but did his best to withhold his concerns. Taking the Katana to a planet under Jem'hadar or perhaps some remaining Dominion control was unsettling to say the least. To send members of his crew down there certainly did not ease his ill feelings. He quickly pulled himself from out beneath his slumping thoughts. "We will maintain protocols and procedures, ladies and gentlemen. Those of you that will be going to Kendi are advised to check in with Katana often."

Jenni nodded to the captain. "Will do, sir. At least once every hour." She personally had a lot to prepare for for this mission, especially since this was her first time leading an Away Team.


Kris looked at Doctor Cohen and Lieutenant Collins "Lieutenant, after this meeting you may prep a shuttle for immediate departure. Doctor, take all the supplies you need or can take. We'll have them loaded as soon as possible."

"I'll have the shuttle ready in ten minutes tops, captain."

"Understood, we'll roll out as soon as it's ready to go." Liam said, his mind already on what they could cram into the shuttle.

Sabrina didn't want to speak up and interrupt or be out of place, so she just nodded. She wondered just what she would be doing on Teplan.
She was no medic, but she supposed she could carry gear, and she could always read a repair manual if equipment needed fixing.

Kyle knew that he could take care of himself, but he was worried about Noah. He glanced his direction and gave him a brief nod of assurance. "You guys will be fine," he said, hoping he sounded confident.

Noah met Kyle's nod and nodded as well. He couldn't say for sure if things would go okay, but there was no reason to doubt otherwise.

Kris stood and looked around the room. "You have your orders, ladies and gentlemen. If there are any immediate changes to the members of these teams, you'll be informed in advance. Now, clear out. I have work to do" said Kris with a small smile.

When the meeting was dismissed Liam asked his team to get what they needed and meeting in the shuttlebay in 30 minutes. He caught Kris' eye for a fleeting moment as he was headed for the door, a part of him wished he wasn't leaving the ship. The Katana was about to be face to face with one of the worse enemies the federation had faced, but he had faith in his staff, and trusted the Captain.

Kris caught Liam's eyes. It caused him to look away as he attempted to hide his reaction, a small yet evident blush.

Liam nodded to the CO before heading to sickbay to prepare.

Kyle had not missed the exchange between the Doctor and the Captain, but he saw no need to bring it up or mention it to anyone. Not even Noah.

Sabrina watched Dr Cohen leave, then stood up and followed him out.

Junior grade Lieutenant Verak, USS Katana, Assistant Chief Tactical Officer and Assistant Security Chief thought the Vulcan-Human hybrid as he walked down the corridors of the USS Katana with a Gold departmental undershirt evident. It was a new look for him, a new style of life. Perhaps there would not have been such a scowl on his face had this change come by choice or as the result of a promotion. However, it had not. It had come with the complete opposite. He was transfered into Security/Tactical by Commander Keruac and Lieutenant Commander Zannar. He had also been stripped of his rank of Lieutenant and now was a junior grade. He was no longer even a Department Head. He had lost it all.

His duties were strictly Security and Tactical now, though primarily on the security end of things. He carried a phaser with him when on duty. He made rounds and helped assign security teams to areas of the ship should need be. This was not flying. It was not piloting. It was not what he was born to do and he hated being away from his regular duties. He hated being away from helm control.

Verak had fond memories of being on Earth and visiting the Earth Air & Space Museum in the District of Columbia, and the various other Aircraft museums around Earth and the Lunar colony. Piloting shuttles and starships meant everything to Verak. Now, he had to find a way to control his negative emotions and see his new duties as an opportunity to make himself a more well rounded Starfleet Officer. He was walking down the corridor that lead to Hydroponics when he came across a familiar face.

He held his hand up and made the standard Vulcan gesture. "Shira of Arboria" he said with a pleasant look in his eyes.

Shira tilted her head curiously at the gesture Verak made and tried to replicate it. Was this another one of those hand signs that Kyle and Noah had been teaching her? "Hello Verak!" she greeted cheerfully as she continued on her way to hydroponics.

Her Verak thought as he felt something deep inside of him radiating and pulsating. She appealed to his human side in a very emotional and physical way as he touched one of his cheeks and felt the warmth of a blush. He quickly turned around and followed the Arboreal. "Shira, wait" Verak said calling out after her.

The young hybrid had been made aware of the social event that was in the works. The Captain was hosting a Ball to allow the crew to ease tensions and socialize outside of their duties. Verak had been talking with a fellow security officer earlier. She told him that it was customary for human males to ask females to said social events. "I wish to talk to you" said Verak as he followed her into hydroponics.

Shira was still trying to master pronouns, so his statement was not entirely clear to her. "Verak talk to Shira?" she asked in clarification. She certainly wasn't going to tell him no; she enjoyed his company, she would always make time to talk to any of her friends. Besides, she needed to talk, to practice what she had learned.

The language barrier thought Verak. He was well aware of it by now, but Shira was improving each and everyday. "Yes" he said with a small nod. "Verak talk to Shira" he repeated in confirmation. "Verak and Shira, friends" he said with a small smile.

"Yes, friends," Shira said with a warm smile. "What talk?" she asked as they entered the hydroponics bay. She headed towards the back of the bay, to one of the nursery growing stations for seedlings and then began to set up the station.

Verak looked around nervously. "Shira... do you know dance?" he asked gently following behind her, watching what she was doing with a curious gaze. "You are interesting" he added. "Shira likes plants?"

"Dance?" she asked curiously, then continued to play with the word as she tried to remember what it meant. She had learned this word, she was just having trouble remembering it. "Oh, dance! Music, rhythm, and movement. Lots of fun with lots of people," she answered excitedly as she worked, setting up the bed so she could plant the Elder's root. "Shira likes plants. It is home. And Verak is interesting, too."

He nodded with understanding. "There is a party soon, Shira. People will dance with others" he said, doing his best to explain. "Shira makes Verak happy. Verak thinks about Shira, wants Shira to dance with him."

"That is why Verak turns red?" she asked innocently.

Verak looked at her and did turn slightly red, looking away nervously. "Something like that, Shira" he replied slowly bringing himself to look at her. "You are the most interesting creature of beauty that I've ever seen" he said reaching out and taking her hand in his, and placing her hand on his chest. "This is why Shira turns Verak red."

Shira smiled coyly. "When Shira is just Shira, then Shira will dance with Verak," she said softly, fluttering up so she could place a gentle kiss on his cheek.

What does that mean? he pondered to himself. When Shira kissed him on the cheek, he smiled. "Shira is sweet."

"Verak is nice," Shira reciprocated, then removed her hand from his so she could continue working. "But Verak is sad. Why?" she asked as she planted the Elder root in the soil and turned on the growing lamps.

He thought about how he could tell her. Then he remembered how she had called hydroponics her home. "Verak was bad. I can't visit home" he said with a gloomy look.

"Why was Verak bad?" she asked as she watered the garden. "Why can't Verak go home?"

Verak pouted and sighed. He ended up crossing his arms as he spoke to the Arboreal. "I hurt Jhu. Well, I tried to at least. It was stupid and impulsive. I know that I shouldn't have done it but she wasn't following protocol and I had to do something. I should have let it be. This ship is completely illogical and I'm not even a true Vulcan. I'm a half Vulcan who doesn't even know a damn thing about being Vulcan. I don't even really want to be Vulcan half the time, I just pull the 'illogical' stuff out and act stoic because I know it pisses people off and I find that quite entertaining" rambled the former helmsmen.

Shira didn't understand all that stuff about being Vulcan, but she did glean enough to know it made him sad. "Verak should just be Verak, nothing else," Shira said sagely. "But don't hurt Jhu, that's bad," she scolded gently.

Verak nodded. "I won't hurt Jhu." He smiled at Shira "You are quite wise, you know that, right?"

Shira had to think back through her limited vocabulary for a moment before nodding. "Shira wise." Then she looked down at the root she had planted and began to sing to it, beseeching the cutting to grow. Moments later, a sprout peeked out of the soil and reached towards the UV growing lights, growing taller until it was almost as long as Shira's hand. She stopped singing to let it continue naturally from this point on, but it was nice to know that the piece of the Elder was rooted and growing.

Shira sexy thought Verak with a wolfish smirk. "Yes, yes you are wise and beautiful."

Shira did not return a smile. if anything, her expression drooped and became guarded. She had seen a similar smirk on her captor. "Shira wise," she repeated uneasily.

"Yes, yes you are" said Verak. Shaking his head, Verak walked away. I will never understand how to do this dating thing He looked back at Shira "I have to go. I'll be back when I know what to do."

"Bye, Verak," she said softly, watching him leave. She didn't know how to feel after that last exchange. Verak wasn't the only one who was clueless about dating!

ON:

The meeting had ended uneventfully, they all had their orders and were dismissed without incident. He liked meetings like that, they were straight forward with not a lot of unnecessary conversations. Straight and to the point. Besides, he was eager to get back to the lab and start his research on Ketracel White. It wouldn't hurt to look into the Jem'Hadar themselves and their cloning processes. He and Kyle left together and instead of going to the bridge and catching the turbolift there, they left through the secondary exit that was a ramp that lead down to deck two. Typically when they were alone they signed but since they were walking, it seemed more prudent to just speak.

Noah would be lying if he had some misgivings about going on an away mission with Kyle, not because he didn't trust the man, not that he didn't think he was capable, but he was thinking more of conflict of interest. If the team got into trouble, how would Kyle deal with that? But, he trusted the man, Noah's life wasn't any more important then the others on the team. Though he had misgivings, he pushed those away. He knew it was something he needn't worry about right now. They were supposed to go on an away mission together on the previous mission, but one of the inoculates he was given before the mission had caused an allergic reaction. It was pretty major and it landed him in sickbay for a couple of days. It was not a pleasant experience.

Before they reached the end of the ramp, he took a hold of Kyle's elbow, spun him around to face him and kissed him gently. His hand reached up and cupped his cheek. The kiss only lasted a few moments but it was one helluva a kiss. It was soft and sensual. He leaned in and touched his forehead to Kyle's. "Now that is a proper congratulations, Lieutenant."

The kiss had been an unexpected, and quite pleasant surprise. Kyle's one regret was that it did not last longer. Ever since the first time they had kissed so long ago it had been one of his favorite of their intimate activities together. He knew Noah was well aware of that and was sure that was why he had kissed him that way. The fact that it had been done so boldly and openly made it only that much more pleasurable.

"That was so proper, I am going to have to ask you do repeat it about a dozen times, when we are off duty."

Noah smiled then barked out a laugh, or what was equivalent to one. Despite all the help with speech therapy and communicative therapies, he still did not sound like someone who wasn't deaf. It was his way off life he was used to it, it just seemed harder for everyone else to get used to it. "Well, there is always plenty where that came from," he said. He took a hold of the other man's hand and the two proceeded onto deck 2 and began their trek to the nearest turbolift. "So, we are going on an away mission together," Noah said. It was a statement, not a question or anything like that.

"Yeah for the first time. Its going to be... I don't know different. How do you feel about that?" Kyle had been making an effort to listen more, to really hear his husband. The question was a sincere one, he hoped that Noah would be honest with him and tell him how he really felt.

"Just fine I guess." Noah shrugged after he spoke. "We just have to remember to be objective and do our jobs," he said. "Though that is an obvious thing, we just need to be sure to stick with it." He sighed. "The problem is people talk and we don't need that to happen."

There was a pause as Kyle looked into Noah's eyes."You have no idea how hard that's going to be for me if something bad happens. To stay objective and not try to protect you before someone else."

"I understand and know the feeling," Noah said. Even though he and Kyle hit a rough patch, he obviously still loved the man and would lay down his own life to protect him. "Frankly I am a little surprised they are putting us together on this mission, I thought there was some sort of regulation against it." But, he also knew that could be wrong as well. Starfleet duty was first, family was second... even though the powers that be wanted their fleet to think otherwise.

"There probably is, but don't think our CO is too much a stickler for the rules. In most cases I have no problem with that, but now, well now I'm praying to whoever may be out there that we don't have to test ourselves."

"Agreed." Noah nodded. "Though all we can do is out best," he said, then continued, "However I am sure there are people out there who hope we fail. As a doctor I am disgusted by that but as a person who is in Starfleet and knows what happened all those years ago, I get it. I mean shouldn't there come a time where you have to move on and let go and realize the past is the past." He sighed, shook his head and realized what a dumb comment that was on his part. "They tell us why history is important to learn, so that we don't repeat it and yet even after all this time, even after all we know, we still harbor hate and prejudice."

"I know. They say that time changes things, but they're wrong. Time doesn't change unless people change."

"Well that is just it, the people are the ones who have to change," Noah said. "But you know, if we said something like that to someone who was in the Dominion War they would slap us down and tell us that we weren't there and that we didn't know what it was like. Which, they would be correct but humanity supposedly evolved past hate and yet here it is, still slapping us in the face." He stopped and then faced Kyle, "I feel like I am committing some kind of sacrilege by saying these things. Hopefully people won't gang up on me and lynch me for having independent thought." He laughed, but the laugh was not a funny ha ha type of laugh.

"You're right, we've just substituted a different label to the thing we hate but you know I'm going to be here, stick up for you. I love you."

This caused a smile to spread on Noah's lips. He gripped Kyle's hand tighter, but not too tight. "Thanks hun," he said. "I love you too." After a moment, he and Kyle started to walk again. "I should probably get back to my office and start looking into the makings of Ketracel White."

"Yeah and I'm going to go see if I can get hold of father. I'll see you later."

Noah gave a firm nod, leaned in and gave Kyle a quick peck on the lips. The two then parted ways.

OFF:

Lieutenant Noah Evans, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Kyle Weaver
Asst. Chief Intelligence Officer

Ensign Cho'ren was in her quarters after a long day of security checks and walkthroughs. She had been assigned the rounds today and though her Lagashi augments gave her inhuman strength and stamina that was more than a match for just about any other being out there, her feet were still sore from all that walking. She just wanted to sit down and try to enjoy her dinner and do some reading. She had a new shuttle manual from home she wanted to read through the old fashioned way and not worry about reports of 'vicious beasts' roaming the lower decks.

Most of those reports had turned out to just be people caught unawares when that flying plant girl had gone past them. Shira, as it seemed her name was, was a constant source of reports when she came on board but the crew seemed to be getting used to her finally.

When she punched up her order from her replicator, it looked a bit odd. Her tomato soup was neither steaming, nor moving like liquid should. Spooning a chunk from the bowl, it appeared to look like soup, but cold and gelatinous... Wonderful... Her replicator was on the fritz again...

She was sure that whatever engineer was sent to deal with it would blame the malfunction on her somehow so she just set the bowl back in the replicator, quickly sent a maintenance request in, and headed out of her quarters to see if she could get some decent tomato soup from the dining hall instead.