Nathan made his way off the shuttle craft, ducking his head as he went through the door. He made his way around the back of the shuttle and was handed his duffle bag by the ensign that was unloading the cargo.

"Thank you Ensign" Nathan said and then made his way out of the shuttle bay and into the halls of the Katana. He slung his duffle over his right shoulder and looked both left and right. He was not exactly sure where he should go.

Haley came around the corner, looking over the equipment she would need to take on her trip to Teplan on a PADD. Looking up, she saw a large man looking rather lost. "You look more lost than a Ferengi in a boxing match."

He was indeed lost. Nathan looked at the woman who had just approached him and glanced at the pips on her neck. "Lieutenant, I am Lieutenant Nathan Tonkin. I'm the new Chief of security." He set his bag down and held his hand out to her. "Its nice to meet you...and I am lost."

Haley shook the man's hand and smiled. "Welcome aboard. I'm Lieutenant Haley Collins, I fly the ship, kinda new myself. Where are you trying to get to?"



Patrick was on his way back to his cabin. There were a few things he wanted to pick up, while Noah wasn't there. Things his husband probably wouldn't approve of his taking down to the planet, but things he felt he really needed if he was going to do his job.

He rounded the corner and saw the two officers, one of which he was sure was new. Giving them both one of his easy grins, he said, "Good afternoon, I'm Kyle Weaver."

Nathan was about to answer Collins when Weaver walked up behind him. Turning to the newcomer " Afternoon, I'm Lieutenant Nathan Tonkin. I am your new security chief." looking to Collins again he said " I was told to report to Commander Kristopher Kerouac or Lieutenant Commander Jhu t'Dharvanek."

The captain and XO should still be on the bridge," Collins added.

Nathan nodded "Great." He picked up his duffle and looked between the two of them " the bridge is... this way?" He has studied the ship lay out but he always found that once he was standing on a ship that he has no idea where he was.

"I can take you, if you want,"Kyle offered, "I just have to stop and pick up something along the way."

Nathan nodded to Weaver "That would be very kind of you." He slung his duffle over his shoulder and smiled at Collins. "Will you be joining us?"

"With a smile like that, how can I say no?" she commented, falling in step next to Nathan.

Nathan could not help but chuckle a little at Collins. "So if I need anything I know who can't deny me now."

Haley grinned slyly. "Bite me, ya bugger."

Nathan followed Weaver down the hall to his room. "So Weaver, what is it you do on the Katana?"

Kyle just rolled his eyes at the banter going back and forth. It was amusing to him and he wasn't about to get in the way of whatever might be happening. The doors to his cabin opened up Fortunately Noah wasn't there so he was able to grab what he needed out of their bedroom and made his way back out into the living are. "Okay," he said, "are you ready now?"

Nathan looked to Haley "I seem to have my escorts in order, I guess its time to let command know I'm here."

"That's a good idea. If you're more than 5 minutes late, the Captain will have you cleaning the holodeck. Been having some Jello issues lately," Haley joked.

This time Patrick had to shake his head. "You two should get a room."

"Jello issues?" Nathan mused " That sounds...um...interesting." He grinned at Patrick "Yes, getting a room in very high on my priority list at the moment."

"I didn't mean separately. But Jello? Really? And I thought I was kinky." Patrick deadpanned

Haley sighed. "Men... you always have sex on your minds. Nah, I meant there was a malfunction with the replicator while I was running the surfing program/ Turned the entire bloody ocean to Jello.

"That's a very sexist remark," Nathan quipped "I would like to point out that I never said anything about sex...Surfing??"

"You don't have to say sex to talk about sex. Yeah, surfing, you know, standing on a board and riding waves," Haley explained.

"Surfing does sound like fun, but I'm curious, did you have someone check out the program, see why it malfunctioned?"

"I filed a malfunction report with Engineering but who knows if it's been fixed or not yet."

"Maybe I'll check when we get back, I wouldn't want anything more serious to happen. Jello is funny, something else could be tragic."

Nathan looked between the two of them as they walked "Well I would love to try surfing some time."

"I'd be happy to teach you," Haley commented with a smile.

"Surfing could be fun," Kyle put in, could you teach me as well?"

"Sure," Haley shrugged with a smile. "but anyone else, and I'm going to start charging people."

"I'm sure you'd be worth it, but I kind of like free myself," Kyle replied

Nathan glanced between the two of them and shifted his bag in his hand. "Maybe you two should get a room instead..."

Kyle turned to face Nathan a mischievous smile on his face. He held up his right hand pointing to the wedding band with his left hand.
"I'm not free to do something like that and if I were, she wouldn't be the one I'd be interested in."

Nathans head cocked to the side as this information processed, "Why would you not be interested in her, Shes gorgeous!" You could literally see the understanding wash over Nathans face. "Oh..." He was very embarrassed and his face blushed. "I...um...sorry." Nathan shifted on his feet uncomfortably.

"It's okay,"Kyle reassured him, "And I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm taken and very much in love. I'm only interested in one man."

Nathan rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled " Me making assumptions again. How close are we to the bridge?"

"Yeah," said Kyle pointing, "That turbolift right there should take you to the Bridge."

Nathan watched the doors open and took a step inside. He turned and looked at the two who had greeted him "Going up?"

Haley smiled, "Sorry, but this gorgeous pilot has some preflight planning to do but maybe I'll catch up with you after my mission."

Nathan nodded to them both and said aloud "Bridge please computer." and the lift doors slid shut.

As soon as Andy and Maica left her cabin, Jhu consulted the computer to find out where Kerouac was. Findjng him to be nearby in his own quarters, Jhu used a PADD to record an image of the Section 31 device and headed out into the corridor. When she reached the door to Kerouac's quarters, she hesitated outside for a long time before pressing the chime to request entry.

"What?!" shouted Kris as he quickly arose from the sofa in his quarters' living area. He had been doing some light reading when his eyes had grown heavy. He had must have fallen asleep at some point. His response was out of surprise rather than anger. "Please, Enter" he added more gently as he sat up and tried to quickly put himself together, but his hair was a mess and he his facial hair was beginning to come back.

His initial answer nearly sent Jhu scurrying away from the door, but the invitation that followed was sincere. Still, she hesitated a moment longer before going inside. "I hate to say this, but... we have a problem. A serious one."

"What's new?" scoffed Kris with a dismissive shrug. "Okay, lay it on me. What is this serious problem?"

"This." Jhu handed him the PADD with the picture of the device they'd found. "In my old cabin."

"Oh My" replied Kris in a breathy tone. He then looked up at Jhu and smiled. "Care to explain? I am not sure exactly what that is..."

"It's a couple of things. Surveillance, tracking... and transwarp transporter. You can guess who it belongs to."

Kris was interested now. He studied it a little more on the PADD before commenting again. "Well, it does not look Cardassian nor Romulan. I guess that rules out them. It looks Federation but modified and rather advanced. So, that leads me to suspect our good friends of Section 31?"

"You get a gold star," Jhu replied dryly, crossing her arms to hide how much her hands were shaking. "We can't remove it. They'll figure out I found it..."

"Leave it.... for the time being at least." said Kris with a smirk. "We have nothing to hide from them. If they want to play big brother, let them. When Matthews returns, I'll have her send you some of her best engineers. Work with them on a plan to disable or jam that damn thing."

"Carter did that already... blocked the transporter from activating, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it."

"Well, that takes care of part of the problem" replied Kris. He was still a bit concerned. "What bothers me the most is the thought of how it got here. Was it put in before my command, when the starship was undergoing its repairs and upgrades? Because, the thought that it was put on after we were out... that means someone put it here and we have one of those 31 bastards among the crew."

"Or worse. A stowaway." Jhu shivered at the very idea of it, reflexively looking behind herself, checking for an adversary who wasn't there. "I don't know how long it was there. I'd never have found it if it hadn't malfunctioned.

Kris had not thought about that possibility. He hated that Jhu had. "If there is an S31 mole aboard, I want them discovered and if there is a stowaway aboard... we'll handle that if it comes to it."

"I'll see what I can do." Jhu hated to even think about what that might entail. "Can't promise it'll be by the book."

"There's a book?" replied Kris with a small chuckle. "...Must have slept through that course at the Academy."

"You and me both." Jhu's smile was a mixture of genuine amusement and very forced calm. 'Panicky and scared' wasn't the image she wanted anyone having, even if it would be the truth. "And anyone who decides to be funny and try to sneak up on me is getting hurt."

Kris wanted to express his appreciation to her for her work. He just was not sure how to do it. Eventually, he settled on the straight forward approach. "Commander... keep up the good work."

Jhu gave him a puzzled look, one born of a career full of mistrust and red tape. Then she relaxed, laughing a little. "Finally, someone who appreciates what I do."

"Off the book... I love it" replied Kris with a smile. "However, on the book... it often leaves a mess for me to clean up with Starfleet. However, I would not have you any other way. I need someone like you on this starship."

"You need someone utterly insane and hopelessly violent?" Jhu smirked a little.

"Every starship would be wise to have one" added Kris. "Did you have any other matters to address or report, Commander, or is the S31 bug our only concern at this time?"

"That was all, really. Things have settled down otherwise."

"Glad to hear it. Keep me updated if anything changes" replied Kris, silently dismissing the woman.

Commander Kerouac had been sitting at his desk waiting for the foul mouth, vulgar, unorthodox Chief Petty Officer to show up. He had called for her to report to his Ready Room several minutes ago. He gave her the benefit of the doubt about her being rather tardy. Kris knew that Carter and Matthews were working round the clock all around the starship, working hard to fix the damage caused by the Jem'hadar.

Finally thought Kris when the proximity alarm alerted him to someone approaching his Ready Room. "Get your ass in here, Carter!" shouted Kris. He was more used to having a little disagreement with the woman over how did handled something rather than complimenting her or awarding her something.

Andy didn't see what all the fuss was about, all she had been doing was what he ordered her to do, but whatever. The weary ex-Borg woman entered the Captain's office and stood tall across from Kris, looking more than a little rough around the edges. How long had it been since this woman had taken a break? "You called for me, Captain?" Andy asked with a tired resolve. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could get back to those repairs.

"Yes, I did... almost half an hour ago, Chief" retorted Kris with a shaking of his head. "Have a seat. We have something to talk about" added Kris, directing the woman to sit down. "When Lieutenant Kail left us, he left us without a Chief Operations Officer, a rather vital position to any starship. You have been doing a fairly good job filling his shoes while we looked for a replacement."

"Half an hour ago, I was out on the hull patching up some damage, so forgive me for being a bit late," Andy retorted settled into a chair. She was trying to contain her attitude, but she was worn thin. "I'm trying to keep things together in Ops, but it ain't easy. I got a Lieutenant, uh... Weatherly? He keeps trying to pull rank, so the department's a little divided on who to follow, but most of them's been deferring to my experience. If he's been complaining 'bout me again, I'll back down. Just as long as the job gets done, that's all I care about."

"If Mister Weatherly has any complaints, he can march his ass to my Ready Room, pull up a seat and get his reassignment as Captain's Yeoman" said Kris firmly. Weatherly... ah, nice assets Kris thought with a self dismissal of the thought. "Carter, I did not summon you here because anyone has complained. However, the problem that you have had with Mister Weatherly is partially why you are here. You have officers down there who only see you by your rank which is beneath them. We're going to change that" said Kris. "I've found the woman to head Operations and that woman is you, Chief."

Andy could only blink at Kris for a moment. "Sir, if this is a joke, it ain't very funny," Andy said flatly, not at all believing that she had just been promoted. Though she did believe he would make Weatherly a yeoman for some reason, probably because of that stick up his ass.

"I'm quite serious, Chief. I really am not in the mood to joke around. My First Officer, Ship's Counselor and other members of my crew have been killed. I have reports to fill out and services to hold. We need someone fronting Ops who knows what they are doing and that is you."

"This better not be a temporary thing," Andy said seriously, worried that this might to be a request to simply hold down the fort until reinforcements arrived. As much as she was capable of manning Chief of Operations, and she wanted to do it too, but she still had her pride and she wasn't going to accept this if Kris was going to bump her out when a 'proper' replacement arrived. "I'll get your ship in order. Just make sure Weatherly knows it so he can get off his high horse. I can't have a department that's divided."

Kris sighed. "The position is yours, Damn it!" shouted Kris a bit agitated. "We are not going to replace you unless you need to be replaced. However, I have seen some of your work and you move at an acceptable pace and perform quality work. That is all you need to do. Keep up the good work and if there are any problems with your Department, Chief, you are the Department Head... fix it or take matters to our new First Officer."

That was all the assurance she needed to hear. "Can do, sir," she said with a sharp nod. But clearly he hadn't seen her work if 'acceptable' was all he had to say on the matter... Not waiting to be dismissed, she rose from her chair to leave, then paused. "We're making good time with the repairs to the hull. We can be ready to leave Kendi in... 18 hours."

"18 hours, Chief. 18 hours and not a damn second over" said Kris glaring at her. "I want to be as far away from here as possible."

"I mean what I say, Captain..." Andy said as she headed for the door. "I said 18 hours, the ship will be ready to fly in under 18 hours."

That's the type I like. To the point, no bull shit fluffing of the time table. 18 hours is 18 hours thought Kris with a dismissive nod. Some Commanding Officers like when they were told something would take 18 hours and then 16 hours later it was finished. Kris was not one of those people.

-=Current Repairs=-
-visual sensor limits unlocked.
-all positronic relays replaced
-most systems mildly corroded. oil baths and coating required.

-=Eventual Upgrades=-
-a few more tricorder-like sensors.
-dermal regenerator built into one palm
-investigate sleep and dream functions.
-New Body - would prefer to keep her same skin at the very least

-=Current Hardware=-
-she already perfectly mimics the functioning and looks of an Orion female (sex slave).
-her core program is the experimental basis for the Maddox androids with an orion holoprogram overlaid on it.
-her universal translator is using her holosuite core programming port in a hodgepodge attempt to integrate it.
-the rest of the holosuite core's interface functions are routed through the body controls and a simple diagnostic port. that was supposed to make her hard to hack into.
-self healing synthetic skin - hard to pull off, but not impossible. needs to be cut for most access to internal systems. doesn't like being torn.
-powered by a Lagashi micro-fusion reactor in her chest cavity where a heart normally would be - has been reported as being an unstable model.

-=Maintainers=-
Jenni and Andy

At the time of the JP Viewer Discretion is Advised Maica will irreversibly cease functioning in 2 weeks, 4 days, 18 hours, 43 minutes, and 19 seconds. That is her 10 year operational limit which was hinted at indirectly in other posts and revealed in the aforementioned JP

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Az: Since Maica is an artificial life form and is needing high levels of maintenance, I'm making this post to discuss her repairs, hardware, and eventual upgrades. Please comment and add to this list as you like.

Monoui: you mentioned in IRC that you would like her to be able to process memory faster, like Data. I would suggest that the end result should be the elimination of the holosuite core, integrating her holomatrix directly into the positronic brain. As it works now, the positronic network carries most of the processing load, but then the process goes through the holosuite core, then her holomatrix, then back out. The effect of this would slow her thought process and limiting her memory load, creating a more realistic emulation of humanoid thought processes and even entropic memory decay, but it becomes an inefficient system in terms of being an artificial life form. If the core of who she is is stored and processed in the positronic brain directly, then if would become much more efficient and give you the end result you're looking for. Also, we could even play around with bio-synth technology, give her a partially organic brain by using bio-neural gel. this could also have the added side effect of making her perception of sensory input more realistic compared to humanoid sensory perception. But this would be a MAJOR overhaul, something to be done way down the road, but just an idea I thought you might like.

Az: the issue with using a positronic brain directly instead of just the relays interfacing with the holocore is the inherent instability shown in the series with Data's daughter. It would be an awesome thing to do, but would run the risk of similar instabilities.

Monoui: yeah, but Data was stable with the exact same setup. Lal wasn't stable. Technology has come a long way since those days. Add to that the knowledge of Borg neural topography and the bio-neural gel circuitry, I think we could make something interesting. And Andy wouldn't do this without running a bazillion simulations first.

Ray: Thanks for putting this up.

Andrew: What's our timeframe here in conjunction with the mission, especially taking in the current developments?

Az: well, now i'm hoping all done by the end of whatever mission comes after 'blight' with temp repairs done during 'blight'

Monoui: that seems reasonable to me. I think we can keep her running that long.

Andrew: Let's hope so... :)

Az: updated to reflect the recent writings in Chicken Soup Drama parts 1 through... wherever we end up.

Andrew: I'm gonna be kinda in and out over the next couple of weeks. If you need input from Jenni, it may be a little slow in coming...

Monoui: with the completion of 'New body woes', Maica has been transferred to her new body. closing this post. we can start a new one if we ever need to revisit it.

[ON]

Lieutenant Commander K'a'mirh'un Tegan, better known as "Cameron" by his friends and colleagues, rose from bed beside a vibrantly beautiful... and naked... Orion girl. He reached for his pants which were lying on the floor and started pulling them on when she stirred. With a sleepy yawn, she wrapped an arm around his thigh and let her fingers play. "Going already, Cam?"

"Yeah. Duty calls," Cameron said, smiling.

The Orion girl pouted. She came off the bed and strutted into the middle of the hotel room. She put her hands on her hips and made sure that Cameron looked. "Well, that's too bad." She crossed the room and straddled him, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning in close. A smile played teasingly across her lips. "You sure I can't change your mind?"

Cameron chuckled as he savored the subtle and yet intoxicating aroma of her pheromones. Staying a little while longer began to seem like a good idea. He glanced at the chronometer on the wall and wondered just how long the runabout would wait for him. Trailing his hands up and down her back, the Klingon/Trill hybrid spent a long second appreciating her feminine wiles before heaving an audible sigh. "I wish I could. But something tells me my new CO wouldn't appreciate it if I missed my ride." He lifted her off and reached for his tunic. "How about I look you up next time I'm at the station?"

"I'd like that," the Orion said, grinning mischievously. She went back to the bed and watched Cameron finish getting dressed before remarking, "You look almost as good in uniform as you do out of it."

"Well thank you," Cameron replied jovially. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on her neck. "Till next time, then."

***

Activity on board Starbase Unity was just beginning to come to when Cameron arrived at the terminal -- Runabout Byarnez was already docked and waiting for him. Checking his collar and still getting adjusted to his new red tunic, as well as the extra pip on his neck, he made his way up to the pilot, who greeted him with a crisp nod. "Ready to go, Commander?" The pilot asked.

"Just about," Cameron admitted as the pilot accepted his baggage. "Am I the only one on board?" Cameron asked.

The pilot shook his head. "No, sir. A Lieutenant Bridget O'Conner is already on board."

Cameron nodded. For some reason that name sounded familiar. "And how long once we leave before we rendezvous with the Katana?"

"At Warp five, our flight time is expected to be six and a half hours. I'm planning on keeping a wide berth between us and known Jem'hadar military outposts. I know we're all supposed to be friends and all, but I don't plan on being the first victim of an unfortunate misunderstanding."

"Couldn't agree more, Ensign." Cameron admitted, patting the red-collared officer on the shoulder. "Well, I'll let you get us underway. Let me know if anything comes up. In the meantime, I'll be in the back."

Cameron followed the floor into the aft compartment of the runabout, but didn't see O'Connor. Maybe she was in the head? Taking a seat at the table, he opened his jacket and pulled a PADD. When the screen came up, it flashed to an image of Cameron's new CO -- Kristopher Kerouac. The man's service jacket was fairly typical; he began his career in flight operations before moving over to Ops, and finally command. Cameron chortled when he saw that Kerouac was a year younger than he was.

"The Denmark and the Iron Horse..." Cameron uttered. Both ships, the Denmark being a Sabre-class and the Iron Horse a Steam Runner, were relatively small classes of starship. The Katana, an Intrepid-refit, was the largest ship that Kerouac had ever served on. The smallest ship that Cameron had ever served on was the Proteus -- Norway class.

After four years exploring the Delta Volanis cluster on board the Proteus, Cameron had been grateful to score a posting to the Poseidon. With its larger quarters and greater amenities, the Nebula-class Poseidon had certainly been a step up for the newly commissioned officer. And while the Katana was barely a third the size of the Poseidon, it was also much more modern in design and aesthetics. Since the Katana would be operating in the Gamma Quadrant for the immediate future, it made sense that it had been constructed with long assignments in mind.

Cameron swiped down at the PADD to bring up the next personnel file when he felt a subtle lurch of the inertial dampeners; the pilot must have gotten the runabout underway. A second later, the opening and closing of a door brought his attention to the arrival of the other passenger.

The ship lurched just as Bridget stepped out of the head. She stumbled a bit, being caught off guard, and grunted discontentedly. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night, someone in the hotel room next to hers was banging around for most of the night. As such, she was more than a little tired and grumpy about having to start her first day on her new assignment that way.

As she made her way back to her seat, she noticed that someone else had since boarded the runabout. So far she could only see the back of his head. As she made herself comfortable in her seat, she was able to get a better look at him and was startled to see a familiar face. Albeit a little older than the Petty Officer she had served with when she was fresh out of the Academy, Cameron Tegan still had a very distinctive face. "Hello, Petty Officer Tegan. Or should I say Commander Tegan, now?" Bridget smiled. He was still very good looking; she wondered if he still had the same reputation for having many different girl "friends" that he used to. Nevertheless, it was nice to see a somewhat familiar face.

Cameron looked up from his PADD and immediately recognized the slim red head. Back on the Cushing, he'd still been an enlisted-man when she came aboard as a freshly minted Ensign. By the extra pip on her collar, it was obvious that her she'd made some progression in her career. "Ms. O'Connor," Cameron said, putting his PADD down and trying not to act surprised. "It's been a while. I take it you've been assigned to the Katana as well. Last I recall, you were up to... what... eight languages?"

"It's eleven now. And I'm working on adding a few Dominion ones to that list," Bridget replied. "You've made a bit of a career change, I see."

The Klingon/Trill hybrid smiled modestly.

The comm system chimed as the pilot's voice told them that the runabout had reached the edge of the system and was about to go to warp. A moment later, the telltale shift in the gravity plating told Cameron that the ship had indeed crossed the threshold. "Wonderful. In another six and a half hours or so, we'll be at Kendi." He returned to his PADD.

Six and a half hours would allow Bridget to catch up on some much needed sleep. She settled into her seat and pulled out a PADD with a book she knew would help put her straight to sleep. It was an old English novel from the 1800s and the long winded sentences were stupefying. The perfect thing to put her to sleep so she could wake up refreshed and ready to go once they reached the Katana.

*** Six and a half hours later ***

After a quarter of a day's travel, Runabout Byarnez crossed into the home system of the planet Kendi, and transferred into orbit. A few minutes later, the pilot came in over the intercom, announcing that he'd begun matching velocities with Starship Katana, and that it would be coming into view shortly. Cameron stirred himself awake, having fallen asleep on the second hundredth service jacket. He found Ms. O'Connor doing the same.

With a stretch, the executive officer stood. "Might as well head to the cockpit so we can see for ourselves."

Bridget glanced sidelong at Cameron before grunting and joining him on his way to the cockpit.

Making their way to the cockpit, the two Starfleet officers had no difficulty locating the Intrepid-class starship looming in high orbit over the planet. One of the system's stars shined on it brightly enough that the Katana had been converted into a small beacon. Having heard about the Jem'hadar attack while enroute, Cameron made sure to study spots of battle damage in particular.

The Executive Officer looked over to O’Connor. "Have you served on board an Intrepid-class, before, Lieutenant?"

"I have, but it has been awhile," said Bridget. "Have you served on one before?" Bridget looked intently at the different signs of battle damage. She shook her head sadly, coming in new right after a fight was not the best time to start a new assignment.

Cameron shook his head. "No, I haven't."

The comm. system came alive as someone on board the Katana began to feed information to the runabout's pilot. Moments later, he turned. "They're ready to receive you at any time, Commander. Just step onto the transporter pad when you're ready."

Cameron looked to Bridget and offered one of his trademark smiles. "Ready, Ms. O'Connor?"

"I am," replied Bridget.

Cameron and Bridget stepped onto the transporter pad. Cameron touched his com badge and said "Tegan to Katana, two to beam up."

The two officers disappeared in a flurry of blue-white energy.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan
Executive Officer
USS Katana

Lieutenant Bridget O'Connor
Assistant Chief Science Officer
Language Specialist
USS Katana

[ON]

"I'll see you later," said Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan as he parted ways with Lieutenant O'Connor. The woman had been a traveling companion through the runabout's transit from Starbase Unity to the Katana's location around Kendi. While she was heading to personal quarters, Cameron decided it best to report in to the Katana's Commanding Officer -- Commander Kristopher Kerouac.

Stepping into the turbo-lift, Cameron ordered it to take him to the bridge, and waited. Moments later, the dual doors opened with that familiar Federation hiss, exposing the Klingon/Trill hybrid to the Katana's nerve center. A few officers turned to see the new arrival, and Cameron smiled politely in return before making his way to Kerouac's ready room. He pressed the chime, and waited.

Commander Kristopher N. Kerouac had just endured one of the worst situations in his life since his days in during the Dominion War. The USS Katana, his starship had spent a few days on the surface of the planet, Kendi with an additional two weeks traveling at a very low rate of warp speed undergoing extensive repairs following a vicious Dominion attack that resulted in the deaths of several crew members including the starship's First Officer and Ship's Counselor. A ship's Counselor could wait as a chunk of Lieutenant Maica's career in Starfleet was a Counselor. However, what Katana truly needed was a First Officer. Lieutenant Commander t'Dharvanek had stepped up to fill the role temporarily but very much against her will or desire. There had been no way that Kris could have persuaded her to continue in the position more permanently.

There had been little choice in the matter. Commander Kerouac had to put in a request with Starfleet Command to supply him with replacement crew. It had not taken long for Kris to receive confirmation from Rear Admiral Adislo and Commodore Cameron in regards to his requests. After a few days upon leaving Kendi, Commander Kerouac had been informed that a runabout from Starbase Unity would be dispatched to Katana with additional crew aboard, including Katana's new First Officer.

Presently Kris was in his Ready Room looking over the personnel files of his new crew. He was very interested in meeting with his new right hand man. Lieutenant Commander K’a’mirh’un Tegan was a career Security & Tactical officer with an interesting genetic background. Partially, Kris was interested in seeing what happens when a Tril/Human crossed with a Klingon to produce a child. Like Kris' previous First Officer, Tegan was older than Kris, though only by several months. In addition to Tegan's arrival and the others on the shuttle would be he arrival of a few transports that would be dropping off additional crew.

The chime rang and Kris placed his work aside. He reached over to tap the control for the doors to open and took in the sight of his new First Officer. “Lieutenant Commander Tegan, come in. Have a seat.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Cameron replied with one of his trademark grins as he stepped into the ready room while the doors closed behind him. Reaching one of the small chairs seated in front of the table, the Klingon-Trill hybrid took his seat. “As much as I wish this were under better circumstances, it’s good to be aboard the Katana,” Cameron said, making sure to keep his sentences short and not get into one of his long, drawn-out, ramblings.

Kris nodded. "I felt the same way when I joined this crew, Commander. I was in a similar situation as yourself right now. You are coming aboard to fill the seat of someone who has been killed. I assume Starfleet briefed you on our little skirmish with the Dominion?" asked Kris nervously. Cameron nodded. It was evident that the man knew at the very least that the past several days had been very solemn aboard the starship.

"I've been looking over your personnel file... very attractive read" said Kris with a small gleam.

Cameron let out a half chortle and cracked his neck. "It's been a good career," he said, resisting the temptation to jump right into a story about his decorated history in Starfleet, which began as an enlisted-man before he converted to an officer in the latter part of 2382; he was speaking to his commanding officer, not trying to impress some attractive woman at some bar. "Are there any questions regarding my service jacket that you have on your mind, Captain?"

"Yes, indeed there is something on my mind" replied Kris adjusting himself in his seat. "There are plenty of applicants to Starfleet Academy who get rejected their first time and some their second time. However, rarely do I ever meet someone who was rejected several different times and yet still toughed it out. You were an Enlisted man for a large chunk of your career."

Letting a small but noticeable grin creep onto his face, Cameron nodded. "Yes. Back then, I used to think that my Klingon persistence would get me through anything if I tried hard and often enough, but yes, I eventually accepted defeat, and enlisted. It wasn't until the Proteus, almost twelve years later, that I began to look at earning a commission, again. By then, I was a lot wiser and more prepared to do what needed to be done in order to succeed."

Kris nodded. "If there is something that I can appreciate in a Starfleet officer, it is one that does not give up" said Commander Kerouac gently. "You had a very interesting life and your way of getting into Starfleet reflects that."

"I try to keep things interesting," Cameron admitted, nodding again. "Saying that, it certainly sounds like the Katana has had a few interesting days as of late." The Klingon-Trill shifted in his chair, and took notice over the fact that, given his height, that he had to look downward to look Kerouac head on. He'd have to be careful about how he stood on the bridge so as not to dwarf the human. It was important that the chain of command be respected. Cameron's expression turned serious. "If you don't mind my saying, Captain..." Cameron was certain to add, "But I've had a chance to review several of the crew's latest mission reports. Lieutenant Commander Tul Zanaar's... in particular."

"I welcome any and all questions or concerns. Please, speak freely if something is on your mind" replied Kris leaning in a bit.

Tread carefully, Cameron... the Klingon-Trill thought to himself. He was glad that his commanding officer wasn't Betazoid -- like his last one had been while he was 2O aboard the Poseidon. No matter how many times he tried to conceal his thoughts with her, she always had a way of weaning them out of him. "Commander Zanaar's logs, with all due respect, mentioned you in a few different colors. While he clearly respected you, he also mentioned that you aren't exactly 'by the book'."

Like when he mentioned in his log that you left the ship, in an unknown albeit dangerous environment, without communicating your intent or command objectives to your last XO... the Klingon-Trill thought wearily, but said nothing of it.

"That is an accurate assessment" replied Kristopher carefully. "I believe that I turned him a few different colors over the past few months together" added Kris as he examined his new First Officer. "Truth be told, Commander, this starship is my first command and I was not even the named Commanding Officer for her. I was assigned to Katana as First Officer but found myself in command after a shuttle incident occurred resulting in the death of the assigned CO" explained Kris.

Kris did not read minds. It was not one of his talents. However, he had a fair idea what reports the man had been reading. "Arboria" said Kris briskly. He looked at the man for some indication that he was on the correct path. "I assume you were reading over Tul's reports on the Arboria mission. The one that I lead myself without notifying him... early bird gets the worm."

Cameron nodded. "That was one particular instance that caught my eye," he admitted, gesturing with his hand. "Frankly, I'd have considered it Captain's prerogative," Cameron grinned. "That being said, I, as your new executive officer, would like to... avoid.... any future misunderstandings. Communication is the real work of leadership." He added, quoting Nitin Nohria before moving on. He didn't want to sit too long on that particular issue.

"I have reviewed the readiness report from Lieutenant Matthews," Cameron continued. "It sounds like we'll be licking our wounds for a few more days before the Katana is back up to one-hundred percent, but we'll get there. I'll keep on the crew and the rest of the senior staff to make sure of that. In the meantime, is there anything else that I should be aware of?"

"Lieutenant Commander Zanaar and I clashed constantly. However, the point of our clashing in relation to the Arboria incident was with Shira. The Commander did not take to the idea of allowing Shira aboard as a guest and he certainly did not approve of her traveling about the ship without being under guard or security escort. I did not believe that she should have been treated any differently than any other guest." Kris looked at this new First Officer and continued, "She has proven to be a trust worthy individual albeit she does not understand everything. I would like to offer her some duties aboard Katana and see if she takes to a more structured life as a member of the crew."

Cameron thought about what little he'd read on about the Arboreal female. Without the latest mission reports on hand, she was still a rather large enigma to him; he at least knew that she was somehow relevant to the Katana's recent clash with the Dominion. Sill, if Kerouac was willing to vouch for her, he felt inclined to give Shira the same courtesy. "I have someone in mind -- our new language specialist, Ms. Bridget O'Connor. She and I served together once before when I was still enlisted; I'm sure she'd find Shira fascinating, and be willing to give her the opportunity to be useful."

"Yes, I was actually looking over her service record a short while ago" replied Kris. It was the truth. He had been reading her file and was interested in having her aboard. "I am quite interested in Lieutenant O'Connor. Our Assistant Chief Science Officer has just transfered out and I'd like to offer the position to Lieutenant O'Connor; Our Chief Science Officer should get along quite well with her."

"O'Connor as the Assistant Chief of Science," Cameron chuckled quietly at the idea. "I'm sure she'd be delighted. She's a brilliant officer, and a natural linguist." She also just happens to be one of the most independent and fiercely stubborn people I know, he thought quietly to himself. "As long as you're comfortable with that selection, I hope you wouldn't mind if I give her the good news."

"Personnel matter" countered Kris. "By all means, see to it. I received word an hour ago that our new orders will be coming shortly. I am hoping for something a bit more relaxing than dealing with the Dominion."

The executive officer nodded in appreciation. "Particularly after recent losses , I'm sure the crew does as well. I'm planning to touch base with our new Chief Counselor once we arrive at Starbase. I'll get him or her up to speed on what's going on, and make sure that we're doing everything possible to put the crew in the right frame of mind." He paused. "Any ideas on what Starfleet Command thinks our next mission might be?"

"Nothing firm yet" replied Kris. "I think that it may be scientific in nature."

"Very good," Cameron added, thinking about some things he wanted to do between now and the next twenty-four hours, like visit with Shira. He still had about a dozen or so PADD full of data to go over, as well. There was a lot to be accomplished if he was going to hit the ground running like he wanted to. "Well, sir. I think I've taken up enough of your time -- unless there's anything else you wanted to add?"

"Not at this very moment, Commander. I need to get some things in order but I'll stop by later to see how you are fitting in."

[OFF]

Commander Kristopher Kerouac
Commanding Officer
USS Katana

&

Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan
Executive Officer
USS Katana

Shira continued to hide behind Maica as she watched Kris delegate orders to the away team. There was a lot of talking, a lot of it she couldn't keep up with, but she knew eventually someone would tell her what she needed to do. She wanted to do this as quickly as possible so she could return to the safety of the ship. Despite the earlier attack, she still associated the ship with safety and would continue to do so long after they left this place.

The poor little arboreal girl didn't know what to make of these strangers. What kind of people were they that they were so willing to attack the Katana? She had told the stranger in the hydroponics bay that she would help them, and she would have done it for no other reason than it was in her nature to be kind; people didn't deserve to suffer unnecessarily and if she could help then she was more than willing to do so. But now she didn't want to help these people, she was only doing it because she didn't want her friends to get hurt. Were all people who traveled among the stars this way? Did they all lie and hurt each other? Had she made a mistake leaving her world? Maybe... Maybe once she was done helping these people... maybe she should go back to her world? She just didn't know if she was cut out for traveling among the stars as she had once thought.

Matthews and the others had retreated back onto Katana, leaving Kris and his two companions and their 'guest' to begin work. Kris looked at the Founder and nudged the changeling with a gaze to move ahead. "Even if Shira can help your premature fungi develop and grow, readying it for cultivation. There is not much more we can do at this time. It's simply a temporary fix to a much larger situation. It will take us time to analyze the data that your provided" Kris explained.

"Time we do not have" countered Breva who had been lingering near.

Kris nodded "Yes, I understand that. However, that does not change the fact that..."

"That your creature can mature our next cultivation early. This will allow us to produce more white, keep the Jem'hadar in order and permitting you solids the time you need to determine what is harming the crops."

Reasonable thought Kris. "Take us to where you need Shira" directed Kris. He looked over towards Maica and Shira. "Lieutenant, I need you to try and relay that to Shira."

Maica squeezed Shira's hand tenderly again as she started singing, doing her best to directly relate to the arboreal girl what was going on and what would need to happen. She wasn't sure it all translated well, but she knew Shira's English was coming along well so some explanations could be done in that language as well. With luck, she could get both of them back to the ship safely, but for now there was a Vorta and the Founder to deal with. The Vorta she was confident she could talk to death... The Founder... Well... She didn't get training on them...

Shira listened intently to Maica's explanation, then nodded. "I go, I help, then we leave this place," Shira summed up as best she could. "Take me, I said I would help, so I will," she said, glancing at the Founder with a betrayed glance. "I would have helped because you needed help, you didn't need to hurt my friends," Shira articulated carefully.

"The solids cannot be trusted" the Founder replied. "They invade and they take. They have weakened us and allowed our space to be taken by our enemies" added the Founder. "We could not take the risks."

"I did not want to take," Shira said sadly as tears welled up in her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall. "I just wanted to help, but now I cannot trust you..." Her words were so simple and innocent, she just hoped it would mean something to this stranger.

The first thing Shira was called to inspect was the wheat and the contaminated fungi. The wheat was definitely the cause, carrying a sickness that ate away at the fungi and prevented it from reaching maturity without some form of severe rot. Shira suggested burning it all to prevent further contamination. Then she was taken to immature fungi fields to see if she could indeed make them grow. She spent a great deal of time studying these fungi, determining their current stage of growth, their overall health, the growing conditions and nutrients in the substrate. And it was only once she was certain that the field was free of contamination that she began to work on accelerating their growth.

Finding the center point of the fungi field to maximize her reach, she stretched her telekinetic senses as far as it could go, reaching out to the fungi and finding its source of life. This 'touch' was perceptible to the others; the air felt thick and they could see dust particles suspended in the air, the air currents moving them around stilled while Shira worked. Then her song called out to them, pleading softly for the fungi to grow. She had never made so much grow at once, it felt so strange to try it, and so tiring... But all around them, the fungi's growth accelerated and matured right before their eyes. But Shira pushed her skills further, doing what she could to increase the size and potency of the fungi. Knowing she was doing this for people who wanted to hurt others, it made her feel sick inside; she never wanted to do this again...

The flight of the little Arboreal girl faltered. As her feet touched the ground, she stumbled and fell to her knees, looking even more pale than usual. This had taken so much out of her, she hadn't expected to feel so weak. Her eyes quickly sought out Kris and Maica. She wanted to go home, but seemed unable to voice this desire, she just felt so tired...

"That's enough!" shouted Kris as he rushed over to Shira. He looked over at Maica "Lieutenant, what's wrong with her? Is she going to be alright?" asked Kris out of concern for his young friend.

Shira clung to Kris, her grip on his jacket weak and feeble. And all she was able to voice was a faint hum, 'tired' and 'home.'

Maica was second to arrive at Shira's side, her eyes having been cycling through modes, trying to figure out a way to see the founder if he were to shapeshift into an object. Thus, it took a second longer for her to get to Shira and try to analyze her condition. It was clear what was wrong and she spoke in hushed tones to Kris. "Captain, I'm not a medical tricorder, but I'm pretty sure that used up almost all of her life energies. She needs rest."

Kris looked at Breva and the Founder. "I can't permit her to carry on like this. She's done what she can for you. Let my scientist do the rest. If you push Shira to do any more you are going to kill her!"

Typical Solids thoughts the Founder. However, there was something about Shira that it admired. So, albeit with reluctance, the Founder looked at Shira and at Kris, giving a slight nod. "Take her. Take her back to your starship. She has given us enough assistance for the time being..." said the Founder with a tone that sounded almost warningly. Kris knew what it meant. It was basically a warning to either come up with a solution soon or there would be more deaths and Kris did not have much wiggle room in that matter. For the time being, Katana was in need or dire repairs and they would have to be done on Kendi's surface.

Another day, another shift, and Andy was exhausted. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten any sleep or had a full regeneration cycle for that matter. Her promotion to department head had her taking on so much more responsibility, not that it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle under normal circumstances, she had been Chief of Operations once before, but right now it was a burden she didn’t think she could deal with. She had so much to do and so little time.

Stopping by a replicator to get the strongest mug of coffee the device was capable of making, Andy went straight to Main Engineering as soon as her shift was over. She really should go back to her quarters to try to get some rest. At the very least, she should go check on Maica! Maica was the main source of her concern at the moment after all. But she simply didn’t have the time!

Cutting through Main Engineering to the lab set up specifically for Maica’s maintenance, Andy shed her duty jacket and sat at the workbench to get straight to work. Strewn about the lab were parts in various stages of construction and a holographic representation of what the final result would be. At the moment, she only had the framework for Maica’s new body with some of the major components filling it in, but she was struggling to find a balance between power output and consumption and the weight of the power source, not to mention how this body was to maintain the biosynthetics she planned to incorporate. There was just so much information in her head, she was nearly bursting at the seams with ideas that she couldn’t quite coalesce into something useable. It was just too much, too much…

Maica wasn’t faring much better. She had been having ‘dim’ moments all day where she somehow felt tired and maybe a bit worn down or old. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought she had forgotten a few things, too. If this is how biological people felt all the time, she felt sorry for them.

Entering engineering, she too made her way to the lab set aside for her. It wasn’t a cybernetics lab, but Andy had converted most of the bays and work area into something usable as one. Maica was impressed with how much her ex-borg lover had been able to accomplish - especially with her newly added responsibilities.

Entering the lab silently, Maica slipped into one of the two android frame coves that had been set up. She had taken to watching things from there while plugged into the ship’s systems. at least with the power connection she didn‘t feel so tired. She smiled softly as she watched Andy work. Once all this was done, she assumed the only thing that would be the same would be her skin - it was the only thing the Ferengi toad had spent actual latinum on and it was still a self regenerating work of art.

Maica couldn’t imagine looking or feeling like someone or something else, either. Her big boobs were perky, her butt elastic, and her orifices all perfectly crafted… yeah, that part had to be reused, though she was sure that made things harder on Andy. The underlayment and frame had to externally match the internal skin layers perfectly in every dimension or there would be lumps.

“I know you’re there,” Andy said quietly without looking up from what she was doing. Andy didn’t believe in a ‘6th sense’ despite all the evidence to the contrary (they had Betazeds, how could a 6th sense not be possible?), but somehow she always knew when Maica was watching her.

“I know. I didn’t want to disturb you.” Maica said softly. She hadn’t been designed for stealth, though she was probably better at it than most just on the nature of her existence. She still had to wonder if she was emitting something that Andy could pick up. Other than love, that is. She didn’t think that even Andy’s eyes could detect any sort of ‘love radiation’.

“You’re not disturbing me,” Andy assured her lover, glancing over her shoulder to peek at Maica. “Are you alright?” she asked, clearly worried about Maica’s declining state. “You ain’t looking so good.”

The android almost giggled at that. “Have you looked in a mirror, love? I’m not the only one that looks like she’s about to fall over.” Shaking her head, she just stated the obvious. “I’m ok enough for now. I feel tired and I think old. It’s not a pleasant experience, but if it’s anything like what everyone else aboard has to experience…” As her words trailed off, her smile was there on her lips but no longer in her eyes.

“Hey,” Andy said softly as she set down her tools and rolled her chair closer to Maica, reaching out to caress Maica’s cheek with the backs of her metal-tipped fingers. “Don’t give up, I’m workin’ on it,” Andy reminded her. “I just wish we had more time…”

Closing her eyes and tilting her head into those fingertips, Maica could feel a purr rising in her throat. “I’m not giving up. I’m just tired, is all. I had a rather long subspace meeting today with some old clients that love the sound of their own voices.”

“Talk about anything interesting?” Andy asked as her thumb continued to caress those elegant cheekbones. If she was tired, her reactor was wearing down… Already, Andy was recalculating the time to expiration. More time, she needed more time...

“Unless you find trade embargoes against a dozen Gamma quadrant tribble-like creatures riveting, no. Most of them are born sterile, but the ones that aren’t… Cyrano Jones would have never cleaned up that station if he had a single one.” Maica spoke softly, her own hand caressing Andy’s hand against her face.

“Dayum!” Andy said in an exaggerated surprise with just a hint of a laugh. And she thought tribbles from the Alpha Quadrant were bad… “You’re right, nothing interesting at all,” Andy said with a chuckle as she gently hooked her hand around the back of Maica’s neck and pulled her down into her lap. Feeling unusually affectionate, she traced her lips along Maica’s ear and neck.

Letting herself be pulled into Andy’s lap, that purr building in Maica was finally released. “If you come across one of those tribbles, they’re normally blueish purple. Just so you know…” She could feel the heat rising in her, some of her energy returning with her building lust and love for Andy.

“And you like purple, don’tcha?” Andy replied, taking the hint that Maica wanted one of these critter. Now how to find one… “And here I thought you were modeled after an Orion, not a Caitian,” she teased as she lightly nuzzled against Maica’s cheek.

“It’s why I’m a diplomat instead of a counselor. Purple uniforms.” Maica purred out as she nuzzled back, her arms snaking around the other woman. “I spend a lot of time in session with Caitian traders and diplomats. Maybe i’m jealous of their tails.”

“Would you like a tail?” Andy asked. “I could probably work one into your design,” she continued with a teasing grin. She probably wouldn’t give Maica a tail, but the thought of it did strike Andy as cute. Aw fuck, she thought something was ‘cute’! Dammit.

Maica mock sighed as she considered the idea. “No, I’d have a hard time with chairs and I wouldn’t know where to keep it. What if I sit down too hard and break it?” She asked with a wicked grin.

“Like I would ever make anything for you that fragile,” Andy retorted, feigning insult at the insinuation. Then she sighed and dropped the little game they were playing. She was simply too tired to keep at it. She just held Maica close for a moment, resting her chin on Maica’s shoulder as she contemplated things.

“I know. I know.” Maica said as she hugged Andy tenderly. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time then, ok? What progress have you made since yesterday?”

“There’s just so much in my head… It hurts Maica,” Andy said softly, holding Maica a little tighter, breathing in the scent of Maica’s hair to help ease the tension in her head. “Fabrication of your new skeletal structure is almost done and I think I can finish the joint connectors tonight, but the simulations of the power supply… well, I’ll worry about that tomorrow…”

Kissing Andy’s forehead softly, Maica remembered one of the notes she had copied down but didn’t remember from where. “What about that schematic for a thoron-tetryon power cell? I gave you that one too, right?”

“Tetryon… tetryon…” Andy repeated the word over and over as she disconnected Maica from the ship’s power feed and rolled her chair back to her workspace with Maica still in her lap. She toyed with the holographic schematic, trying desperately to work something out. She was on the verge of remembering something, she could feel it!

Maica giggled as they rolled across the lab. She had to wonder why she would remember that power supply in particular. It was one of those rare things she remembered the knowledge of but not where she saw it or where it came from. She didn’t even know of the 2 technologies being combined anywhere else, but if the data she copied was correct, one was enough to power a small shuttle for life. Pointing to something on a screen, Maica recognized something in it. “There. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s it, but it won’t work, too big, but I think I know what might…” Andy said as she manipulated the schematic with long lost fragments of memories that weren’t hers, memories she had picked up while she was assimilated. In her mind, the idea was gaining clarity, the pieces to Maica’s new schematics were falling into place one after another as she adapted this idea for the thoron-tetryon power cell. The new design was small, compact, and afforded Maica’s new frame with the power it needed without compromising other vital factors. “That might actually work, if I can make it.”

As Andy worked away at the schematic, Maica was more and more lost. Copying existing schematics was one thing. That was simple data cloning. This? This required engineering skills and knowledge of systems. Maica had none of that. What she saw was some similar somethings to something similar to what she had remembered. “I won’t ask for an in-depth explanation. As long as you say it’ll work, it’s good enough for me.”

“The Caitians use thorons in their tech, right?” Andy asked as she smiled at Maica, feeling like she had won a small victory. “I might need you to pull some strings with some of your Caitian contacts to pull this off, but it’ll work. Here, lemme show you,” Andy said excitedly as she drew in on the schematic, ‘exploding’ it so they could see Maica’s new inner workings.

“I couldn’t balance the power to weight ratio, and no matter what type of power source I used, it was either too much or not enough or the power source just didn’t mesh well with your other systems… but this design… Oh, it’s beautiful… See, it’ll support all the organelles I have growing in the Science labs, and it won’t interfere with functionality. It all blends together so perfectly. If I can make it, it will work!”

Nodding at Andy’s first question, Maica recalled the memory of the time she rode in one of those stealth ships equipped with thoron generators. It felt odd, but it was nice knowing they had gotten to that secret meeting undetected. Then Andy said something she really didn’t understand… “Organ what? Growing?” The confusion on her face was almost palpable. “Will that survive in space?”

“For what reason would you need to be in space without a suit?” Andy asked flatly. “I’m growing organelles, like I’ve got in me, but I took cultures of your biosynthetic skin, so they’re designed for you. You won’t have to consume silicone, you’ll produce a lubricant unique to you; you’ll have a metabolism, you’ll have to eat and sleep; no more gyroscopic stabilizer, your balance will be maintained by functions similar to the inner ear of humanoids… I could go on, but it’s… it’s gonna work! And-and don’t freak out that you HAVE to eat and stuff like that… it’s… I mean… some systems you can shut off if you don’t like it, the power cell will take over those functions if you don’t want to do it, but if you do… Your whole body becomes the generator to supply you power, don’t you see? And I’m using bio-neural gel to augment your positronic matrix, which becomes much more efficient if you do use those functions as intended…” Andy was so excited, but she was worried that Maica wouldn’t like it. the design was so efficient! And it would last for ages! She just really hoped Maica would be okay with it.

While Andy was talking, Maica could feel something else growing inside of her. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her faux pulse was quickening, her breath sharper, her vision… It had slipped into a sort of jittery mode. This was fear. This was panic. She wasn’t getting a new body rebuilt from the ground up. She was being recreated entirely. She was going to be made into a reverse cyborg. Was that even possible? She gripped Andy tighter as cyclic thoughts kept rolling through her program. Her program! How was Andy going to transfer her holomatrix to this new body? Would she be the same person? Would she think the same way? Would she still be able to speak and think on over 4 million forms of communication? Would telepaths be able to read her new mind? Forget the power supply… What was she going to do with actual organs? Would alcohol affect her then? The thoughts just kept coming, repeating over and over as she got light headed. One kept coming back more than the others though. Would she ever see space with nothing between her eyes and vacuum again? She should request a spacewalk just in case.

“Maica?” Andy said, worried when she saw Maica recede into her ‘head space’ when she was having trouble processing things. Shit, Andy hoped she hadn’t broken Maica again! “Maica, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong! I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me,” Andy practically pleaded, hoping her voice would reach her.

Andy’s voice barely did. Maica was doing her best to calm down, but she was scared. scared her program wouldn’t accept the changes, yet scared they would. She was designed around many absolute calculations that would likely be thrown into chaos. Andy wouldn’t not take them into consideration, though. She said it would work. Maica wanted some sort of reassurance and with a small flash of inspiration, she had an idea, her hand slowly raising to point at the schematic. “Can you transfer that to the holodeck and put a copy of me in it?”

“I- Maica? Do you think I would go through all this trouble if I couldn’t?” Andy retorted, more than a little put off. All the work she had put into this... how dumb did Maica think she was? “I can’t put you or a copy into this design just yet, I’m still writing programs for the autonomic functions of these new systems. But once I’m done, yes, we will test this for efficacy. Happy?”

“How soon then?” The static model of herself in Maica’s programming for simulations wasn’t designed for this sort of input and it had her mind in that panic mode still. Andy’s words soothed her a little, but… Well, she was still confused and worried, if not so much fearful.

“I don’t know! Fuck…” Andy grumbled, frustrated that Maica was so scared. What was there to be afraid of? there was going to be risk no matter what they did, Andy was just doing what she thought would yield the most efficient outcome, what was the problem?

Maica slowly turned her head to look into Andy’s eyes, her own eyes calming down and worried, but no longer panic stricken. “Sorry. For almost 10 years I’ve based all my internal diagnostics, simulations, and plans on a lot of solid facts. Many of them are now in question and one in particular… I think I might be afraid of continued existence…”

“Maica…” Andy said, her features softening with something akin to sadness. “Please, don’t say things like that… I’m trying so hard, please don’t be so afraid…”

“I’ll try harder.” Maica apologized. “Sorry. I just don’t… I’ve been copied out of this body and tweaked my own programming to make my holodeck clone, but… For me myself to be transferred? It’s an unknown I can’t calculate. I have nothing to base it on. I don’t even know if i’ll be stable or if I’ll go crazy like that one backup you made. I have no empirical evidence to base any internal calculations on.” Sighing heavily, she looked back at the schematic. “Being a sex slave wasn’t much easier though. Similar calculations are made for efficient means of pleasure to the other party, most of which are made on the fly. I’ll just be worried for a while is all. To change the subject, will you be reusing my internal universal translator? It’s a rather pricey piece of hardware and I’m probably more fond of it than my skin.”

Andy actually smiled and offered a laugh at that last line. “Yeah, it’s going in there. See-” she said, pointing out where the UT would be integrated into the neural pathways once the transfer was made. “It’ll be there, and a few other parts worth reusing too. And you’ll have your skin too, you’ll look the same. Well, I’m doing my best to ensure you’ll look the same, I still have to tweak the facial architecture of the schematic before I fabricate, but I think I’m almost there… And your eyes… You’ll be keeping your eyes...” Andy sighed. she knew what Maica was going through. Andy had been through this herself; the changes made to her body had been completely out of her control and now here she was taking the control away from Maica… It made her feel like a complete ass.

“Here,” Andy said as she pulled Maica closer so they were flush against each other, “we’ll go through each bit, I’ll explain what does what and you can give your input and we can make changes. Nothing has advanced to the point that changes in the design would be all that inconvenient. I want you to be comfortable with this, so talk to me. What do you want to know?” Andy offered as she looked back up at the schematic.

Maica just shook her head at that. Her diagnostic program was as close to understanding all this as she could get and she knew it. “No, I trust you. I just didn’t expect such a drastic change from aluminum and polysynthetics. I don’t know what the difference between an artificial liver and a real kidney is so trying to explain all this organ-something stuff to me would take weeks we don’t have.” Putting her hand to Andy’s belly, she continued. “If these parts are in you and your borg parts like them, then they’re ok with me. I just want to know if i’ll be able to spacewalk without a suit. As I am now, I can if I flush the fluids from my systems.”

“Silly girl,” Andy said with a chuckle as she leaned in to brush her lips against Maica’s. “Yes, you can. I wouldn’t recommend an extended spacewalk, you will eventually incur damage, but yes, you could jump out an airlock and be fine.”

Resting against Andy, Maica smiled as she licked Andy’s lips softly. “ That’s good. I like going outside now and then to keep my skin nice and soft. It puffs up nicely in certain areas too.”

“Of course it does,” Andy said with a roll of her eyes. “Seriously, I know you said you trust me, but it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t at least try to answer any questions you might have. I don’t want you to be afraid when it comes time to do the transfer.”

“In that case, where does the food and drink get filtered? How is it separated and converted to usable lubricants?” Maica asked with a smile.

“It’s not,” Andy replied with a smirk. She brought up Maica’s current schematics to help illustrate the differences. “Now, the lubricants are ingested, processed, refined and then redistributed throughout your body for use. New system, food becomes fuel. Remember, you’ll have a metabolism and you’ve got to power it somehow… Anyway, you’ll have organelles to create sweat, organelles to create the lubricant, even coolants and other things your body will need. it’s all done just like a humanoid body, just like a gland would secrete hormones. And you will have an artificial heart to distribute it all through your body. No more fake pulse, it will be real.”

Maica listened intently, doing her best to understand it all. She got most of it, but one question burned in her mind. “What does a metabolism feel like?” Asking made her feel a bit silly, but it was a question that she wanted answered.

“It’s not something you actively feel,” Andy said, giving the matter some thought. “But it will fluctuate naturally, so sometimes you will feel tired, sometimes you will feel energetic. It will take some getting used to, and if worst comes to worst and you can’t adapt then I can manually level off that process, but overall the system is designed to emulate the human body, so leaving it in a natural state is… ideal.”

That was good enough for Maica. There was another word that worried her, though. “I wasn’t programmed or designed to adapt… I can create new subroutines to process external stimuli, but… Well… What’s it like to adapt to something completely new and different?”

“Is not creating new subroutines to process external stimuli an adaptation?” Andy offered, but she sighed heavily, knowing that she couldn’t sugar coat the answer Maica was really looking for. “I won’t lie, Maica, changes can be traumatic… it took me a long time to learn to live with the changes made to me. Like learning how to process sight through an ocular implant and take in additional stimuli through my eyepiece all while retaining the natural vision of my good eye… It’s not an easy road learning to adapt, but I believe you’re strong enough. And I wouldn’t offer this kind of change if I weren’t willing to help you through it. I’m working on new subroutines to help the transition, and you’ll probably still feel out of sorts for a while, at least until you settle in… but I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”

“Thank you, my love.” Maica said with her usual patented warm smile, looking deep into Andy’s beautiful mismatched eyes. “Just please file the new subroutines as prototypes and my core programming will test them before relying on them.” Maica was doing some rewriting of her subroutines at the moment, trying to prepare to be more adaptable. She was even delving into her core programming and changing some of her primary routines, tweaking them to allow her more liberties in rewriting her own internal systems on the fly. It was a dangerous thing to do - she was essentially taking the safeties off of a charged phaser. Finishing those changes, she nodded. “What if i told you I found an anomalous subroutine not linked to the rest of my program that I can’t access?”

“You mean after the transfer? Well, there will be some files I will have hardcoded lockouts to prevent tampering for safety reasons,” Andy explained.

“Now, actually.” Maica wasn’t entirely worried, but it was a small piece of her mind that she couldn’t identify a purpose for.

“Now?” Andy repeated curiously. “I’d rather not delve into you right now, you’re becoming unstable, but I can check your backup. I can meet you later in the holodeck and we can look into it.”

“That sounds good. I’m just worried it’ll be something critical to this body that isn’t compatible with the new one.” Maica said, snuggling with Andy softly. “Will I taste things differently?”

“You’ll have to tell me once you get in there,” Andy teased. “Remember when I unlocked the full visible spectrum of your eyes?” Andy asked. “I’d imagine it would be something like that.”

“That makes sense.” Maica thought about it some before giving up and just writing that thought line off on needing to be tried to see. “Did you design a dermal regenerator into one of my palms?”

“Yup! You will have a healing touch. And lets not forget the built-in, multi-purpose tricorder,” Andy responded with a playful smirk.

“So much extra input…” Maica couldn’t help but smile at that thought. “As long as I can maintain that I’m not a recording device for some of my diplomatic meetings, I’m good.”

“Aren’t you already?” Andy asked with a laugh. She brought up the cranial architecture of both old and new schematics, displaying them side by side. “Right now, memory is stored in a holomatrix and the memory engrams can be tampered with. If I shut you down right now, I could remove, copy, even implant memories and you would have no way of knowing it. On the new system, no more holomatrix. I know that’s going to sound scary, but that change won’t happen all at one, it will be gradual as the transfer takes place. As you access memory engrams and store new ones, and your core personality data is transferred, it will be stored in a new format of engrams that doesn’t need to use the holomatrix to process who you are. In a sense, you no longer need the holomatrix to be your brain. Your positronic systems will be your brain. The new engrams, they can’t be tampered with. All the experiences that make you who you are, those will be protected. And with your diplomatic missions in mind, I can write an algorithm that can lock out engrams pertaining to sensitive material so it can’t be replicated, to protect your contacts.” Andy had really thought this through. Everything she could do to protect the core of who Maica was was in this new design.

The green skinned android was confused again. As soon as Andy started talking about what was what in the new body, Maica was lost and had no idea how to get back. She did get one thing, though. “They’ll want to re-certify me. The process took 3 days last time. I wonder how long it’ll take this time. What about that… hunger, is it? Will I get hungry? Can I gain or lose weight?” That was a subject she was more familiar with that she figured she might be able to understand the answer to.

“Certify you for what?” Andy asked. What the hell was Maica talking about? “And I won’t turn all your senses on right away, I don’t want to overstimulate you, but once everything is going you will get hungry. It feels like… well, you’ll find out. And… do you want to gain or lose weight? I… think I could fit that in there if you really wanted it.”

Maica shook her head no. “No, I just wanted to know if that was something i would have to worry about. As for being re-certified… Those with synthetic parts are scanned and catalogued so that if anything happens where recordings or datafiles from classified talks are leaked, they have a place to start looking for possible subversion of the attendees. Nothing specific to me, though being all synthetic it takes a long time.”

“Huh…” Andy grunted as she thought back to all her experiences with Starfleet Medical. “My memory engrams are stored in my cortical array and I’ve never been certified. Then again, I’m a non-com, what kind of information would I know that someone would want to take? Then again, they couldn’t take the information without removing the array thus killing me, so what can you do.”

“Yeah, the things that go on behind those doors is boring anyway. I’m sure even the Borg would throw that data away as useless nonsensical babbling of inefficient beings.” Maica giggled.

“Oi, I feel like that might have been a jab,” Andy said, feigning hurt. Then she chuckled. “Send me the variables they used to certify you, I’ll make some modifications and take that information into consideration.”

“I wouldn’t bother.” Maica said sourly. “The protocol is over 23 thousand pages long.”

“You say that like that means something,” Andy retorted. “I don’t have to read the whole thing, just pick out the relevant bits and modify your positronic architecture accordingly.”

Leaning forward, Maica spoke to the air. “Computer, load to this terminal Political Certification Protocol 34-792 with Android addendums 3 to 47.” Several seconds went by before the computer chirped that it was finished. “There you go.”

“Computer, include all addendums pertaining to artificial life forms,” Andy added, wanting to be thorough. She stored the information on the local computer for later reference. She was too tired to work on it now, but at least she now had the information she needed. “Anything else you can think of that I might need to address?” Andy asked.

“Lots of things, but they can wait until later. Right now, I’m pretty sure you need to either regenerate or sleep.” Maica said, finally standing up from Andy’s lap.

“No, too much work to do,” Andy said, grabbing her mug of coffee and taking a heavy sip. “I’ve got coffee, I caught an hour in my alcove between repairs earlier, I can maybe spare another hour before my shift in the morning… I just can’t stop working now or I’ll fall behind schedule.”

Maica stared sadly at her lover for a moment before giving in. “Ok, but I want you to make sure you’re in your alcove for at least 2 hours, ok? I have some calls to make soon, but i’ll be there to check on you. After all, if you’re not well rested how efficient can you be?”

“You’d be surprised…” Andy said darkly, a brief expression of agony flashing across her face as haunting memories danced behind her eyes. “I can spare 2 hours, I promise.”

“Then that’s good enough for me.” Maica said, leaning in and pressing her soft lips to Andy’s in a loving kiss.

Andy closed her eyes and all she knew in that moment was Maica and the wonderful taste of her on her lips. It was enough to chase away the memories that dared to torment Andy about the past. “Don’t work too hard.” Andy cautioned when their lips parted.

“I’ll try not to. Good luck with everything, love.” Maica said with a worried smile. She knew Andy would work herself to death, but she also knew that right now at least, there was little to no time to spare. She’d just have to keep her eyes on Andy and make sure she did get some rest when she could. And maybe learn how to do that Vulcan neck pinchy thing… For now though, she had a thoron generator to obtain somehow.

Maica had just gotten off the comms with one of her more important Caitian ambassador friends. She’d have to come up with something in trade, but he seemed amiable enough to provide one of their miniaturized thoron generators. The trick was getting it here inside the next week. There was a Caitian transport heading this way, but the earliest they could rendezvous was 2 months from now. That meant more to trade off to get him to have it delivered faster…

Sighing heavily, Maica looked over her calendar. For some reason, she had scheduled meetings and appointments up to her deadline, but she hadn’t made any after that point. If Andy found out about that, she’d be hurt that Maica didn’t seem to trust her, so she’d best keep that a secret for now. If the ex-borg did somehow find out, she’d have to make up an excuse about transfer time and getting used to the new body or something.

Another question that had been on her mind was if they should move in together. For now, Maica was still in her office based quarters. Diplomats on this ship almost had better quarters than the captain, but most weren’t married for some reason. Should she have Andy move in? Should she move in with Andy the rest of the way and just use these as offices? It was another dilemma she was putting off until after the transfer, though she knew that Andy would insist on one or the other soon. They had grown amazingly close over the past… Goodness… It felt like a year already but it had only been just over 2 weeks, hadn’t it?

These types of thoughts kept flowing through her mind for some time, almost to the point where she didn’t realize the time. Andy should be taking a meal break soon, shouldn’t she? It seemed that if Maica wasn’t there to insist, the woman would neither eat nor sleep, instead relying on her coffee and prosthetics to keep her going.

Andy was once again in her makeshift cybernetics lab. Anytime she wasn’t working on the ship, even if it was just a break, she would always return here. She was so close to finishing Maica’s new power cell, she couldn’t lose her momentum! Now, if Maica could just get her hands on one of those Caitian generators to prime the power cell, they would be in business!

Thoroughly wired on caffeine and strung out on sleep deprivation, Andy was falling apart at the seams, but she did her best not to let Maica see it. She just hoped Maica would understand that this was all for her, Andy would gladly do this again and again and again just to ensure Maica’s safety. Andy didn’t, couldn’t, understand her feelings for Maica, all she knew was that she needed Maica, like she’d never needed anything before. The thought of losing her made her breath still in her lungs. She couldn’t lose Maica, they were so close…

Andy looked over at the replacement body now partially constructed in one of the diagnostic coves. It was completed enough that in an emergency they could transfer Maica’s to it. It wasn’t ideal, but if the situation was dire it would work. If Andy could get the power cell charged. Nothing would work if that didn’t happen… Still, there was a sense of accomplishment that she had gotten this far, but it was taking so much out of her. Maybe she should go to the Captain and request some time off. The ship needed her, but nothing was quite as time sensitive as this job. She needed a break from somewhere or she was going to burn out, she just knew it.

Checking her terminal, Maica saw that once again her love was in the cybernetics lab, no doubt working herself to death. Replicating some jalapenos, she grabbed the plate and headed out to check on her. It wasn’t long before she was in engineering going through those doors and setting the plate before Andy. “I’m assuming you haven’t eaten anything all day again.” She said as she draped herself across her lover’s shoulders, massaging softly with her body.

Andy pushed the plate away. No way she could tolerate jalapenos right now, nor would she ever want to eat just jalapenos. Sometimes Maica did weird things, but that was part of what made her so adorable. God dammit, ‘adorable’?

“I’ll eat later,” Andy said as she made some adjustments to the power cell in her hand. It was so small, it was almost unbelievable that this little power cell would be so powerful, but Andy knew it would work. she just knew, she knew it, she just knew it...

“And here I was hoping you’d enjoy some jalapenos. The database said they’re good for energy.” Maica replied, looking at the tiny device in Andy’s hand. “What’s that? Is that the actual power cell?”

“Can’t eat ‘em now, I’ll hurl,” Andy admitted candidly. “And yeah, this is what’s gonna power you. Beautiful, ain’t it,” she declared proudly.

“Almost as beautiful as the one making it.” Maica declared back, planting a soft kiss on Andy’s cheek.

“Keh,” Andy grunted with a blush. She certainly didn’t feel very beautiful right now, but whatever… “If you’re here to insist I eat, get something light. I really can’t eat that right now.” Andy turned the device over in her hands and continued working.

Heading to the replicator and setting the plate of jalapenos into it, she punched up a new menu, this time a bit lighter on the belly. As soon as it materialized, she grabbed the glass and plate and headed back to the workstation, setting them down in front of Andy. “How’s Andorian beef and barley soup in a glass and some Bolian finger sandwiches sound then?”

“You’re an angel,” Andy said, freeing up a hand to take the tumbler of soup to sip on it. “Oh, that’s good…” Another hearty sip and then Andy was again focused on the power cell. “I think I’m ready to run those simulations you wanted, in the holodeck, the trial run of the transfer. You know, if you still wanna do that,” Andy offered distractedly.

“I’d love to, actually. First though, do you have anything to trade with? Something unique and possibly rare? I need something to barter with to get that generator you need.” Maica said as she looked over the completed parts in one of the android alcoves.

“Caitians like musics, so how about ancient Earth instruments?” Andy asked without a second thought. “I have two violins, a Stradivarius and a Rhonheimer, both original antiques in playable condition. Would something like that work?”

“If we put together holocharacters of us playing them to go with them, yeah I think he might bite. It might even cover delivery costs.” Maica nodded, wishing Andy hadn’t put up prized possessions like that so easily. “Why them though? Aren’t they special to you?”

“Very special, and very expensive. But it’s worth it to get what we need,” Andy replied. She set the power cell aside and grabbed one of the sandwiches and nibbled on it. “No holocharacters, holorecordings will have to be enough. And I’d rather not play any of my original stuff, but I’ll make a few recordings if you think it’ll sweeten the pot.” More than anything, Andy hated to play for others and she never wanted others to hear her music. That she was willing to do this for the generator… She was willing to do anything for Maica at this point.

Maica was moved by what Andy was willing to sacrifice for her. This was probably their only bargaining chip as well, so she was even more touched for that fact. “Then as soon as I get some requested pieces, I’ll let you know so we can go recording. Thank you, my love.” Draping herself back over Andy’s shoulders, Maica planted several kisses on her cheek.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Andy said softly. “Lets get this trade done so we can get you taken care of. then maybe I can get a more... intimate thank you,” Andy said with a shameless waggle of her eyebrows.

Maica couldn’t help but giggle at that. “Oh don’t you worry. You might be regretting it once I’m done thanking you with that new body. Every feature and aspect will need to be tested and what better way than through ‘thanking’ you?”

“See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Andy said with a wolfish grin. What Maica didn’t know yet was that Andy was removing some of the the more ‘unique’ features from Maica’s original design. Maica was more than just a ‘sex bot’, she was a person to Andy… there would be no fancy bells and whistles, just Maica. Maica was enough. Maica was all Andy needed. Dammit, she was getting mushy! Time to think of something not mushy - EPS conduits, plasma injectors… tricyclic intake manifold! Fuck, now she was horny...

Maica could see all the growing signs of Andy’s horniness as plain as day - she was designed to notice such things, after all. She couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking about but she didn’t want to ask. instead, she slowly licked the outer edge of Andy’s ear and whispered. “You know what I really love? Seeing you blush when you’re horny.”

Fuck! Andy was tempted to clear off this workbench and ravish Maica right here! But Maica couldn’t handle sex right now, Andy had to show at least a little self control! “Damn. If you weren’t so unstable, you’d be up on that bench right now…” The tone of Andy’s ‘threat’ made it more than clear what she meant. Somehow, she had a feeling that Maica might like it, too. Best. Girlfriend. EVER!

Glancing over the workbench, Maica had to nod solemnly. “It’s a shame too. I’ve never done it in a cybernetics lab before.”

Andy swallowed hard. Oh yeah, best girlfriend ever. If that wasn’t love, then Andy didn’t know what was! “We can christen it once we get you settled into your new body,” Andy said huskily, then stole a hungry kiss from Maica’s luscious lips. In the back of her mind, she knew she shouldn’t be wasting her time like this, but on the other hand she also knew she needed a break, a real break. She was seriously considering asking for some time off so she could focus on Maica and get some rest.

Maica was done teasing for now. Andy had more than enough incentive and she was afraid she might break her if she went any further. Instead, she stood back up and looked around the room again. “Ready to go to the holodeck, then? I want to see this simulation.”

“Uh, right…” Andy said, then swore under her breath for letting things get so carried away. She wolfed down one of the sandwiches and grabbed her cup of soup, then transferred the necessary data to the holodeck. “Let’s go then,” she said awkwardly.

Maica giggled and landed one of her plush kisses on Andy’s lips as she almost energetically bounced out of the room. “I can’t wait to see me again.”

“I ain’t planning on wakin’ up the backup, we saw what happened last time. Don’t know what you’re so excited about…” Andy grumbled. Well, maybe she could understand to some degree. Maica would get to see the finished product, a preview of things to come. Maybe that was worth getting excited...

As they headed out of engineering and to the holodeck, Maica wondered if Andy had left out the little extras she had now. The decidedly sex oriented ones, that is. She knew her software for it would be intact, but the hardware likely wouldn’t be so geared towards it. stepping into the holodeck, she walked towards the middle and waited for Andy to pull up the program.

Andy stood in the arch for a while pulling up the program and adding in a myriad of details. The cybernetics lab appeared around them, but Andy continued to input more data, calling in the backup Maica into one of the maintenance coves next to the partially assembled new body. Then began the daunting task of simulating the finished design, what the new body would be like once everything had been assembled and salvageable parts from Maica were installed and the skin applied. Once she was done, she joined Maica in the room to survey the result. With the skin, the new model was virtually identical to Maica’s current appearance. Andy nodded with a slight smile. Not bad, not bad at all…

“What do you think so far?” Andy asked as she studied the new model waiting seemingly asleep in the alcove.

Glancing between the two other versions of herself, Maica stepped up to the new model and studied it in great detail, silently moving around it for several minutes. It looked just like her as far as she could tell. She would just need a copy of herself in it to see how well it worked. “Can you put my programming in it and wake her up?” Curiosity had bitten her and while she wanted to be the one inside experiencing it all, she felt safer with a copy doing it for her.

“That’s what the backup is for,” Andy said, pointing to the other sleeping android in the second alcove. She took a sip of her soup as she thought about the second part of the request. “I’d only intended to do the transfer and wake the backup just to do a diagnostic. I’m not sure we should fully wake her, though. She didn’t react well to the realization she was a backup and she hasn’t been mentally prepared for this like you have. But I’ll do it if that’s what you really want.”

“It is.” Maica said, stepping back from the alcoves. She was worried about that too, but it was better than nothing at this point. Besides, they could revert her back to the former save if they needed to. She just hoped she could explain things to her well enough that she was amicable to the idea of testing rather than freak out and corrupt her programming.

Andy’s thoughts were running along the same lines. Setting her soup aside atop a console, Andy began to back up the backup in case she mentally imploded during or even after the transfer. Then she began to connect the two androids with the transfer cables and began the link up. The holodeck was successfully simulating the effects of the new power source and the new body was running through its activation protocols. “It won’t take too long,” Andy said as she kept a watchful eye on the new body.

Standing in front of the new body, Maica watched intently as first the pulse started up, then more bio-signs started appearing like breath and body heat. Soon the eyes fluttered open and started looking around in a seemingly random pattern. Nothing else was moving yet, which had Maica both excited and nervous. “Disable subroutine 423. It’s the self evolution limiter. It’ll help her adapt to the new body.”

Andy nodded and did as Maica suggest. The transfer wasn’t even done and already the new Maica was showing signs of awareness. Incredible! Andy moved over to a MSD of the new body with a readout of the cognitive functions. The programs Andy had written to help with the transition from the holomatrix to direct interaction of the positronic matrix was working just as she planned, reallocating procedural subroutines to the autonomic processes of the neural net, sometimes modifying or even discarding them in favor of more effective subroutines already built in. Movement and sensation was being adapted and memory engrams were shuffled around, likely a confusing feeling for the backup but she still felt confident that Maica was strong enough of character to weather the storm. Finally, the core personality data was transferred and secured with high level encryption to prevent tampering. With the data dump complete, it was just a waiting game to see how things would work out. Andy glanced back at Maica, then refocused on the changes occurring within the backup, looking for anything that could potentially be anomalous.

“I’ve dulled sensations so she won’t be overwhelmed, but it will still be a shock,” Andy warned as she watched the MSD like a hawk.

Suddenly, the new body jerked, the eyes focusing on Maica herself as it spoke Ferengi in Maica’s voice. “Please state the nature of your sexual desires.” That was something Maica had been afraid would happen. The memory engrams hadn’t caught up and the very basic core programming was in place.

“I really hated having to say that every day…” Maica muttered under her breath. “Can you tell me your name? do you know who we are?” The new body just stared blankly at Maica for several moments before replying, again in Ferengi. “I am Mechanized Artificial Intelligence Computer Assistant, MAICA. Please state the nature of your sexual desires.”

At a loss for words, Maica turned back to Andy questioningly, wondering if she had any further information on why this was happening.

“Just give her a minute. Her cognitive processes are showing definite confusion, but she’s still working through it,” Andy urged Maica as she worked at the console to try to help things along. “Keep talking to her, she should become more coherent.”

Maica would do her best, then. “Tell me about yourself. Do you remember anything recent?”

The new body’s eyes were starting to light up and the facial features softening from their emotionlessness now as she started speaking again, this time in English. “I’m… I’m Maica, a Diplomatic officer of the Federation. That’s right, isn’t it? It’s hard to access my memories. Everything feels dulled down. I don’t think I’m in…” Looking to the side at the other body in a cybernetics alcove, she looked startled for a moment. “Ah, that’s what’s happened. But if I’m here and I was there… Who are you?”

Maica shrugged at the question. “Just think of me as a diagnostic tool for now.” Pointing to Andy, Maica asked another question of her new body. “Do you remember this person?”

The new body looked to Andy for a moment, considering. “I think so. I’ll need time to process… Missing hardware… Diagnostics report I don’t have a brain…”

“Then how are you functioning?” Andy challenged, suppressing a smile at Maica’s quick thinking. Brilliant, deflect the fact that this was a backup and avoid the mental breakdown.

The new body nodded thoughtfully at that question. “That might be why I’m having a hard time with thinking. No brain to think with would mean… Wait… What? Do I have…” Pressing her fingers to her midsection, she felt around for something. “I think something else is wrong, too… My filtration and oil processor isn’t responding to diagnostics, either. In fact, none of my internal systems are…”

Andy chuckled and approached the two Maicas. “Look, you have a brain,” Andy assured the backup as she pointed to the MSD of the new positronic matrix processing everything. “Look at how fast those thoughts are moving,” Andy said proudly. “You want out of the alcove? Maybe moving around might help,” Andy offered as she began disconnecting the cables and removing the restraints that held her in place.

Stepping back silently, the real Maica sat down in one of the work chairs and watched hopefully as the new Maica looked down at her legs, trying to figure out how to move them. After a few seconds she was able to haltingly step from the alcove and towards the displayed MSD. “So that’s the new me, huh? I don’t have a timer in my head anymore, so that’s a good thing. What about… What about… What about…” She started repeating those 2 words over and over, her eyes moving in simulated REM mode.

Andy was at ‘Maica’s side for every step as they walked to the console, a gentle hand at her back, ready in case she fell. And Andy was about to answer ‘Maica’s question when it seemed she got stuck in a loop. Checking the status of the transition, it seemed she was processing a large load of information, making connections at an astonishing rate. “C’mon, girl, you can do it,” Andy encouraged gently as she waited to see if ‘Maica’ could break the loop on her own.

Maica was on her feet and gripping her hands together, looking between Andy and her new self worriedly when ‘Maica’ jerked a bit, her repeating stopped. “All hardware discovered and identified. I also just calculated the reliability of all new hardware as well as my new life expectancy. With luck, this body should last at least 472 years. I can’t even imagine living that long…” ‘Maica’ leaned in and kissed Andy softly, their lips pressed together as the real Maica looked away a bit jealous. “Thank you, love.”

Given that Andy was really horny earlier, it wasn’t hard to fake enthusiasm with the kiss, but she was concerned for the real Maica. “I told you I could do it,” Andy said, but though she was speaking to ‘Maica’ who had no knowledge of that promise, her words were really directed to the real Maica.

‘Maica’ looked strangely at Andy for a moment. “You must have told me that when I was offline. I don’t have any memories since the backup… Wait… What happened since then?”

“Your body began to fail, there was some memory loss,” Andy said. “Not to mention, you’re still sorting everything out, so if you don’t remember, it’s okay. I remember…” Andy looked to the MSD. Everything was starting to settle into place quite nicely and she sighed in relief.

“Well, that’s ok then I guess.” ‘Maica’ said as she too watched the MSD. “You left out a few pieces of hardware. Did you not like those ‘enhancements’?”

Andy rolled her eyes. Of course she would take notice of that… “It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, you just don’t need them. I want you, not some trick you can do. You’re a person, not a sex bot, so I didn’t think you should have those enhancements,” Andy admitted earnestly. Again, though she was speaking to the backup, her words were meant for the real Maica’s ears.

The real Maica was just doing her best to sit there calmly as she watched them interact. Next her new self should be saying something about Andy’s implants compared to her ‘enhancements’. ‘Maica’ didn’t let her down as she pressed Andy’s hand to her bosom. “What about you then? You’re no longer a borg drone. Why do you keep prosthetics like the one on this hand?” Yeah the real Maica expected that, but she wouldn’t have worded it quite so well. She was almost disgusted with how much apparent thought process her new body would have… Just looking at the MSD she figured she could think at least 20 times faster if she had to. Her original creator was a total douche, gimping her old body like that...

“Do you have any idea how integrated my exoskeleton is with my limbs? I’d be lucky to be able to use my hand if the doc tried to remove it,” Andy replied. “And it ain’t just the exoskeleton, girl. I’ve got organelles and borg glands replacing vital systems, I can’t exactly remove those either. Would you want that I remove my eye? Or how about my cortical node so I don’t have to regenerate anymore? That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Only then shit would start shutting down and I would die.” Andy was a bit angry at the question. They’d had this discussion before, why’d she have to bring this up? For Andy, her parts were about maintaining functionality.

‘Maica’ frowned and kissed those metalic fingertips one by one. “I’m sorry love. I thought what with current medical technology your exoskeleton could have been at least reduced or replaced with genetically grown skin. I’m not very good at medical or engineering stuffs so I had no idea they were needed. Forgive me?” ‘Maica’ asked, looking up into Andy’s beautiful mismatched eyes with a sexy pout on her face.

“Always,” Andy said, kissing the top of ‘Maica’s head. “Strictly speaking, I’m no longer completely dependant on regeneration, I do it regularly out of choice. And there are times when I do need it, so… so yeah, I kept my cortical node when others get rid of it. And I have had parts of my exoskeleton removed. You’ve seen my scars. Some of them are evidence of that. I just can’t mess with my hands, especially my left hand. Shit, that one would fall apart without the exoskeleton holding it together.”

The real Maica knew what was coming next, so instead of letting ‘Maica’ finish trying to seduce her Andy, she cleared her throat and glanced between the two of them. “So integration is complete and successful then?”

Andy glanced at the MSD, then back at ‘Maica’, back at the MSD, then to Maica. “More or less. Still needs to settle in and adjust, but the transfer was successful and the initial integration seems to have taken. Full integration will take place once restrictions of the new senses are released and have been accepted, but for now I’m calling this a success,” Andy said as she checked over the display one last time, being careful to not really speak to either one of them directly to give away who was the real Maica. ‘Maica’ was adapting so well, she didn’t want to ruin it with a mental breakdown.

‘Maica’ nodded as Andy spoke, flexing her left hand and looking at it strangely. “That’s why sensation is dulled. I have another mystery now, though. What is this built into my palm? And did you use stronger cybernetic muscular gel than I had before?”

“That would be the dermal regenerator you requested,” Andy reminded her with a snicker. “And I didn’t use the same muscular gel from your old frame, too unreliable. You now have a titanium skeleton with biosynthetic muscle tissue and an underlying system of advanced ligatures to increase your strength. You could stop a shuttle if you wanted to.”

“It’s a strange sensation… Is this what most modern androids feel like? All squishy yet strong and fast?” ‘Maica’ asked, looking over her hands with a somewhat fearful yet thoughtful expression.

“I wouldn’t know about all that, but I did rely heavily on the research pertaining to the creation of Liam Maddox, an android in service that was created by Commander Maddox. I couldn’t get my hands on his finished specs, so I had to mesh things together as best I could, took some liberties here and there, used my knowledge of Borg cybernetics… But I think Liam Maddox is… squishy too.”

Maica had heard about him, the other notable android in Starfleet. She wanted to meet him for a time, but after thinking about it for some time, she got scared. What she had heard about him, he was her polar opposite in so many ways. No, that was one meeting she didn’t need to have. ‘Maica’ seemed to be in agreement as at the mention of his name, she changed the subject, dropping her hands to her sides. “Now what? Any more diagnostics?”

“Yeah, I need to run some intensive tests on your autonomic functions, so I’ll need to put you to sleep for a while. Is that alright?” Andy asked. This would be the best possible segue into shutting down the backup, but some additional tests would be nice.

‘Maica’ looked at her real self for a few moments as she decided what to do. She had caught on that they were in the holodeck some time ago, what with a third version of her up and walking around. What took her some more time to realize was that the one sitting before her was her real self, still functioning. She was apparently the test to see if the new body would even work with her old holomatrix. Thankfully it worked out ok. her question now was whether she let the two continue believing she wasn’t wise to their plan or to reveal it somehow.

Sighing heavily, ‘Maica’ made her decision. “When you do the real transfer, load a database of the new hardware addresses for the diagnostics and make sure the core personality subroutines go first.” Looking back to Andy, she nodded and stepped back into the cybernetics alcove.

Andy’s eyes went wide for a moment, then she chuckled. She knew there was a reason she liked Maica! That woman was sharp! “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said as she got everything hooked back up to the new body. “If it makes any difference, we were trying to be kind. Before… you had a bit of an identity crisis when you realized you were the backup and… it didn’t end well. We just wanted to spare you that.”

Maica could only facepalm and mumble something about being outsmarted by her own self. ‘Maica’ on the other hand, nodded some more. “That makes sense. Thank you for that. What gave you away is that neither of you would let me seduce you. Other than that… I suspect one of the now missing subroutines is what caused that breakdown. To quote a Vulcan, it’s the logical explanation.”

“Yeah, I know Maica’s gonna hit me for this, but it was really hard to resist you. You look smoking hot and I’m so fucking horny…” Andy admitted shamelessly, then she shook her head with a laugh. “But yeah, some obsolete subroutines were discarded in favor of new programs embedded into the autonomic functions to help prevent open loops, so you wouldn’t get stuck in cyclic thoughts and you could process without getting hung up on details. I mean, you can still get hung up, but it won’t break you. But really, we just didn’t want you to have mental breakdown, but I ain’t apologizing for keeping that from you.”

“I am going to pound you all night long, Andy.” Maica said, now rolling her forehead against a console from all the foot in mouth. Then another thought struck Maica and she looked up suddenly to her new body. “Wait. Are your senses tuned well enough to be able to read the tiniest hints like before?”

‘Maica’ thought about it for a moment, looking between the 2 of them as she forced her senses to their max. “It’s hard to tell, but I think you’ll have to relearn part of it. Visual senses are high enough, but the rest don’t seemed to be tuned to it well enough.”

“Well, with the sheer number of increased sensations and the differences in them, I kept everything restricted so you weren’t overwhelmed during the transition. I can release some of those restrictions if you want to test them,” Andy offered.

Raising a hand in declination of the offer, ‘Maica’ shook her head no. “I already did that a moment ago. They’re good senses, but they’re just not tuned right. They all seem to be a quarter of a micron off from the old body.”

“Fair enough,” Andy said as she finished setting everything up for the shut down. “I do really have some tests I need to run, both while you’re shut down and while you’re awake, but for now it’s time to shut you off. Are you okay with this?” Yeah, she may have been just a backup, but Andy didn’t want to be cold or callous to the woman.

“Yes, please feel free.” ‘Maica’ nodded.

Maica stood up and stepped up to her newer self, a look of hope in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Andy smiled at them both, then entered in the commands on the console to shut down the body in the alcove. “So, what do you think?” Andy asked Maica as she saved all the data she had collected.

“A lot less than her, it seems.” Maica muttered. Then with more vigor, “Things look hopeful. The transition looked painful and annoying, but that’s about it. What about you?”

“Yeah, the transition was… rough, but necessary. And once it’s done, it’s done. Good news, though, with the data I collected now, I think I can help smooth things along so it won’t be so rough for you. Overall, I’m optimistic. The only kink in the plan seems to be getting that generator to prime the power cell. That, and getting everything done before your time’s up. But other than that, yeah, it looks hopeful,” Andy offered with a grin. She was really feeling good about how things were working out.

“Is there anything else I can do to help? I mean, other than making sure you rest and eat and all that…” Maica asked, sidling up to Andy and pressing herself to her lover in a slightly suggestive way. Completely by reflex, of course. She wasn’t aiming to get Andy any hornier than she already was.

Andy put her arms around Maica and held her tight. “Find more time for me to get things done…” Andy replied tiredly. “I’m tempted to ask the Captain for some time off. I don’t think I can push myself much further, but… I just got promoted and… It ain’t like that’s more important than you, but shit’s gotta get done on the ship and I…” Andy was really conflicted on this, she really didn’t know what to do.

Pressing a finger to Andy’s lips to silence her, Maica shushed softly. “The ship has to come first. More than just you and me rely on it to keep us alive. I’ll be here and if you can’t get my new body finished in time, you can always make a backup of me closer to the deadline and use that. I’ll still be me. We both just saw proof of that, didn’t we?”

“But I’ll know the difference… I don’t want a backup, I want you…” Andy insisted softly. “If it comes down to it, the body in the lab is… well, the all the positronics are done, the neural pathways are ready to accept the transfer. With power, I can still use it if I can’t finish the whole thing in time. It won’t be any fun, you’ll be paralyzed for a while, but… it’s gotta be better than dying, right?”

“Then it’s settled. If I can be transferred and at least saved at any time, then the ship does come first. If you’re serious about time off, though… Well, I’ll back you up on it and request you be temporarily assigned to the diplomatic department for a few days if you like.” Maica spoke softly, a tender smile on her face. She loved this woman so much, it felt like she might expire right there in her arms.

“Please,” Andy breathed as she held tighter to Maica. “Even… even just a day, I need an extended regeneration cycle to make up for all the damage I’m doing to myself.” Andy so rarely asked for anything for herself, but self-preservation was starting to kick in and she was more than a little scared that she might actually work herself to death.

“Then consider it done.” Maica all but whispered her words. She could smell the borg tissues starting to decay that Andy had been trying to keep from her. She could try to hide it, but she was literally working herself to death and Maica could sense it easily.

“Thank you,” Andy said quietly as she buried her face in Maica’s hair, her body shuddering in relief that she could finally take some time to rest. “Thank you,” she repeated as her body threatened to give out right then, but little more than pride and force of will kept her standing. She had pushed herself too hard for too long and now she was paying for it...

Andy sagged tiredly in her chair as her vision began to blur. She had pulled another all-nighter working on parts for Maica's new body when she had finally reached her limit. She couldn't do this anymore, she had to take a break. Maica said she would help convince Kris to give her some time off but... if Andy went on much longer, she wouldn't need to ask Kris for the time off, she would just stop functioning! She could go to Sickbay to request the time off, but if she did that then they would make her take like a week and she couldn't do that either. Besides, she hated Sickbay...

So, Sickbay or the Captain? Fuck it, what would it hurt to simply ask? the worst he could do was say no, right? And then she could go to Sickbay. Uhg, she really didn't want to go to Sickbay, so she hoped Kris would approve the time off. She rose from her chair, but immediately slumped back into it. Shit, her body felt so heavy! Andy tried again, but she couldn't seem to removed herself from her chair. Oh no, no no no no no... She took a deep breath, then tapped her commbadge.

=/\="Carter to... " Fuck, how to pronounce his name! She knew his name, but she'd never said it, never needed to say it, how the hell was his name pronounced? "Carter to Kerouac" she repeated once she recalled someone else saying his name and simply trusted that she heard right. She must have said it right, for the computer hadn't given her any errors in response.

"Weatherly causing trouble?" asked Kris, responding to the woman's call as he walked down one of his starship's corridors dressed casually in a flannel button up shirt left open chested, showing a white beater shirt underneath. Starfleet slacks were traded for some faded blue jeans that looked like they had seen better days despite having recently been replicated. His blue Gibson Les Paul in hand.

"Not exactly..." Andy said uneasily. "Can... can you come to my lab, sir? I kinda have a... situation."

There goes my night thought Kris as he looked down at his guitar and felt a stinging disappointment. Another night perhaps. One of his crew members needed him and so that was where he needed to be. "I'll be over in a few minutes, Chief."

Kris had not been telling a lie. He was actually rather close to the Cybernetics lab when she had called him. Within five minutes of responding to her, Kris was outside Cybernetics and gave the door a gentle knock, even though the sensors at the door would have alerted the woman.

"Come in," Andy said as she propped herself against the workbench with cybernetic parts strewn about. Her body just felt even heavier and she could barely sit up. And she looked like shit. "Sorry to disturb you, Captain, but I have a bit of a problem," she said shakily when she saw his casual appearance. "Can you help me get to my quarters?" she asked.

"Can you move, Chief?" asked Kris a bit dumbfounded. He moved over closer to the woman, setting his guitar down against her work bench. "What is going on... do I need to call Sickbay? Are you pregnant? Do you have cramps?"

Andy had strength enough to reach out and hit him hard on the arm. "I ain't pregnant!" she said sharply. Keh, like she could even get pregnant after the field day the Borg had with her body... "I just... ain't slept since before Teplan and it's been almost that long since I've had a full regeneration cycle," she explained. "I... Between the ship and Maica, I been working 24-7 and... I kinda hit my limit. I just need help getting to my quarters."

Kris shook his head and sighed. "Damn it, Andy... did the thought of sleeping... regenerating even cross your mind?" asked Kris. He looked at the woman, studying her with his gaze. "You are going to your quarters where you will relax and that is an order. You are off duty for the next 48 hours, Chief and I do not want to hear any objection" said Kris firmly as he bent down and swooped the woman up in his arms like a groom carrying his bride.

Fuck, there goes her dignity... Well, at least she was getting the time off she needed... "I just... there isn't enough time... Maica ain't got much time left and..." It was hard to admit all this, she didn't like appearing vulnerable to anyone. "Shit, don't tell Maica! She can't find out."

"I see no reason why your health should be discussed with my Chief Diplomatic Officer" said Kris formally though with a small smirk. "If you do not want to tell her, then that is up to you. The only two people besides the two of us who will be informed of this will be Doctor Cohen and our new Counselor."

"Shit, don't do that, please," Andy said, wincing at the thought. "That's why I called you and not Sickbay, they'll take me off duty for a week!" She couldn't abandon her responsibility to the ship.

It would be standard and very much in line with protocol to inform the Chief Medical Officer of my concerns about the health of a member of the crew thought Kris as he looked at Andy. "The Medical Department really should be made aware of the situation, Chief. However, if I were in your position... I would rather finish my work and get this starship going. I'll shrug this off."

"I just need to catch up on my regeneration, I'll be fine," Andy insisted, then resorted to bargaining. "I wanted to focus on Maica, but I couldn't abandon my duties either, and there's no time left... I just need some time to finish it, I can do it. Give me time from my duties so I can fix Maica and when I'm done I'll... I'll go to Sickbay myself. I'll do the counseling, just... I can't let her die, Captain."

"I think Matthews and Corbin can take care of ship repairs with the rest of Engineering and Operations supporting them. If you feel that your efforts would be best placed focusing on Maica, then focus on Maica. As far as I am concerned, Chief, you'd be saving the life of my Chief Diplomatic Officer and that is more important to me than anything else. The starship can be delayed a day or two" explained Kris as he carried the woman out from her lab and through the corridors.

"Forget Sickbay and counseling. Just rest and get to work on complete your work on Maica."

Andy closed her eyes and finally allowed herself to relax. "Thank you, Captain," was all she could manage to say.

Kris looked down at the woman who closed her eyes. It did touch him on the inside. She actually looked rather angelic for once in all the times Kris had seen her. She should keep her mouth and eyes closed more often thought Kris with a small smirk. "Hey now, don't go falling asleep on me now, girl."

"You can't tell me what to do, I'm sick!" Andy said as she faked a cough. Then she snickered and cracked an eye open to peek at him. "I ain't falling asleep, I'm just relieved. Maica's condition has had me on edge... I've had to do in two week what it's taken the foremost experts in cybernetics years to do. I had to assimilate a shitload of information to do it too, it gave me one hell of a headache."

"These three nice pips and the title Commanding Officer give me the right" countered Kris. He had carried her onto a Turbolift and then off when it came to its destination. "It has had me on edge too, Chief. I have had to say goodbye to a few of this crew already. I do not want to have to say goodbye to any more."

"Yes, Captain Jack-ass!" Andy said with a mock salute while they were in the privacy of the lift. She wouldn't dare do that in an open corridor where someone could overhear that, she wasn't that stupid. "And I'll do everything in my power to ensure that Maica survives."

"Oh I'm so hurt" retorted Kris with a small chuckle. "Yeah, I've been called much worse" said Kris as he thought about the few choice words that Merith had used on him, some of them he had no idea what they meant.

"I bet you have..." Andy said with a snicker. They finally made it to her quarters and she reached out to press her hand to the biometric plate to let them in. "My alcove is by the bed, just stand me up in it and I'll be alright from there," she said.

Kris followed her instructions and stood her up in her alcove. "Sweet dreams, Chief"

"I don't know if I'm capable of 'sweet' dreams," Andy said sadly as she held onto him for a moment while she found her feet. There was a loud click and her body went rigid in the ominous looking borg device. "But I do dream. Most people assume I don't." She fixed him with a strange gaze, her mouth opened to speak again, but she quickly closed it, her brow furrowed in thought. After a moment she offered him a small, genuine smile. "Thank you, Captain." Her smile faded as her eyes closed, appearing lifeless as her regeneration cycle started.

Kris simply nodded and watched as the woman drifted 'asleep'.

-=Katana’s Shuttle Bay=-

It was a dark and dimly lit night on the Katana’s shuttlebay deck. Steam was rising off of a few of the shuttles as maintenance teams checked over them. The green skinned android wasn’t here for any of them, though. She was here for something much shadier. Her Caitian friends had sent a high speed stalker shuttle out to meet her and this was when they were supposed to arrive. Opening the shuttle bay doors, she waited for a brief signal before closing them and heading out to meet the shuttle, a small wheeled cargo container in tow.

Heading towards the prescribed landing pad, Maica couldn’t really see anything since the Caitians still had their stealth tech online - it wasn’t a true cloak, but to her electronic eyes it might as well be. Interestingly enough, she couldn’t see the wall behind it, either. The area was just a large blank spot in her vision.

As they powered down, their ship came into view for her, the dark blue and grey lines of the shuttle contrasting sharply against the Katana’s deck plating. Maica headed towards the shuttle door, her grim expression lightening a bit as it opened and Ambassador Stass Ferdaln himself stepped out, holding his arms out in greeting. “Maica! It’s been far too long. You should come back to the Embassy where it’s safer.” He said, giving her a warm and friendly hug.

Maica returned the hug, careful to set the case upright as she did so. “Oh goodness. I do miss it, but I have so many new friends out here. I’d have to bring a few of them back with me.” Maica said with a smile.

“The more the merrier. You know any friend of yours is a friend of mine.” The chubby and overly flashily dressed ambassador spoke in a deep purr, smiling so wide you could count his perfectly sharp teeth. “Now shall we take care of business first? I don’t think we can stay long, what with the reports of disappearing ships in this area.”

“Of course.” Bending down, Maica opened the case, revealing the contents - 2 ancient Earth violins and several holorecording rods. Opening the violin cases, she handed the Ambassador a PaDD with all the authentication paperwork he could ask for, including quantum dating.

Lifting one of the violins out of the case, Ambassador Stass brushed the bow across the strings briefly, savoring the resonance and intonation and almost drooling in anticipation. “Amazingly beautiful. I know this is what we agreed upon, but I’m not sure I have any right to either of these now. They’re too exquisite for me to keep for myself.” He spoke with sadness in his voice as he set the violin carefully back in it’s case and closed both of them back up. “Your friend must care for you a lot. This is to save your life, you said?”

Nodding, Maica finished closing up the case, giving a last longing glance to the Rhonheimer violin. That was the one Andy had been playing when they met so she was sad to see it go. “Yeah, I won’t function much longer without that generator. Andy’s been working almost non stop building a new body and systems for me and though she’s close to finishing, there are only a few days left.”

“Then I hope you can appreciate the gift I brought. I’m sorry, but I had to tell a few friends of your predicament and that I was going to make a trip out to see you. I hope you don’t mind. There are several cases of ‘presents’ in the shuttle for you. As for the generator…” As he finished speaking, he pulled out a small case and opened it, revealing a tiny piece of tech. “It’s our most compact model. I hope it works well for you.”

Maica’s face showed a wave of relief wash across it as she reached out for the tiny device. “Thank you. I’m sure it’ll be perfect.”

Closing and handing the case to her, he smiled as she held it to her chest. “Now about those gifts. I’ll send my pilot to help you get it all to your room. I hope you like everything.”

“I’m sure I will. Thank you so very much.” Maica said with the widest and happiest smile she’d ever let slip. This was the last piece they needed for her new body.

-=An Hour Later, Crew Quarters=-

After she had gotten her gifts sorted a bit she realized that a lot of it was promised bottles from many of her colleagues. It seemed everyone she had previously shared a drink with had sent her something interesting - either a few rare bottles of alcohol or something only a drunk politician could appreciate as art. Maica only felt she had time to sort through so much, though. Andy would be done with her extended regeneration in a few moments and she wanted to surprise her.

Three cases of booze… Three… Maica really could start her own bar now… Maybe the Captain could let her use one of the empty crew quarters for one… Nevermind that, though. She had to go see Andy! Picking up the tiny case and glancing inside at the Toron generator one more time, she headed out of her quarters to Andy’s, letting herself in and standing in front of her regeneration alcove. She should be awake any moment now…

Andy could stand to stay in her alcove a while longer, but she was aware of Maica’s presence and was starting to wake. Her eyes fluttered open and fixed her gaze upon Maica. “Hey you,” Andy said with a smirk. The alcove make a loud ‘clack’ as she stepped down with a yawn, stretching as she walked towards Maica. “What’s up?” she asked as she flopped right onto the bed.

Maica was bouncing on her heels like an excited kid with a secret, her fleshier bits bouncing tantalizingly. “We got a delivery today. A personal delivery from Federation Ambassador Stass Ferdaln. Guess what he brought?”

“The thoron generator?” Andy asked, looking up at Maica.

Nodding gleefully, Maica held the small box out to Andy. “And about a hundred more bottles of booze. He apparently took up a collection as well.”

“Gimme!” Andy said, sitting up and snatching the box out of her hand. “Finally! We’re almost done, Maica!”

“I know! it’s so exciting!” Maica was feeling a bit more energetic than her excitement could account for though as unbeknownst to her, her current generator was starting to run wild again, putting out higher power levels than she needed. In fact, if Andy looked at her carefully, she could see a 2 degree rise in her body temperature just from that alone. “Now that that’s here, how long will it take?”

Of course Andy noticed. She was always so focused on Maica there was no way for her to miss it. “Maica… your core temperature is rising… Shit!” She stood and focused on Maica completely, setting the box with the thoron generator aside. “Run a diagnostic on your reactor, now,” she said in a worried tone.

Pausing mid bounce with a worried look of surprise on her face, Maica ran the internal diagnostic. “It’s bad… Its output levels are almost double normal… It’s not responding to regulation subroutines...” She didn’t know what to do other than let Andy do what she does best.

Oh no! This was bad… Maica was supposed to have a few more days, this wasn’t good! “Maica, we need to get you to the lab, I gotta get your reactor cooled down,” Andy said as she grabbed her duty jacket off the back of a chair and knotted her hair at the nape of her neck. She grabbed the thoron generator, then Maica’s arm. “C’mon, I’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

Maica was a bit scared now, letting Andy drag her through the corridors towards engineering. It was the kind of fear that almost killed her last time, which made her even more afraid of what could happen in the next few minutes. “It’s at the upper output limits and still rising… Andy… I’m scared now…”

“Shut off your emotions. Halting the fear response might stop it from getting any worse,” Andy suggested as they made their way through the corridors. She was scared too, but tried not to show it.

Clicking off her emotions, Maica reported her status with a flat voice. “Emotions offline. Reactor status declining. It’s now at 300% normal output. At the current rate of progression, a reactor breach will occur in seven minutes, forty seconds. Blast radius, 20 meters.” The calm with which she reported all that even seemed unnerving to her now emotionless self.

Seven minutes? Not enough time. She stopped them in the middle of the corridor, putting her arm around Maica as she tapped her commbadge. “Computer, emergency site to site transport, two to Engineering lab 2.” In a wash of blue light, they disappeared from the corridor and reappeared in the cybernetics lap. Andy looked to the new body she had prepared for Maica. No where near done, but stable enough to accept the transfer. She quickly maneuvered Maica into the second maintenance bay and began to connect the cables for the transfer.

“Maica, I know your emotions are off, but… I know you’re afraid, just listen,” Andy said as she worked at a frantic pace to get Maica hooked up. “I don’t have time to do this gently, it’s gonna hurt. Just remember, I’ll be here, I won’t let you go,” Andy promised softly. Then she moved to hook the generator up to the power cell within the new body so it would have power.

“Yes, I understand.” Maica’s words may have been emotionless, her expression blank. But a few tears still rolled down her cheeks. they were illogical and there was no discernable stimuli to cause them, yet there they were. “Six minutes to reactor breach.”

Andy’s palms cupped Maica’s cheeks, wiping away the stray tears with her thumbs. Those tears were proof that Maica was more than just a collection of part and programming. “Stay strong for me,” Andy said softly, then planted a gentle kiss on Maica’s lips. she quickly turned away to work on priming the new body for the transfer, but also to hide her own tears that threatened to fall. Shit, they had been so close, why now?

By now, the heat from the reactor was burning Maica’s flesh at the small of her back. so far it wasn’t too much to let regrow on it’s own, but much more and the area would be permanently damaged. “Reactor levels at 600% of nominal. 5 minutes to breach. Andy, how do you plan on removing the threat of explosion?” Even emotionless, Maica’s voice clearly had worry in it as she asked that question.

“I don’t know…” Andy admitted. She could smell the flesh burning… How did it all go so wrong? Fuck, and Kris was going to yell at her for not alerting him about a potential emergency. She thought of the strangest things at the strangest times… She pushed the thoron generator as hard is it could go to charge the power cell as fast is it could, but it wasn’t fast enough! No… they were so close, they just couldn’t fail now!

“Fuck it,” Andy said and disconnected the generator from the power source and reconnected it directly to the power distribution node. It wouldn’t be as reliable as using the power source, but she needed to get this body working now! As soon as the various systems began to start up, Andy started the transfer. They were long past the chance for a luxury like delicacy. Andy wasn’t lying, it was gonna hurt.
Maica could feel the transfer start. It was a bit like a transporter beam that was going really… really… slowly. She was able to get out one more diagnostic report from her old body before she lost conscious touch with it. “Four minutes to reactor breach. Recommend safe disposal of reactor ime…” That was all she got out before her subroutines veritably started screaming in pain, her core personality files and diagnostics transferred to the new body. She couldn’t see or feel anything and her emotions had been re-enabled. The new body jerked slightly as she became aware of it, her memories and the rest of her program flooding in. “Andy… Are you there? Am I in…” Her fear was there and she was certainly scared, but it was controllable for now. It was a painful transfer, but she guessed that being awake for it, she could at least keep the memories she was processing at the time in the forefront of her mind. Her other memories would need to be recatalogued, but for now at least, she knew who she was, who Andy was, and most of what was happening.

“I’m here, Maica, keep talking,” Andy said as she monitored the transfer. At least this part was going alright. it was traumatic, but at the very least there were no problems with it so far. Now what was she going to do about that generator?

“Ok, I’m here. Memories are coming in. Everything seems to be lining up fine. I can’t see, though. Is the micro-fusion reactor still running wild?” Maica spoke with a waver in her voice, both from the pain and from the fear. She didn’t want to have come all this way to only die from her old body exploding right next to her.

“I’m reusing your eyes, Maica, of course you can’t see yet,” Andy reminded her as she turned her attention to the reactor, grabbing a laser cutter and cutting away Maica’s uniform to better access the abdomen where it resided. What to do, what to do… “And don’t worry about the reactor, I’m working on it.”

Maica nodded as best she could locked in the cybernetics alcove. “Ok, I trust you.” For now, she would just have to focus on settling into her new… well… most of her new body. “Integration is going well, I think. Please let me know when the transfer is complete so I know when I can start reprocessing everything.”

“Stop thinking about it and just do it, your neural net can handle it while you transfer,” Andy said. As soon as the upload from Maica’s original body was complete, Andy cut through the biosynthetic skin to access and shut off the reactor, but the power still had to go somewhere, the breach hadn’t been averted just yet. She thought about transferring that power to the ship’s main power relays, but that would short out the room and she couldn’t afford to have that disrupt Maica’s progress.

“I’ve got the reactor off, but I’ve got to bleed the power off.” It was like Andy’s brain had ceased to function, she couldn’t formulate a solution. “I just… I can’t…”

Maica was processing all her integration data in the background while she listened to the sounds around her. Andy seemed in trouble still, though she had been able to at least delay, if not prevent the breach. “Is there anything you can use as a dummy load? Something to fuse to it and just burn the energy off?” Her sense of smell was working now, the burnt synthetic flesh of her lower back on her old body wafting into her new olfactory sensors. From the smell, she could tell there was a lot of blistering and possible charring, though she hoped it wasn’t as bad as she thought.

Andy glanced around for anything that might be useful to Maica’s suggestion. In the corner of the room were a set of old plasma conduits that Andy had been meaning to recycle after the lab had been converted into a cybernetic lab, but she had never gotten around to it. She was never so glad for a bout of laziness in her life! She grabbed the plasma conduits and hooked them up to Maica’s old reactor, bleeding off the power threatening to explode and kill them both.

“Crisis averted,” Andy said as she watched the heat in Maica’s old body subside while the old plasma conduits became superheated.

Maica was deep into her integration when she heard those last words. She wasn’t sure if her new face was smiling or not, but she was on the inside, either way. She would survive and so would Andy. “I hate to be a bother… but would it be too hard to at least transfer my eyes over?” She asked with a relieved chuckle.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on it,” Andy said with a chuckle. “Just… give me a second, it still feels like my heart if about to jump out of my chest.”

“Please, take your time. After that, I’m amazed we’re both still alive.” Maica indeed was amazed. The emergency transfer had worked, they had avoided being blown up, and she had lots of time to spend with Andy ahead of her. This was likely the best day of her life, and only 3 days before her 10th birthday, to boot.

“Heh, yeah, that was… that was something, wasn’t it,” Andy snickered. Damn, scared the shit out of her just minutes ago, but they would be laughing about this later. “If the Captain asks, I did not nearly blow up the ship. Your reactor failed, we’ll just leave it at that.”

“I’m good with that. This close to the warp core, it would have caused a lot of damage, I’m sure. Next time, let’s build the cybernetics lab a bit further away from main engineering.” Maica chuckled at that, relief flowing through her. That was something they hadn’t expected or planned for but thankfully it turned out ok in the end.

“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that…” Andy said as she slumped into a chair. She ran a hand over her face in disbelief. “I’m an engineer, how did I not think of that!”

“We both had a lot on our minds. For now, let’s just count our… count our… count our…” Maica started repeating those 2 words over and over, locked in a massive processing cycle. Not quite a loop, but it was definitely taking up all her new mental abilities. After about a minute, she broke out of it, just like her backup on the holodeck had. “Blessings and move on. There’s still a lot of work left, I assume.”

“Yeah, a lot… I need to take your organelles out of stasis and install them, scavenge your eyes, skin, and a few other parts… and most importantly, get your power cell charged up. I don’t even know how I’m gonna do that with the way you’re hooked up right now, but… well, you’re functioning for now and that’s the important bit,” Andy said as she rose to start removing Maica’s eyes from the old body, choosing not to say anything about how Maica got hung up processing; if she hadn’t noticed, then no sense in pointing it out, though Andy had been confident Maica could overcome it just like the backup had.

“Integration seems complete so far. I’ll have to rewrite my process allocations later, but for now I think my end of the transfer is finished.” The android spoke confidently finally, her featureless face still showing a hint of the emotion she felt. “As for the new power supply, can you remove it to charge it? I seem to be stable enough on ship’s power, though I don’t want to explode like a console if we get attacked…”

“Heh, no worry of that,” Andy said as she worked on the obsolete body. “You’re hooked up directly to the thoron generator, bypassing the power cell, that’s why I’ve got a problem. I can’t charge the power cell without shutting you off to switch things around. It wouldn’t be a problem if you were completed; if your metabolism was functioning, it could keep you operational while I prime the power cell off the generator, but that ain’t the case, so we’ll just have to bite the bullet and shut you down later so I can get you charged up.”

“Will the thoron generator be a permanent fixture? The way you talk, it almost sounds like you won’t need it after you’re done…” Maica asked questioningly. If she could give it back to the Ambassador, she might be able to get one or both of Andy’s violins back...

“Strictly speaking, we won’t,” Andy replied. “But it will still be useful to keep around. You’ll use power from the power cell, your metabolism will be constantly recharging the cell on its own, a continuous cycle. The only time you’ll need the generator is if you need to use your super android strength for an extended amount of time, or something like that that would significantly drain your resources. Or if we needed to shut you down for extended diagnostics, your metabolism wouldn’t be running to keep you charged up. So it’s a back up, don’t even think about trading it back to the Caitians. I’ll get another violin.”

Maica should have known Andy would expect that of her. “Fair enough. I still want to try and get your Rhonheimer back, though. Or at least a similar one…”

“There is no ‘similar one’,” Andy said sadly. “A violin like that, that kind of craftsmanship surviving to today… it’s truly unique. Unless you could find a way to get it back, there’s no way you could replace it. But it was worth it to save you; nothing… no one could ever replace you, Maica,” she said earnestly. She finished extracting the eyes and the universal translator from the obsolete body and moved over to Maica in the new body. “I’m ready to start installing stuff. You might feel what I’m doing, but it won’t hurt.”

“Ok, go ahead then. By the way, what language am I speaking? I assume your UT is working but without mine, I’m not sure I can tell…” That was something Maica hadn’t realized until now. She had no way of knowing if she was speaking Ferengi or English. For all she knew, she could be meowing in Caitian and not even realize it.

“Federation Standard,” Andy informed Maica as removed some face plating to install the UT. “I think Ferengi and English are the only two languages that are embedded in your procedural memories, the rest is part of your UT, though I could be off on that. I haven’t had as much time to study your your neural topography as I would like.”

“That makes sense. I know a lot of my programming originated in Federation Standard English because of the holomatrix, but the rest was in Ferengi. That’s probably why those 2 languages are the only ones readily available. I might have to load Caitian directly from now on, though. And I’ll need to make sure I can still speak Shira’s language. Andorian is an interesting language. i don’t know any way of saying ‘It’s too hot’ in Andorian.” Maica was rattling now, her talkativeness kicking in now that her stress levels had been drastically reduced.

“That’s because it don’t exist on Andoria, just like Ferengi don’t have a word for ‘crunchy’,” Andy remarked with a snicker. “And you need to stop thinking about your programming and things you need to do or transfer or whatever. Learn to trust your new autonomic functions. If you use Caitian a lot, a logical move would be to embed that in your procedural memory and it’ll do it. Same with the twig-girl’s language. You’re still doing all the work, you’re just not doing it consciously, okay?”

If a collection of android parts and circuits could look crestfallen, Maica was the one to do it. “Aww ok. That’s no fun though. Whatever will I do when I’m bored?” She then tried to snap her metallic framed fingers, failing miserably. “I know, I’ll take up another hobby. What do you think of yodelling?”

“Do it and I will strangle you,” Andy said candidly. “UT is installed, test away,” she added, then replaced the face plating and started working on the eyes. “You could always learn to daydream. that’s always fun. I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”

Detecting and running cycle locks through her UT system, Maica ran through some system checks in it, speaking a few random words in some random languages real quick. “It checks out perfectly. Daydreaming, huh? Something else I’ve never done, though I suppose running simulations and reviewing memories would be similar…”

“I’m sure you’ll have no problem giving it a try,” Andy said as she continued to work on the eyes. “Check your autonomic subroutines, I dare you. Since you were thinking of those languages, I bet they’re being transferred to your neural network already.”

Maica did check, seeing if any other languages had been moved to her neural net. “None of the ones I mentioned before… The ones I used a moment ago, no… Tholian, Bajoran, Dominion, and Borg binary algorithms, yes… An interesting selection…”

Andy nodded. So the algorithms weren’t perfect, but they would refine themselves and become more efficient as Maica fully integrated into the system. “You know Borg algorithms?” Andy asked curiously. “Why would you need to know Borg?”

“You remember how a lot of drones were freed from the collective by Voyager some time ago? I acted as a go-between on one of my diplomatic missions. A sphere wanted to make an uninhabited world their home and wanted to get permission from the local governing bodies so I was assigned as a representative for 2 weeks.” Explained Maica with a hint of pride in her voice.

“I... didn’t keep up with much of the news regarding the Borg back then… I was still kinda messed up, I avoided anything related to the Borg like the plague,” Andy admitted uneasily. “I had accepted what I had become, but I was still very angry for so long. It took me a long time to let go of that anger.”

“They were pretty messed up too. Almost half the crew tried to kill themselves, which… well… I learned the resiliency of a Borg drone quite well…” Those were some of Maica’s less savory memories. “I can say that they all got a chance to restart their lives, though.”

“That’s good,” Andy said sincerely, though her voice somewhat bitter and sad but strangely at peace. Her feelings for the Borg were… truly ‘Andy’, but it was clear this wasn’t easy for her to talk about. “Left eye is in, give it a try.”

Not able to blink without her skin, Maica checked the connection, activating the left eye and looking into Andy’s. “Hello beautiful. You’re the best sight I’ve seen my whole life.” She said cheesily, yet meaningfully.

“Keh,” Andy grunted in reply with a blush, but kept working on the other eye.

"Have I ever told you how much I love seeing you blush?" Maica teased, trying to smile.

“Only you can make me blush like this,” Andy admitted, the shade of her face deepening even further.

"Then I'm the luckiest being in the galaxy." Sappy, yes, but Maica meant it wholeheartedly.

“No, I’m lucky, to have found someone willing to put up with my ornery ass,” Andy grumbled. “Done,” she added as she finished with the other eye. She set her tools aside and plopped herself down in a chair.

"It feels good just being able to see. And my thinking... I feel like a bleeding genius now." Maica was indeed thinking a lot clearer and faster.

“I take it that means you approve?” Andy asked as she rose just long enough to get a mug of coffee from the replicator, then returned to her seat to look over some diagnostics running on Maica’s new positronic system.

"I do, though I have to wonder if this will change anything." Suddenly a thought occurred to Maica. "I'm supposed to help Shira with her lessons today. I don't suppose you'll be done with me by then..."

“Ha! Not a chance,” Andy said without looking up from her console. “I can make you presentable if you insist on doing the lessons, but the second that little twig touches something she shouldn’t, her ass is out of here. Got it?”

Giggling, Maica had to wonder about a technicality. "What if she moves something without touching it? No, don't worry about it. Just please let her know I'm here and I'm OK."

“I told you you could do your tutoring, she just has to behave,” Andy reiterated, then rose with a tool in hand to start removing the skin from the old body, cutting away the rest of the clothing for better access. “This might take a while. When are you supposed to meet her?” Andy asked as she separated the skin at the torso just under the bust, everything below that would have to be repaired. Then began the daunting task of ever so carefully removing it from the framework. the fingers would be the worst part of it!

"About 4 hours from now if the new internal chronometer is correct." Maica said. She was pretty sure it was right, but as of yet had no way to confirm it.

“Yeah, I can have you presentable,” Andy said as she nodded and continued to work. It took a good half hour to remove the skin, but it would take even longer to put it on the new body. “What’s the first thing you want to do once you’re free of the lab?” Andy asked to kill some time as she worked.

"That depends on how tired you are. If I can't ravish you for a full day, I'll have to start organizing those bottles and gifts and writing thank you letters." The letters weren't something she looked forward to writing, but they would be a good test of her new systems.

“I’m sure I can make time for a good ravishment somewhere in there,” Andy said with a lopsided grin. “Just so long as I can feel you up while you’re still in here.”

"You say that as you're removing my boobs from my old body... 'feel' free, of course." Maica giggled at that thought. "I drank some dissolving agent yesterday to help with removing my skin. I don't think it broke down too much of the bonding agent, but hopefully it helps some."

“It’s a good thing it hasn’t broken down too much. I wish you hadn’t done that, it makes the skin softer, more prone to stretching. I don’t take shortcuts like that, I do it right, even if it takes a little longer,” Andy scolded, but there was no real bite to her words. She wasn’t at all upset with Maica, she had simply done what she had thought was best. Still, that just meant Andy would have to be that much more careful. “But it is incredibly soft,” she relented as she continued to peel the skin away.

Shaking her head, Maica had to disagree. "I've done it twice now and it worked fine, though I always had closer to a week to let it work..."

“Well, once you get it back on, you’ll never have to do it again,” Andy said. “Ideally, anyway. I hope.” She finished peeling away the face and moved over to the new and improved Maica. “I’m going to have to disable your facial movements to get the skin to fit and attach right. you won’t be able to speak. Sorry,” Andy offered sympathetically.

"I can take care of that. You just worry about lining it up right the first time." Locking herself in a standby pattern, she waited motionlessly for Andy to do her work.

Covering Maica’s face with the skin would also obscure her sight for a while, but there was little Andy could do about that for now. Instead, she was focused solely on getting things lined up and attaching the ligaments that would form the various facial expression. It was a tedious process, but it had to be done. And it took longer than she really wanted it to, but there was little she could do about it at the point.

“Alright, I think you can move again,” Andy said as she continued to affix the skin around the back of Maica’s head, being careful of the cable attachments as the computer was still running diagnostics. “Go through the vowels, exaggerate the facial movements,” Andy said, watching carefully to make sure everything was working right.

Maica did so, moving through all 5 human vowel sounds and several others, stretching her face a bit and feeling it settle in place beautifully. “That feels pretty good. How do I look?” she asked, now with a proper smile.

“You look…” Andy started, a strange expression settling on her face, emotions shining in her eyes for which she had no name, “you look like Maica,” she said softly.

“Awww that’s cute.” Maica said with a hint of a blush. “You almost sound as cute as Shira saying that. ”That should get a blush out of Andy - telling her she’s that cute, that is. She appreciated it, though. It was good to feel like she was herself again.

Andy’s face again turned red so predictably, Andy just knew Maica was going to make a big fuss over how ‘cute’ it was. Dammit! She remained silent as she continued working on applying the skin, working around the head then down to the shoulders before jumping over to the hands, which Andy knew would take fucking FOREVER!

Maica didn’t, however. She just remained silent for a little while, enjoying the returning feel of her skin and Andy’s touch against it. now that the face and neck were bonded, she could kind of feel the rest of the flesh from there as Andy worked it over her fingers, her touch delicate yet confident.

Andy kept glancing at Maica’s face every now and then, an unreadable expression on her face as she worked. And her meticulous, almost affectionate, attention to detail as she worked on each finger was punctuated by a gentle kiss to each fingertip as she finished them, followed by a kiss to the palms and then those lovely wrists as she finished them as well. She topped it all off with a kiss to the corner of Maica’s lips as she grabbed the tool to fuse all the seams.

Kissing Andy back, Maica finally spoke. “I love your touch. How is it that no one else makes my skin tingle like you do?” She didn’t need to check, she knew that everything was perfectly seated and bonded well already.

“I don’t know,” Andy said in a hushed tone. “Why is it being with you, I wanna be more than what I am? You make me want to be better… a better person…” She planted little kisses across Maica’s bare shoulders as she finished joining the seam down the back of Maica’s neck.

“I can say the same, but you literally are making me a better person.” Maica said, her fingertips caressing the skin where Andy had recently touched, savoring the lingering feel as much as she could.

“This is just window dressings,” Andy replied breathily into Maica’s ear, caressing the curve of that elegant neck. “Who you are inside… you were always the better person… And you deserved to live. All I’ve done is extended your lifespan.”

Now Andy had Maica blushing, her skin reacting with little shivers and goosebumps. “I may deserve to live, but you’re the one that taught me how. Without you, I’d have probably just done my job day to day until I either blew a hole in the ship like I almost just did or just stopped working, never knowing what true love’s embrace felt like.”

“Then does that mean I can keep you?” Andy asked, brushing her thumb over the android’s lips.

Kissing at that thumb, Maica shivered at the soft touch. “Only if I can keep you, too.”

“Deal,” Andy said with a smirk, then kissing her lover deeply, tangling her hands in Maica’s crimson locks. This was about as close as Andy was capable of admitting her deeper feelings and agreeing to any form of commitment. Andy didn’t know why she felt it so difficult to understand and express her own feelings, but it was simply the way she had always been. She was just glad that Maica seemed to understand that and never asked for more.

Maica’s hands snaked up Andy’s back, pulling her tighter into the embrace as she added her tongue to the kiss. There was some missing hardware in her mouth, but that was just something she’d have to get used to. She’d have to use it like a normal person, now. She was happy enough with Andy’s response to her request. She’d get this woman in a committed relationship one way or another, but for now, this was good enough. This made Maica happy enough to cry.

“No no, don’t cry,” Andy said, freaking out slightly. She never knew what to do with tears, whether they were her own or someone else’s. “What did I do? I can fix it, just don’t cry.”

Maica brushed her fingertips across Andy’s cheek softly as she smiled lovingly with those tears. “There’s nothing to fix, my love. I’m just so happy to have you.”

Oh, okay… that made sense, she supposed. “Stay with me,” Andy blurted out suddenly, then she blushed fiercely. “Or, I can stay with you, but it might take me a while to move my alcove,” she added quickly.

“I think your alcove would be easier to move than the 3 cases of alcohol I just got. And besides, my quarters double as my office. If I moved out, I’d have to move the comm panels as well.” Maica had been thinking about this a fair bit lately and though she wasn’t certain, she was pretty sure it would be easier and better to move Andy to her quarters. “Besides that, have you moved to the senior staff quarters since your promotion?”

“Heh, fair enough,” Andy said, nodding her agreement that she would move in with Maica. “And I never took the better quarters. Even when I was on the Lexington, I just don’t know what to do with that much space…”

With a wicked chuckle and a seductive grin, Maica couldn’t resist. “You get rugburn. Everywhere. Another good reason to have a dermal regenerator handy, isn’t it?”

“Fuck me!” Andy said as she kissed Maica hard, but it was far too quickly over. “You are officially the best girlfriend ever. I don’t care what anyone else says, you are… you are…” Andy’s words were quickly running dry, but it didn’t really matter, she had made her point.

“Aww. Just a girlfriend? Well, I’ll just have to be happy with that for now.” Maica said with a wink. For now though, there was more work to be done. Groping herself, she made sure all her upper squishy bits were well seated so the bonding agent wouldn’t unseal. “I think i might need a good bra to hold these in place while the flesh sets to the frame. Can you replicate Maica blouse 43 for me? it’s skimpy enough that it shouldn’t get in your way.”

“Hey hey! No touchie! those are mine now!” Andy said in jest, then headed for the replicator to get Maica some clean clothes. She immediately put blouse 43 back through the replicator. Way too skimpy! “And what the hell are you thinking making me give you something like that? I gotta cover your bits for your lesson! not show everything off to twig-girl.” Andy browsed through the clothes at random until she found something that made her smile. It was just plain white cotton, almost flowy, sort of pant-suit kind of thing. Andy didn’t know what the hell to call it, but it would hide the fact that Maica didn’t have any skin below her bust. And the contrast of white against Maica’s green skintone was… nice. Andy blushed as she handed the garments to Maica. “I think that might look… nice.”

Maica looked over the outfit cautiously. “Yeah, it’s nice… but I’ll still need that bra… This doesn’t have enough support and you’ll have to help me get it on while i’m locked in this cage.”

Andy snickered. Get it on… She reached over to the old model, still draped in the tattered remains of the Starfleet uniform, but the bra underneath managed to survive undamaged. And it didn’t smell of burnt flesh, so it was useable. She removed the garment from the pile of clothing and returned to Maica and began to remove the restraints. “Just be careful, hold onto me, you don’t have full control of your lower body yet, I’m not done with all the work yet.”

“Great… and I thought my clone was off balance…” maica was definitely off balance, having little to no way to feel what her lower half was doing as she clung to Andy and all but fell out of the alcove like a newborn calf. Soon she was able to at least sort of stand on her own, but she was far from walking or even dressing herself.

“Don’t worry, girl, I gotcha,” Andy assured Maica. She wasn’t going to let her fall. She got the necessary cables sorted out so Maica could leave the alcove, then helped her put on the bra and the shirt. Then she kind of leaned Maica against the alcove frame while she helped her put on the pants. Poor Maica could barely raise her feet an inch off the ground, but it was enough to get her clothed. “Keep hold of the frame, I gotta clear some space for you to work, then you can sit down.”

“Sit down? With no padding? What is this universe coming to…” Maica muttered as she let herself be pampered like a newborn. In a way she was newly born, only having been in this body a short while.

“Ain’t like you can feel it!” Andy retorted as she cleared off the workbench and freed up some chairs. then she was again at Maica’s side, gentle and attentive, helping her one tiny step at a time into the chair.

“That’s what worries me the most.” With Andy’s help, she eventually made it to a sitting position, hopefully close to centered on the chair. “Well, this is an interesting sensation.”

“What is it?” Andy asked, worried that something may be wrong.

“I didn’t feel anything sitting down. No satisfying ‘squish’ or anything.” Maica explained.

“Well duh!” Andy said with a roll of her eyes. “Think you can stay in the chair on your own or do I need to strap you in?” she asked as she found Maica’s communicator within the remains of her uniform, pinning it to her blouse.

“I should be ok on my own, but you’d best be close at hand, just in case..” Tapping her comm badge, Maica spoke to the air. “Maica to Shira. We’ll have to hold class in engineering where I go to get fixed. Is that ok?”

=/\=”Maica?” Shira’s voice called out, clearly confused for a moment. “Oh… I… uhm, I’m not supposed to go to that place,” the little Arboreal admitted meekly.

“Andy will escort you into the lab. it’ll be ok this time as long as you don’t touch anything. I promise.” Maica coaxed.

“I will?” Andy asked, casting a glance to Maica, but she quickly recanted the question when she caught sight of Maica’s firm expression. “I mean, I will. Yes, I will come escort you to the lab. Where can I find you?” Then she began looking around for something that she could use to strap Maica to the chair so she could be left alone for a little while.

=/\=”I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” Shira said cutely, taking this matter seriously since the incident with the Founder in the hydroponics bay.

“Don’t worry, Andy is my wife. She’s not that strange.” Maica couldn’t help pick on Andy a bit at this point. She’d pay for it later, but for now, she’d have her fun and smile doing it.

=/\=”What is ‘wife’?” Shira asked, oblivious to the fact that she still had to tell them where she was so this Andy person could come get her.

“Fucking hell,” Andy blurted out as she went to the replicator to replicate some straps and started tying Maica to the chair.

Singing a short explanation of what a wife was, Maica tried to get comfortable in the chair as she was strapped into it, casting a scolding look to Andy for her language.

The commline was silent for a while as Shira processed this new information. =/\=“But you said ‘she’... You can do that with another female?”

“Love is blind. It doesn’t care. It’s the connection that matters.” Maica explained.

=/\=”Mmm, yes, this is true,” Shira agreed, still neglecting to reveal her location. Andy, tired of waiting for this information simply pulled up the location on the console and quickly left the lab, grumbling under her breath about uncooperative little twigs. “But if you are both females, how do you have babies?” Shira asked innocently, clearly aware that procreating required a male at some point.

“Well, we’re both mostly technology, so for us, we’d build them.” That should explain it well enough… Hopefully… Maica was still readying for a new unexpected answer, though.

=/\=”Technology? You mean machine? like Vara?” Shira asked.

Oh my. She knew Vara? That was almost worrying. “Yeah something like Vara. I’m completely machine and Andy is mostly machine.” Maica could only brace herself for the next question, having no idea what it could be.

=/\=”Why do people become machines?” Shira continued with her odd line of questioning. “Vara said she was born not machine, but that she uses metal parts over time, but why?”

Maica almost wanted to roll her head against the desk at that question. she should have known it was coming. “Her people try to make themselves better that way. I was made this way. Andy was taken by another people and made the way she is.” Maica could only hope that made sense to Shira and that Andy would be there soon.

=/\=”Taken? By another… Like the people on that planet hurt our friends to make me help them?”

There was another container of jellied gree worms Maica didn’t feel like answering right now… “You’d probably better ask Andy that. She could explain the Borg better than I could, though I doubt she’d be willing to talk about it.”

=/\=”Borg? I know this word… Kris and the others said it on my world.” Shira was sharp, but these tangents and questions were going to get her into trouble one day. “They talked about the forbidden place and said tha-” shira’s words were muffled, and Andy could be heard shortly after.

=/\=”Maica, I got her, I’m on my way back,” Andy said in an annoyed tone.

Maica sighed heavily, hoping Andy didn’t resort to gagging her or anything. “Ok, I’ll see both of you soon.” Tapping her badge again, she closed the channel.

Maica was blessed with several minutes of silence until, quite suddenly, the door burst open and Shira came flying in, quickly spotting Maica and hiding behind her. “Maica! Save me! She said she was going to snap me like the twig I was! What does that mean?” Shira wailed as she cowered behind Maica.

Holy fucksticks… Seriously? This time Maica really did lay her head on the desk and roll it around, almost falling out of her chair as she did so. “It’s ok, she’s just tired and a bit irritable. She’s really nice once you get to know her. Andy, what happened?”

Andy stormed through the door, not nearly as fast as quick little Shira. “Where is she? the little brat licked my hand! I don’t know where that tongue has be-” Andy stopped short when she saw Shira hiding. “Oh hell no! Get out of there!” Andy bellowed, quickly crossing the space to where Maica was, grabbing Shira by the back of her dress and pulling her away, being careful not to disturb the cables still connected to Maica, but also careful not to damage the fragile wings on the little Arboreal’s back; despite her earlier threat, she didn’t really want to hurt the girl.

“Forever more. Both of you calm down. No one is going to hurt anyone, ok?” Maica pointed to one chair. “Shira, sit there.” She then pointed to another. “Andy, sit there.” When they weren’t quick enough for her, she raised her voice to hopefully an authoritative volume. “NOW!”

Andy and Shira both blanched at the order, both staring at Maica with a strangely pained expression. “I ain’t sittin’, too much work to do,” Andy declared, but she did plop the little twig into a chair before storming off. “Don’t let her touch anything!” Andy called out as she made herself scarce for a while.

Maica could do little more than rest her head in her hands. “I’d prefer if you two became friends quickly, but I don’t suppose that’ll happen…” Looking up at Shira, the weight of the day was in her eyes as she smiled softly. “Now then… How have you been?”

“You can’t make me!” Andy called out from somewhere within the lab.

Shira, however, hadn’t really heard Maica. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the remains of Maica’s old body still standing in its alcove. “Maica?” she squeaked almost fearfully.

Glancing over her shoulder at the skeletal remains of her old body, Maica almost felt like she was going to die of embarrassment. “Shira… That’s my old body… I’m in this one now. See the cables behind me?”

“I… I don’t understand,” Shira replied in a small voice, but her eyes did follow the strange line connected to Maica.

Maica thought about it for a moment before replying. “Remember the root from the Elder? It’s something like that. Andy moved my roots from that body to this one when it died.”

Shira’s eyes worked over the scene, from Maica, down the cable, to the old body. What she said made sense in a way, but it was still utterly confusing. “You expired?” Shira asked.

“I did.” Maica said without hesitation. She knew it was a lot for Shira to take in and she wished they had covered her old body at the very least, but what was done was done.

Shira looked like she had a thousand and one questions racing through her mind, but she remained strangely silent as she processed this information.

Maica knew another question was coming, she just wasn’t looking forward to it yet. “I’m just glad Andy got some of my skin transferred to my new body. Without it, I’m sure I would have scared you quite a bit.”

“But I am scared,” Shira whispered, her eyes still wide and fixed on the ‘dead’ body. “How…” she started, then thought better than to ask the question on her mind and silenced herself with a soft humm.

“Do you know what scares me? Plants… Trees… I can’t see them well and they’re always changing…” Maica said, almost dramatically.

Shira blinked at Maica, confused. Well that was just absurd! “But… but plants… they are not scary! and they have to grow. Everything grows!”

“I don’t grow. The concept of me growing is terrifying. I was made to be 160cm tall. That body was 160cm tall when I died. This body is 160cm tall. It will always be 160cm tall. That has to always remain the same for me no matter what.” Maica tried to explain. “You… You’re taller now than when I met you.”

“No… No I’m not,” Shira insisted with no way of know if she was any different in size compared to when she first met Maica. She certainly didn’t feel any different.

“Yes you are. You’re 3 millimeters taller. If I were 3 millimeters taller over the course of a month, I couldn’t walk or move around right. You’ve grown…” Looking at Shira with mock terror, she punctuated her point. “Scary…”

“What is millimeter?” Shira asked, still not understanding why that was so scary for Maica.

Holding her hand out, she spaced her thumb and forefinger about 1mm apart. “That’s a millimeter. I can clearly see that you’re 3 of those taller than before.”

“How can you tell?” Andy asked as she made herself seen once again, making her way over to Maica’s old body to remove it so it wouldn’t be such a problem. “Under all that hair, how can you tell?” Andy teased. “And people thought my hair was bad…”

Shira ran her hands over her grassy hair as if to shield it from the scary Andy-lady. “Three of those is not a lot,” she said, still not comprehending.

Glancing back at Andy, Maica smiled at her secret. “Hair tends to show up on my eyes differently than solid flesh. Less body heat, for one. And no, it’s not a lot, but it’s more than I can comprehend myself being changed. I couldn’t handle it at all.”

“Cheater,” Andy called out as she gently lifted the body, but that was the pot calling the kettle black; Andy used similar tactics. “And don’t let her lie to you, kid, if I wanted to make her taller, she could adapt. she wouldn’t like it, but she could do it,” Andy stated with a snicker knowing it would just confuse Shira more.

“If you had, you couldn’t reuse my skin. I’m rather attached… well… I’m very fond of it and I don’t want to let it go.” Maica retorted teasingly.

“Oi, I didn’t think of that!” Andy said thoughtfully. She was about to leave when Shira rose from her chair and fluttered closer to look at the body in Andy’s arms. The poor girl was still confused out of her wits, but she knew enough to understand death and that this machine-body was dead.

“How does your kind honor the dead?” Shira asked the two of them.

Maica was just dumbfounded. That was never a question in her mind and she had never thought of it. she just figured she’d be put on display at the Dyson Institute with all the other deactivated androids, but now thinking about it…

Andy cast a glance to Maica, equally as dumbfounded as to how to answer that question. This kid was something else!

“Well…” Maica began. “The normal Starfleet service, the deceased are loaded into a torpedo casing, a ceremony is held, and the body is fired into the nearest sun… I suppose I’d rather be sent to the Dyson Institute, though. I’m sure there’s a lot they could learn about me still.”

“What’s a torpedo?” Shira asked, but Andy had a better question.

“You want to send this back to Earth? Like this?”

“A torpedo… It’s something we’ll have to get into later… As for my old body… Well, once we have everything we need from it, I suppose so. If that’s alright, that is…” Maica was definitely unsure of what to say now.

“It’s your body, your choice, Maica,” Andy said gently. “I hadn’t given any thought to the after, I was just so concerned with saving you…”

Shira, for her part, seemed to understand that the torpedo explanation would have to wait. but she had one more question. “How does Dyson honor the dead?”

“For my kind, they study us and try to make things better for others through their findings.” Maica was still deep in thought on the subject. Her original creator being one of those in that subject. What would the old Ferengi toad do if he knew Maica was still ‘alive’, let alone that she had abandoned the body he had made?

“Study? Like lessons? They learn from this?” Shira asked.

“Something like that.” Said the partially built android distractedly. “They look at what worked well and what failed so that more of my kind can be made better.”

“In my village, we have… dam? it broke, but we learned to make it better next time,” Shira said. Andy raised a brow, surprised and pleased at how quick this little twig was catching on to certain concepts despite the obvious language barrier. “This learning is honorable. Good way to remember the dead.”

“I have to agree.” Said Maica with a nod. “Andy just has to finish my new body up and we’ll be good for now, right Andy? We can worry about sending my old body to Earth after that.”

“I, uh… right,” Andy answered awkwardly, shifting the weight of the body in her arms. Shira just cast the body a strange glance before laying a hand on the framework, humming something equivocal to a prayer, bidding the dead a good sleep. Andy looked at Shira confused. “You got any idea what she’s doing?” the ex-borg woman asked.

Maica nodded slowly, understanding the song well enough. “She’s praying.” That was all she would say, though. She was touched that Shira would do such a thing for her old body. “Thank you, Shira.”

“You are welcome, Maica,” Shira offered with a smile once she was finished with her little prayer, then returned to her seat. “I am ready for my lessons now.”

Andy stood there awkwardly for a moment, before walking away. she wasn’t sure if it was ok, but she’d had enough strangeness for one day...

After Shira’s lessons were concluded, Andy took the little twig back to her quarters then made a stop by the bridge to inform Kris about the new development and the success of the transfer. Then Andy returned to the lab to putter around a little while longer, tending to things that would help finish Maica’s new body.

Maica had been left all alone in the lab, still strapped to the chair and really unable to move or feel anything below her bust. she couldn’t even try eating anything until she was finished. Not that she could get the chair to the replicator… Well, Andy had suggested daydreaming… She supposed she might just have to do that later. Not right now though. And not until she was finished. She wasn’t even comfortable in this new neural net structure yet, let alone ready to start messing with things like that. Instead, she ran through her prior memories and subroutines, settling them in place while Andy was away.

Andy hadn’t meant to leave Maica alone for so long, she really hadn’t. It was just that Andy was so used to working on her own and some of this stuff was rather time sensitive and she didn’t want to put it off, like removing the rest of the skin and other salvageable parts from Maica’s old body. The skin in particular had taken some damage and Andy had to separate those damaged sections and put them into a nutrient bath to regenerate. With any luck, those damaged sections should heal without any scarring. Then, with loving care, she put the now obsolete body into storage. They could decide what to do with it later…

Andy meandered back out to the main lab where she had left Maica, immediately noticing the drop in the android’s mood. Shit! Andy knew she could let things get away from her, but she should have known better than to leave Maica alone for so long!

“Hey, you alright?” Andy asked, her tone worried but also apologetic. She really wished she would think about these things before it became a problem!

“Hmm?” Maica glanced up towards Andy. “Yeah I’m ok. Just trying to settle into this new brain. It’s… I don’t want to say uncomfortable… Just different…” Yeah Maica had been lonely, but she had been lonely a lot throughout her life. That was something she thought she was used to, but here in this new body… It was almost unnerving...

“Yeah, I can relate,” Andy said sympathetically as she sat in the chair next to Maica. “If I’d had the time, there were things I could’ve done to make it a little easier, I’m sorry I couldn’t. You ready to get out of here? Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable in your quarters? Or mine, either way.” Andy was kind of hoping Maica would chose Andy’s quarters, she still had some regenerating to catch up on, but Andy could sleep at Maica’s place just as easily.

Maica just shook her head no. “It’s ok. Things had to be done and you did what had to be done. Neither of us could have asked for the transfer to go as well as it had. As for leaving the lab… I’d rather go to my quarters, but are you going to carry me the whole way? Or do you have a trick to finishing these legs real quick?”

“Can’t finish them tonight, the biosynthetic musculature for your legs ain’t done yet, I’ll have to carry you. But I checked on everything, they’ll be done first thing in the morning, I think I can get you mobile and skinned tomorrow, then I can install the organelles the day after. Sound good?” Andy didn’t mind carrying Maica and doting on her. If she was pushed to answer, she would even admit she liked it a little. Okay, more than a little...

“Ok then.” Maica said with her patented warm smile. “Do you think I can continue with my scheduled appointments the next 2 days? I have several subspace meetings I’m supposed to attend.”

“Oh yeah, you can still work. Ain’t like they’re gonna see you’re not complete and you’ll be at your desk, that’s nice and safe. And I’ll be there until you’re mobile, so I’ll help you if you need it,” Andy assured her as she checked over the diagnostics. Everything was looking good, so she removed the data cable from the back of Maica’s head and sealed up the skin.

“That’s good. I might need some help getting into my service blouse, but that’s not hard.” Smoothing her hair out, another thought came back to Maica. “I was thinking of doing something different with my hair. Any suggestions?”

“You see what I do with my hair,” Andy said with a smirk as she freed Maica from the chair, taking the thoron generator and sticking it in Maica’s pants pocket, “I ain’t exactly the best person to ask for fashion advice.” Lifting Maica easily, Andy headed out of the lab.

Wrapping an arm around Andy, Maica couldn’t help but giggle as she was lifted. “Have I ever told you I love how strong you are?” She asked with a wink and that mischievous gleam in her eyes. The trip up to her quarters didn’t take long, but it seemed they had to pass every crewman aboard the Katana at least once on the way. She could only imagine the rumors this would cause… At least her skinless metal framed feet were visible so they could assume she couldn’t walk.

Andy was blushing the entire way to Maica’s quarters. She just thinks she soooo smart, does she? That’s alright, Andy knew how to get even. Later though, once Maica was capable of enjoying what Andy had in mind…

“So…” Andy started as she stepped into Maica’s quarters and headed for the bedroom, setting Maica on the bed. “Since when did we get married?” Andy asked suspiciously as she disappeared into Maica’s closet to get her uniform.

Maica knew that was coming and already had an answer prepared. The trick was teasing Andy while remaining serious the whole time… “Earlier today. Don’t you remember? We said our vows and both agreed to it. It was a beautiful union in the style of most Halpernian weddings.”

“Huh… And here I thought I was regenerating earlier today. Why’d we go Halpernian?” Andy said as she returned with clean undergarments and a uniform. “Strip, girl.”

Starting to strip, Maica flopped back on the bed and slithered out of the outfit Andy had picked out for her. “It was your idea. You asked if you could keep me and I just followed suit with the ritual.” Maica said completely seriously. “By the laws of Halpernia 4 that means we’re married.”

“Uh huh…” Andy said as she removed the pants and help Maica put on the underwear and uniform pants. “Well, at least now I don’t have to go through the embarrassment of all that proposal bullshit.”

“I wouldn’t have worried about that, if I were you. I was expecting to have to be the one to propose. Something special but private.” Maica said as she tried to help get herself dressed. “Why are you putting panties on me again? I’m not going to start leaking, am I?”

“Habit… and they’re sexy black lace so I was all ‘hell yes!’ when I saw them looking for a bra,” Andy said, helping Maica to sit back up. She straightened out the duty jacket and sorted out the power cable, again hiding the generator in the pants pocket. “It’s a shame we didn’t get pictures of the vows. I could send them to my mother and piss her off.”

“I wasn’t really dressed for it, anyway. Pictures would just be too much for her.” Maica said as she went over her dress uniform jacket. “And if you think those panties are sexy… those are the plainest ones I could bring myself to wear… You should check the bottom drawer.”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” Andy said as she looked Maica over. “You look good to me, but you want me to get some stuff for you to do your hair?”

“Yeah, actually.” Pointing to a box on her dresser, Maica looked over her pips and buttons one more time. “Bring me that box. I’ve got a nice set of combs and brushes in it. Compliments of whomever is on the tag. Seriously, they sent too many gifts.”

Andy did as instructed and brought the box to Maica. Her face scrunched up at the sight of all the girly shit in the box. “I don’t understand why anyone would want stuff like that…”

Taking the box from Andy, Maica almost blanched herself seeing all the pearlescent pink and red in the box. “Yeah I forgot how tacky it looks… It’s definitely usable, though.” Pulling out 2 of the combs, Maica began working through her hair and doing her best to style it in her normal fashion. “Maybe I’ll grow it out some more…”

Andy shrugged, having no real opinion on the matter. She watched Maica as she put up her hair, interesting in the ‘ritual’ behind the act. It was just so… strange to Andy that anyone would fixate on something like hair.

“Maybe I should go with a shorter style. What do you think of the nearly bald look?” Maica kept that seriousness on her face as she continued doing her best to work her hair into a fashionable look.

“That ain’t funny, wife,” Andy said mockingly, a scowl forming on her face as she turned to go to the bathroom. Damn, how long was this going to take?

“Then you do care. Longer it is.” Maica said with a grin. It wasn’t perfect, but it was presentable. Her hair was styled to a semi-floofy sweeping style she had been fond of. Maybe when she grew it out some more she’d try one of the taller hairstyles… “I’m ready, my wife. Do you mind carrying me to my desk now?”

“I promise not to drop you on top of that ridiculous hairstyle,” Andy said bluntly as she picked Maica up and took her to her desk. “Do I need to be scarce for any of these meetings?”

Maica was happy with Andy. She may have been rough around the edges… No, even that was something Maica loved about her new ‘wife’. Clicking the screens on, she started looking over her consoles to prepare for the first one. Her fingers felt slower so she tried to speed up her movements. Within seconds, she was typing almost faster than the console could handle, her fingers blurred. “No, not unless you want to. Most of it will be pretty boring, though I think the situation reports on a few things I had a hand in are interesting. Do my fingers move faster or is it just me?”

“Yes,” Andy answered simply. “I think I’m going to look over your diagnostics then maybe catch a nap,” she said, retrieving a PaDD from her pocket and returning to the bed to flop down onto it. “You call for me if you need anything. I’ll hear you even if I fall asleep.”

Fascinating… She was more ‘efficient’ now, too… “Rest well, my love. This should only take 3 or 4 hours so I’ll call for you when it’s over.” There was still half an hour before she had to actually log in to the meeting, but since she was ready now she hit the call button, connecting to a subspace conference call between several dozen diplomatic officers. Greeting the others, she leaned back and settled into the familiarity of the event.

-=5 hours later…=-

Maica had finally finished her conference call, having had to reassure all her old colleagues she was ok and listening to each one wish her well and express their concern. Finally, she was able to click the communications console off and relax. “Andy, are you still there?” She knew the answer, but if Andy didn’t respond, she wouldn’t wake her. She could do her best to start working on those thank you letters.

“Where else would I be?” Andy said as she woke from a dead sleep.

“Possibly sleeping and dreaming of me.” Maica retorted teasingly. “This meeting is done and the next one isn’t until tomorrow morning at 4am.”

“0400? you’ve got to be shitting me!” Andy said as she sat up, pushing the PaDD away. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t help Maica at that hour, but still… She meandered into the office and lifted Maica from her desk chair. “What now?” she asked as she just stood there holding Maica, still half alseep and not entirely coherent.

“You need more sleep, don’t you?” Maica asked simply. “How about we lay down together?”

“Woman, I just woke up, give me a minute!” Andy grumped. “We can lay together if you want, but I’m alright if you want to do something else. What do you usually do at this hour?”

“Normally? I’d be practicing on my lyre, learning a new song or two. Then in an hour, coming to find you.” Maica probably would have skipped her practice today, instead heading to find Andy to see how her new body was going and making sure she ate something. Now though… Well Andy was here now and she could make sure she was taking care of herself. “How about I play while you get something to eat?”

Andy shrugged as best she could while still holding Maica and carried the immobile android to the couch, then retrieved the lyre for Maica. “I guess I could eat,” Andy admitted, then got something from the replicator. “I talked to the Captain the other day,” she said idly as she sat at the table to eat. “He gave me 48 hours to… recuperate, then he said I could focus on you for a while.”

Maica started tuning the lyre as Andy was speaking, softly plucking each of the 10 strings. “That’s good of him. I’ll have to send him a personal thank you.”

Andy nodded and munched on her meal silently, watching Maica and listening to her tune and then play her lyre.

Playing a happy dinner song, Maica threw herself into the music, taking care to stay on tempo and to be gentle. This was dangerous in her mind, playing her precious lyre in her new body already. This was her one possession she could never give up, having crafted it herself with her own 2 hands. It wasn’t worth much compared to what Andy had sacrificed, but to her it was priceless.

“What’s on your mind, wife?” Andy asked as she ate. It was obvious something was bothering Maica, it was written all over her face.

Maica paused in her playing for a moment, stroking the instrument’s strings with her fingertips lightly. “I just didn’t expect to play her so well so soon. You said this body is faster and stronger so I was worried I’d break her right off the bat.”

“Why would you break it?” Andy asked. “Yeah, it’s possible to lose control and get a little rough since you’re still learning the limits of your body, but above average strength isn’t possible right now and even if it was, that takes conscious thought to perform. You could never hurt your lyre or anything else accidentally.”

“That’s good.” Maica spoke softly, a wistful smile on her lips. “I hadn’t been keeping track of pressure sensitivity until now so I was worried I had missed something.” Starting up her playing again, she was a bit more relaxed as she stroked the strings to vibrate for her.

“You weren’t think about it, meaning you were… just playing, trusting yourself, trusting your hands, and your ears...Working subconsciously. You have a subconscious now, Maica. it’s still developing, but you need to learn to trust it,” Andy reminded her softly, enjoying the sound Maica was creating. She knew that this part of the adjustment would be the hardest, but if anyone could do it, it was Maica, and Andy believed her girl would make it look effortless.

Maica froze and stared at Andy in surprise at her words. “Subconscious? What? How?” She had no idea how to process that, let alone accept it if it was true. She had had background processes before, but she was still aware of them and everything else. Movement, her breathing, faux pulse… Everything had been controlled almost directly, which is why she froze up when she had to process massive amounts of data. Could she just let things run and focus on… What would she focus on? Andy had given her a neural network that was amazingly faster than her old holosuite core and had taken away things for her to process with it. She just couldn’t comprehend that as she sat there stunned.

“What-how nothing. Haven’t you been listening to me, girl?” Andy said, then washed down the last of her meal with some water, then shoved everything back through the replicator. “Trust it, so you can focus on the things most important.” she sauntered over to the couch and flopped down on it, resting her head next to Maica’s thigh, her booted feet hanging over the other end of the couch. “Just stop thinking and play. Feel it, enjoy it for what it is.”

If Maica had thought Andy had taken something away from her, then she was wrong. Maica’s neural net still had to process everything, she just wouldn’t be consciously aware of it, and Maica was free to take control of it at any time if the need arose. And all that extra processing power? It was needed to help her perceive the sheer number and intensity of sensations her body would be able to experience. And all Maica’s experiences and skills would have room to flourish and grow. It may have felt empty in her neural net, but Maica just needed to be patient and settle in. But of course, Andy had to explain things her own way, which amounted to ‘Trust it’.

Maica was still stunned but looking deeper into herself, she saw that indeed those functions were running. They were running quite well, in fact. That did explain a few things… Brushing the hair from Andy’s forehead after she flopped, Maica went back to her playing, monitoring her playing, but instead of focussing on that, she focussed on the melody and playing some triple and bent notes, masterfully playing her lyre as she never had before.

Andy said nothing. she simply smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying the music Maica was creating. She knew her girl could do it.

And do it, she did. She kept on playing, working through her favorite pieces from all over the galaxy. Even a few she had never been able to play just right came easily to her, everything lining up perfectly. If it was because of this subconscious thing, she was starting to enjoy it. She could play like this for hours on end without getting bored.

The wonderful melodies were so soothing for Andy and soon she was drifting off to sleep. For the first time since she met Maica, Andy slept without fear or worry that she would wake to find her green android had expired. It was so much weight off her mind and, truth be told, she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so deeply...

Kyle had spent time with Kris and the counselor and was feeling somewhat better about Noah's having left him. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, but at least better. Still, Lia had suggested he stop by Sickbay to get something from the medical staff to help him sleep. That couldn't be a bad idea. Just something to help him relax and take the edge off, so he could make all the thoughts inside his mind, rest, so he could rest.

He stepped through the doors as they swooshed open and looked around for someone to help him.

Cohen looked up and gave the Intelligence Officer a smile. "Kyle, what can I do for you?"

Kyle slowly let out a breath. "How about giving me something to help me sleep."

Cohen rose and moved towards the other man, "What seems to be the problem?"

"The problem is Noah left. Not just the ship but me. He's filed for divorce."

Cohen frowned, he resisted the momentary urge to pull the other man into a hug, it was unprofessional and inappropriate, "I'm, I'm sorry to hear that." He said, not really knowing what else to say. "Have you spoke with a Counsellor?"

"Yes, I just came from there. She told me things will get better. Part of me wants to believe her. Part of me says its all bullshit."

Cohen smirked, "It does get better." He said, putting his hand on the other man's shoulder. He tapped a few commands into the PADD and handed it to him. "There, try that."

Kyle's brow quirked when he was handed the package, it didn't look like a prescription.

"It's a tea blend an old mentor introduced me to in Australia. It works wonders on helping you sleep. I want you to make a solid effort to try this without drugs." He said, he'd seen people in Kyle's position, and he knew it was far to easy to fall into patterns of substance abuse.

"I'll try this. I just can't seem to turn my mind off. I keep thinking about him. What I did wrong, what I could have done differently. He told me not to fight him on this, so I'm.. I'm sorry I'm wandering. Will this tea really help?"

"Hopefully, try it for a couple days, if it still doesn't help come see me, I can give you something stronger." He said, "And if you want someone to talk to, I'm here." He said, realizing his hand was still lingering on the other man's shoulder.

The counselor had rubbed his back, that had helped relax him some. Cohen's hand on his shoulder was some how different. He didn't move any closer, he made no move to reciprocate the action, but he didn't move away either "The worst part is to wake up and roll over and expect him to be there. but to know he's not. To smell his scent on the pillow and know I'll never smell it again. Never touch him again."

Liam had never been married, or really in a relationship anywhere near as serious as Kyle and Noah but he'd had his heart broken before and he could empathize with the other man. "It's hard, it sucks, and there are days you won't want to get out of bed, hell there are days you won't get out of bed. But eventually, it hurts a little less, and that deep wound starts to scab over, and you'll pick at it, because you feel like you're being disloyal by starting to move on, and part of you will want to linger and think that hurting is what you deserve but it's not. Then finally, they'll be a day, where you're able to move on, and it hurts less, and you spend more time not thinking about him than thinking about him, and you'll move on with your life."

"That's what I've been told. It's easy to understand here," he said pointing to his head, "but it is not easy to understand here," he said pointing to his heart." In another time and place he might have let Liam hold him, or more. Hell he may have initiated it. The doctor was certainly good looking enough. But this wasn't the right time or place. The pain was still too raw, Noah's memory too strong.

He pulled back slightly out of Liam's grasp, but still remained close. "You damn well better be telling me the truth about this"

"I am," He replied, "Try the tea and let me know."

"Okay, I'll give it a shot."

Liam nodded and gave the spook a final reassuring smile.

Andy was ready for all this work to be done. After all the stress and heartache of worrying that she wouldn’t be able to save Maica, now that that much had been accomplished she was just eager for all the repairs to be done so they could both relax and let go of all stress. Truth was, the stress was not over, not by a long shot. The changes made to Maica’s design were radical and Andy was concerned if the android woman was capable of adapting. But they wouldn’t know until they tried it.

“Almost done, girl,” Andy assured Maica as she continued to muck about in Maica’s insides, installing the organelles that would give her a realistic metabolism, a perpetual reactor to keep her power cell charged. It was like a work of art to Andy; she wasn’t afraid to admit to her pride at the accomplishment.

“Thank goodness,” Maica said, rather relieved. “It’ll be nice to at least have something there as ballast. I’ve been off balance without anything there.” Not having most of her internals also made her boobs sag in a way she didn’t like, but she wasn’t about to admit that - she wasn’t programmed for vanity, yet here she was feeling hints of what could only be described as being vain. “I’m also curious what they’ll feel like, of course.” she added a bit sheepishly.

“You won’t be consciously aware of most of it,” Andy said as she finished fitting the last of the organelles in place. “In your autonomic functions, there’s a program for the start-up of these functions. Can I get access to that on the computer so I can manually control the process, or would you prefer do it?” Andy asked.

“I should be able to handle it. Just let me know if everything is going ok.” Closing her eyes for a moment, Maica accessed the function and enabled the startup sequence, the organelles all coming to ‘life’ at once, lungs and stomach the most vocal in their activation. “Ugh… maybe you should have done that… It feels like they’re trying to jump out of me…”

“It’s alright, stay calm,” Andy said quickly. “Just hand control over to me and I’ll get you situated.” As soon as the command controls appeared on her console, Andy shut off most of the sensations Maica was feeling. Right now, she just wanted Maica to focus on her breathing, which was erratic, and her pulse, which was dangerously high. “Is that better?”

The tensions inside of her had eased up a lot, calming Maica as she realized she was breathing like an organic being. She just focussed on that for a while, not even aware of her new subconscious taking control of her heart rate and smoothing that out in the process. “I still feel a bit… I think I feel sick… But it’s getting better.”

“You’re doing good,” Andy said encouragingly as she watched the monitor, Maica’s pulse and respiration leveling off to acceptable levels. “Let me know when you’re ready for more,” she said, running a hand over Maica’s hair to comfort her.

Taking a moment to just relax, Maica closed her eyes again. this was something she’d have to get used to. no more mechanical and synthetic processing of things. No more faux pulse. This was bringing her a little closer to being more ‘human’. Nodding, she reopened her eyes. “Ok, ready.”

Andy activated the organelles and artificial glands that would provide Maica’s body with the necessary fluids to keep her operating: lubricants, coolant, even hormones. She watched as Maica’s skin flushed and her body temperature briefly elevated in response to the rush of hormones. Respiration and pulse were even reacting accordingly. “Looking good…”

This time, the startup wasn’t so jarring to Maica’s neural net. Apparently her method of ‘efficiently’ turning everything on was just too much to handle. As everything was coming online, she felt a blush creeping up on her and she felt a bit warmer than she expected. “Ummm… Am I having hot flashes now? I mean, I feel ok… Just warm.”

“No, you’re fine,” Andy said with a chuckle. “you’re cooling down already. Are you ready for the last of it?”

“For a moment there my internal diagnostic was returning a probability of being pregnant…” Maica muttered softly. Then nodding, she spoke with a bit of a waver in her voice. “Ok, let’s finish this up.” She was ready to have this done and over with so she could start finding a balance in herself.

The pregnant comment made Andy laugh. “No. I’m good, but I’m not that good. Recreating those functions are still a bit beyond me. Anyway, you don’t have enough viable organic DNA to create life, so no dice.” Andy started up the digestive system and Maica’s stomach immediately gurgled. She kept the sensation of hunger dulled for now. Maica had enough to deal with without hunger nagging at her, though she would be aware her body required food now. Everything seemed to be functioning well, so Andy began to close up Maica’s torso.

She was feeling decidedly sick again. That gurgling thing, whatever it was, was definitely what had made Maica feel bad earlier and now it wasn’t as bad, but she still didn’t like it one bit. “What was that noise?” she asked with severe trepidation. Her pulse had risen from a slight bout of panic at the sensation combined with the sound.

“Stomach. You’re hungry,” Andy replied with a chuckle. She finished closing Maica up and adjusted Maica’s medical smock to cover her up. “You can sit up whenever you’re ready,” she added as she left the workbench to get something for Maica to eat from the replicator.

“Right… I have to eat now…” Mumbled the android as she sat up and moved to a nearby chair a bit shakily. That was what normal people did. Eat. She might as well get that over with immediately and learn what that sensation feels like. Her next question would be answered at the same time. Andy had given her a strange new sense of smell and processing some of the inputs from her new olfactory senses were a bit hard to comprehend so she could only guess at how her sense of taste would react to all her favorite collections of complex bio-chemicals. Foods. She had to think of them as foods now, not just as complex arrangements of chemical nutrients. Now sitting upright, she felt a bit better as she watched Andy at the replicator, wondering what she was getting.

Andy returned with a plate of the wafers Maica used to consume while she was still in her old body. She thought about something more snack-like, but she figured Maica appreciate something more ‘familiar’, though she did have a plate of cookies for herself. She set their plates on the workbench and took a seat beside Maica. “Here,” she said, offering a wafer to Maica.

Taking the protein chip, Maica looked it over for a moment almost fearfully before biting down on it, the wafer thin crispiness crunching pleasingly in her mouth. Then the flavor hit her senses and she immediately gagged on it, barely getting the first bite down. “Is this how bad these taste to everyone else? No wonder people ask me how I eat them…”

“Want to try something else? I think I’ve got some shortbread cookies here, they should be ok for you to try. Or peanut butter, those are good, too,” Andy offered, looking about the plate for anything else that wouldn’t be an overwhelming assault on Maica’s senses.

Taking one of Andy’s cookies, she immediately bit into it, again gagging immediately. “Ok, maybe it’s just me…” Maica said sourly. This wasn’t going too well. She hoped that it was just a bad setting or something, though if everything tasted this bad… Well then she wouldn’t be eating too much after all.

“Still not liking it, huh,” Andy said thoughtfully. She accessed the parameters for Maica’s sense of taste and smell and began tweaking some variables. “Keep eating, let me know when it starts to get better. Small bites, so you don’t gag, and I can get a waste bin if you need to spit it out.”

Maica eyed the cookie like it was a pit viper about to start talking for a moment before taking a small bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I’d tell you what it tastes like if I had a point of reference.” Having a bit of inspiration, she picked up a PaDD and put that in her mouth to see how that tasted. Bitter? No… Dry. Yeah, it was dry and plasticy. That tasted ok enough, at least. nibbling on the cookie a bit more, she realized it was dry as well. “That’s a lot better, I think.”

“Weirdo,” Andy mumbled as she watched Maica stick a corner of the PaDD in her mouth. But now with a sense of improvement in the senses, Andy could refine the adjustments a bit more. “Here, try a chocolate chip cookie, it’s not so dry, but it might be too sweet,” she offered.

Nibbling small bites from the chocolate chip cookie, Maica took her time tasting that classic treat as well. It wasn’t supposed to be bitter… No, that flavor was something else. Sweetness? It was a bit like the feel of a good coolant on a warm day. Refreshing, almost. “Is it supposed to taste refreshing? Is refreshing even a flavor?”

“Not really…” Andy said, a bit baffled by Maica’s senses. “And I wouldn’t call that a flavor so much as a sensation.” Her brows furrowed as she studied the sensory parameters. “I’m worried you might be transposing sensations. I don’t want to make too many changes at once, so I’ll keep studying this. For now, I think you’re good to go. Go get dressed and we can leave.” She downloaded the subroutines and parameters for taste so she could study them further, then she restored all command controls back to Maica.

Nodding, Maica headed to the back of the lab where her uniform was hanging and started changing clothes. “It could also be that I have zero frame of reference so have no idea what I should be tasting. Remember when you unlocked my ocular limiter? I hadn’t seen the color blue before so you had to teach me that. This might be a similar case.” She was just guessing, but it was at least a logical guess in her mind.

“Logical correlation, but you still had a frame of reference for the other colors in your optical spectrum. You sense of smell seems to be working fine, but it seems your brain just doesn’t know what to do with taste. We’ll figure it out,” Andy promised as she watched Maica change her clothes. Mmmm, she looked so nice…

Finished changing, Maica headed back to the main area of the lab and pressed herself against Andy, softly pressing her lips to the redhead’s for a moment. “I know a few things that my original programming knows the taste of. We could calibrate the sense off of that, if you’re up for being the ‘tasted’ party.”

“Ohhh yeah…” Andy said as she wound her fingers in Maica’s hair, pulling her close for another kiss. “In a little while,” Andy continued when their lips parted again. “I’ve got to clean up around here. Meet you at your quarters in a bit?”

Kissing her lover one last time, Maica broke their embrace and headed out of the lab with a seductive glance back at Andy as she left. “Don’t be late,” she purred as the door closed behind her. She’d be ready and waiting, looking forward to tasting things.

“Like I would want to put that off,” Andy said with a lopsided grin. “I won’t take long. Promise.” she added, then Maica was gone and it really hit Andy that Maica was well and truly safe now. She had known for days now that Maica was alright, but it was such a distant thing. Leaving her incomplete, Andy hadn’t really been able to accept that Maica was safe. But now...

Andy quickly went to work, cleaning the lab as quickly as she could manage without being messy about it. She wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, Maica had a libido that needed a test run!

[ON]

Exiting Captain Kerouac's ready-room, Executive Officer Cameron Tegan crossed the bridge towards the turbo-lift and took it down to deck eight. One of Kerouac's assignments was for Cameron to find a suitable way to incorporate a young and enigmatic Arboreal, Shira, into the day to day routine of a Starfleet vessel. Apparently, his predecessor, Tul Zanaar, had given several reservations over allowing Shira free access to the ship without an armed escort. But Kerouac was convinced that she was not a danger. Until Cameron had reason to believe otherwise, he felt obligated to honor Kerouac's prerogative.

Extracting a PADD from his jacket, he flipped it on and pulled up what Starfleet had on Shira -- it wasn't much.

The turbo-lift came to a halt, and Cameron emerged into the corridor. He'd already decided to assign Lieutenant Bridget O'Connor as Shira's caretaker of sorts -- someone to help Shira feel useful. While the Klingon-Trill hybrid had yet to tell Bridget about his decision, he still wanted to meet with the Arboreal first. Two seconds later, and still distracted by his PADD, Cameron had only barely noticed a flurry of red out of his peripheral vision. He dodged, narrowly crashing into a red-head with quite a head of unruly hair.

"Oh, excuse me..." Cameron uttered as his brain shifted through the personnel files he'd gone through already. Thankfully, she had came up early on in his study of the crew, since this particular red-head was the Katana's Chief of Operations, and had been a former member of the Borg collective. "Andrea Carter, isn't it?"

"Andy," the ex-Borg woman corrected quickly. She hated 'Andrea', though she had never told anyone why. "Or just 'Chief'... Lot of people call me that," she added with a shrug. And she had been called worse things too, but she certainly wasn't going to tell the new Executive Officer that! "I, uh... wasn't paying attention to where I was going." Thought she didn't actually apologize, her tone was apologetic.

Cameron flashed his trade-mark smile. "Andy it is," He said, extending one hand while his eyes quietly, and briefly, studied the silver implant above her eye. She was short, and with him being slightly over 6'1, made Cameron feel like a giant compared to her. "I'll spare you the Klingon gutturals associated with any traditional pronunciation of my name," his grin widened a bit more. "Call me Cameron."

Andy shook his hand. Her grip was firm and the silvery frame of her exoskeleton was warm around her fingers. "Can do," Andy said with a nod. "You just came aboard, is there anything I can do to help? Can't have you running into anymore unsuspecting crew."

"Actually, I'm looking for someone. That green thumbed alien of yours -- Shira." Cameron admitted.

"The twig? She's in hydroponics, Lieutenant Maica should be with there now," Andy informed him. "I was on my way there myself to check on Maica."

"In that case," Cameron began. "Would you mind if I were to tag along?"

Andy shrugged. "I guess," she replied as she started down the corridor towards the hydroponics bay. "What do you think of the ship so far?" she asked as they walked.

Cameron followed. In fact, he had taken no more than two or three steps behind her before his eyes drifted over the petite contours of her body that fit quite snugly within the confines of her uniform. His Klingon genetics sent a few ideas that the executive officer quickly forced himself to ignore. Her question forced him to look back up, where he focused his attention on the corridor ahead in time not to be noticed by two passing crewmen. "Battle damage aside, it looks like a good ship -- a good crew. You called Shira a 'twig'," he mentioned with a bit of curiosity. "What is your opinion of her, exactly?" He knew that Tul Zanaar didn't like Shira. Knowing what Andy thought would be useful.

"What do I think?" Andy asked, then though on the question. "Dunno. She asks too many questions," she mumbled. "But I guess she's a good kid. A bit naive, but her head is in the right place."

Taking this information, Cameron nodded and continued to follow the Chief.

They continued on in silence until they turned a corner, passing through the great doors of the hydroponics bay. On most ships, the hydroponics bay would contain just a few growing stations with a meager presentation of plant life, but Shira had created a veritable garden of lush green foliage. There was enough viable edible foods that they could shut down the replicators and start feeding the whole crew real food in the mess hall! Andy didn't like it in here; the humidity all this growth created made her hands feel sweaty and sticky, not a good thing when her fingers were covered in exoskeletal plating, not to mention it made her already unruly hair even more unruly.

Andy cut through the growing stations to lead Cameron to the rear of the room where Maica and Shira sat at a table, several PaDDs spread out before them. Shira was practicing certain sounds she found difficult to make with Maica offering corrections and encouragement.

"Oi, someone here to see you, twig," Andy said as she approached, bringing Shira's lessons to an abrupt halt.

Shira startled at Andy's announcement, looking up at the two newcomers and offering Cameron a shy smile.

Cameron paused long enough to get a grasp of the scene. Shira looked just like she did in her hastily constructed personnel file; the Orion, Lieutenant Maica, sitting across from the Arboreal, looked eerily similar to the Orion that Cameron had left at Starbase Unity. Her hair was long and straight, but was red instead of black. He nodded curtly to Maica, and then faced the Arboreal. Giving her a slight bow, Cameron smiled gently. He spoke slowly for better odds of her understanding him.

"Hello. My name is Cameron -- Cameron Tegan," he said, deciding not to suggest that he was also Tul Zanaar's replacement. If the Andorian hadn't liked Shira, it was possible that the sentiment went both ways. "Captain Kerouac asked me to check in on you, to see how you are doing." Just in case Shira didn't understand him, he glimpsed briefly at Maica, indicating that she could speak up if she felt it necessary.

"Cameron," Shira repeated, but she looked confused. "Why does he have two names?" she asked Maica, unfamiliar with the concept of surnames, which made her even more confused about who 'Captain Kerouac' was.

Nodding politely back at the newcomer and standing up, Maica smiled softly at the question, patiently doing her best to explain it. "Many cultures have more than one name. For instance, a family name and a person's specific name and a heritage name. I've met a few people with more than six names before, each piece taken from their ancestry. Titles and rank are also added through life at times."

"Maica is just Maica, and Verak only has one name too, but I have two names, Andy Carter," Andy offered as further explanation. "And your friend Kris is the Captain, Kris Kerouac. Oh, and Vara, her family name comes first, Cho'ren Vara." Andy didn't know if she should go into ranks or titles yet, this seemed more than enough for now.

Shira's eyes lit up with understanding. "I see," she replied, nodding her head. "Pleased to meet you, Cameron," Shira said to Cameron with a cheerful smile.

Cameron winced when something as simple as an introduction managed to cause such a confusion for Shira. Thankfully, the wince was almost indistinguishable from a one-sided smile. He kept a straight face as Maica and Andy offered their explanations, and waited until it looked like he was in a position to speak again before he did so. "Thank you," the Klingon-Trill hybrid replied as he gave a little more thought to his words. "You're already learning Federation Standard, I see. Has Maica been teaching you?"

"Yes, and many others have been helping too," Shira said, her glowing smiled never leaving her face. Despite how difficult speaking was for her, she was such a cheerful individual, she never let this get her down. "I really like it here. Everyone is so nice."

Stepping close to Andy, Maica brushed against the other woman in a barely perceptible yet slightly suggestive way. She spoke softly so as to not disturb the other two in their exchange. "Is everything ok? Are all of the last diagnostics clean?"

Andy nodded, her hand brushing up against Maica's, hooking a finger with her fingers. "I just came by to check on you," Andy said, though she didn't say why. Not that Andy really needed to go into more detail, they both knew what Andy was coming to check; Maica was not adapting to some of her new functions very well, namely eating.

"Captain... er... Kris," the Captain's name drifted off of Cameron's tongue awkwardly, but he continued on as if he hadn't noticed. Somehow, he'd managed not to notice the subtle gestures and conversations of the two women beside him. "... wanted to see if you'd like to join one of our departments, find out a little more about what it is to be a part of the day-to-day life on the Katana. Is that something you'd be interested in?"

"Oh, yes please!" Shira said excitedly. "On my world, I watched the stars. I want to learn more about them," she informed Cameron. "In the... lab... astrometrics? Jhu was starting to teach me some."

Cameron nodded. He was surprised by Shira's enthusiasm. Maybe Kerouac was right about her after all. "I'll have you working with a..." Cameron corrected himself in mid-sentence, avoiding the use of last names. "... her name is Bridget. She's just joined our science department, and she's also something of a language expert as well, so I'm sure you two will be able to learn from one another." By now, Cameron was starting to feel like he'd actually begun to accomplish something. He'd at last manage to avoid making any sarcastic remarks over the fact that Bridget O'Connor was going on becoming an expert on her her 12th language. "I'll let her know to expect you tomorrow at 0900 hours."

Cameron looked up to Maica and Andy and, only then, did he notice that something was going on between them. As soon as he had an idea of exactly what that was, a romantic relationship, his mind went straight to the gutters. After all, he had to channel that Klingon aggressiveness somewhere. Putting any unlikely scenario between the three of him out of mind, and very grateful that neither of them happened to be empathic, he crossed his arms and cleared his throat to get their attention.

Andy may not have been empathic, but her ocular implant could detect signs of the physiological response associated with arousal. Andy couldn't help herself, she just had to poke him with the proverbial stick. She looked over to Maica, looking dead serious. "Wife," she said, though they weren't really married, it was just an inside joke they shared, "he's kinda giving me a lady-boner. Can I have him if I promise to share?" she asked.

Slapping Andy on the shoulder playfully, Maica gave Andy a mock scolding look. "Honey, not in front of kids. But yes, if you share." She had caught the signs in Cameron as well and played along. Something else had most of her attention, though. A language expert? Maica would have to seek her out and see how redundant she and this new officer were. She doubted this 'Bridget' could even come close to Maica's built in UT and linguistic skills. Heck, the main computer couldn't keep up with Maica's android abilities in that department - it still thought Shira's nativa language was little more than a housepet's humming. Another thought occurred to her as well - what if her new XO hadn't discovered she was an android yet? That might be worth having a little fun with.

Cameron felt his thoracic diaphragm decide to seize as he held his breath. Eventually, he let out a snort that also served a dual purpose of breaking up his pause and giving his respiratory system a much needed kick start. His first temptation was to ask what had given him away, since it was obvious that something had. But he decided that he didn't need to know. His next mental question was: "Would it be worth it?"

Andy Carter and Maica both were very attractive, and he didn't require an ocular implant to paint a rather vivid image of what they'd look like out of uniform. Then again, one of his only rules regarding sexual conquest was that any sort of... on duty rendezvous... should be avoided. A girl at every port was one thing; serving with one, or, in this case, two women that he also happened to sleep with, was something very different -- it had the potential to make things more complicated than they needed to be. That being said, Cameron's intuition was slowly convincing him that all was not as it seemed.

"Lieutenant, I'm..." Cameron began, deciding to err on the side of caution, and stretching the last word while he put the rest of the sentence together in his head. "Sorry for interrupting your... session... with Shira." Cameron turned to Andy. "Thanks, Chief. For, uh, showing me the way here. If either of you need me, I'll be on the bridge." That wasn't entirely true. Cameron's next stop would be his quarters to unpack. But just in case his hunch was wrong, and their offer genuine, he didn't want it to seem as though he were handing out an invitation.

'Chicken!' Andy thought as she snickered through Cameron's disjointed reply. Andy rarely said anything she didn't mean or wasn't willing to follow through on, even as a joke. If Cameron had agreed to it, she would have slept with him. "Anytime. And I'm sure you'll find us without a problem if you ever... need anything," she teased with a wicked grin.

Shira was absolutely confused with the whole exchange, blinking curiously at the three officers talking. "What's a lady-boner?" she asked innocently.

True to her nature, Maica did her best to explain the term to Shira simply. Sex was a subject the Arboreal girl was already familiar with, so she thought nothing of it. "It means her female reproductive parts are getting aroused and preparing for sex." She kept an eye on Cameron just to gauge his reaction to her definition.

Shira simply nodded, accepting this explanation without question.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan
Executive Officer
USS Katana

Chief Petty Officer Andrea Carter
Chief of Operations
USS Katana

Lieutenant Maica
Chief Diplomat Officer
USS Katana

Shira
Civilian
USS Katana

After Shira had her lessons with Maica and then Andy had returned her to her quarters, Andy made her way to the bridge to fill in the Captain. She was still technically on the forced 48 hours of rest, but considering the nature of the emergency she responded to, she felt confident Kris would understand. Ringing the chime, she waited patiently for Kris to respond.

"Enter!" shouted Kris, unlocking the entrance to his Ready Room. The doors slid open and Kris was surprised to see that his Chief of Operations was standing there. I specifically remember ordering you to take two days rest thought Kris as he shook his head and sighed. "There had better be a damn good reason why your ass is standing in my doorway, Chief and not in the holodeck sipping synthehol Mai Tais on some holographic beach simulation."

"I'm more of a cold mountain forest, bow hunting simulation kind of person, but I'll take your suggestion into consideration," Andy said as she stood in front of his desk. "There was a situation; Maica's internal reactor failed." Let him chew on that for a moment.

"Which you no doubt fixed" countered Kris with a smirk. "Don't pull the dramatic effect shit with me, Chief. I know better. I've been around a while. If something horrible happened to Maica and you or Matthews were not able to correct or rectify the problem, you would have stormed into this office looking like shit and half my starship would be torn apart and in complete disarray."

"I'm hurt Captain! To think I would tear apart such a pretty ship..." Andy replied. Then she sighed, her expression falling slightly. "It wasn't pretty, the failure was fatal and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it, but I got her into the new body we made for her. She's incomplete, she won't be fit for active duty for a few days, but she'll live. I just thought you would like to know."

"Absolutely!" shouted Kris. "I appreciate that you let me know how the procedure went, Chief. Tell me... this new body. What does it look like?"

"Outwardly, once she's finished she'll look the same as she did before. Her skin is top quality and she wanted to reuse it, I had no objections, and I took great pains to ensure that she would have the same body type, same facial structure," Andy explained. "But her skin took some damage from the heat of her reactor, I've got to do some repairs before I can get that onto her. Some of her internals are incomplete... her entire lower half is exposed and she can't walk. But it shouldn't take more than a couple of days to get all the work done. And of course, I'll be running extensive diagnostics to make sure she's settling well in to her new neural network."

"So....." said Kris with an exaggerated pausing. "She'll still have those gigantic knockers?" asked Kris with a shake of his head. "If she were human, she;d be complaining of back problems. I swear... having worked with that woman, I suspect she uses those damn things to distract and lull hostile Government representatives during peace negotiations."

"I wouldn't know," Andy said evasively, though the embarrassment was written all over her face; Maica has used such tactics on Andy. "But I did try to preserve as much as I could so she wouldn't feel out of place in her body. So much on the inside was changing, I wanted her to be able to look into the mirror and still see herself. It just seemed the least I could do..."

"Thank you, Chief. Thank you for taking good care of her. I know that you had to do a lot and I do appreciate it."

"Thank you, sir," Andy acknowledged. "And... I'll do my best not to overwork myself while I get her final repairs completed."

"Good" replied Kris. He looked at her for a moment longer, just to take in the sight of this woman that was to be his Chief of Operations.

After finding the planted locator beacon and transwarp transporter device, Jhu had been wary of returning to her usual cabin, but their extended stay away from home was driving Lydek into the sort of frenzy that only real catnip could break. The sort she kept hidden in a cabinet in her bedroom. So to the cabin she had gone, one hand ready to draw her phaser at the first sign of trouble. She figured getting in trouble for stunning a nosy ensign - should one stumble in - was better than letting some crazy Section 31 stowaway take her by surprise. No one knew when the device had been planted, and it was far too likely that the culprit was still on board. Somewhere. Hoping her newly acquired security escort didn't come looking for her, Jhu took a nervous breath and entered the cabin, heading directly for the bedroom.

She made it three steps in before she saw a flash of motion on her left. Reflexively, she ducked and rolled away, landing in a crouch with her phaser in one hand and a wicked looking knife in the other.

Nothing. There was nothing there. Maybe she was getting paranoid. She barely had time to think it before she saw a scrap of paper lying on the coffee table. Paper that hadn't been there before. She gingerly picked it up, finding a message on it.

Stop talking if you value your life.

Below the threat there was no signature, just a symbol of an eagle with its wings outstretched. Jhu shook her head and tucked the paper into her pocket. They weren't scaring her back into their arms that easily. She continued into the bedroom and pulled the bag of catnip out of its cabinet, tucking it into her pocket. It wasn't enough for more than a few weeks, but it would have to do. Her prize collected, she headed for the door again, wanting to escape the old cabin and the feeling of being watched.

On her daily rounds, Ensign Cho'ren was checking the reportedly empty quarters. Opening the door and coming face to face with the ship's Intel Chief wasn't on her most unexpected list of things she'd seen considering these were previously her quarters, but it was enough to raise a flag in her mind. "Is everything ok Ma'am?" was all she got out before something even more unexpected happened...

Intensely trained reflexes took over before Jhu registered who was talking to her; the knife already at her perceived assailant's throat as her elbow sought to drive the woman back... met by a very solid and somewhat immovable being. Nearly certain the joint was dislocated, Jhu backed away just as swiftly, suddenly finding herself looking at one of the Katana's security officers. "Damn it, Vara! What the hell are you doing in here?"

Vara had easily deflected both the knife (the blade now stabbed halfway through a bulkhead) and with a simple swat had easily deflected Jhu's elbow. It was obviously dislocated... It seemed she had used a bit too much force... "Doing my rounds, Commander. These quarters were added to the empties list so I was checking them for things left behind, stowaways, and abnormalities." Motioning to the other woman's elbow, she continued. "Do you want me to set that back into place?"

That was when the pain finally registered, and it was purely willpower that kept Jhu from dissolving into tears on the deck. She had a reputation to maintain! But she nodded, clenching her jaw slightly. "If you can do it without making it worse."

Moving towards the Commander, Vara spoke in a tone she hoped was reassuring to the injured woman. "My martial arts master made sure I could set my own dislocated joints pretty early in my training. It'll hurt a lot, but I usually get it right." Without another word, she grabbed the offending joint and easily set it in the blink of an eye.

Jhu swore under her breath as Vara slammed the joint back in place then rubbed her sore arm as some of the pain faded away. "Thanks. Remind me to never piss you off." She gave her knife - still embedded in the bulkhead - a bemused look. "I don't suppose you know if someone else was in here recently."

Nodding at the thanks, Vara moved further into the room, activating all of her enhanced senses, slowly turning in a circle. "Normally I'd say no, but assuming you went straight to the bedroom and back and the room has sat unoccupied for as long as the logs say it has, yes. There's residual body heat on the coffee table and couch. There's no indication in the carpet of how they got there or how they left, though."

"How much residual body heat?"

Tuning her senses to that couch, she analyzed the heat pattern a bit more. "Judging by the dispersal and concentration, I'd say a male approximately 70 to 80 kilos sat there for 10 minutes about..." Pausing, she retuned her senses on the couch. "I'm guessing he left 3 to 5 minutes ago since I don't see anything else."

Hearing that, Jhu stared in shock at Vara, feeling her pulse start to race. "I came in ten minutes ago."

Processing that extra information, Vara just moved, her accelerated speed and strength getting her to that dagger in the bulkhead, ripping it out, and throwing it literally through the spot on the couch with the heat where she guessed a shoulder would likely be, the blade hitting the opposite bulkhead so hard, you could hear it shatter on impact. All of that within the space of a single heartbeat. Combat she was good at. She could quite possibly single handedly beat a runabout to mere scraps. This was her bread and butter. Her sensors were designed to detect Breen and pirates and Jem'hadar in pitch black, even with their cloaking trick, but a normal cloak? IF someone had one, she'd be blind to it just like everyone else and based on what Jhu had just said...

There was a startled scream of pain and the flickering of a compromised personal cloaking device, but before Jhu had a moment to react a warbling whine filled the room. At its peak there came a shimmering rainbow beam over the couch, disappearing as quickly as it formed. Jhu reached to grab the intruder's arm, but her hands came up empty. A thorough - and somewhat frenzied - physical search of the couch turned up nothing. "Sonofabitch... Andy was supposed to disable that damned thing!"

Visibly releasing the tension in her body, Vara walked over to the couch and looked it over as well. "Commander, I know Andy. If she did something, she did it well. She's a bit of a perfectionist like that. Do you mind explaining who that was and what that 'damned thing' is? I'll need it for my incident report."

"I don't know who it was!" As far as Jhu was concerned, that was a rather stupid question, considering the man had been cloaked. "As for what..." Leaving the couch, Jhu went to the panel where the device was hidden and tried to pry the panel loose, succeeding only in making her already sore arm ache. "It's behind here. Kerouac knows."

"Then that'll have to do." Sighing heavily, Vara shook her head as she followed Jhu to that panel. "Why is it that things like this happen on my shift... Everyone else always has a quiet report but when I do the rounds there's hidden people in empty quarters, pets wandering the conduits, and love affairs in the jeffries tubes. That panel looks like it's fused to the bulkhead by the way. I don't think even I could pry it off like that."

"Andy didn't--" Jhu stopped short, not completing the sentence. That meant that the unknown Section 31 stowaway had likely done it. And either he'd fixed the device or... maybe it fixed itself. "...fvadt." Already crouched down near the panel, she sat down on the deck, her normally dusky complexion turning a bit pale.

Unsure if Jhu needed medical assistance, Vara scanned around the room some more. "Are you going to be ok? Is there anything else I can help with?"

Jhu shook her head, but she wasn't sure which question she was answering. She wasn't okay, but she didn't want Vara dragging her to sickbay. Or calling Liam up to the cabin. "I don't know."

"How about we go get a drink or something, then?" Vara offered. She only had a little of her rice wine left, but this woman looked like she needed it more than her. She'd have to see if Maica could get a few bottles of it for her later.

Jhu considered the offer for a moment then nodded. "Okay. I think that's a good idea."

Helping Jhu off the floor, Vara led her out of the old quarters and headed for her own. "My roommate is on duty so we'll have the room to ourselves, if that's ok."

"Yeah. That's okay." Jhu didn't mind them being alone; the last thing she wanted was more people seeing her so stupidly pale and shaky.

Finally reaching her quarters, Vara opened the door and led Jhu inside. Grabbing the bottle of clear liquid and a couple glasses, she poured a nice healthy dose of 'nerve tonic' for both of them, handing one glass to Jhu. "Be careful, it's potent."

"Thanks." Jhu took the offered glass and tried a small sip of the clear liquid. It had a strong flavor and burned slightly upon swallowing, but it was still rather drinkable. "I'm sorry. I knew they'd come looking for me. I don't know why I'm acting this way. I really don't."

Sipping her own drink, Vara set the bottle back and leaned against the wall. "I have an idea of why. You're a hunter. A wolf. In this instance, though, you're a rabbit. You feel like their prey and you can't get your jaws anywhere close to them. Now you're backed into a corner and it's unsettling and frustrating. That's my theory, anyway."

"Suppose that makes sense." The more Jhu thought about it, the more sense it made.

"I may be a combat specialist, but one needs to know how to think like your prey to hunt them." Raising her glass, Vara sipped at it again. "The next question is how you become the hunter again."

"I can't, not unless I want the whole crew finding out. I'm not ready for that."

"Then you need another option, Commander." Vara replied reluctantly.

"If there is one." Jhu took a quiet sip of her drink. "Zanaar didn't even believe me. Called me paranoid."

"I'm just security, but I'm sure someone aboard will believe you. After seeing what I saw today, I'm prone to believing almost anything, if you decide to tell me more, that is."

Jhu snorted at her. "I'm not sure I'd believe me at this point. The story just got really convoluted, and I'm not sure how much sense it will make."

Vara smiled at that and finished her drink. "Try me then."

Giving her a 'you asked for it' look, Jhu set her drink down. "The man who got away. He's Section 31, and he was here for one of three reasons... to recruit me back in, to watch me, or to kill me. The device? Planted by Section 31 to keep tabs on me and transport people on and off the ship."

"Section 31?" She was right, Vara was finding it hard to believe... It almost sounded as if the simplified Utopian Federation bullshit really did have a darker side to it. Granted this Section 31 was part of the Federation... It didn't sound like a part of any other government and she doubted it was an independent organization what with the number 31.

"It's absolutely true."

"This Section 31 works for the Federation, I assume." Vara wanted that clarified a bit first.

"They claim to. It's a sect within Starfleet... lots of talk about 'the good of the Federation', but that's all bull. I believed it for a while, but once I wised up? Figured out it was all a scam." Jhu paused, looking around for a moment. "Can I sit down?"

Vara motioned to the table and 4 chairs in the middle of the room. Her roommate's clothes were laid out on it again for some reason. "If you don't mind the mess, there's the table. My bed is over here though."

"The mess doesn't bother me. Just kind of lightheaded." Jhu chose a seat at the table, ignoring the mess. "I got out, and it pissed them off."

Vara grabbed her bottle and sat at the table too, refilling both glasses. "If they're like other gangs I've run across, there is no getting out."

"Then you see the problem." Jhu picked up her glass but didn't drink from it, swirling the liquid around inside it. "Drake's a bastard. No other way to say it."

"In that case, I recommend drinking a bit more unless you can think of anything better to do." Vara replied.

"If I drink too much of it I'm going to wind up passed out on your floor." Jhu msnaged a small snicker, taking a sip of the drink. "Probably shouldn't be drinking it in the first place. Already feeling a bit off... but it's numbed the pain in my arm. So there's that."

"Then don't worry. This is all I have left." Vara said as she drank her glass in one quick motion and emptied the last swallow into Jhu's glass. "Rumor has it that our Chief Diplomatic Officer has so much real alcohol she could start 3 bars in her quarters if you want to visit her."

Jhu giggled a little as she finished what was left in her glass. "She does, and she often shares. Good stuff too."

"So the rumors of her wandering the halls and making late night visits to people with expensive bottles is true then. I'll have to ask her if she can get a few bottles of rice wine for me." Vara said, looking over her now empty bottle a bit wistfully.

"They are, and she might already have some. Can't hurt to ask."

"I just hope she accepts my request after taking part in trying to kill her..."

"...what?" Jhu gave Vara an incredulous look. "Care to explain?"

Vara didn't say anything for a few seconds, instead studying her empty glass. "Andy and I were lovers some time ago and when we met again on the Katana... Well we passionately kissed in front of Maica and she turned red and melted all her relays..."

"Maica mentioned repairs." Jhu watched Vara for a moment, deciding that any sort of lecture was unnecessary. "And Andy did seem a bit too concerned about her. Like she was afraid Maica would break."

Vara's voice betrayed her regret over the incident as she spoke. "She did break. All she could do was lay there on that test bench and blink, listening to everything going on. If she hadn't already had a full set of those posi-whatsit relays and some other parts already made up she'd still be there."

"Well then." Jhu hadn't heard about that event yet, but Maica's new frailty was beginning to make a lot of sense. "No sense in me piling more guilt on you."

Weakly smiling up at the other woman, Vara had no hint of the wolf or huntress in her eyes. She was just Vara now - a side of her very few got to see. "It looks like we both have a lot of stress. You're being hunted by a Federation agency and I almost killed a unique lifeform and my ex's lover."

Jhu nodded slightly. "But at least you can apologize and be forgiven."

"True. I also know what it's like to be able to do nothing but lay there." Vara said reluctantly.

"You might find that feeling of helplessness more common than you think," Jhu remarked rather flatly, mindlessly tracing the scar under her sleeve. "Different causes, but not an uncommon sort of experience. At least in my line of work."

"I can imagine." Vara said, staring deep into her empty glass.

"Yeah." Jhu paused, fiddling with the empty glass in front of her. "Lots of stories to tell... most of which I can't share."

"I don't have many stories. Just a really bad training cruise incident that left me in the hospital for 3 months wondering if I was going to need a new neuro-processing array in my brain pan." Setting her glass down, Vara leaned back in her chair and sighed heavily. "But if you need a security guard for anything, I'm your woman. I specialize in target destruction, as you've seen. Though next time, I'll aim for the heart and not the shoulder."

"Considering who's after me, you're probably my only choice. Besides me, you're the only one capable of fighting them. So... I suppose you're hired. Just don't sneak up on me anymore."

Vara couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Sorry. I'll try not to. I wasn't expecting anyone to actually be on the other side of the door, though."

"I know. But I needed Lydek's catnip... poor thing is going crazy in the new cabin. He hates it." Jhu sighed a little.

"Any specific reason you can find? Animals tend to sense things better than others." Vara said, with a hint of that wolf back in her eyes.

"Not what he's used to, I think. And there's another animal next door."

"Ah yeah, territory issues." Vara smiled at the thought of having such troubles.

"Oh yeah. And he's super territorial... friendly to people but not animals."

"That makes sense then. I'll still want to check through your new room regularly for anything unusual, though."

"I want you to," Jhu replied without any hesitation. "They know now that I've moved."

"And it's safe to assume they know why." Vara nodded. "I'll start my scans in the morning."

"What if he was already there?" Normally rather fearless, Jhu dreaded going back to her new cabin. A new device could have been planted, and she didn't want go wake up in one of Section 31's lairs.

"Then I'll do some scans tonight." Vara shrugged. It didn't matter to her when she looked through the place. "On that note, I really should at least report in from my rounds."

"Right... sorry. Just a quick scan then I'll leave you alone until tomorrow."

Standing and heading towards the door, Vara smiled wolfishly back at Jhu. "Ready to go hunting, Commander?"

"Absolutely." Jhu got up and followed Vara to the door, ready to find out if her new cabin was really safe or not.

Shira's eyes opened somewhat reluctantly, her lids still heavy and her head still reeling from her earlier exertions. She wanted to go back to sleep, but it was so cold and the air was so dry. She shivered on the biobed where she lay feeling out of sorts and more than a little lonely in this place.

Verak was looming over the Biobed, craning his neck as he leaned in. When Shira's eyes opened, the half-Vulcan shot back with catlike reflexes. He looked at her, studying her anatomy. He had very little medical knowledge, especially when it came to such a fascinating creature. He looked at her bio readings but they did not seem to set off any sort of alarms. She must be stable thought Lieutenant Verak. He leaned back in and placed his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers.

"You were hurt" he said in an evened tone of voice. His eyes widened and his brow arched slightly. "They did not know what courses to take. Doctor Cohen did what he could to ensure that you were comfortable" said Verak. The Vulcan then looked over at a small table on the other side of Shira's biobed. On top of the table was a vase full of flowers from the Airponics Bay. "Commander Kerouac said it was logical to bring flowers to someone who was sick that you cared for."

Shira's big eyes focused (or tried to, anyway) on their interlaced fingers. Such a curious thing... But it felt nice, it made her smile. She looked back up to Verak. "Tired, cold," she said softly with another shiver, her gossamer wings vibrating a bit to try to generate some much needed heat.

"The humans tend to like it colder. I've grown more used to it than I would have had I been raised on Vulcan" said Verak just trying to converse with Shira. She had not seemed to be very interested in the flowers. I should have made a better selection thought Verak. He looked at the flowers and shook his head. They are too dull. Perhaps, I should have asked Lieutenant Weaver for assistance in my selection. Lieutenant Verak spoke up "Computer increase Sickbay temperature by five degrees."

"It's so dry, too, but now cold is bothering me," Shira replied, then she felt the change in the temperature and she visibly relaxed. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze to show her appreciation. "Thank you Verak," she said softly. "It is warm on your world too?" she asked as her eyes finally sought out the pretty flowers Verak had brought her. He was so sweet and thoughtful.

"Where I am from, no. But I have family on Vulcan and it is quite hot on Vulcan. There are not many plants or flowers on Vulcan. It is nothing like your world" said Verak.

"Where are you from?" Shira asked. She felt that it was possible she had asked this before, but her head still felt so fuzzy that she couldn't quite remember.

"Earth" replied Verak simply. He looked at Shira and thought about how specific he should be. "Earth is a big planet. There are a lot of the crew from there. I come from a place called Vermont."

"Maica told me about Earth," Shira said, her eyes drooping a bit as her body warmed and sleep began to encroach on her consciousness. "Humans are from Earth, and so is... is... Starfleet." Her understanding of Starfleet seemed to be lacking, but it was a start. "Why did you leave your world?" she asked, her big eyes again fixed on Verak.

Verak chuckled and took Shira's hand. "We all chose to leave our worlds when we join Starfleet. They teach us things, how to survive and how to help others. We are explorers. We want to meet new people like you."

"I did not know what to expect when I left," Shira said sadly, then yawned cutely. "I knew there were things outside my world, I knew it from watching the stars I could see, I could map it all out and I knew I wanted to see more. But I had no of knowing it could be so dangerous. Is it like this often?"

Verak thought about how to handle that question. It was a rather perplexing one. Do I treat her like a child or do I treat her like the sentient being that I know she is thought Verak. He had decided on the latter when felt a hand placed on his shoulder. He turned around to see Commander Kerouac looking at him.

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry to interrupt your visitation. However, we could use you on the Bridge. I need someone with piloting skills" said Kris. It caused Verak to smile ever so slightly. Kris understood how much Verak wanted to return to the Flight Control department.

"Aye, Captain" replied Verak. The Lieutenant turned and looked at Shira. "I'll come back later and see you" said Verak as he leaned in over the bio bed and planted a small kiss on the Arboreal's forehead.

Kris looked rather interested at the action as he watched the former helmsmen walk away and exit Sickbay. Kris turned back to face Shira. "You had an interesting question there, Shira. I hope our recent encounter with the Dominion did not frighten you too much. The truth is... sometimes but not always. There are billions of worlds out there. Sometimes, we do not always get along and things happen" explained Kris to the best of his ability.

Shira smiled at the gentle kiss Verak pressed to her forehead and her eyes followed him as he left. Already she missed the warmth of his hand in hers. "I was frightened," she said in response to Kris' explanation, watching her fingers flex as if to recapture the feeling of Verak's hand. "I do not know if I am ready to face what is out there, but I know too much to go back to my world; I could never live a contented life there now, I would always wonder what I left behind out here."

"What happened here... it does not usually happen. I will make sure that everyone is safer soon. I am going to make sure that nobody has to experience that again. There is a lot of beautiful things out there, Shira. I think you'll learn to really like it here even during the bad times."

Shira nodded, accepting his answer without question. "Did... did everything turn out alright on that world? With the fungi?" she asked. The incident may have scared her, but it helped to know if she had made an appreciable difference.

Kris felt a tensing on his insides. He was nervous about what to tell her. The truth was no. Shira had provided a temporary fix but it would only be temporary. Kris had tasked his Science Department to continue studying the samples and determining the problem. However, Lieutenant T'Val had turned in her communications badge and provisional rank pips, opting to return to the Vulcan Science Academy. Chief Science Officer, Dr. Noah Evans had left abruptly with a quick transfer to another starship and not giving Kris or Kyle much notice. It had left the Science Department skeletal at best.

Kris nodded. "You helped them, Shira. You did good. They will be fine now" said Kris with some reluctance to his deception.

"They will not be fine," Shira replied, being coherent enough to notice his reluctance to answer. Whatever the truth was behind his deception, Shira couldn't bring herself to care all that much about those people; they had hurt and killed to get her help when she would have given it freely just because they needed it. It made no sense to her, and because of that she found herself rather ambivalent towards the knowledge that those people weren't going to be alright. "I still don't understand why they had to act the way they did. I would have helped for no other reason than because the man asked for my help."

"You are right, Shira. They may not be but we are doing the best that we can... you did help them but it won't last. I would have helped them too. I would have given them all the help that we could give them if they would have just asked us. If that changeling would have approached us and told us that they wanted you down there, we would have sent you. I can't help you understand why they did it. All I can tell you is that you're safe here."

Again, all Shira could do was nod in acceptance of his answer. She closed her eyes with a resigned sigh. Speaking with Verak had been pleasant and Kris' assurances would help her rest easier, but right now she wanted to be alone to process all of this. And more importantly, she was still so tired. "When can I go back to my room?" she asked wearily.

"I do not know, Shira. You have to wait for Liam... um Doctor Cohen to come in and tell him that you can. Next time you see him, ask him. He will let you know. I need to head back to the Bridge but I'll make sure Verak comes back later to visit with you."

"Thank you," Shira said softly, already drifting towards sleep.

It was a great honor for a starship Captain to present decorations, citation, awards and promotions to members of his or her crew. This was no different for Commander Kerouac who was looking forward to doing some good around the starship. He needed to promote two of his Senior Staff and give a few awards to others. Kris' arm still hurt like hell, his shoulder had taken the brunt of the plasma blast from the Jem'Hadar riffle but it had completely screwed his arm up for the time being. It would take continuous visits to Sickbay for treatments to get his shoulder and arm back to being fully operable.

Fortunately, his visitations to Sickbay had been extraordinarily pleasing due to a certain Captain's privilege. It was standard for the Captain to get the best care that he or she could possibly get aboard their starship. This meant that the Captain's primary physician was the Chief Medical Officer unless specifically asking for someone else. Dr. Ryan Rose had overseen the Captain's surgical needs. However, overseeing additional care was the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Liam Cohen.

Liam thought Kris as he neared Sickbay. There had always been something about Liam and Kris could not push his feelings away any longer. There was no tall blue skinned demon stalking him and following his every move to cite protocol and regulations or to question his every God damn decision. The loss of Lieutenant Commander Tul Zanaar was a difficult one for Kris to accept. However, there were oddly some good things that came from the man's death. The thought of becoming romantically and even sexually involved with the Chief Medical Officer were not thoughts that Kris felt he could ever act upon with Tul around. The Andorian would have turned red with anger should anything have happened. It would have compromised structure and Kris knew that.

Outside of the chain of command, it would take the First Officer and Chief Medical Officer to unitedly remove the Commanding Officer from command of the starship. Tul would have challenged Kris' personal feelings, stating that a relationship between the CO and CMO would have caused a breakdown in structure. Kris always felt a bit pathetic about his inaction to pursue a relationship with Liam. Kris knew it. He had been bullied by Tul into not doing it just to avoid confrontation. It was time for that to end. It was time for Kris to do what his heart wanted and not what some stiff First Officer had forced him to do.

Kris had no appointment today as he walked into Sickbay. Kris quickly dismissed the nurse who had begun to approach him. "Is the boss in?" asked Kris with a small smile at the nurse. She nodded and looked towards the Chief Medical Officer's office. "Thank you" mouthed Kris as he proceeded towards the man's office and gently knocked on the bulkhead framing of what constituted as an entranceway.

"Doctor" said Kris as he waited to draw the man's attention.

Liam looked up, seeing the CO he smiled, "Hello," He set the PADD down, containing the paperwork required for the now late-XO. "What can I do for you?"

Lots of things but I don't feel we should bring that up this early on thought Kris with a wolfish grin and a deep breath. Kristopher, behave yourself! he thought inwardly self disciplining himself. "I came to say hi" said Kris warmly. He approached the Doctor's desk slowly. "Well, I came to say hi and have some other things to ask and take care of. First, I guess that I wanted to ask if you would still be interested in going out on a date?"

Liam smiled, "Isn't it against regulation to date someone under your command?" He replied, rising from his seat and moving slightly closer to the other man.

"NO!" shouted Kris. He shook his head and looked at Liam with his big brown eyes. "Sorry. It isn't. There is nothing against it except personal expressions."

"How about I see how that arm is doing first and I'll think about the date." He said leading the CO back into the main ward and towards a bio bed.

"I'll let you check the arm. However, I will not be pleased if you say no to the date" replied Kris.

Liam smirked, "Take your shirt off." He said.

Kris looked wide eyed at Liam. "Here? Now?" said Kris with a smile. "Ah, arm... right" said Kris complying.

Liam took Kris' arm, he expertly moved his hands up the injured limb. Without even using a scanner he could tell where the muscle was healing and where it would take longer for the Captain's body to recover.

"How does it look, Doc?" asked Kris.

"Well I don't think we'll have to amputate, it will still be sore for a bit, but I'd like to give it another day before I do anything more, I don't want to risk damaging the tendons by doing too much too fast." He said.

"Well then..." Kris said with a dismissive scoffing. "I guess you had better be gentle with me and take things a little slower."

Liam tossed the Captain his shirt, "You can put that back on. I'll check it again after dinner." He said.

Kris complied and put his shirt back on. He put himself together and recomposed himself more professionally as Commander Kristopher Kerouac, Commanding Officer and not Kris Kerouac, recovering substance abuser and poor excuse of a Starfleet officer. "I brought you a little something" said Kris as he reached into his pocket and retrieved the small rank pip, keeping his hand closed.

He reached out and placed it in Liam's palm. "Official ship's business" said Kris with a small smile. "Your service to this starship has not gone unnoticed. I recommended it to Starfleet after your work on Teplan. You and Lieutenant Weaver helped recover those medical supplies from the Ferengi, granted I could not necessarily put that in the report. Regardless, I hereby promote you, Doctor, to the rank of Lieutenant Commander."

Liam looked at the little hollow pip and smiled, "Thank you sir."

"You're welcome, Liam" said Kris as he leaned in and kissed the Chief Medical Officer gently on the lips. It was light and brief. However, it was Kris' way of taking action and laying claim to their being an interest in pursuing a relationship with Dr. Cohen. "How have things been down here in Sickbay?" asked Kris.

Liam smirked after the kiss, "It's fine, nothing too major, we've got a few new staff which are helping."

"Good, I am glad to hear that things are running smooth down here. I wish I could say the rest of the starship is going as well as it is down here. I am getting to know my new First Officer. I actually like him quite a bit. However, Andy is having difficulties in the Operations Department with those under her. It is the whole Chief Petty Officer as Department Head thing. I am going to have to have the new XO take care of it. They need to see her not by rank but by her position. Worse comes to worse, I will make sure she has a damn good Assistant Chief to keep her rowdy boys down there from trying to pull rank on her."

Liam smiled, "Sounds fun, dinner. My quarters, 21:00"

"Do I get dessert?" asked Kris with a wolfish smirk. I hope so thought Kris.

"We'll see." Liam said with a smirk.

Arthur Waterson stepped out of the runabout, suitcase in hand. Stepping out into the shuttle bay, Arthur looked around. Arthur had served on much bigger ships than this, though this was still a substantially sized ship. Arthur glanced around at all of the others exiting the shuttle, and a few entering the hanger. Arthur was looking around for the Chief of Security, who had agreed to meet him upon arrival.

Nathan stood in the shuttle bay glancing around at the flurry of action that was going on in here. Nathan was still very new on this ship himself and he had been running over in his head the possible security risks that having a new chief and assistant chief could cause. One was clearly that Nathans new responsibilities were weighing on him and causing him to be distracted. He had missed his new Warrant Officer coming out of his shuttle.

Nathan walked over to the man " Chief Waterson?"

Arthur's eyes locked with the younger man. "That would be me. And I'm guessing you're the Security Chief. It's nice to meet you." Arthur extended his right hand for a handshake.

Nathan took that mans and shook it, Nathans grip was strong but not crushing. " Lieutenant Nathan Tonkin. Its very nice to meet you."

Arthur nodded in agreement. "Well, Mr. Tonkin, I hope our skills don't come in handy for the next mission." Arthur chuckled. "Mr. Tonkin, could you show me to Security Headquarters? I've no clue of the ship's layout."

Nathan instinctively rotated his left arm, the one that was damn near blown off recently. "Yeah, the longer with out incident on this boat the better. It seems when things do pop off, they pop off big time. Follow me and Ill show you to our office."

Nathan turned and headed out the door making sure Arthur was next to him. " I was on this ship for 2 days before we were invaded..."

Arthur kept in stride with Nathan as they strolled down the hallway. "What were we boarded by? I have experience with boarding." Arthur stroked his goatee thoughtfully.

"Jem'Hadar..." Nathan said over his shoulder. He came to a stop in front of a turbo lift and pressed the call button. He then turned to face Arthur while they waited. " Im still waiting on all the reports to come in but from what I have read so far, they infiltrated the ship with the help of a shapeshifter who learned our shield harmonics and sent the rotation cycle to the boarding party, who then just beamed aboard. Most the fighting happened on the bridge itself. Several senior staff fell. I was ordered to main engineering. I was able to secure it and apprehend the three intruders in that section but I took a phaser blast to the left shoulder."

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Well, damn. I've served in Starfleet Security for 28 years, and I've never seen a shape-shifter, let alone fought one. That's an impressive feat. Tell me, do you know if our upcoming mission involves any severe security issues? If it's anything like that shapeshifter business, I'd like to be prepared."

The turbo lift arrived and Nathan stepped in, waiting for Arthur to join him. He chuckled slightly " You know, I still have not seen a shapeshifter either. I just know there was one here. I would tell you to be prepared for anything. I have not been here very long, but it seems that everything that can happen tends to on this ship. Be prepared for anything Chief."

Arthur stepped into the lift. "Well, I can't argue with that. I'll make sure to stay on my guard. Say, Mr. Tonkin, you guys did do a security recall after the attack, right? You know, change codes, passwords, frequencies and whatnot?"

"Main security." Nathan called out and the turbo lift started moving. " Not only have we done all that, the CO installed phaser scanners above every door in the ship to scan for shape shifters. If I can help it, the ship will not be boarded again on my watch."

Arthur looked Nathan straight in the eyes. "Our watch, Mr. Tonkin. I'll be here at your side if anything goes wrong. I know how stressful being the Chief of Security is, and you're going to need a solid right hand man to back you up."

Nathan nodded "Indeed Chief, our watch. I have looked over your file and have seen your experience. It is a honor to have someone like you at my back." Nathan stepped off the turbo lift and assumed that Arthur would fall in step. "I welcome any and all advice you may have for me."

Arthur fell into step with Nathan. "Well, it seems you've taken extensive security measures to protect the ship from internal threats. But security is only half of our department, Mr. Tonkin. I would suggest that we consult with the engineering or science department sometime, and see what we can do to augment our tactical systems."

Nathan walked up to a door that was labeled "Security" and entered the small main area " Excellent advice. I will set up a meeting between all of us and we can hammer out some details. Welcome to your home away from home." The main area had a couple of work stations, there was a replicator in the wall and a few doors leading off the room. Nathan pointed at one. "That's your privet office," He pointed to one right next to Arthur's " and that is the armory. My office is over here." He waved his hand around a bit "This area is the common area. The work stations out here are for all security personal to use as needed. We have a couple more offices that are empty, but this one over here is Master at Arms Chief Petty Officer Illyana Ng's office. I have actually not met her yet. Please make yourself at home here. I believe Chief Petty Officer Andrea Carter is who gives out quarter assignments. Otherwise I'm sure the Captain would like to meet you. Do you have any questions for me?"

"No questions, Mr. Tonkin. Thank you for your time, I look forward to working with you. Have a nice day." Arthur nodded to Nathan, and turned around. He then proceeded to stroll out of the office, to go find his quarters.

Hayley had her feet kicked up on the console as she held a PADD in her hands. The current article about Captain Riker was boring her. 'Hope I never become that boring,' she thought as she tossed the PADD aside with a sigh. She had set the runabout's sensors on a periodic passive scan to help keep a watch out for anything that could be approaching the shuttle. Glancing at the readouts, a ghost blip caught her attention. "What the hell was that?" she said to nobody in particular as she sat up in her seat.

Standing and leaning against the console so she could see the Lieutenant's readout, Vara looked over it a moment but saw nothing. "What did you see?" she asked, running through possible scenarios in her head.

"The sensors picked up a faint echo." Hayley scanned the section again, keeping in passive mode to avoid shorting out the sensors. Several sweeps later, the reading popped up again and only for a slit second. "There it is again. Can't get any details..." she sad as she reviewed the sensor logs about the sensor contact. "It appears to be about ten kilometers away." She checked the area map. "Looks like dense jungle and some caverns are in the area."

This time Vara saw it too, though she had no idea what it was. "Probably a sensor glitch, but it's worth checking out. Would you rather hike there or try to use the transporter?" she asked, knowing full well they weren't allowed the use of the time saving device. If they were going to investigate, they would need to hike out there those 10 kilometers across rough terrain without use of their tricorders. To Ensign Cho'ren that sounded like fun and a good training experience, but she had to worry about her companions.

"Normally, I would say use the transporters but with the energy drain this planet produces, I rather not take the chance on only half of me materializing. Looks like we better hike I there." Normally she wouldn't leave the shuttle, but she saw no immediate need for it as they would have to save energy to take off from the planet when it was time to leave. Besides, it beat being cooped up in the shuttle. She moved to grab some gear and weapons from the gear lockers in the crew compartment.

Following Hayley to the gear lockers, Vara started strapping water and supplies to her already impressive complement of equipment. "Lieutenant, a phaser wouldn't be wise to bring along. If you want, I brought an extra pistol if you're familiar with archaic firearms." Pulling open her gun case, she offered the spare .22 pistol to the Lieutenant.

Hayley looked at the gun with it's small ammunition. "I'd feel safer with a phaser," she replied, shoving the weapon into a holster and fastening it to her duty belt. She then grabbed a water pack and a machete, lashing it to duty belt as well.

Putting the firearm away, Vara finished strapping her equipment to her without another word. Ready to go, she waited for the Lieutenant to finish before following her.

Sabrina had her engineering kit, less the high technology toys of course. She also had canteens and MRE's for the group. She didn't mind being the pack mule, it gave her an excuse not to be armed.

---------------

After an hour of hiking through dense jungle and hills, Hayley was wishing she had opted for a lighter and cooler uniform than her standard duty uniform. Her hair and uniform were beginning to get drenched in sweat. "After this, there had better be something at those coordinates," she commented before taking a sip of water from her water pack, knowing they were only about half way there.

Sabrina took the opportunity to drink as well, the humidity was awful. They were all suffering with it though, so she didn't complain.

Vara was sweating, but not nearly as much as the others thanks to her augmented Lagashi body. She still paused to drink, however. "I'm sure there will be, though there's no telling what it will be until we get there. Just think, We're a quarter done with the planned hike there and back."

"You're such a kill joy," Hayley commented with a sigh. She turned to Sabrina. "You doing ok, Corbin?"

Sabrina nodded. "Yes ma'am, thank you."

She then spotted a mass of fallen trees with vines that had overgrown on...something. "Does that look like normal plant growth to you?" she asked pointing at the mass sitting several yards away?

"Define normal" added Lieutenant T'Val with a small lifting of one of her blonde brows. "If you mean does that look as though it should have naturally grown that way... Highly unlikely and bordering on illogical. It has me... interested."

Hayley drew her machete and headed for the area. "Only one way to find out," she said before taking a swing. Her second swing struck something hard. As she pulled away loose veins, it revealed a dirt covered metal plate. The plating had a tan coloring to it. "Give me a hand," she asked pulling on another section.

Moving to assist, Vara sensed nothing she could define as 'dangerous' so she dug in, ripping at the fines fiercely.

A moment later, the hull of an old Cardassian shuttle emerged from the overgrowth.

Lieutenant T'Val, using a Tricorder approached from behind. As they came upon an old shuttle, the blonde half Vulcan studied the readings. "The shuttle is Cardassian in origin. There are no signs of life. It appears to have been here for several years" announced the Science Officer.

Hayley could see the skeletal remains of one cardassian in the pilot's seat through the cockpit window. "Poor bastard must have died in the crash."

Checking the door controls, they seemed to be completely drained of power and the external manual release fused. "Lieutenant, it would be difficult and unsafe to try to enter. I recommend giving the location and details to the diplomatic officer to be forwarded to Cardassia Prime. The inside is likely booby trapped so it would be best if they dealt with recovery."

"You're probaly right," Haley replied, backing away from the cockpit. Something struck her as odd about the shuttle however. It had been a military shuttle and if she recalled, Cardassian shuttles always carried two officers--a pilot and a tactical officer/co-pilot. She only saw one body in the shuttle. "We better keep moving," she said as she started off again in the direction of the signal.

T'Val's blonde brows lifted slightly as her eyes were drawn to the peculiar readings. "Lieutenant, I have something" announced the science officer, her voice showing some interest. "There is a geological structure ahead, some sort of cavern... and I'm detecting a very faint but strange energy reading."

"That must be the energy reading the runabout picked up. We better proceed, and keep a look out...that shuttle should have had two occupants according to standard Cardassian flight procedures."

"Well, if his companion looks anything like the one in the shuttle... I doubt that we will have to worry much" commented T'Val. "I am not detecting any Cardassian life signs."

"Still, keep your eyes peeled," Haley ordered as she stepped off in the direction of the energy signature. "Remember that we can't fully trust technology here."

Sabrina had kept quiet, trying to control her nerves and not make any waves this time around. The skeleton, even one with a different skull than her own, made her imagine what a horrible death the Cardassian must have suffered. She tried to push the thought from her mind, but it was her first face to face with death, and it had left her a little rattled.

After hiking for nearly an hour, the group came to the entrance of a cave. The entrance looked to be around 7 feet in height and narrow, being barely wide enough for an adult human male to pass through. Haley dropped her pack on the ground as she removed her jacket. "Looks like this is the area. Readings coming from that cave, T'Val?"

T'Val consulted her tricorder. "If we are to for a moment, trust our technology, then that is indeed where the readings are coming from. How shall we proceed?"

Readying her weaponry, Vara stepped towards the cave. "I recommend I go in first while the rest of you follow close behind. I have almost as many sensors as your tricorder built into my skull so I can use both my hands if there's something dangerous inside."

T'Val looked at Vera and nodded. "I have no objections" said the light haired half-Vulcan.

"Into the valley of death rode the six hundred," Collins quoted. "After you," she gestured to the cave.

As Vara entered the cave, she muttered another line from the same poem. "Ours not to reason why. Ours but to do and die. Great Lagashi literature. I'll have to ask you how you know of it later." Venturing deeper into the cave, she heard strange sounds coming from inside... She was also intermittently picking up life signs on her internal radar, but they were too in and out to count them properly. Everything else she was getting was too confusing to even make out without visual analysis, so she just kept moving deeper, the others close behind her.

T'Val was monitoring the life signs on her tricorder. They had her alert but not too concerned. She knew that logically this was a cavern and that animal life would likely be found inside such a geological structure. "Ensign, is your internal radar detecting these life signs?" asked T'Val as she pushed her tricorder over towards Vara.

"I suspect that they are animal life. Can you confirm my theory?" added T'Val.

Glancing at the tricorder, all Vara could confirm that there were undistinguished lifeforms ahead so she shook her head no and kept moving forward slowly. The cave floor was rather evenly worn for wildlife, but it was possible... The hints of sound she was picking up, though...

"Only one way to find out," Haley said confidently. She was sure T'Val was right and it was probably just animals. As they went further in the cavern, Haley could now hear...singing? "Is that...singing? No....it's chanting, I think."

Vara could hear that clearly by now, a grim expression on her face. She'd rather face the entire Breen Confederacy than the possibility of a den of fanatical cultists. "Definitely chanting. And unless I'm mistaken, I hear the timbre of a Cardassian voice with them."

As they approached a larger cavern, flickering light could be seen on the walls. Haley kneeled and ventured out by the corner. About 30 feet below them, on the cavern floor as a group of hooded figures guiding a scantly clad woman to an alter-like table. The woman didn't seem to be struggling. At the head of the alter, was a larger hooded figure, holding a large knife. "What in the bloody hell is going on here?" Haley wondered in a hushed voice.

"Religious service of some sort would be my guess" added T'Val. "They look to be part of a religion or cult of some sort. The alter, their garb and the way that one is holding that knife appears to be ceremonial."

Cursing under her breath, Vara scanned the crowd looking over the people, her rifle at the ready. The hoods and robes were all but transparent to her direct senses and she could finally count the lifeforms before them. "I see 43 humanoids of various ages. All but the armed figure is native to this world. The leader is Cardassian. I'm guessing he's about to sacrifice that woman to..." On the upper alter, rather than a figure or some recognizable religious fixture was a box. A simple wooden box. It just happened to have Bajoran lettering on it, though. Something about the box looked familiar from her studies. "The Bajorans have floating glowing balls of something, right? Kept in ritualistic wooden boxes?"

"Tears of the prophets" said T'Val swiftly. She looked at Vara and raised one of her lightly colored brows. "Perhaps, you should have taken more cultural sciences courses at the Academy, Ensign. Those 'floating glowing balls' are orbs. They are often called Orbs of the Prophets, though some translations from ancient texts seem to indicate that the more accurate translation would be tears" explained the science officer.

T'Val was interested in what was happening. "A Cardassian worshiping the Bajoran prophets through ritual sacrifice of another individual... that's more perplexing and a perversion of what we know of the Bajora faith and their prophets."

Haley too was curious but remembered from her history that the reign of Dukat had begun by worshipping a darker force called Pah Wraiths. "Could it be one of those Pah Wraiths?"

"A logical deduction, Lieutenant" replied T'Val. "The Pah-Wraiths or Kosst Amojan as they have been known are dangerous. If these people are worshippng them, there is no telling what they could be directed to do."

Haley turned back as the woman was laid on the slab. She couldn't stand by and watch this woman be slaughtered by this Cardassian but they had primitive, low powered weapons. "We need to do something!" she hissed.

T'Val looked at Haley. "Lieutenant?" said T'Val unsure of what to say but knew she had to say something. "We are on this planet to help Teplans with their Blight. We've explored further and have stumbled upon this. Do we have the right to involve ourselves in their theological beliefs and practices?"

"If they are being influenced by a non-native species such as Cardassians, then I say Yes," she decided. "But we don't have the firepower to directly confront them." They had a choice, try a stealthier approach and sacrificing this woman in the process or confront the group directly which would be near suicide with their primitive weapons. Perhaps she could buy some time, however. "My appearance could buy us some time. I'll create a distraction and you three figure out how to get that orb. Get out of the cave and hide and I'll lead them out, hopefully."

Vara looked over at Lt Haley like she was crazy. She could easily kill every one of the people in this cavern if she had to, her Lagashi augmented strength a bit too much for a durasteel bulkhead to handle, let alone living flesh. She probably wouldn't even get to use much of her extensive martial arts training doing it. "Lieutenant, with all due respect, may I recommend a plan that won't get you killed? For example, I walk out there and challenge that Cardassian." Pausing for just a moment, Vara sighted in her 'primitive yet effective' rifle on the Cardassian's left eye. "Or I could kill him right now. I could use this rifle, a knife, a rock..."

T'Val interjected "We could simply analyze the situation and report back to the Captain our findings and discoveries upon Katana's arrival. However, if you feel it is necessary to take action... the more discrete approach would be the logical approach."

Haley looked at Vara and then T'Val. "We need to know what's going on, so we need the Cardassian alive. We wait, and that woman dies!" she hissed. "Fine, Vara, we'll go with your idea. Let's cause some trouble," she grinned at T'Val. "Hell, I'm a human, not being logical is our specialty." She fired her rifle, striking the cardassian in the leg. "Vara, move!"

Lieutenant T'Val Kejal was not necessarily amused by Lieutenant Collins' strategy, but it was very human. The blonde half-Vulcan looked at the others. "Our cue to take actions" said T'Val slightly reluctantly.

Without a word, Vara had set her rifle aside and leaped from their vantage point into the middle of the crowd. Executing a well timed yet gentle (for her) spinning kick, she quickly cleared the area around herself and started walking towards the Cardassian well before he finished falling from his leg injury. The look on Vara's face invited him to try something, her Lagashi eyes all but burning with that wolven spirit inside of her. "Surrender and you live. Resist and I'll get creative." She didn't reach for any of her multitude of weapons or move threateningly. She just stood there over him for a moment, feet planted and arms to her sides. If she had detected anything on her radar that could be described as a weapon other than a few dozen knives and daggers she'd be more worried and more cautious. Heck, she was worried enough being in front of a bunch of fanatical cultists. Hence why she went with the intimidation factor next while they were still stunned from her entrance. Picking him up by the throat and easily lifting him into the air, she held him there and waited for the others to make their moves.

Haley fired again, this time over the heads of the Reau. "This man in front of you is not a god! You all have been tricked by technology from our world! Disperse immediately!"

"We must protect the Exalted One!" proclaimed one of the cultists, raisin a staff in the air.

"If you attack, you will doom your Exalted One. Would he want that?"

The one who had spoke out, looked to the woman holding the cardassian and ten back at Haley. After a long moment, he sighed. "No...do not harm the Exalted One, we will leave but be warned we will be waiting outside." He then turned to the group. Come! Let us leave and remain outside this cavern!"

Haley, T'Val, and Corbin moved to the side as the group moved through the tunnel.

"T'Val, grab the orb, but determine if it's a Pah Wraith or not," Haley ordered. "Corbin, help her."

T'Val looked at Lieutenant Collins. "One does not simply walk up and grab an Orb of the Prophets" said T'Val with a dismissive tone. "They should be handled with the utmost care. Additionally, what do you want me to do to determine if it is the Prophets or Pah Wraith? The scans on either would be the same result. It is logical to presume that given the behavior of those worshiping it, that it is the latter."

"Ask it?" Haley shrugged. Science was never one of strong suits. "You're the Science officer, not me. Or just shoot it."

Corbin was glad T'Val came out and said something, for she certainly had no idea on how to determine what it was. When Sabrina
over heard the word 'spoonhead', she immediately turned around, unable to hide her shock and offense. She was too overwhelmed
with everything to speak up though. With a soft sigh she turned her attention back to T'Val. "How can I help?"

T'Val flashed a small half-smile at the eager Crewmen. "Those boxes that the orbs are in are not light...and I am only half-Vulcan. I do not have the strength to carry it alone. Some people would want us to shoot it. However, I'd like to take it back to Katana and determine its origins and whether or not it contains a malicious being or not."

"Ok" Sabrina smiled and nodded. "I can help carry it." She was slight of build, but stronger than she looked. "We could build a travois, in order to not use technology and make it easier." She suggested.

Haley moved to where Vara was standing. "Feel like talking, spoonhead?"

"Why are you here, Starfleet?" he hissed.

"We'll ask the questions, spoonhead," Haley replied, crossing her arms after holstering her weapon. "Now, who are you?"

"I am Gul Duset of the Cardassian Science Ministry"

"Excellent answer," Vara said, still holding the man just barely off the ground. "How long have you been here and why?"

"My shuttle crashed here after losing power as we were passing the planet. I've lost count of how long I have been here."

"So why lead these people to believe you are a god?" Haley asked.

"Because I am! I have been chosen by the Prophets! They speak to me! They wish for me to guide these savages!" Duset exclaimed

Haley sighed. "Really spoonhead? You really believe that?" She turned to Vara. "Looks like he's cracked a fruity. Search him and bind his hands." She turned to Corbin and T'Val. "How's it coming?"

"It is going as efficiently as it can, Lieutenant!" came the shouting reply from T'Val. "I am taking this back to Katana. There is no other way to tell from here... not unless someone wants to have a vision quest" quipped T'Val.

Unclipping a pair of binders from her belt, Vara bent him over the altar and cuffed his hands behind his back, then searched him rather roughly. She had scanned him well enough to know he had nothing weapon-like on him, but he might have other things that should be confiscated. Anything she found, she set on the altar next to him out of reach. She wasn't a scientist so nothing he had looked of particular interest to her. She was trained to fight pirates and Breen, after all.

An energy pulse emanated from the orb and struck Gul Duset, as particles entered his mouth, ears, nose and eyes. Gul Duset screamed in agony as he fell to the floor, curling up, withering in pain. A moment later, Gul Duset stood, blood running from the corners of his blood-shot eyes. "Who are you to interfere?" Duset said as he broke the bindings. "You mere pathetic mortals!"

He lifted a hand at Haley, causing her to fly through the air, slamming against the cave's wall.

At the first sign of trouble Vara had her hands on her weapons and had backed up 2 steps. She was ready to put every blade she had into the man at the slightest provocation. With the glow and the bleeding eyes giving her reason to pause, she started calculating the chances of defeating a Cardassian possessed by an energy being with unknown properties. She had geared herself out to deal with flesh and blood entities since that was the expected threat. Fighting something like this? She had no way of knowing if any of her martial arts masteries or even if her augmented cybernetic systems would be effective. She would just have to stay defensive until she saw an opening. Somehow...

Haley moaned, her hand reaching for her weapon. Her entire body throbbed with pain from every movement. "Bloody hell..." she sighed.

Gul Duset now turned his attention to Vara. "You pathetic creature. Your implants will not save you from my power!"

Haley struggled to her feet as she picked up her machete. With his back turned towards her, she had a good run at his back. She rushed as pain shot through her knees, she screamed, lashing out with her blade. Gul Duset turned just in time to feel the impact from the machete as it embedded itself deep into his neck. Blood gushed from the wound. "Kill him now!" she commanded before being struck once again by Gul Dusset, sending her sprawling to the ground.

Oh screw this thought T'Val as she as Crewmen Corbin loaded the box and orb onto the craft. She had watched as Hayley took on the crazed Cardassian Gul Duset. Kill him now was the order that Lieutenant Collins had given and orders were orders. T'Val quickly bent down a retrieved the Starfleet issued tactical knife from her ankle. She stood up and concentrated, focusing her aim. "Lieutenant, stay down!" shouted the blonde half-Vulcan.

The Assistant Chief Science Officer raised her arm, bent her arm at the elbow. Holding the blade of the knife tactically, rendering the knife a throwing knife. Then, the Vulcan, bless her logic and concentration, let the knife go, tumbling in the air with speed and accuracy. It lodged itself in the Cardiassian's forehead. It was a surgical kill as the knife entered the skill, piercing it into the brain. The Cardassian fell over dead.

"I believe the human expression I am looking for is Let's get the fuck out of here" said T'Val calmly with a slight bowing of her head.

Sabrina visibly shook, unable to turn her head from the grizzly scene. She felt cold, but didn't recognize the symptom as shock, though she was definitely feeling shock.

Lieutenant T'Val lead the way back to the shuttle. She looked back and saw that Sabby wasn't moving. "Crewmen" said T'Val firmly and yet there was no response. The half-Vulcan grabbed the young Crewmen's hand and pulled. "We need to go...Now" added T'Val sharply. They all quickly made there way back to the shuttle.

[ON]

Lieutenant Commander K'a'mirh'un Tegan, better known as “Cameron”, woke from his deep slumber, feeling well rested and ready for his first day as the Katana’s executive officer. He wasn’t sure if his refreshed mental state was due to the seemingly luxurious quarters he occupied, or if it was because there had been no woman or women to distract him from a full night’s sleep.

Sitting out of bed, the Klingon/Trill hybrid would have hummed lightly to himself – if he had any musical talent or interests – as he took a sonic shower before dressing into his duty uniform. He approached the replicator. “Raktajino,” he ordered of the computer. The replicator pad shimmered briefly for a moment, and then flickered out without producing the desired beverage.

“Raktajino,” Cameron repeated. This time the replicator did nothing at all.

Tempted to strike the replicator for turning a sour note into his otherwise pleasant morning, Cameron instead decided to visit the mess hall instead. He exited his quarters, walked across the deck to towards the turbolift, entered, and a few minutes later, reappeared on Deck two, Section 13, before making his way to the mess hall.

There were less people than Cameron had expected to see upon entering through the large composite doors, and the replicator was free for use. Glancing at his chronometer, he realized he had about an hour before he was due on the bridge for his first shift. “Raktajino,” Cameron ordered. “And a plate of Zilm’kach.”

In seconds, both items materialized in a magical shimmer of blue and white energy. Even the Zilm’kach looked good enough to eat. He took the cup and dish and found a near-empty table to sit at. Only one other officer was present – Lieutenant Bridget O’Connor. She looked like she could use a Raktajino.

"Lieutenant," Cameron greeted as he set his plate down on the table before straddling the chair.

Bridget looked up as Cameron sat down and nearly groaned out loud; he looked much too chipper and awake for her to only be on her first cup of coffee. She glared at him as she replied, "Commander." Bridget was not a morning person and even less so before her first full cup of coffee.

Cameron grinned. He took a sip of his Raktajino and bit off a piece of Zilm'kach. "Sleep well?" He asked, ignoring her ire.

Bridget looked at Cameron out of the corner of her eye. "I slept fine," she said grumpily. "Can I help you with something?" Bridget knew she should be a little more...diplomatic...in how she talked to the first officer of the ship but it was just too early.

"In fact, you can." Cameron added as if he were almost enjoying himself. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a PADD in one hand while simultaneously eating his Zilm'kach in the other. Passing the PADD across the table, he continued. "There's a woman on board, a woman by the name of Shira. She's a civilian, rather odd, but apparently has quite the little green thumb, and seems to appreciate the scientific community as much as you do," Cameron chewed off another piece of Zilm'kach. He offered her a piece of the fruit off her plate; she declined. "I've talked it over with the Captain, and convinced him to assign her to your team. I want you to work with her. Help her to feel like she belongs."

Bridget glared at the alien sitting in front of her. He was trying to feed her food off her own plate! She stared forlornly into her coffee cup; it was still half full. Much too full to have to tolerate someone who was so clearly a morning person. She sighed. "So am I supposed to keep her out of trouble or am I supposed to find some sort of place in the crew for her?" she asked.

The Lieutenant Commander shrugged nonchalantly, placing whatever it was she was eating back on her plate. "I think Kerouac would prefer the latter option, but I'll leave it up to you. If she can keep up, make her part of your team. If she can't, make her at least feel like she's a part of your team until we find something better for her. Besides, I met this Arboreal yesterday. She's still learning how to speak Federation standard, but I think you could find her quite useful once she's up to speed. Keep me up to date, either way, if you don't mind."

"Can do, Commander," Bridget said. She looked ruefully at her now cold coffee and shuddered at the thought of trying to drink it. "But, if you don't mind, maybe next time you could wait until after my first cup of coffee to give me an assignment?" she said as she rose to take her coffee to the replicator.

"Not much of a morning person, are you, Ms. O'Connor?" Cameron asked, interrupting her.

"What gave you that idea?"asked Bridget sarcastically.

Cameron provided a lop-sided smirk to answer her question. "Oh," he said, reminding himself suddenly. Conveniently enough, he pulled out a second PADD. "That reminds me. I'll need you to report to the Senior Staff meeting tomorrow morning. Make sure to have some good information on any departmental developments for the Captain. "

"And why on earth would I be at the Senior Staff meeting? I'm a language specialist, remember?" said Paige. She was starting to lose what little patience she had early in the morning and was beginning to focus solely on escaping this unending interruption.

The Klingon-Trill hybrid grinned in such a way that it was obvious he'd been hiding something from her. With one of his trademark grins, he wordlessly tossed the second PADD onto the table, which slid perfectly to her.

Bridget picked the PADD up and read the orders on the screen. "Chief Science Officer?" she asked incredulously. She looked back to Cameron. "Are you sure about that?"

"I wouldn't have listed you as my recommendation to the Captain if I weren't, Lieutenant." Cameron replied. He waggled a finger at the PADD. "Just remember, 0800 hours sharp." He started to turn to leave, but stopped himself. "And make sure you have had at least one cup of coffee by then."

Bridget rolled her eyes but couldn't quite keep a smile from her face. She watched Cameron leave and made a mental note to have more than one cup of coffee before having to deal with him in the morning again.

Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan
Executive Officer
USS Katana

Lieutenant Bridget O'Connor
Chief Science Officer
USS Katana

Will sat in his quarters, reading the final confirmed orders on the PADD that Unity's Commanding Officer had delivered to him and stared into thin air. He knew his next assignment was on board the Katana, however after reading the PADD further, he was happy but also glad in a quiet way.

His former department assistant and friend, his war buddy from on the Lexington during the Dominion War, Andrea Carter was to be his Department head. But it wasn't the sense of fun that he knew would be part of the job...

It was the understanding he was looking for...hence the invite to his quarters for a catchup drink whilst Katana was berthed.

His door chime sounded off, alerting him to the presence of someone at his door, someone with a curly mess of fiery red hair and a wicked grin that spoke volumes to her mischievous nature. In her hands was a bottle from Maica's stash, a very fine vintage of some sort of alcoholic beverage she wasn't even going to try to pronounce from a place as equally unpronounceable.

"Hey you," Andy greeted once Will had opened the door to let her in.

Will smiled as Andrea stood before him in the doorway, holding the bottle in her hand. He knew she was mischief wrapped in a bow but he had missed her. "Hey you, come on in," said Will, gesturing her entry as he moved to the sofa and the small coffee table with a couple of glasses on.

"I see you come prepared," he said.

"Always," Andy said with a smirk as she handed him the bottle and flopped onto the couch, kicking her heavily booted feet up onto the coffee table like it was a perfectly natural thing to do. "You look like you've seen better days," she remarked casually, hinting that she knew something had happened to him recently, but she would leave it up to him if he wanted to talk about it.

Will sat back as she pointed out how he looked since they last met and he knew she'd figured out that something had happened. "Well its been a long while since we served on the Lexi and Starfleet sends us where we may go," he said, wondering if she would understand him. "Anyway, whats this wonderful liquor you've brought my dear?" He asked.

Andy let the subject go. She didn't like it when people pressed her for information, she wasn't about to 'interrogate' Will to talk about what he wasn't ready to tell. She knew he would if and when he was read to; her observation had merely given him the opportunity to talk if he saw fit to. "Heh, yeah, I hear that. Since I left Lexi, they ain't keeping me in one place for too long. Mitch was about the only one who could tolerate my ornery ass and keep me in line, so it ain't no surprise there that I've been shuffled about since then," Andy grumbled. Then she looked to the bottle she had brought. "And I have no idea what the hell that is, all I know is it's strong and it tastes kinda like... almost like an Earth brandy, it's kinda sweet and burns going down. My girlfriend got it from some dignitary from who knows where," she offered with a grin. That was one of her favorites from Maica's stash.

He smiled as she mentioned a girlfriend and was happy she had met someone. "Yeah, Mitchell never could see sense, but thats what got us through those two years of hell" he said, picking up the glass and taking a quick sip of the liquid. He coughed after the sip and wheezed slightly, to the laughter of Andy's delight.

"Thats good shit," he wheezed, taking a second sip and sitting back. "So girlfriend then? Shes got to be one hell of a woman," Will pointed out.

Andy reclined back with her own glass of the drink, not even trying to stifle her laughter to his reaction. She took a sip, letting the alcohol sit in her mouth a moment, appreciating its flavor and the rush of heat before letting it run down her throat. "Yeah, she is something..." Andy said with a certain smile that hadn't graced her features since their days on the Lexington, a smile that only a certain Captain could evoke, but was it talk of Mitch that made her smile now or was it Maica?

"I think history is going to repeat itself," Andy said, her smile fading. "We just came back from Kendi, where the Dominion was growing that fungus to make the White... There was a problem, they had sent out a distress signal; we were already on the planet rendering aid when they attacked the ship and a Founder forced the Captain to make use of a certain... guest we had with us. It's like they've learned nothing, even after all we've done to try to help them... "

Will took note of the mission they were on. Knowing that the Dominion were growing the White again meant that hostilities could flare up again at a moments notice, especially with a Federation presence in the Gamma Quadrant nowadays. He took another sip of his drink and smiled, "Well if they're stupid enough to have a go again, we know how to deal with them, we're bloody experts!" He laughed out loud.

Will was starting to relax a little and noticed Andy's wry grin. "I've seen that smirk before, who ever she is, shes keeping you happy methinks," he said.

Was she happy? Yeah, she was... For the first time in a long time, Andy realized that she was happy. "I'm sure you'll meet her at some point, she's on the ship with us. And as soon as she finds out you're an old friend, she'd probably wanna meet you anyway," Andy said with smile. Although she was concerned with Will's assertion that they could take on the Dominion again. Andy wasn't looking to jump into another war, and anyway Starfleet had made some advancements over the years and it would be foolish to assume that the Dominion hadn't as well. She wasn't so sure she agreed with Will. "So what's going on with you?" she asked. "You chasing any skirts lately? And your assignment to Katana, was it choice or orders?"

Will took a sip of his drink, "Orders as far as the Katana is concerned, Starfleet decided that they were happy for me to return to duty after my two years planetside at Starfleet Operations," he explained before he took a deep drink of his glass and and smiled as he got used to the flavour. "As of the ladies, or men, theres been nothing of late," he said, pouring himself another drink, filling the glass a little more.

"Apart from a little fling with Counselor Chen on the Valkyrie...its been...a little while..."he said, a memory popping in his head about how they spent their noghts together before he snapped out of it, a tear falling down his cheek.

"So, I'll get to meet this lovely lady on board?" he asked, failing miserably to hold back another tear as he recalled another memory.

"Will, what's wrong?" Andy asked, setting her drink aside. She didn't want to push him to talking about something he didn't want to talk about, but it was clear he was having trouble holding it back.

He wiped a tear away and set his drink down. Will got up and joined Andy by sitting next to her. He looked her right in the eyes so she could see he was serious. "Do you remember my reaction to you that first night shift on the Lexington Bridge? When I saw you in full uniform and fit for duty?" he asked her. He watched for her reaction as he asked her the question.

Andy nodded slowly. She remembered that night clearly. She was still recovering from her assimilation, but she had been declared fit for light duty and to ease her back into work she had been given a few night shifts on the bridge. That was how she had met Will. He had been watching the CONN and nearly lost it at the sight of her. A 'Wet Willie' and a few awkward laughs later and it was all water under the bridge for Andy. But, why was he bringing this up now?

"I remember..." How can I forget? I can never forget... anything... "What's this all about?"

"Well I'm sorry, I apologize for how I reacted to you. Yes I know I apologized back then, but I now understand a bit more what you must have suffered," he began, taking a breath before proceeding..."Before my two years on Earth, I served as Chief Ops on the Valkyrie. Three years later her exploratory mission was finished and we were headed home when the ship was attacked by the Borg... The Queen had everyone assimilated except me," he explained.

"She kept me prisoner for three years, held captive as a pet or consort without turning me into a drone..." he explained.

That explained so much! Andy reached out and took his hand giving it a comforting squeeze. "Will, I'm so sorry that happened to you," she said sadly. 3 years? That was... unthinkable! Fuck, no wonder he seemed so... unlike himself. "They didn't do any modifications to you?" she asked even though she knew the answer, she could detect no Borg modifications in him whatsoever, so her question was really asking why. He was a pet, a consort? The Queen had taken pets before but she had never left them intact before. And most importantly: "How did you get out of there?"

Will squeezed her hand back and looked at her smiling, although the tears streaming down his face said something otherwise. "No modifications, nothing. Although she chose me to watch as the rest of the crew were assimilated in front of me. She wanted to study human reaction and understand why we're so resiliant and durable as a race when attacked by the Borg," he explained.

"But the worst part was after all my strength was spent and my spirit was broken with all I had seen, I told her, no I begged her to turn me into a drone...She refused and she wouldnt tell me why, apart from the fact that she enjoyed my company and all she was learning from me. She treated me as a pet, a consort...even a lover to learn from me before dropping me on a planet one day, telling me she found no further interest in learning from me," he explained further, feeling better that he was talking to someone who would understand.

The haunted look in her eyes informed Will that she understood exactly how he felt. Though it had only been 3 excruciatingly long days for Andy, it had been more than enough scar her emotionally for life, but while Will had been forced to watch the assimilation of others, Andy had had to participate with no possibility of asserting her own will to try to stop it. It was like comparing apples to oranges as to whose situation was worse, and Andy would have never done that anyway, but the important part was that she understood his trauma in a way few were even capable.

"Fuck, Will... That's..." Words failed Andy. She had nothing to offer him, not a single word to encourage him it would get any better. The truth was that even all these years later, Andy was still haunted by the events that had changed her and there were still nights she woke up drenched in a cold sweat. This was something that would stay with them both for the rest of their lives. But at least she was here for him to help him find his way.

"That's why they sent you to the Katana, ain't it?" she finally ventured. "A familiar face, someone who could understand..."

Will nodded as she offered her explanation as to his posting to the Katana. "Thats my guess too, the stupid thing is whilst I was held captive, all I could think of was you and trying to help you on the Lexi. I guess Starfleet thought I would be better off serving with you," he offered.

Again, she gave his hand a squeeze. He was not alone, not anymore. "It ain't stupid, Will," Andy said softly. "You took care of me, now it's my turn." Day or night, she would never turn him away if he was in need of the comfort of her presence.

Will smiled as she squeezed his hand, "Thanks Andy, that means so much to know your there. Thank you," he said. He felt a little better knowing that he had someone to confide to who would understand where his fears came from and how to cope with them.

"Anytime," she replied with a weak smile. It hurt her to know he had suffered this and it was bringing up memories for her that she preferred would have remained buried, but she would relive it all again just to help him; she had weathered the storm once, she would do it again to help him learn how.

Nathan sat in his office in main Security. It was not a very big space as his main post was on the bridge but it was a nice quiet spot where he could work. Currently he was going over the weapons that were inventoried in the armory. He took a long drink for a mug of coffee that was sitting on his desk and picked up a different PADD. This one held the ever expanding amount of reports that were flooding his inbox from the incident that had happened with the Jem'Hadar attack. 25 new reports... He rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was going to be a huge task. He was going to need to delegate some of this.

Maica had stared at that founder for quite a bit and though she saw nothing with her optical senses, she couldn't help but feel like she missed something. Hence it was she found herself wandering into the security offices. Andy had spent a fair bit of time in and out of here lately - something to do with installing security measures designed to detect Founders somehow. She just hoped she would run into her 'wife' while she wasn't busy. She wanted to ask about those measures and see if she could help in some way while she was between subspace conference calls. Pressing the door chime to Lt Tonkin's office door, she also had a copy of her optics data from when she was watching the founder. Perhaps someone else would see something she missed.

Nathan looked up at his door and all he could think was now what... " come in." He stated.

Stepping into the office, Maica greeted Nathan with the offer of a PaDD. "Hi, I'm Lt Maica. I brought a copy of my optical sensor data from staring at the Founder on Teplan if you want it. I can't find anything unusual but it might still come in handy."

Nathan stood up from behind his desk and stepped around it. He towered over the small green woman, and he was about twice as wide as she was. He took the PaDD from her and set it on his desk, then extended a hand. " I am Lt Nathan Tonkin, its very nice to meet you. You're the android that's in charge of our diplomatic detachment correct?"

Looking up at the much taller man, Maica shifted her stance slightly and smiled up at him as she shook his hand. He no doubt had a good view from up there and personally, she didn't mind too much. "Detachment? Pfft," She scoffed at the term. "As far as I know, I'm the only member still. I'm sure you've also seen reports of me roaming the halls with various bottles too, no doubt."

Nathan could not keep his eyes from wandering over the woman's body, and considering her abilities she would clearly be able to see the signs of slight arousal from Nathan. He cleared his throat and looked back into Maica's eyes, changing the coarse his mind was wandering down quickly. Was he blushing a little? "I have been overly inundated with reports from our visitors a few days back. I have yet to see any complaints about you. What kind of bottles would you be roaming the halls with?"

Raising an eyebrow, Maica had expected the clearly aroused Lieutenant to at least know of her midnight ventures. "I've taken bottles of liquor and alcohol to various other officer's quarters. I thought you would have at least heard rumors... I have quite the collection, you know." Maybe he didn't hear many rumors. It would explain his unfamiliarity with the reference at least. She'd have to try harder, then. "I was also wondering what time you think you'll be done with Chief Carter today. I heard you had her working on some security thing?"

It was right at that time that Chief Carter arrived, report in hand regarding the completion of the phaser module install install. Now all that was left was to do a sweep of the ship, room by room, to make sure they were indeed Changeling free! "My ears are ringing, you talking about me?" Andy asked as she entered the room, handing the report off to Nathan. This was her first time actually meeting him; given her busy schedule as of late, Andy had only been interacting with the rest of the crew over the commline to save time, but turning in a report demanded a face-to-face. "We're ready to do a sweep of the ship, Lieutenant," she informed Nathan, offering just a hint of a smile to Maica.

Maica saw that look. She had been getting a lot of similar looks from Andy the past few days. It pretty much meant she knew Maica hadn't eaten again. She still smiled warmly at Andy, waiting for the report talk to finish.

Nathan stood again. He cant help it, his mom had always taught him that if a woman, or someone who deserved his respect walked into a room you stood to great them. This woman was clearly the Chief of the boat.

Again, Nathan towered over this woman. He took the PaDD and extended his right hand to her " Chief Carter I presume?" Again he could not help his eyes from wandering a little. He always had had a thing for red heads, and here were two of them. My god...is every woman on this ship incredible looking? he thought to himself, again blushing slightly at his thoughts.

"You presume correctly," Andy replied professionally. She could detect his arousal just the same as she had with Cameron the other day, but she was currently on duty so it was all business for her, no repeats of the 'offer' she had made previously. "Captain wanted to ensure we didn't have anymore changeling hitchhikers, so I suggested wide angle phaser sweeps and phaser modules above the doors, a tactic we used during the war. I've got the modules installed, now we just need to sweep the ship, especially in areas where the modules couldn't be installed," she briefed the security officer.

"Excellent" Nathan said taking his seat again and glanced over the PaDD while talking. " Is there anything I should be aware of before we phaser the entire ship?" Nathan asked with a slight chuckle.

"Make sure no one's in the way of the phaser," Andy offered with a chuckle. "It won't cause no harm, but it'll make a person painfully uncomfortable."

"Rodger that Chief..." Nathan said, setting the PaDD amongst the several other PaDD's that covered his desk. "Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

"Yeah, watch where your eyes wander," Andy replied with a wry grin. "Maica is taken. And so am I."

Nathans face burned a deep red as he clearly becomes uncomfortable. He shifts back and forth on his feet like this is the last place on earth he wants to be " Yes ma'am, errr sir....or....chief? Sorry I...I didn't mean any...uh...disrespect. Sorry...really...sorry." He could not make eye contact with either woman anymore.

Andy burst into laughter, it actually brought a tear to her eye. "Oh, you are... wow," Andy said as her laughter calmed. "Ok, because I like you, I don't mind if you look, but only so long as that's all you're doing."

Nathan blinked a few times and looked up at Andy. "Ma'am?" His face was still a bright red and he was still clearly uncomfortable.

Andy merely shrugs, still chuckling. "I ain't your superior, no need for that 'ma'am' stuff," she said with a lopsided grin. "And don't worry about all this. So I caught you checking us out, big deal. You're warm-blooded male, it's practically a biological imperative to look, right? It's harmless, so I don't mind. I was just messing with you."

Nathan shook his head "Your 'The Chief of the Boat'. Your rank earns you my respect." His face was turning back to a semi normal shade, but still a nice pink. He forced a smile "If you were only messing with me, good one. You got me...heh. I have always had a thing for red hair and with both of you here..." he trailed off with a shrug.

Maica had been enjoying the exchange so far, but she was starting to feel a tinge of jealousy now. Not because of the attention he was paying to Andy, but because of the lack of attention he was paying her. Thus, she cleared her throat and spoke. "I bet you'd love to see our makeout sessions then." Leaving that image in his mind to stew a bit, she gently placed her hand at the small of Andy's back. "What time will you be home for dinner tonight?" She hated to ask the question, but she knew that if she didn't at least try to get used to her new digestive system... She prefered not to think about that... She just wanted to try to enjoy a nice meal with her love.

Nathan face lit up red again and he sat down hard in his chair and mumbled something like "... gona kill me...". He looked up at the two women and said " As soon at the two of you are done torturing me, I have some actual business I would like to discus with the Lieutenant."

"C'mon, we can go eat now," Andy replied to Maica. "Lets leave this man alone for a while. Ya know, before a blood vessel ruptures in his brain," she added with a snicker.

Nathan shrugged "I guess I can talk to her about the security breach later...But soon Maica, like tomorrow. This is a very serious matter."

"Security breach?" Maica was curious and since she was here she might as well talk about it. Shifting worriedly, she glanced at Andy before continuing. "Was there another one since the Founder?"

"No, but your eyes see things that most others cant. You gave me your report, but I would like to hear directly from you what you saw. You input could be worth a hundred reports. Do you have time now or would you like to do this some other time?" Replied Nathan.

"The only thing I noticed out of place was the lower body temperature. I didn't see them change shape or anything useful, sadly." Maica reconsidered what she saw. It wasn't that he had a lower body temperature - it's that he was close to ambient temperature.

Nathan Pondered this for a moment. All business now, his face was back to it normal color. He took up the PaDD Maica brought him and looked at it. "Is infrared the only way you looked at it? I understand it was disguises somehow...a PaDD I'm told? You didn't happen to cycle through any other setting did you?"

"I cycled through every setting I have. I just couldn't tell him apart from anything or anyone else other than that he ;didn't seem to generate actual body heat. He almost blended in with the air like that." Maica said. She had indeed used every available spectrum to her, from thermoptics to ultraviolet EM.

"They don't register on sensors as changelings when they're hiding, they appear exactly as what they are pretending to be. Even if I had gotten a look at the PaDD," Andy gave a tap to her eyepiece to inform Nathan that she had similar visual capabilities as Maica, "I wouldn't have been able to tell it was a changeling. That's what made them so dangerous during the War and why we had to use blood screening and the phaser sweeps. And even those measures weren't infallible."

"Thank you ladies for your time, and thank you Chief Carter for installing the phaser scanners. If I need anything else Ill make sure to let you know...Especially if I need my blood pressure raised for any reason I know exactly who to call on." He smiled at the two ladies. "Enjoy your meal."

"It's been a pleasure," Maica said with a smile. Then, looking back to Andy, her smile faltered a bit. "What's on the menu this time, then?"

"Let's go find out," Andy said as she led Maica to the door, looking back at Nathan to give him a teasing wink. Damn, this was so much fun.

Nathan shook his head as he watched the two ladies leave his office. How was he ever suppose to get back to work after that encounter. Frustrated, Nathan picked up a pile of PaDD's and headed out for the night.

[ON]

Frankly, it didn't matter if the executive officer of the USS Katana had a small ready-room, or rather an office, of his own. Despite the fact that he could manage and facilitate any of his directives in that office, he typically chose to remain out and about -- amongst the crew. Perhaps it was a given from his enlisted days that inspired this trait; Cameron Tegan had known several officers who locked themselves away in order to avoid dealing with the day-to-day. He'd known several officers who he'd wished hadn't.

"Chief," Cameron said in greeting to the Katana's Chief of Operations who also happened to be working in a Jefferies tube on Deck four. "Andy," he added, correcting himself. While Chief Petty Officer Andrea Carter was perfectly fine with the title of "Chief", she hated Andrea.

"Yeah-huh?" Andy muttered without looking away from the calibrations she was doing, although she was rather curious as to why Cameron had felt it necessary to refer to her as 'Chief' and then 'Andy'. "Is there something I can do for you, Commander?" she asked professionally without any hint that her earlier offer was indeed still open.

The executive officer put an elbow on the bulkhead and took a rest - having crawled across three levels of tubes to get here. He hardly sounded winded, even though he was; being 41 was demonstrating more disadvantages than advantages. Without saying anything, Cameron passed Andy a PADD before flashing one of his trade-mark smiles. He also hadn't forgotten how their last conversation had gone, and was playing the middle ground. "Checking up on repairs," he said, admiring her red hair for a moment. "Update?" He said, coughing, and finishing rather professionally.

"Repairs are ongoing," Andy said, swapping out the hyper spanner in her hand for a diagnostic tool and continued working for a moment. Then she paused and finally looked at him. "Status of the repairs shoulda been in my daily progress reports. Didn't you get those? I been really busy lately so I ain't delivered them personally, I got Lieutenant Weatherly delivering them for me. If he's misplacing my reports then I gotta have a serious talk with him," she said seriously. Weatherly had given her trouble before she was appointed department head, but he fell right into line once Kris had made the call. If he was giving her trouble again, then that could be a serious problem.

Cameron waved her off. "Lieutenant Weatherly has nothing to do with me being there," he looked over to what she was working on, and studied it. "I spent my earlier days in Starfleet as an enlisted-man," he looked back to Andy. "So I'm not exactly what you'd call a 'sit in the office reading reports' kind of guy. Odds are your PADD is sitting on my desk next to my cold mug of Raktajino waiting for me to never read it." He chortled.

That made Andy chuckle. Ok, she could understand and relate to that. "Fair enough," Andy replied, returning her attention to her diagnostics. "All external damage is repaired and all major repairs regarding high velocity warp are completed, so we're good to travel. It's just gonna take some time to chase down all the secondary damage we took, overloaded conduits and the like. We've actually got a pretty long to-do list between Ops and Engineering, but at the moment it's nothing vital," she assured the First Officer.

That all sounded like good news. "Well, an attack by the Jem'hadar will do that. But it sounds like you and your teams are making some good progress. At this rate, we might not need anything past a polish by the time we get to Starbase." Cameron paused to look at the exposed panel. Lights shimmered off the main board like super-heated plasma roiling through an EPS conduit -- it was almost mesmerizing. Even during his enlisted days, he was a security officer, so it wasn't like he could point to any particular piece and identify it. He barely remembered the names of the tools she had scattered around her from his engineering extension course almost two years ago. Better her than me, he thought.

"Base crew ain't touching my ship," Andy said defensively. "I know we could use the extra hands, but fleet and base engineers always leave so much mess behind. And the paperwork! Shit, more trouble than it's worth, no thank you," she grumbled.

"In that case, you and Lieutenant Matthews had better make sure that repairs are completed by the time we arrive," Cameron retorted without losing much of his light-hearted tone. "Once docked, it's more difficult to fight away base crews than it is the Borg..." his words left him before he realized it. "No offense," he added.

"Heh, none taken," Andy replied with a laugh. She knew better than most just how difficult the Borg could be. "We're good to go, Commander, ain't no need to put in for any repair requests."

"Sounds good," Cameron nodded, and almost made it seem like he was ready to leave her to her work. But he stopped short. "Question for you. It's of a personal nature, if you don't mind me asking. I like to know the officers, or in your case, the crew that I serve with."

"Seems reasonable," Andy said with a nod. She had a feeling he was here for more than just a status update. "Whadya wanna know?" she asked.

"Back when we were in hydroponics yesterday, with Shira and Lieutenant Maica. It seemed rather obvious that you two are together. I didn't think much about it at the time, but then I saw through Maica's service jacket that she's actually some type of android," Cameron began, pausing after a moment to think on whether it was somehow due to the fact that both Andy and Maica were technic -- at least to some degree, that they'd become a couple.

It had obviously paid off, too, since Andy Carter was chiefly responsible for several life-saving repairs to Maica.

“Most species as a whole possess a very distinct perspective in how they view sexuality. Betazoids, Orions, and Risans, for example, generally agree throughout their entire lives that love shared is love freely given; sex to them is just another way of getting to know each other, or even a fun way to pass the time. It's a non-issue,” Cameron had a look on his face to suggest that he knew what he was talking about. “Andorians are open-minded enough, at least until they are brought home for to be bonded in vangheb. Meddle with a bonded Andorian and you might just find a dagger in your gut. Vulcans, Bolians, the Bynar, even Romulans are probably some of the more conservative races.

But in each of those cases, there's a sense of predictability in what someone will do, based on their species… except for humans," Cameron let that sink in. "No disrespect to your species, Chief. But you humans are quite literally over the place when it comes to sexual orientation, habits, and interests... much like everything else. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, liberal minded, conservative-" the Klingon/Trill realized he was digging a little too much in the trenches. He released a snort. "Someone should write a paper on it."

"And I suppose you'd be the one to write this paper?" Andy said with a chuckle. "If this is your not-so-subtle way of taking me up on my earlier offer for the sake of your 'research', I'm gonna have to disappoint you; I don't do that while on duty." Andy finished her diagnostic and closed up the access panel, then seated herself on the floor, her back against the panel so she could face Cameron and they could talk. The way she was scrunched up in such a confining space should have been uncomfortable, but it was here that she felt the safest and most comfortable.

"God, no." Cameron admitted when she brought up the idea of him writing a paper. "Didn't I tell you I hate paperwork and reports?" He chuckled. "And as for your rule, I can respect that." He decided it not worth mentioning his rule over not sleeping with other officers or, in this case, members of the crew; A girl at every port was one thing, and most of those women knew that anything they did was a simple act of mutual sexual gratification and nothing else. But sleeping with someone he also worked with had the potential to add a few certain unstable elements he'd rather avoid -- particularly in his new position of leadership.

"And you ain't wrong about humans. As a whole, we're a confusing bunch, even amongst ourselves. When my mother found out how 'open minded' and 'liberal' I was regarding sex, she nearly shit a ton of deuterium. I don't think I'd ever seen her face get that red before..." Andy laughed as she remembered that day her mother found her in bed with her girlfriend and her violin tutor. Good times...

Cameron leaned against the unexposed part of the bulkhead, raised his knees, and rested his elbows on the joints. "You are one extreme case, it seems. That's actually what I was wondering about. What you have with Maica, it's not just sexual. What made you decide to fall for an Orion love-bot?" There were no sounds of criticism in his voice, just pure curiosity.

"That's the thing, you don't decide who you fall for, it just happens," Andy said, surprised by how easy it was to admit it. "At first it was just sex, and then I found out she was dying. It was then that I realized what I was willing to do, willing to sacrifice, to keep her with me. A counselor would say that with her imminent expiration had made her unattainable and thus more desirable, but that ain't true..." As she talked, she was slowly coming to a realization that she hadn't before, that she really was in love with Maica, and for a moment she couldn't hide that from her expression or her tone. But then she smiled. Realization made, she knew what she had to say she would say first to Maica, not Cameron. "I wanted her with me, always."

The dawn of that realization read across Andy's face as clear as daylight, even if just for a moment. Cameron smiled, although an invisible flash of bitter amusement read across his eyes; for the same reason he didn't tell her about his rule, he also failed to mention its occasional exception: As long as both officers, or crew-mates, were willing to agree that sex was just that and nothing more, that there'd be no desire for commitment or any emotional attachment, it couldn't hurt. Up until a few moments ago, Andy had seemed to fit that proposal.

"Well, Chief. I don't know. It looks like you may no longer be quite as open-minded anymore as you once thought," Cameron suggested, chortling. "Frankly, I think you're a little young and too pretty to be settling down. But who am I to judge," he added with a hint of joviality.

"Ain't too young..." Andy grumbled with a pout. She was 34! If her mother was still talking to her, she would no doubt be asking when she was going to settle down with a nice man. "And we're both more open-minded then you give us credit for. Remember, she said I could play so long as I share."

Cameron grinned. "Well, in that case, I'll have to keep that in mind."

"So, did you come all the way here to talk updates or did you just want to clear the air about that offer?" Andy asked with a suspicious grin.

Cameron shrugged, simultaneously looking back out to the exposed panel. "Maybe a little bit of both, Chief," he answered with a smile. He looked back to Andy and nodded curtly. "In the meantime, I'll let you get back to it, and I'll make a slightly more determined attempt to read your reports."

"Don't bother. Like you, I prefer verbal reports, so we can work that way," Andy offered as she began to collect her tools. She'd still submit her reports for the sake of records, but she wouldn't expect him to read them.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Cameron Tegan
Executive Officer
USS Katana

Chief Petty Officer Andy Carter
Chief of Operations
USS Katana