Things were looking good for Rhea McAdams; she had just finished Starfleet Academy. She smiled when she thought about the bizarre way that she had decided to enter Starfleet. When she had been built at Starfleet Science labs, people had tried to take her. So she had been placed on the USS Enterprise, for her protection, where she impersonated a Starfleet Officer. Though she had not really been an officer she had come to enjoy that life and had made up her mind to become one.
That short time she pretended to be an officer was not what she cherished the most about her time on the Enterprise. It was there on the Enterprise that she had met the man she loved. It was there that she met Data.
She had started falling for Data almost as soon as she met him. Everything about him just seemed right. At the time Data had just gotten his emotion chip. Rhea felt that she could be herself around him. He was the first person she revealed the fact that she was an android to.
When she had to leave the Enterprise, she kept in touch with him. She looked forward to when they were able to talk to each other, though they were often talking from different sides of the galaxy.
At that moment the computer on the desk in her room called out, "In coming message from the USS Enterprise."
With a smile on her face Rhea answered it, but that smile slowly faded when she noticed that it was not Data on the other ended. It was Captain Picard with a deeply sadden look on his face.
"Good evening, Captain," Rhea said trying to keep the worry she felt out of her voice.
"Ms. McAdams I have some bad news, I'm afraid," Picard said.
"No," Rhea said in little more than a whisper.
"A few hours ago we lost Data in a battle with the Romulan ship Scimitar," Picard continued grief now showing clearly on his face.
With that Rhea woke up. She set up on her bed and rubbed her eyes sighing. It had been five years since Picard had contacted her with that terrible news and it had been five years since she had turned on her dream program. She had turned on her dream program last night with the hopes that enough time had passed since that day to where she would not relive the memory in her dreams.
Clearly she had been wrong.
In the past five years Rhea had went from being an ensign fresh out of the Academy to a Lieutenant and was the current Chief of Security on the USS Starfly. She tried to put Data and how much he had meant to her behind her and move on with her life. For the most part she had, though at time she would wish more than anything that Picard telling her take Data had died was just a dream.
Rhea was determined to let go, which was why she had turned on her dream program. She could not let what happened five years ago control what she did now.
That was also why she was where she was at. She was going to go, for the first time, to the site where Data died. She was going to say a last good-bye to the man she loved. Rhea had taken a few days of shore leave and a small shuttle craft to do this.
Rhea looked out the view port, at the stars going by her shuttle craft, thinking about the fact that in less than an hour she would be at the place where Data had died.
Rhea spent those minutes trying to bury the memory that her dream program had forced her to think back on. She remember how she had been so excited about the fact that she had just graduated and was just getting ready to start her career in Starfleet, and then all that excitement and happiest had turned to sadness. She was lost in her thoughts when the ship told her that she had arrived.
Rhea got up and walked over to the front of the ship and looked out.
For the most part it looked like any other spot in space except for the fact the remains of the Scimitar could still be seen.
Rhea knew that somewhere out there were Data's remains, though it was unlikely that any part of him would be recognizable. She stood there lost in thought as the memories of the times she spent with Data played back to her in her mind. She wonder, not for the first time, what things would have been like if Data had survived.
"Well, Data I cannot begin to tell you how much I have missed you," Rhea said tears falling down her face.
She stood there lost in thought when her sensors started going off. Shocked Rhea went over to see what the sensors had pulled up. What she saw surprised her. The sensors were picking up a positronic signal in the middle of the remains of the Scimitar. The only thing that used positronic systems were androids, and if an android had been destroy or was no only functioning there would not be a positronic signal. Or at least not one strong enough for the sensors on her shuttle craft to pick up.
Rhea stepped back from the sensor's monitor, lost in thought. Could it possibility be Data? She did not know if she could handle the hope that Data was alive somehow, only to find out that it was something else. As much as she tried though, she could not fight down the hope building up inside her that the positronic signal was somehow coming from Data.
She just had to know.
She had not gone far into the crash site, because of how dangerous it was to fly in there. A ship that size could not exploded and there not be a large number of remains left. Most of these remains were still there because of the fact that little to nothing on the ship still work or was salvageable and anything that was, was not worth the risk of going to go get it.
If Data was out there though, Rhea saw that as more than worth the risk. The signal was coming from a spot in the middle of all the mess and it would take a while to get there. Rhea knew the shuttle craft would not be able to get there on autopilot, like it had gotten her to the site. The safest way for her to get to where the signal was coming from would be to take the shuttle in manually.
When Rhea got to the pilot's chair she took a deep breath. She had to remember that there was still a chance that it was not Data. But Rhea's heart would not let the new found hope go away.
There was now a chance, though a small one, that Data was still alive.
It took Rhea a long time to make it to where the signal was coming from. Twice she had almost crashed her shuttle into the floating remains of the Scimitar. After about two hours though, she had reached the site where the positronic signal was coming from and she could almost not believe what she saw. Her android eyes had the ability to see things that most other people could not, and a little ways from her shuttle was Data's head. True most of his skin was torn off and there were a few spots where it was clear that something had hit it, but nothing that would cause any permanent damage.
A smile quickly spread across Rhea's face as she all but ran to her shuttle's transporter controls. Before she could do anything though her luck ended. A small Romulan ship had decloaked.
It was not anywhere near as big as a Romulan warbird; in fact it was small enough to be a shuttle craft from a Romulan warbird. As hard as it was of Rhea she had to just set there. After the battle between the Enterprise and the Scimitar, the Federation and the Romulan Empire had worked out a peace agreement and on paper, at least, the Federation and the Romulan Empire where now allies. It was because of this that there was no longer a Neutral Zone and Rhea was able to be where she was at. The crash site of the Scimitar was in Romulan space.
The Federation and the Romulans had been in an armies race for decades and she did not want to do anything that would end the peace that had come about. Rhea couldn't see any reason though, for that Romulan ship to be there and they would not have braved the dangers of the crash site for no reason. The only reason that Rhea could think of was the same reason she was here, for Data. If that was the case Rhea was not about to show them were Data was.
Unfortunately, Rhea did not have to wait long. The Romulan ship tractor beam turned on and surrounded Data's head. Rhea quickly activated her transporter with the hopes for beaming Data's head abroad before the Romulans' tractor beam took it abroad their ship. She had lost Data once and she wasn't about to lose him again.
The Romulan ship though was able to sense the transporter and quickly turned their weapons on Rhea's shuttle craft. She had no time to react and her shields were down so that she could use her transporter. The Romulans' phasor fit her shuttle craft in the front where the cockpit was. The focus of the hit sent Rhea flying from the pilot's chair. Unharmed, Rhea quickly got up, but it was too late. The Romulan ship had pulled Data's head abroaded; she had lost him again.
Rhea jumped into the pilot's chair with every attention of going after the Romulan ship and getting Data back, but one look at the controls and her heart sank. She may have survived the hit from the Romulans' phasor unharmed, but the shuttle craft was not so lucky. More than half of the controls had been badly damaged and she didn't have the power to go after the Romulan ship, much less do anything to get Data back. She had just enough power to limp back to a Federation Starbase. Rhea slammed her fists down on the control pad in anger, causing two new dents to form on it.
Rhea had come out here with the hopes that by doing so she could move on with her life, but now she knew that Data was still technically alive. She was going to do everything in her power to get Data back.
Rhea took a deep breath and set course for the nearest starbase. When the course was set Rhea went to the shuttle's computers, hoping that it would still work. To Rhea's surprise it did.
"Computer look up the current location of the starship Enterprise," Rhea said in a clear voice. She knew that most people would not worry about a small Romulan ship savaging from a crash site in their own territory, even if it was savaging a part of Data. Also with there finally being peace between the Federation and the Romulans, most people would not do anything to risk that. Rhea knew that her best chance of getting help to save Data was the Enterprise.
Once again luck looked Rhea's way, the Enterprise happened to be nearby getting repairs done. It was not at the nearest starbase and her shuttle did not have the power to get to the starbase it was at. But if Rhea got a new shuttle at the closest starbase, she could meet up with the Enterprise in a day or two. It was the best Rhea could hope for.
I would like to point out that Rhea is not my own character. Rhea appears in the Star Trek novel, The Immortal Coil. Also I got the idea that Data's head could have survived from a fanfic written by Atrilial.