Chapter 4:
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It's Very Good To See You Again

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Tasha Yar sat alone, slowly stabbing her slice of chocolate cheesecake with her fork for the umpteenth time. She eyed Ensign Bel Cito as he laughed loudly from across Ten-Forward.

He had entered the lounge shortly after she did, and immediately made a B-line for the sensual Laureli Lazulia, who had the most dazzling smile and a figure that could make any woman die of jealousy. She wore her hair up today.

Tasha almost left, not being able to bear the thought of sharing the same room with him. But a streak of stubborn defiance grabbed her by the nape of the neck and forced her to stay and hold her ground. She had every right to be in the lounge as much as he did. So she stayed, and for an hour she watched him schmooze the dark-haired beauty.

A tiny briar of jealousy took root within as she watched the courtship display. Why was it all the beautiful women were drowned in a sea of admirers? Where were the admirers of the strong women? She imagined they were either all hiding, too crippled by fear to approach her, or were too busy chasing beautiful to notice. She resisted a pout.

She saw him lean forward and say something to Laureli in a hushed tone, and the feminine goddess stifled a giggle. Why can't I stop watching? Why am I torturing myself like this?

"Hello, Tasha." Came Deanna Troi's warm voice from behind her. She looked over her shoulder at the ship's counselor. She was dressed in a beautiful purple silk dress, and her hair was braided and draped over her shoulders. She noticed there were synthetic flowers in her hair.

"Oh, hi Deanna." Tasha mumbled, then looked back down at her abused cake. She looked back at Ensign Bel Cito just as he leaned over and kissed his dinner mate. Her eyes narrowed for only a second. Moved on that quickly, did you?

"May I join you?"

"Go right ahead."

Deanna sat next to her, and Tasha caught scent of a delicate floral perfume. By the smell of it, it was very expensive. "So, how do you like being back on the Enterprise?" Deanna's dark eyes were framed with thick lashes against pale and high cheekbones. Yar recognized she was a remarkably attractive woman - absolutely everything she had always aspired to be as a grubby little girl on the streets of Turkana IV.

"It's nice. It's been a pleasure to see old faces. I've missed a lot." She hid a wince as she heard Bel Cito laugh again.

"I could catch you up to speed, if you'd like." She inhaled in thought and licked her full red lips, mentally tallying the pertinent changes that took pace in Leutenant Yar's absence. "Wesley Crusher is off to Academy. O'Brien is married to Keiko and they have a daughter, Molly. Worf's son Alexander came to live with him on the ship."

"Wait a minute, Worf has a son?"

Deanna flashed a gorgeous smile and nodded. "He adores him, though Klingons don't generally display their affections openly."

Tasha chuckled. "I never saw Worf as the fatherly type."

"No one did. He surprised us all. He is a good father to Alexander."

Tasha had never found the Klingon to be particularly handsome. Her attraction was always for more human-like shapes. But knowing he was a good father had a slightly swaying effect on her; Having lost her own family at a young age, she yearned to build one of her own some day. But she didn't want to sacrifice her career for a family, which she felt would deserve her full attention, so any dreams at starting a family went to the very far back burner. Besides, she couldn't seem to get the relationship part down. Speaking of which, Cito was now rubbing miss Lazulia's leg from under the table.

"And how are you doing?" Deanna's voice ripped her from her miserable reverie.

"I'm sorry?"

"How are you?" She gave Tasha a sidelong, knowing look. "Relationship problems?" She watched as Yar looked back to Cito's table, the expression of despair on her face. "Or is it a recent lack of them?"

"You noticed that?" Her fingers were gently tapping the table, a nervous tick she'd had since she was a child.

"I noticed your brutally murdered cheesecake."

For the first time she looked at what was in front of her and blinked. She didn't actually remember ordering it. It had lost its shape from the dozens of tiny holes that now marred its once smooth surface. "You know, I don't even remember how I got this? I don't even like chocolate."

"You're not going to eat it?" The thought of anyone not eating chocolate was more alien than an Antedean.

Tasha slid the plate to Deanna, who cheerfully cut into it with the fork.

"Mmm." Deanna exclaimed with eyes closed. It gave Tasha the opportunity to admire Deanna's face. Why can't I be that beautiful? Or at least find someone who didn't hold beauty in such high regard?

Deanna's eyes opened. "So why did you break it off, if you don't mind me asking?"

"He's too needy." She summarized, then catching Troi's expression, extrapolated. "He was always so wrapped up in himself and feeling either insecure or angry that he never cared about how that affected me. He'd accuse me of being unfeeling and..." She looked down and sighed. "For a few minutes I wondered if I felt anything for him at all. He just exhausted me."

"It sounds like you did the right thing for yourself."

"I did." She stole another glance at the blossoming couple ahead of her. "And it looks like he's moved on already."

"And that bothers you."

"I did love him, once."

"Once." Troi echoed.

"You know, my first boyfriend had serious anger issues. He thought he could get away with abusing me. After I finished my first security training course, we got into a fight and I wiped the floor with him. It was the most exhilarating and freeing moment I had ever experienced. We broke up, and the next one was always depressed, and he was dragging me down with him. I almost quit Starfleet, and left the Enterprise because of it. And then I meet Bel Cito, and he's like a Frankenstein mash up of my previous two failures."

She was tapping the table again. "Why can't I find a man who is..." She struggled to find the word. Not constantly miserable and not constantly angry. What was that called?

"Stable?" Deanna added.

"I suppose that's too much to ask these days." She inhaled deeply. "It's late, and I have a training seminar in the morning. I need to get some sleep. Thank you for listening."

"Any time." Deanna smiled and watched the blond as she retreated from Ten-Forward.

"Tasha."

The security officer stopped and turned.

"It's very good to see you again."

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The Zephiians were an amphibious race with smooth, blue skin, white stripes and sharply ridged fins that ran from forearms to elbows. A long dorsal fin topped their head and gave Picard the impression he was speaking with Marlins.

High Chief Jix and High Chief Bolan bowed toward captain Picard in perfect unison to one another. Picard bowed in kind, then raised to see their outraged faces.

"You are bowing too low!" Jix exclaimed, then lifted his sharp nose in the air.

"A bow shows respect. A deep bow signifies tyranny in the recipient." Bolan explained.

"My apologies, Chief Jix, Chief Bolan. On behalf of Starfleet, we wou-"

"No! You must address us as Jix Bolan, not Jix and Bolan. And you must not apologize if an offensive act was unintentional. That is The Way."

"I understand." Picard finished for them and smiled warmly. They nodded in approval.

Riker was standing behind the two chiefs with his hands clasped behind his back, sporting a mischievous grin. The chiefs refused to interact with anyone other than the captain himself, as was The Way, and Riker was delighted to learn that he, along with everyone else on board, was barred from interacting directly with them.

"On behalf of Starfleet, we would like to extend our thanks in allowing us to deliver your acceptance speech to the United Federation of Planets."

"We should begin immediately. All business must be performed before mid-day."

"Let me guess, it is The Way."

"Yes!"

"Well then, allow me to escort you to the briefing room, where we may begin." He extended his hand to the door, and the two Zepphians shuffled out of the transporter room.

Riker was still smiling happily, and Picard awarded him with a roll of his eyes. "Oh, quit gloating."

"Have a pleasant afternoon, captain!"

Picard snorted. "Keep that up and I'll have you training the new staff."

Finding the threat idle, Riker never broke his smile.

Picard left the transporter room in a slow walk. He had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.

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Commander Data's internal diagnostic had just finished, and he was operating within normal parameters. However, his fluidic levels were low again, and his electrolytes were imbalanced.

"Feline supplement number twenty-two."

Spot mewed her usual thanks, and Data offered an affectionate scratch behind the ears.

"Fluidic supplement number one, mint flavor, electrolyte level 9."

He grabbed the mug and sipped it slowly.

This was the third time today that he had to compensate for the loss of fluid. His "runny nose," as Deanna Troi had described it, was becoming commonplace enough that crew members were taking notice and commenting on it. He calculated he was losing about 240 millilitres of fluid, and he replaced that exact amount throughout the day. And still his levels reported low and electrolyte balance off by day's end. He suspected a leak, but found no evidence of one. Understandably, he was growing suspicious of his internal diagnostic's accuracy.

He made it a point to ask Geordi to help him with a full diagnostic the next time he was in Engineering. As for now, Geordi was off-duty, and Data was looking forward to dreaming.

When his mug was finished, he laid stiff as a board on his bed and clicked off his primary cognitive function.

It didn't take long before the bridge of the Enterprise phased into existence around him. It was a common starting point for most of his dreams; Last time he was standing at Ops singing a duet with Frank Sinatra. This time He was manning the bridge alone from the captain's chair. His paintings were neatly placed around the bridge, and he was solving a puzzle on the captain's computer when a small hand squeezed his shoulder.

"Hello." A familiar voice said. Data glanced over his shoulder to utter his standard greeting. Through his periphery vision he could see a dark-haired girl was sitting at the edge of the First Officer's seat next to him. She was well-groomed with her hair neatly trimmed. She was dressed in a simple grey outfit that began at her collarbone and extended to her ankles. Her features were average but delicate and feminine, and her eyes were as equally dark as her hair. There was a gentle wisdom to her, as if she knew something the observer didn't, much like the Mona Lisa's immortal presence. "Did you miss me?"

"I often notice the lack of your sensory input pattern in my mental pathways."

She smiled at the reply. She felt the softness of the chair, then glanced around the room at all the assorted objects placed within, many of them she recognized. "This is a wonderful place Dr. Soong has given you."

"It is used frequently," He replied. He hesitated to say her name at first as if his dream would suddenly shift if he uttered it, and she would disappear. "Lal." She cocked her head to the side at her name, a movement he recognized as his own.

"May I ask what you are doing here?"

"I came to see you. Do you find it intrusive? Do you want me to go?" She rose to leave.

"No." He grabbed her arm. "I did not mean to imply you were unwelcome. I would very much like for you to stay."

She settled back into her chair. "I am relieved."

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He blinked repeatedly. "I seem to be experiencing a partial system collapse in my communication pathways."

"Then perhaps you should wait." She placed a hand on his own. "Until it is operational again."

A moment of silence passed between them. They stayed unmoving, still as statues, hands clasped together. Then his communication system blipped back to life.

"Lal, after your operation system failed, I did not communicate to you that my inability to prevent your cascading failure was a reflection of my effectiveness as your father. But there was not enough time to relay that message."

"You were unprepared."

"I still focus on that condition. For this reason I have not attempted to build any more Androids. If I could not prevent your malfunction, I should not attempt to repeat the endeavor."

"You attribute complex systems behaving erratically as personal failure. This is false. You desire kinship of your likeness but deny yourself. This is also false."

"Regardless. I want you to know that I installed your memories into my neural net. I did not want your experiences to cease to exist."

"I know you have."

"I fail to see how you would be aware without any sensors or networks with which to perceive your storage."

"For a time I was not aware. When you downloaded me, you installed an electromagnetic barrier to preserve the boundaries between my experiences and your own."

"I did not want to confuse our experiences by meshing them together. That would in effect erase you."

"Yes. And electromagnetism attracts more energy. Memories are bits of information, stored energy themselves. Thoughts are also electric at the quantum level, as is consciousness. Your neural net permits a level of electricity to travel without damage to your systems."

His brows creased slightly as realization slowly dawned. "I have noticed subtle relocation of information."

"I try to leave them undisturbed, but some transfer is inevitable. Does this anger you?"

"I am incapable of feeling anger."

"Then you will permit me to continue?"

"I prefer to designate a neural pathway for you to explore. I will download information you may find of interest within those pathways."

She gifted him with a heartfelt smile. "Thank you, father."

She touched her forehead to his. "It is good to see you again, my daughter."

"You are due to reactivate soon."

"You should know I can delay my reactivation even while in this state."

"No, you can not. That function has been dissolved."

His dream sequence ended abruptly as his internal chronometer indicated it was time to switch on his primary cognitive functions. His eyes opened, and he sat upright in his bed at a perfect 90 degree angle and upset spot, who had chosen his chest as her resting perch. His sudden movement caused her to leap across the room, arch her back, and hiss at the inexcusable outrage of being awakened.

A feather-light sensation of pressure started from within his nose and slowly wormed its way downwards, pooling in the philtrum of his upper lip. He wiped at it. And then the sensation returned, and he wiped again. Vibrant color caught his eye, and he froze. More nutritional liquid smeared his fingers, but it wasn't the clear liquid of his healthy system. It was opaque and dark, thick and red as a cardassian fire ruby.

Another internal diagnostic revealed yet again low electrolyte and fluidic levels - this time considerably lower than when he went to sleep -, but no evidence of foreign contaminant. But the liquid leaking from his nose was still miscolored, so he reasoned his diagnostic hadn't detected the malady.

Bacterial infection was the likely culprit. He knew several strains that turned liquids red, and most of them were susceptible to heat. He shut his eyes. Increasing core temperature to 104 degrees F. He felt his system respond to his command, and his core temperature slowly began to rise from its human-friendly 98.6 to a formidable 104. Any higher, and he could risk fusing the more delicate circuitry in his neural net.

A few days of that, and the infection should clear.

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