Chapter 10: Fixing the Drive

Rex awoke to to the sound of the doorbell. Compared to how long they had been awake for, this hadn't been a lot of sleep, but they were used to that. Much to his discontent, Cody hadn't awoken yet.

The doorbell rang again. With Cody finally beginning to wake up, Rex got out of bed and went for the door. They hadn't bothered undressing last night. Well, all the better.

"Yes?" he asked, poking his head out of the door, not aware of the possibility to open the door with the word come.

"Hello." It was La Forge, the engineer they had worked with yesterday. "Sorry to wake you up, but the Captain says we need to get you out of here within the next… 71 hours and 30 minutes. We need to go over to the main shuttle bay and get back to work on your shuttle's main drive."

"Um… Sure. Just a minute," Rex answered, retreating back into the room. "Cody, Commander La Forge is here. He says we need to get back to work on our hyperspace drive and leave within the next 71 hours or so."

"Let's get to it, then," Cody said, jumping up from the bed and stuffing his data pad onto his belt.

Seconds later, they had left their room, La Forge leading the way to the main shuttle bay where they had landed their shuttle the day before.

# # #

Data was already waiting for them when they arrived. "Good morning! Or should I rather say 'good afternoon'! Have you slept well?"

"Er… Yes, how about you?" Rex replied, slightly taken aback by the question. Even between clones it was highly unusual for commanding officers to ask such questions, but they were both beginning to notice that manners were more than just a little different here.

"Me? I am an android, I require no sleep, but thank you for asking," he replied politely.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what is an android?" Cody asked. He had long noticed something strange about Data, and this might just be the answer.

"I am an artificial life form, designed to look and act like a human," he replied without a hint of emotion. Cody did not dare to ask any further. He had already gotten more information than he had hoped for, and their instructors had always told them not to ask too many questions, so he settled for a somewhat awkward "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he simply replied.

La Forge had already gotten to work on the shuttle's hyperspace drive. "Data, hand me the phase inverter, please." A second later, the tool was in his hand, and he was back inside the maintenance flap.

Rex and Cody watched in awe as La Forge and Data, man and machine, continued to work together with amazing efficiency reminiscent of a clone unit.

Not until now did they realize that they missed their comrades. They had been on solo missions before, they had even been captured and held hostage on remote outer rim planets, but they had always been within reach of their legions. This was different. There was not much they could do about their situation. They had to fully trust the crew of the Enterprise and their promise to bring them back home safely.

# # #

Hours later, after they had successfully determined the drive components that would need to be controlled in order to influence the wormhole exits, and after La Forge and Data had some complex calculations and simulations set up that would run overnight, they proceeded to determining where those exits would need to be.

La Forge, attempting to set up computer link, climbed out of the cockpit, somewhat unsatisfied. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't read any of this."

Rex frowned slightly. "But it is the same language…"

"All I see is a bunch of symbols," La Forge said with an apologetic look.

"You mean Aurebesh?" Cody asked helpfully. "It consists of twenty-six primary characters-"

"Wait a minute, you said twenty-six primary characters?" La Forge wanted to reassure himself.

"Yes, twenty-six primary characters," Cody confirmed.

"Data!" he said excitedly. "They might mean the same as our twenty-six letters!"

"That might be possible. Let me take a look," Data agreed, climbing into the cockpit himself. "This symbol appears very often," he began to analyze the writing after La Forge had followed him into the cockpit. He pointed to an esk symbol on the console in front of him. "It might represent the letter E, which relatively is the most common in the English language."

"I have succeeded at mapping these characters to the ones present in our alphabet," Data informed a few seconds later. "This screen displays current power levels, hull integrity and sensor data."

Although La Forge had known Data for a few years now, his friend never ceased to amaze him. He flipped open his tricorder and assisted him in setting up the computer link.

"The link has been established successfully. We should now be able to access the maps from our computer," Data reported before they both left the cockpit again.

They all walked to one of the shuttle bay's numerous access terminals, where Data opened the star map from the Republic shuttle and had the computer match them with their own maps.

"We are currently here," Data said, pointing to a flashing dot on the map labeled NCC-1701-D. He then zoomed out the map. A circle appeared around one of the galaxies that were further away. "I assume this is where you want to go."

"Zoom in, please," Rex requested. After Data had tapped a few buttons on the keypad, the highlighted galaxy was enlarged until it filled the entire screen. Rex nodded. "Yes. Right here," he said, tapping Coruscant's position on the map. Another dot appeared, this one labeled Destination.

"Thank you. I will program the computer for a set of more sophisticated simulations so that we can determine the exact parameters necessary to modify your drive," Data said.

"How long do you think they will take, Data?" La Forge asked.

"We should get the results in approximately 13 hours, 38 minutes and 19 seconds."

"Very well. I suggest you sleep some more, we'll meet you back here tomorrow at… 0630 hours," La Forge half asked, half ordered them.

"Yes, Sir."
"Very well. Will you find your way back to your quarters?"
"Sure."
"Alright. See you tomorrow," La Forge dismissed them. "Goodbye," Data added before they were through the door.

# # #

"Rex, was it really necessary to tell them the exact location of Coruscant?" Cody asked in his no-nonsense commander's voice.

"Calm down, Cody, it's not a secret! Also, I'd rather have that than having them get us to the outer rim, perhaps right next to some sep fleet we don't even know is there!" Rex responded in the same voice.

Cody sighed. "You have a point," he reluctantly admitted. "Come on, let's get something and sleep some more."

Even though they did not want to admit it, they were both strangely tired. During battles, they were used to being up for more than 30 hours straight, but this was different. All this taking was so exhausting. Neither of them understood how the Jedi could survive the hours of talking in the council meetings.

# # #

"Geordi," Data began, "I have noticed Commander Cody behaving somewhat strangely when I told him that I was an android. What do you think might be the cause?"

"Data… Remember that 'tactical droid' we took apart after fighting their ships?"

"Of course. I do not usually forget things."

"Sure. The point is, from what we know, they have probably been fighting these artificial life forms for a long time. They're probably not used to cooperating with them," La Forge explained.

"But if they are concluding a general dislike towards artificial life forms from the behavior of just some of them, wouldn't that be considered racist?" Data wondered.

"Technically yes, Data, but it's not always that easy to suddenly drop an aversion towards something. Let me give you an example: If the Romulans were to suddenly join the federation, how long would it take for the crew to accept romulan officers aboard the Enterprise? I'd say it would take at least a month," La Forge went on.

"I have noticed that it often takes humans time to adjust to such fundamental changes if they happen suddenly…" Data agreed. "Thank you for clarifying this."

"No problem, Data," La Forge said with a smile.

# # #

The next day at exactly 6.30am, they met again in the main shuttle bay to fine-tune the engine so that it would take them straight home to Coruscant.

"Good morning!" greeted La Forge, who had arrived a few minutes before them. "Ready to finish this up?"

"Sure. Let's go!"

"Great! Data?"

"The simulations were a success. The computer has determined the exact parameters necessary to take you to the location you indicated to us," Data explained. "We will have to set the plasma inducer to 6.2574, take exactly 2.8759 microns off the-"

"Data!" La Forge interrupted him. "Let's go through this one thing after the other. We'll begin with the plasma inducer."

"Sure."

La Forge crouched before the still opened access hatch, making adjustments that surely were not standards compliant. Rey and Cody continued to watch as Data joined him, probably taking 'exactly 6.2574 microns off the' something. They both really hated that they could not actively help - after all, it was their shuttle's drive that set off this entire ordeal. But all they really did was standing around, attempting to answer occasional questions from the two engineers which they could or could not help them with.

# # #

"That was it," Data announced after he and La Forge had been working on the drive for many hours. "Thank you for your help."

"No, thank you, sir. I'm sorry that we couldn't help more," Cody contradicted him.

"From what my studies of human behavior have shown me, it usually is the gesture of even just attempting to help that counts. Therefore, 'thank you' is the appropriate response," Data explained.

"No, seriously, I don't think we could have done this without you," La Forge added. "Let me tell you, you have a great understanding of that engine considering you are not engineers - by our standards, at least."

"Hey Cody," Rex said with a smirk, "let's get something to eat!"

"Sure… Thanks again, commanders."

Author's note: I wish you all a happy new year (I guess it's too late to wish a merry christmas)! Also sorry for the long wait, I took some time off from writing during the holidays. To make up for the wait, I made this chapter particularly long. :)

I hope to see you next chapter! May the Force be with you all!