Chapter 11 – Questions Unanswered
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Jamaal gazed intently at the game of hankura splayed out before her. Three boards had circles of indents carved into the wood to hold the places of the red and white stones used as playing pieces. The object of the game is for a player to have the highest ratio of their colored stone on the three boards. This is accomplished by creating circles of stones, starting from the center of each board and working your way out. Within the circumference of each circle of stones is a player's territory, or in the end game, their total points. Jamaal had nearly completed a large circle on the outer rim while she began a new, smaller ring on the board to her right. On one side of the smaller center circle, Naghera Ilyn's white stones had begun to invade her circle of red stones.
Naghera smirked triumphantly as she successfully replaced another cluster of Jamaal's red stones with her white. For a moment, Naghera looked up expectantly at Jamaal as though daring her to reverse the progress she had made with that single maneuver. Jamaal sullenly picked out a move she had been saving for worse tides.
It was strange the way events had taken a turn upon her being reunited with her homeworld. She had returned to find all systems of order upturned into chaos and the society where she had once flourished was now tainted with cultural distinctions from outside their safe, comfortable boundaries.
She tapped her finger impatiently along the desk, willing Ilyn to make a mistake in her game. Tonight, Jamaal was losing and biting back the sour bile that came with it. Frequently the two met for this little sport of strategy, more recently at Ilyn's urging than her own. But tonight Naghera had not invited her over simply for a game of hankura.
Recently Ilyn and several other members of the council were growing suspicious of her activities. In fact, it was very possible that Naghera was informed of Bajaar's gathering the previous week. Jamaal had hoped the priestess would not make a public announcement of her interrogation so she had consented to meet her for a private confrontation.
"I wished to speak with you before you went on leave." Jamaal raised her eyes and braced herself for the coming subtleties and slights of an investigation.
"I was curious… where were you heading? For this… expedition?" The query was more than just disinterested conversation.
"You wish to know where I will be hiking?" Jamaal asked, feigning innocence.
"Yes."
"Through the southern mountains pass. Where I always go. I may attempt to reach the Dak Ruins this time…" Jamaal made another move, seizing a small group of white stones on the left hand board.
Naghera nodded. "I would be weary if I were you. I have heard reports of a faction keeping small underground camps nested the south, near those ruins. There is a risk that these splinter groups may become hostile. Especially towards members of the council …"
Jamaal shook her head, giving a small, condescending smile. "Sounds like it would make an entertaining story, Priestess."
"Jamaal, you know we cannot risk any rebel attempts to sabotage our relations with the Shaerdi."
"The outsiders." she supplied with venom. Jamaal recognized Naghera's reprimand on her attempt to debase the point and decided to drop the subject. "I understand."
With a few final moves, Ilyn captured the largest red circle in the center board and the game was finished. Naghera leaned back with a small smile on her face, relishing the sensation of her rare victory.
"I would hate to be discourteous but I have another appointment with the minister of foreign affairs." She said smugly, politely as she could inviting Jamaal to leave at her own discretion.
"Have a pleasant evening, Priestess." Jamaal replied evenly.
"One more thing… keep an eye out for yourself while you're out there." Jamaal's chest tightened. Though the two were always at odds with each other, it was obvious she still respected their friendship. Naghera Ilyn could have had her stripped from her title and practically sentenced into exile. But their years of friendship had ties stronger than diplomacy.
"I will." Within the next minute, Jamaal had finished her glass and slipped out the door into the warm evening.
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Jamaal crept down the streetway of peculiar houses until she reached her own home, with its small garden and narrow path slightly more unkempt than those surrounding it. She pushed open the heavy wooden door to her home and found all the lights inside extinguished.
"Lore?" She called out, but was greeted with silence.
She had left for the diplomatic mission nearly a week ago and had remained out of contact with Lore. She knew B-4 had returned to that same Federation starship just after her departure. Had Lore gone with him perhaps? She doubted it but made a mental note to send B-4 an inquiry.
Her communicator buzzed. She pulled up an unrecognizable frequency.
"Are you preparing, Jim?"
"Checking up on me is not necessary." Jamaal sighed, somewhat relieved that Naghera had not decided to call her back.
"Did you meet with Ilyn this evening?"
Jamaal ground her teeth.
"You're spying on internal affairs now? This must be a new low, even for you."
"I believed she would suspect deception."
"She can only suspect," Jamaal rolled her neck, massaging her should with her free hand. "But she knows nothing."
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Files flicked across the screen as Picard read through the upcoming assignments and sipped absentmindedly at a glass of lukewarm tea. The Enterprise would be diverting to the Federation-K'Vin embassy on Kirlos II to settle of few trading disputes between. However, this assignment was the least pressing of the lot and could wait until after the Enterprise had undergone a few routine maintenance procedures at starbase. The door to his ready room chirruped.
"Come." Picard grinned a small, boyish smile as a very familiar face peeked around the corner.
"Captain."
"B-4," he stood, extending his hand in welcome. "It's a pleasure to have you back onboard."
"It is good to be here, sir… I'm glad to see not too much has changed."
"I've heard you've come a pretty long way to meet us. The Gamma Quadrant?" He marveled.
"That's correct, sir." B-4 grinned sheepishly.
"Well it sounds as though you have something of a story to tell."
"It's an… interesting… one to say the least."
"Well. If it's any more interesting than these reports then I should be glad to hear it. Can I offer you anything? Tea?"
"Please." B-4 took the hot teacup from the dispenser and found a seat.
"It's… uh… difficult to begin. The suspect in Daystrom security breach. You must know that I was involved in her escape. But she's not at fault here, Captain. She has helped me to discover a beautiful world for myself. I became somewhat enraptured,"
"With her?" Picard raised his eyebrows.
B-4 chuckled briefly at his assumption. "No… no, she's is a dear friend. I meant with my life there. It's a whole world, Captain. With a wholly different culture. I can't even begin…"
Picard held up a hand and nodded sympathetically. "I believe I understand. Many of us, especially among Starfleet, have developed… severe cases of wanderlust. It appears as though you are not immune to that facet of human nature. Your brother was not either."
B-4 paused considering this for a long moment and then stood. "Neither of them were, sir." Picard's eyebrows knitted together so slightly for a moment. "If you will excuse me Captain, I am going to go find Geordi."
"I… I believe he's down in engineering." he supplied, distractedly.
"Thank you." B-4 ducked out of the ready room, still mulling over the captain's words.
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The turbolift doors opened and the familiar, clean scent of engineering permeated over him. It had a distinctly chemical smell which B-4 recognized as a common mechanical cleaner used on many of the systems in engineering. He waltzed around the console table nested in the center of the room.
"Geordi!" B-4 called up the shaft over the sound of the pulsing warp engines and a haphazard clanging. He heard a short tuft of laughter echo down in response. Geordi LaForge peeked over the railing, his blue eyes grinning.
"Come on up! I've just been recalibrating the deuterium control conduit. A defocused area has just begun to form and staff is pretty low this morning. Here hold this beam right there for a second."
B-4 grinned. It was good to be back on the Enterprise for a while and he truly had missed the engineer's conversations.
"So you dropped off the face of the Galaxy for a while because…? You needed time to think?" Geordi shook his head, still laughing lightly at his friend. "You had us all worried for a good while."
"Well, you know it wasn't just for my sake that I left…" B-4 said seriously. "I don't believe I was the only one that needed time." They both knew he was referring to the loss of Data.
B-4 changed the subject. "Do you remember the last conversation we had before I left?"
"You reminded me of your plan to rendezvous with the Enterprise." Geordi's blue eyes peered into his own.
"No, not then. It was always my intention to return at some point and I did… but I'm talking about before then. We had a conversation about Lore. You… you told me you didn't want me digging. And I lied. I said I wouldn't." Geordi stared at him intensely, a ridge forming in the middle of his usually smooth brow.
"When you found me at the Daystrom Institute, things were looking… bleak."
"Bleak?"
"Yes." B-4 uncomfortably shifted his weight, still vaguely clasping the tools in his hands. "I was searching for Lore."
A long pause spiraled between them as Geordi absorbed this information and tried to organize his questions.
"I thought you were just searching for information? Looking up on your past?" Geordi asked, his suspicions growing.
"No." B-4 finished lamely. "After I found Jamaal, you remember Jamaal," Geordi nodded. She had been mentioned in several of his letters. "Well… she knew Lore. She was attempting to return him to her homeworld. To be reactivated."
"The two of you… reactivated him?"
"…Yes."
"B. What would inspire you to do something like that? Don't you… understand how dangerous he is? He- he…" Geordi stopped and worked to calm himself. "The man nearly had me and Captain Picard killed. Not to mention the deaths he is responsible for on those outposts."
"I know."
"Why, B?"
"He's my brother, Geordi. There is not a whole lot I can do about that. Besides, Lore is not everything he may have appeared to be."
"Where is he now?" Geordi sketchily glanced out of the observation windows, as though he expected a massive, predatory ship to decloak out of nowhere.
"You know I can't tell you that... I couldn't even be sure myself. He's never in the same place from one day to the next…." B-4 paused again, trying to think of a way to break the horrible silence.
Geordi shook his head disbelievingly. "Does the captain know about this?"
"Hm… not in so many words. I suppose I will need to inform him sooner or later."
"Yeah, you think?"
B-4 watched the facial expression blossoming across Geordi face as he continued to repair the conduit. "You're upset." It was not a question.
"Maybe… just a little." Geordi paused, his nostril flared. "No, actually, I'm more than upset, B."
"I am sorry you feel that way, but justice is not reserved for the innocent."
Geordi snorted. "Justice… That man does not deserve justice or anything. Especially not sympathy from you, B."
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[Don't Hate Me - Porcupine Tree]
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The blinking navigation panel indicated that Lore was located in a remote sector of Romulan Territory. With a new course plotted in, he disengaged his engines and switched over to warp speed. Though vortex transport was faster and more efficient than warp, it also had much higher impedance when trekking through tight-knit regions like the neutral zone. And it was not his intention to be noticed by Romulan scouts.
He began a long range scan of the area and found several outposts along with a few transport ships. Lore shielded his vessel and set it on course for the nearest Romulan starbase. From several light years' distance, he used the transport vessel's clearance codes along with a forged course plan to request information on the Bassen Rift. The station complied, relaying copies of the files directly into his computer. Most of them were encrypted, which proved to be a simple obstacle to overcome. Lore frantically began scanning through them but he found that they contained little of the information which he needed. The battle that took place there appeared to be nothing more than a small altercation, containing no real events of importance. Though one file in particular did catch his eye… a reference to their transport logs. It was a ship's log from the first officer specifically indicating that no one had beamed to or from the Valdour for the duration of the battle. It was peculiar that the high-ranking officer found such an insignificant detail important enough to mention in the logs. Lore bit his lip, puzzled.
Dissatisfied, he navigated his vessel away from the starbase and lay in new coordinates for unmanned communications outpost which lay further within Romulan territory. For thirteen hours at maximum warp, Lore had his thoughts to himself. It bothered him that the files were so incomplete. It was as though all of them had been searched and anything of any importance had selectively been picked out. Frustrated, Lore leaned back in his chair staring into the stars streaking past. Data was allowed this sight everyday with his career in Starfleet. Data… Data was gone and yet Lore had continued to search.
B-4 had supplied a complete set of Federation records about the incident. Data had received some of Starfleet's most distinguished honors. But what did that matter if one was no longer alive to receive them? He bit down on his lip in guilt. Even after his attempts to twist his brother into something evil, he was still that same good person underneath. Pride swelled in his chest but the loss made it turn sour. What was Lore in a world without Data? But Data gave his life for what he believed in and in turn he may have accomplished what it truly means to be human. Rubbing his temples, he struggled to pull his thoughts away from his loss.
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On the surface of the barren ice planet, Lore struggled against the howling winds which tore at his frame. He was scarcely dressed properly for the ferocious methane blizzard that was streaking through the region. The storm blew ribbons of sleet that were over a kilometer long, painting the sky a steely grey in the darkness of the distant sun. He could feel the drag on his body as his systems used an excessive amount of energy to keep him within a functional temperature range. Again he suppressed an involuntarily shudder in the subzero temperatures as he wrapped the loose black nylon shirt a little tighter around his himself as the boreal winds whipped ruthlessly at his slender build. From behind his mask, he gazed up at the communications station which served as a buffer between the few Romulan military outposts in the sector. The large dish sat atop the steel-reinforced warehouse as an icon, receiving transmissions to and from Romulus.
The entrance was not secure but as he stepped inside, he had to struggle slightly to close the door behind him against the vicious winds. It slammed shut, the sound echoing through the spacious area. The station operated on automatic control and was completely devoid of occupation. Lore sighed slightly after removing his face mask and paused for a moment, listening to the symphony of humming computers mixed with the diminished shrieks of the wind outside.
As the computers worked to relay its transmissions, Lore began setting his own information systems. The station had an uplink with the High Council's data banks and if he was able to penetrate their security, then he knew he could the information he was searching for would be contained.
Lore found it just a little bit suspicious that Starfleet's investigation was unable to find any evidence of Data's presence about the Scimitar after its destruction. There were no remnants of a body, no positronic signature among the debris –the strong positronic signature being the most distinctive piece of evidence they could obtain.
Laying out his own equipment next to the computer stations, he shut down the uplink with the Romulan core. Once the link was down, he hastily began overwriting all the security-locked files with his own host files. He estimated that he had less than ten minutes to do so before the neighboring military outposts became too suspicious. Once the uplink was reestablished, he sent back false meteorology data for a particularly violent ion storm which had blocked the going signals. Lore reassured himself that that should deter any Romulan military forces from making an excursion for no reason. Then he began hunting down all the information he was after and copying it to separate memory ports. As he examined some of the missing information he found, his blood turned to ice in his veins.
The Valdour had locked onto an interesting signature on the Scimitar just before the explosion and beamed a Starfleet officer aboard. But the evidence and logs had been tampered with. The order was issued by Subcommander Donatra and she had not released a word of the incident to Starfleet.
An error message began turning up and the computer systems began shutting down of their own accord. Lore's screen caught a trace back to the current station; he immediately began shutting down the links and packing up his own equipment. Less than half of the information he needed was downloaded to his own storage device but that would have to be enough for now. He snatched his bag from the concrete floor and beamed back aboard his ship.
He did not have the complete transporter logs but he had managed to get a hold of some of the personal logs of the officers aboard the Romulan vessel. Lore scanned through the files, coming across one of interest. One of the lower ranking medical officers reported a peculiar patient that was beamed to medical bay and placed in stasis. They were ordered not to reveal to the incident to anyone before setting course for Romulus with the other ships. He probed the files for any further information on patient but he could find nothing. There was no record of death, no official patient record. It was as though it had never happened.
It appeared to Lore as though this Subcommander Donatra had the answers to a few of his unanswered questions. He leaned back with a huff, flexing his stiff, cold fingers as the warp engines hummed to life.
