XXVI

"This is a machine we're talking about here!"

It was a sight that most of them saw in their waking dreams. The bars, slips, and strips of latinum tumbled over one another like a golden avalanche. A few pieces fell unceremoniously to the floor and stopped short of touching their feet. Buel Kala pulled her eyes from the enticing bounty and fixed them on Reed's cold face. He still held the empty container over the table, as if the last drop of latinum would run out.

"I'm no fool." Reed said as he tossed the empty container onto the floor. "No doubt every one of you now knows why I targeted the Enterprise and why I wanted to destroy it."

"We don't get paid by destroying ships!" Growled the heavy set Nausicaan standing at ops. He leaned angrily against the railing as if he were trying to smell the latinum now scattered across the table.

"Nor do we make money by destroying rare and valuable objects." Sneered Klars, a short, round Ferengi. He collected himself and looked up again, "This Lore is a Soong android. Very rare. Very valuable. I can think of a few collectors myself who would pay handsomely―"

"Shut up!" Reed growled and slammed his fists on the table. Several pieces of latinum fell to the floor. "Shut up and listen. I have an offer to make, and it should satisfy your expectations of profit. This." He brushed his hand carelessly over the pile of latinum, "is all yours, evenly divided, if you agree to help me."

The crew, a bizarre collection of mismatched species and backgrounds, exchanged suspicious looks. Reed had never been particularly voracious in his pursuit of bounty, but he had never been squeamish about protecting his share either.

"You would give us your profits?" Klars balked, his Ferengi mind unable to comprehend such an act. "Whatever for? Surely you could hire some bounty hunter for a fraction of this―"

"Shut up, Klars!" Buel hissed as she leveled a threatened hand over him. She wanted to hear what Reed had to say, although she hardly believed a word of it. "This is a bad plan, even for you, Reed. Why would we help you when we could simply take your latinum here and now."

Klars gasped and took a protective step back. Even the Nausicaan's posture stiffened as if he expected a fight, but Reed did not move. He did not even look alarmed. "Practical to a fault, Buel. But so am I. This is exactly one eighth of my total wealth, and since there are only five of you, you can each expect to collect more than what you see here. That is, if you're willing to help me. Otherwise, you can kill me now and see how far each of you gets on one fifth of this."

Buel kept her stance ridged, for there was something in Reed's cold expression that made the skin on the back of her neck crawl. To the untrained observer it would have appeared that Reed was reckless in his endeavors, but Buel knew better. His plans were meticulous to a fault, with no chance of failure. At least they had been until now. Buel could see the glint of the gold-pressed latinum staining the eyes of the crew, and in it she could see her chance to take command slipping away. "If this android is on the Federation flagship it has to mean that they're protecting it. You think we can take a Federation flagship?"

Reed stared at Buel for several seconds, but still his expression did not change. "Yes, I do. But we won't. It draws too much attention, and your money won't do you much good if Starfleet is hunting you down. Lore isn't a prisoner aboard the Enterprise. He won't stay on board forever."

"Wait just a second!" The Nausicaan descended from his place at ops, his neck craning from side to side in the grotesque animal manner of his species, "Are you saying that we will simply follow this ship and wait until this machine shows its' head? I think the human half of you has damaged your mind, Reed."

The space between Reed's eyes shrank and his teeth showed in an angry grimace. "You don't want to be paid to do nothing? You couldn't hope to procure a tenth of what I'm offering you if you robbed every damn ship in this sector! We follow the Enterprise, we wait. Think of it as a well deserved vacation." It was clear now that he was working to maintain his control. His face was ruddy and unshaven, his hair even more disheveled than usual, and an unexplained cut in the center of his forehead was red and inflamed. "Yes or no!"

Klars fidgeted his fingers together and shook his massive head several times. "Ah, it just doesn't make sense! I mean, I understand revenge, but a machine? I had a replicator once that kept burning me with overheated plates. You think I'd waste time tracking that thing down?"

Reed stretched across the table so quickly that even Buel had little time to react. He grabbed Klars by the front of his ornate purple suit and slammed him down against the pile of latinum. "Machine! A machine! You have no idea what he is! Machines don't seek power. Machines don't use monsters to kill people!" Reed drew a harsh breath and shoved Klars away from him. For several long seconds the others looked on, unsure of how to react to the change they saw. Reed had never been a Vulcan in any traditional sense, but he had always seemed more in control than not. That imbalance had flipped.

Reed hissed and turned away toward the door. "Make your decisions." He slid through the door in a blur, gone as quickly as he had come.

"What the hell was that!" Cried the young man who had been watching the entire scene from his place across the room. He rose finally from his seat and came toward the others. "Is he serious?"

"Perhaps you would like to be excluded, Conner, if you have a problem betraying your own!" Klars spat back. He reached for several strips of latinum near him before Buel slapped his hand.

"Shut your mouth, Ferengi!" Conner sneered, "Not all humans are Starfleet."

"But enough Starfleet officers are human." The Nausicaan supplied.

"Shut up! All of you just shut up!" Buel commanded. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she began to walk around the table. Damnit! This was not what she had expected to happen. She had been prepared to present her case to the crew, to convince them that Reed had lost his mind and that it was in everyone's best interest if she were to take command. But now this! She should have known he would do such a thing.

"I think we should do it." Conner said and looked at each of them in turn. "We'd be crazy not to."

"Shut up! Let me think about this." Buel waved a dismissive hand at the human and continued to muse over the pile of latinum.

"Think about what? Your morals?" Klars laughed at each of them. "This is a machine we're talking about here! If Reed's lost his mind, that's not my problem, and if he wants to spend every strip of latinum he has to track down some hunk of metal that fell on his wife, it's to my profit."

"Agreed." The Nausicaan snarled. "If Reed wishes to be a fool, I see no reason why I should stop him."

Buel smiled behind her hand, seeing her role clearly. "This won't be as easy as Reed is making it out to be. Do any of you know a thing about this android?"

Conner released a loud breath, "Yeah. Yeah, I know a few things. He was responsible for all those Borg attacks a few years after the battle at Wolf three-five-nine. He destroyed a few Starfleet vessels too."

Buel nodded slowly, "That's right."

"Ha!" Klars shook under a pleased laugh, his round frame shaking like an apple on a branch, "Fine! Better than killing a worthless machine, we kill a bad one. I will consider it a very profitable bit of community service. Why are we debating this? Think of all the women I could buy with that much latinum!"

"Oh, for God's sake…." Conner muttered.

Buel grinned, "Are we all agreed, then?"

There was a heavy silence in the room while varying smiles spread across varying faces.

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Anna awoke with a start and rolled her face into her pillow. Her breathing was heavy and she gripped the edge of her blanket while she waited for her heart to stop pounding. She could not see the clock but was sure that it was still early. She did not feel as if she had slept very long.

"Computer, low lights."

The accents light along the ceiling edge produced a grey hue just bright enough to make out the room. Anna rolled over once more as if she might fall asleep again, but it was no use. She sat up and instinctively pulled the old quilt up to her chin. For years she had shared her quarters with someone else, the inevitable drudge of being an Ensign. Remembering her privileged privacy, she dropped the quilt and ran her fingers through her hair. The air in the room was cold against her bare skin.

"Computer, current navigation?" She whispered.

"On route to star base four-two-five. ETA four hours, twenty minutes."

Anna sighed and flopped back onto her pillow. Nothing had happened while she slept to change their course, which was a relief. She had not expected any kind of crisis, but the images from her dream had put her into an anxious state. It had been years since she had felt that way from a dream. Once, when she had been quite young, she had dreamt that her little dog had escaped the yard and fallen into the canal near the house. She had woken up that night, drenched in sweat, and padded down the stairs in a panic until she found the little dog sleeping on her pad near the back door. The next morning, the neighbors had found their little terrier drowned in the canal. Now, she had the same heavy weight in the bottom of her stomach.

Anna threw the blankets back and made her way gingerly to the replicator. She was awake but her legs and back objected to the movement. "Computer, room temp water." The replicator produced the glass and she forced herself to drink most of it in one take. It did not help, and the weight in her stomach only deepened.

"Computer, where is Lore?"

"Lore is in assigned guest quarters three."

"Is he all right?"

There was a pause from the computer, "Unknown. Biometric data does not extend to requested subject."

Anna finished the water and set the glass on the sill. She wasn't going to be getting any sleep that night.