Warnings: Violence, strong language.

Omicron Theta

Stardate: 14993.7

Source: Surveillance Footage Only - Cybernetics Lab

Lore's face went slack as his consciousness terminated.

Tom Handy grunted in approval, "When you're done with your damned toys, Often Wrong, get your sorry asses down to the shelter." The heavyset man waddled out of the cybernetics lab.

Juliana lifted her head from Lore's chest, reached over with her right hand and closed Lore's vacant eyes.

Doctor Soong snapped at Juliana, "Pull yourself together, woman." He grabbed the other tool and began to disassemble Lore. "I think we don't have much time to do what has to be done."

"It's like losing our child." Juliana wiped at her eyes, then composed herself. "I'm going to go downstairs to see if my mother is there."

"Good idea, Julie." Soong pressed the two key areas near Lore's elbow and removed the android's arm with a click. "I'll dismantle Lore, then get a few things together."

Juliana got to her feet, "What kind of things?"

"I've got a way out of here." Soong frowned as he removed Lore's upper arm. "I have a lab we can hide in, until I figure out what to do next. It's outside of Federation space, about seven days of travel from here in our shuttle. No one will be able to find us."

"You're not making any sense, Noonian." Juliana reached out to a nearby table to steady herself.

"I'm not going to prison, and that could happen if the Federation gets wind of this." Soong slammed the tool against the floor, "I didn't program Lore to kill, and what happened wasn't my fault, but do you think Handy's going to understand that? Do you think they'll be happy when I join them downstairs? No, it's definitely time for me to move on." The edges of his mouth drooped, "Are you coming with me, or not? I don't intend to stay here."

Juliana's eyes filled with fresh tears, and she hesitated for a few minutes. "I'm coming with you. I want to go downstairs and check to see if my mother is there."

Soong frowned, "Your mother is not coming with us." He turned his back to her as he bent over Lore's body. "I'll need some time to pack what we need, like the replicator and the more important parts of my research. You can go downstairs and see who's there, but I don't want you breathing a word about my plans to anyone."

Anger and defiance flashed for a moment in Juliana's blue eyes, but then her head and shoulders drooped. She began to move toward the sliding doors, when her shoulders straightened and she pivoted to face Soong. "Noonian."

Soong sighed as he removed Lore's hands and set each of them in specially-shaped compartments on the storage shelf, "What is it, my flower? I'm somewhat busy."

Juliana's cheeks remained wet, although she had stopped crying. "We're just going to abandon everyone?"

Soong frowned as he lifted his head to stare at Juliana, "What do you want to do? Start a riot among them about who gets to leave while the majority have to remain? Do you really think they'll be peaceful about it?"

Juliana shook her head, "It doesn't seem right. We'll be leaving them to die."

"I'm not taking this action lightly, Julie." Soong returned to the chore of dismantling Lore's body. "There's no other way to come out of this alive." A distant rumbling distracted the cyberneticist, "Whatever it is that Lore called, it's still out there. I don't know how much time we've got left." His voice took on a softer, pleading tone, "If it makes you feel better, I'll add the most recent entries from the colony's logs and journals to Data's memory banks. Then, if everyone else dies, their knowledge will still live on in him. Who knows… their experiences might even be helpful to Data."

Juliana turned her eyes to Data's reclined body. "I'm going downstairs. I'll be back, soon." Rumbling from the surface masked the sound of her footsteps as she passed through the sliding doors and out into the corridor.

Stardate: 14993.8

Source: Surveillance Footage Only - Underground Emergency Shelter

By the time Juliana ventured downstairs to the mustering area, everyone had settled into smaller groups, with Justin Macipher reuniting families and assigning the side rooms and beds. She made a beeline for Edwin Matagaro, who perched on the edge of one of the beds while his two children and John Bickel sat cross-legged on the floor nearby, drawing with paper and colored pens. She sat down next to the blond man. "Ed, have you seen my mother?"

Matagaro shook his head, "She didn't make it. I'm sorry, Juliana."

Juliana lifted her fingers to her lips as her eyes began to moisten. "What about Merrian?"

"No." Matagaro did his best to keep his voice soft, but he choked on the words. "She didn't make it, either. John's parents, the Detorontos, Cooke… Anyone who was out in the field or working in the farms or orchards has yet to be accounted for. Some of the people in town managed to get here, and the school was close enough that the kids at class today were saved. Missy Bickel is dead. Heart attack." His eyes were just as tear-filled as Juliana's as he stated, "The current count of survivors is ninety-eight, total, including you and Soong. Handy and Macipher are the only council members still alive."

"I'm so sorry." Juliana wiped at her eyes, "We never meant for any of this to happen."

Matagaro grimaced, "You think I don't know that? I helped build those androids. We knew Lore wasn't functioning properly but I figured the worst that could happen is he'd kill one or two people and then be deactivated. How could we know he'd do this? Where did he even find this… giant crystal thing?"

"It must have been that subspace pattern Lore kept talking about." Juliana bit her lower lip. "But he started with that almost two years ago."

Matagaro frowned as he studied Juliana's face, "What he did seems so sudden. Not that Lore was an upstanding member of society, but he'd been calm for the last few months."

Juliana sighed and shut her eyes for a moment, "Lore went crazy when we told him we were wiping Data's processors again, and that we were about to shut him down."

"That was a big mistake." Matagaro leaned back against the wall with a sigh of resignation, "The outer doors to the installation have been camouflaged. Tom's hoping that we can hole up here, until whatever it is decides to leave. The next transport ship will arrive in a month. Maybe sooner if they don't get any regular transmissions from us. We've got enough rations to last that long, even if the power goes out."

Tom Handy's jaw clenched tightly as he approached Matagaro and Juliana, "Where's that damned husband of yours?"

"Noonian is still dismantling Lore." Juliana responded, "He has a few things to attend to, so I'll go back up to get him in a while."

Handy peered over at the three children, watching them draw. "The kids got a clear look at the thing, it seems."

Juliana followed Handy's gaze and her eyes widened. Each of the children had drawn a scene with something huge floating in the sky. Jae's and Josh's drawings made it seem like a shining sun or many-branched snowflake, but John's version was slightly different; His sketch had two blazing pillars in the center, with extended rays of light. Josh's two pictures showed stick-figure people running, while Jae's drawing depicted some of the stick-figures flying upwards, as if they were being levitated. John's drawing contained more detail than those by the other children; He rendered people trampled and lying on the ground, or on their hands and knees.

"What if it does find us, Handy?" Matagaro kept his voice low. "No one will know what happened to us."

Handy remained silent for a moment, then looked up from the drawings, "We'll use one of the PADDs to leave a report. Juliana can leave it in the lunchroom when she goes back upstairs to get Often Wrong."

Matagaro grabbed the nearest PADD, "I'll start writing the report, then, since I'm partially responsible for the situation we're in."

Juliana spotted Raymond Marr sitting alone, so she rose to her feet, stepped carefully past the children sitting on the floor, and moved to stand near the teenager. "Renny."

Renny's reddened eyes lifted to look up at Juliana, "Hi, Ms. Soong."

"Do you need anything?" Juliana asked with slight hesitation. "You're alone over here."

"I'll be okay." Renny shook his head, "I just wanted to be alone for a while." He took a deep breath, "Mom was supposed to return for my sixteenth birthday, but a time-sensitive mission came up, so we were gonna celebrate next month, instead. I'm glad she didn't come, now. At least one of us is gonna live."

"Oh, Renny, don't say that." Juliana bent to put herself face to face with the teenager, "Maybe whatever it is has gone away, and everyone here will be fine."

Renny's haunted eyes stared back at Juliana, "You didn't see what happened out there. I can only hope it'll be fast, when it's our turn." The teenager turned his body with a sharp movement to face away from her.

Juliana leaned against a nearby bunk bed and searched through the faces of the survivors, most of whom returned her gaze with glares of anger. She wrapped her arms around herself as a shiver ran down her spine.

Jayne McKlessky stood and pointed an index finger at Juliana, "Why are you wasting time down here, when you and Often Wrong should be working on getting us out of this mess you got us into, in the first place?"

Matagaro looked up from the PADD, "What would you have her do, Jayne?"

"I don't know." Doctor McKlessky folded her arms across her chest, "Something. Anything. Why can't we break into the subspace console and call for help?"

"I already tried that." Handy gritted his teeth, "The damned android put in some kind of password. It would take us who knows how long to crack it." He frowned at Matagaro, "Wait a minute. Couldn't we just download the password out of Lore's brain? Appearances aside, that thing was nothing more than a walking computer, right?"

Matagaro shook his head, "They aren't walking computers, Tom. I've done a fair amount of programming, but what Soong and Lucien wrote is beyond me, and even if I understood it, the positronic brain isn't like an isolinear system. You can't just plug them into an ODN port and find the files. You'd need to reactivate Lore and somehow convince him to give it to you, which I don't recommend."

Filippe Kelly rose from his seated position, "What do you recommend, then, Matagaro?" He strode with purpose to approach the engineer, "You screwed my wife and now you've screwed us all with Soong's questionable research."

"Are you people insane?" Taylar Ericksen got to her feet, "The children are traumatized and you're not making things any better with all this petty squabbling."

Kelly narrowed his eyes at the school's principal, "I'm angry, Taylar. Three hundred people are dead, including my wife and daughter. Maybe there's nothing we can do except sit and wait to die, but I'm not going to mince words with the people who are responsible for this."

Ericksen placed her hands on her hips, "I'm just as angry as you are, Filippe, but what kind of example are we setting for the children?" Her focus switched to Matagaro and Juliana, "It's all well and good to lay blame at the feet of those whose fault this is, but please watch your language." She tossed a glance at Tom Handy, "And you seem like you're taking this personally."

"Of course I'm taking it personally." Handy clenched his fists hard enough to turn his knuckles white, "I've always had master access to everything. The damned android's locked me out, made it impossible to call for help and orchestrated the destruction of this colony I helped to create. We built this place from nothing... Macipher, O'Donnell, Bickel, Cooke and me. It took years of combined effort to lay the foundations and infrastructure of the town, farms and labs. It took a decade for the colony to thrive and each scientist that came here added to its growth… until Soong. Everything I've worked for is gone, thanks to him." He glared at Juliana, "Thanks to both of you."

Tears began to fall from Juliana's eyes once more, "I'm sorry this happened, but there's nothing we can do to change it."

McKlessky raised her hands to massage her temples, "Nothing changes what happened, but we still need to do something. What about the other android? Could he unlock the subspace radio?"

Juliana shook her head, "We had just finished wiping Data's processors when all this started. He's a blank slate, again."

"Brilliant. Just brilliant." McKlessky looked at the gathered scientists, "Are you sure we can't hack into the subspace communications console? Surely, someone else knew those systems?"

It was Tom Handy's turn to shake his head, "Missy Bickel and Evelynn Lucien. Missy's dead and I presume Evelynn is, as well. Lore killed Ed Lucien, so unless anyone else has been hiding any knowledge about androids or communications, this is all of us… shit out of luck."

Ericksen wrung her hands, "I know how to use communication consoles, but not how to break encrypted codes." She slumped back onto the bed behind her. "And we have no way to drive that… thing… off. No real weapons of any sort."

"Then, we just sit here and hope it goes away?" Kelly threw his hands up and let them slap the sides of his thighs, "After all, that's our standard operating procedure, isn't it? Ignore the problems and hope it all works out in the end... "

Matagaro tapped the PADD, "I'm done with the report." He stood up and took a step towards Juliana, then stopped as Josh tugged on his sleeve.

Josh held out four drawings with his other hand, "This is from me, Jae and John. We want to leave our reports, too."

A slight smile formed on Matagaro's lips, "Thank you, kids." Clutching the drawings, Ed walked over to Juliana. "Leave the PADD in the lunchroom and put the drawings where they might be seen."

Juliana took the PADD and drawings from Matagaro. She glanced around the room, "I'm so sorry, everyone…" Dozens of eyes reflected animosity at her, so she bowed her head and returned to the upper level.

Stardate: 14993.9

Source: Surveillance Footage Only - Underground Shuttle Bay

Juliana let out a sharp gasp as she entered the cybernetics lab. The replicator and recumbent chair were gone and only three small workstations, the epidermal mold storage and Lore's storage area remained. As she entered further, she turned to the right and pinned the four drawings to the white bulletin board. She exhaled softly, continued across the room, stepped down to the sunken level and activated the black panel to the right of Lore's storage unit. The hidden door opened, and she hurried into their quarters. Data's body leaned against one of the walls where the android alcove had once been. Noises from the bedroom drew her attention. "Noonian?"

Soong emerged from the bedroom with a bag, "There you are. Grab whatever you need, because we're not ever coming back."

Juliana grabbed an empty duffel bag from the closet and hastily filled it with clothing and jewelry.

"We'll have the replicator." Soong pulled a few boxes out of the other closet. "So, just take what you truly need and go to the shuttle. I'll be there shortly."

"All right, Noonian." Juliana finished packing and hurried through their quarters to the door leading to the shuttle bay. As she moved through the short hallway to the bay and over to the launch pad, a fresh stream of tears trickled down her cheeks. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, then made her way up the ramp to the cargo bay in the rear of the Galileo-type shuttle. She placed her bag down among the multiple containers of equipment. "Noonian, just how much are we taking?" She leaned out the aft hatchway, then frowned at the sight of Soong dragging Data's body. "We're not taking him, Noonian."

"What?" Soong stopped in surprise, "Data is the culmination of my work. Why would I leave him behind?"

"I don't see that Data's been any better than Lore." Juliana stepped down from the cargo ramp onto the platform, "Sure, he's unemotional and nonviolent, but that makes it worse. He has no humor, no joy. He's cold and calculated. I'm afraid if we reactivate him, he'll eventually turn out like Lore and then we'll have to deactivate him, as well. No more androids, Noonian." She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head, "I can't bear the heartache. It's either Data or me."

Soong stood silent for a moment, then looked down at the body of the android, "I'll leave him just outside the Northern entrance. I can attach a signal device to Data and boost the output. That should bring a Federation ship here, which might save the others." He lifted his eyes back to stare at Juliana, "Will that meet with your approval?"

Juliana pressed her lips together and nodded, "Yes."

Soong reversed direction and began the task of dragging Data back through the lab. "You stay here. I won't be too long."

"All right, Noonian." Juliana climbed back up into the shuttle's cargo area and busied herself with stowing and securing loose items. Halfway through, she stopped and cocked her head to listen; Footsteps approached from outside the vehicle. "Noonian? Surely you can't be done with the signal device, already?" She turned to look out from the open aft hatch.

"Somehow, I just knew the two of you were up to something." Tom Handy stood at the base of the cargo ramp, arms folded across his chest, and stared up at her. "Planning to leave the rest of us to rot, is that it? I knew Often Wrong was the slime of the universe, but I expected better of you." He stomped his way to the top of the ramp, grabbed the nearest container and tossed it out of the shuttle, where it landed with a crash on the hard floor. "If you pull down all the seats from the side walls, this thing could seat five on each side in the back, and we could fit the eight smallest kids on the floor. You'd be able to take all of the children with you, and one or two extra adults. A tight fit, but you'd only need to endure a few days of discomfort until you got to Mavala or New Sydney."

Juliana moved to intercept Handy, "Noonian will be back in a few minutes and you can discuss this with him. He's setting up a distress signal in the hopes that someone from the Federation will hear it and come to rescue everyone else."

Handy grabbed the next box, "And if no one comes in time?" A sheen of sweat covered the large man's face as he cast the crate out. "If I'm wrong, then you'll be inconvenienced, but if I'm right, at least the kids would survive. On second thought…" His eyes narrowed as he moved towards her, "Why should the two of you be allowed to leave? You're the cause of all this."

Juliana backed away from Handy, towards the ramp, "You act as if we did it on purpose."

Handy picked up the nearest piece of metallic equipment, an arm from the recumbent chair, "Maybe you didn't do it on purpose, but you ignored all of my requests to shut the androids down." He bared his teeth at her, "I was patronized and spoken down to, each and every time I expressed concern about those monstrosities." His eyes widened, unblinking, "I wouldn't even need to hold a trial. You two are guilty as sin, as far as I'm concerned, and you're not leaving the planet. Not while I can stop you." He swung the armrest like a bat, smacking the right side of Juliana's head.

The impact sent Juliana reeling, causing the back of her skull to strike the edge of the open hatch. Her eyes rolled back and upward as her entire body lost all tension. The collision with the doorway spun her slack body to the left and gravity carried her over the threshold of the ramp to the thermocrete floor below. A loud crack accompanied her landing, just as Soong entered the shuttle bay.

"Julie!" Soong ran across the deck towards his wife. He skidded to a halt next to her, then reached into his pocket with his left hand and withdrew a phaser. "You'd better pray she's still alive." Without waiting for Handy's answer, Soong fired the weapon, and the heavyset man dropped the armrest, fell forward and rolled down the ramp to the takeoff strip. Soong turned his attention back to Juliana. "Julie… no, please be all right."

Juliana stirred with a moan, "Noonian? What … what happened?"

"Tom Handy attacked you." Soong slipped the phaser back into his pocket, "Can you move? Let's get you into the shuttle and get out of here."

"I think so." Juliana slowly rose to her hands and knees, "My head hurts." As she got to her feet, she lifted her right hand to wipe gently at her nose. "My nose is bleeding, and I have a headache, but I'm fine." She wobbled, unsteady on her feet at first, then regained her bearings. "Did you… Is Tom dead?"

"He's just stunned." Noonian reached to take her arm, "Come on. I'll help you to your seat, clean up this mess, and then we'll launch."

As she moved up the ramp, Juliana doubled over, retched for a moment, and vomited a small amount of bile onto the surface of the incline. "I'm sorry, Noonian…"

"Don't worry about that." Soong continued urging her up into the escape vehicle, "I'll take care of it. You just get into the seat and rest." Within a few minutes, he managed to get her into the port side chair and harness. "Once we're away, I'll make a cold pack for your head." He ran to the deck and dragged Tom Handy's unconscious body away from the launch area. Soong pushed the container and crate back into the shuttle, then retrieved the armrest and placed it with the other parts of the recumbent chair. With a press of a button on the side panel, he lowered the door to the aft cargo bay.

Several minutes passed, and the shuttle's engines came to life. The doors to the surface of the planet opened, and a cascade of dust and dry soil poured down onto both the vehicle and the deck. Unhindered by the rain of dirt, the small shuttle achieved lift off, hovered for a brief moment, then departed through the doors and out of the surveillance camera's view.

Everything faded to black.

Stardate: 58540.4

Enterprise Holodeck Four

The illumination in the holodeck gradually returned to full standard lux, bringing the default hologrid back.

Data's lips pressed together in a thin line and his golden eyes stared ahead without blinking, as if he were still viewing the holoprogram.

Doctor Crusher remained still, seated in-between Data and Picard. Her face had lost what little color it normally contained, and her strawberry-blonde eyebrows were knit into a slight frown. "She had a subdural hematoma."

Captain Louvois leaned her head and looked to the right, past Picard to Crusher, "Pardon me, Doctor?"

Doctor Crusher brought her hand to her chin, "The head injury that Juliana received from the blunt trauma. I would bet anything that she had a subacute subdural hematoma." Her eyes met Louvois' and then Picard's, "She might have seemed lucid, but her immediate symptoms suggest there was internal damage. After a few days or so, she'd lapse into a coma and eventually, the intracranial pressure would build up and kill her, if she didn't have immediate medical attention."

Deep vertical lines etched into the center of Captain Picard's brows, "So many questions have been answered, yet so many more remain." His eyes darted to the left, in Lore's direction. The android's head hung forward, his eyes were shut and he showed no reaction to Picard's statement or Counselor Veluna's hand on his upper back. Picard's voice became steadier, "But, I think that can wait until we've all recovered from what we've just seen."

Captain Louvois gave a quick nod to Picard, "I agree, although I do have a few more items to go over." She folded her hands on the table in front of her, "Doctor Chipman, is there anything more to see, as far as the last days of the colonists are concerned?"

T'Mera turned her chair to face the table's occupants. "The colonists spent their final two days in the shelter. If you really wish, I can turn those days into a holoprogram, but I should warn you that it won't be pleasant. There was a great deal of bickering and some physical altercations among them. On stardate 14999.1, the security camera recorded a flash of light, and everyone in the bunker vanished."

"A brief summary is fine." Captain Louvois glanced at Lore, then back at T'Mera, "What happened to the PADD with the report on it?"

T'Mera's fingers tapped on the console next to her, "On stardate 15267.4, surveillance cameras recorded Kila Marr entering the facility and after searching a few of the labs, she found the PADD that the colonists had left behind and took it with her when she left. The next recorded incursion to the underground installation is when the Pakleds find B-4's storage unit, a few years later. The surveillance cameras went dormant after that, until the Enterprise away team arrived, twenty-six years later."

"All right. Thank you, Doctor Chipman." Captain Louvois placed her hands, palms-down, on the surface of the table, "This hearing is now in recess and will reconvene at the beginning of the next beta shift."

The somber atmosphere filled with the sounds of chairs moving as everyone rose from their seats. Muttered farewells followed, as Picard, Crusher, Louvois and Veluna made their way to the holodeck exit.

Lore remained seated, but lifted his head and opened his eyes. "Well, dear brother, was it what you expected?"

"No. It was not." Data's voice strained to produce even a hushed reply, "I am currently analyzing the entirety of what we have witnessed, but I am having difficulty processing it. I cannot make sense of what transpired."

"There's nothing to make sense of. The holoprogram presentation was what everyone wanted to see, in place of my testimony." Lore folded his arms across his chest closed his eyes once more. "I killed everyone except Father."

The beep of a combadge interrupted any response from Data.

"La Forge to Data."

Data tapped the combadge on his chest, "Go ahead, Geordi."

"I'm in the terraforming control center. Doctor Tainer's collapsed."

"Thank you, Geordi. I'll beam down to you." Data turned to face T'Mera. "It seems we have gone from the skillet to the source of combustion."