DISCLAIMER:
"Star Trek" and all associated names and characters, with the exceptions of the ones created by myself for this story, are © Paramount. I am a fan of Gene Roddenberry's dream and just wish to keep it alive so that tomorrow's youth may gain by it as I have. This is fan fiction; there is no infringement of copyright intended with this story, nor have I written it for personal financial gain. So relax, engage at full warp and enjoy!
Chapter Seven
The portable regeneration alcove always left her a little tired. It was supposed to rejuvenate her bio-systems and borg implants for another day's work, but instead it she always seemed a little bit groggy after having used it. The fixed regeneration alcove units like the one she had waiting for her on vulcan were much more efficient and didn't leave her feeling this way. However, the U.S.S. Henderson was still two days out of Vulcan and for the time being she would just have to make due with the portable unit.
Her cortical node disengaged as she step down from the regeneration alcove. The alcove powered down. She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. Still feeling tired she walked over to the replicator that was in her quarters and began to tap in her request for breakfast.
The computer buzzed a negative tone and responded, "Unable to comply with request. Specified item is not listed in ship's database."
"It's a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich." She groaned, asking, "You are telling me that you have passengers from earth all the time and you don't know how to make one?"
"Unable to comply. Please enter parameters." The computer droned out.
Kim took a breath and explained, "First you take a croissant and slice it along its longitudinal axis into two halves. Next you will want to place in between those two slices a patty of ground pork eight centimeters in diameter and one centimeter in thickness whose internal temperature has reached a minimum of seventy-seven degrees Celsius. Next place above that patty, but beneath the bun a seven-centimeter square by three millimeter thick slice of American cheese. Can you do that?"
The computer chirped in compliance and soon materialized her breakfast on a small glass plate. She retrieved the plate from the replicator and walked over to the couch that was in her quarters. She sat down, set the plate in her lap, and reached forward to turn a computer terminal on the table in front of her towards her. As she took a bite of her hot sandwich, she tapped on the controls of the computer bringing up the Henderson's LCARS startup menu. With her mouth still full she prompted, "Computer recognize user Doctor Kimberly Tzu."
The computer gave off its compliance tones before responding, "Identity confirmed. Awaiting instructions."
Kim swallowed, and hungrily took another bite. Even though she really didn't need to eat all that much as her borg nannies produced just about everything her body needed to function during her regeneration cycle, she still enjoyed indulging her palate in that ritual known as breakfast. Still chewing she said, "Show me all unread messages."
The computer flashed to a listing of messages. She quickly scanned through the list until she focused on one of the messages. She ordered the computer, "Computer, play message from Lotok."
She took another bite of her sandwich as an image of a vulcan male came up on the screen. The vulcan began, "Greetings Doctor Tzu, I am looking forward to your arrival. We are ready to begin work on the satori eight prototype as soon as you arrive with it. I have taken the liberty of speaking with the transport ship's captain, and he assures me that you will be arriving on time. This is fortunate. We need to begin tests on the prototype positronic matrix as soon as possible. If your assertions prove to be correct, then starfleet will undoubtedly want to fund its production. We await your arrival. May your journey be safe and uneventful. Live long and prosper. Lotok, out."
The display reverted to the listing of messages. Kim took another bite of her sandwich and thought about what her vulcan colleague had said. She looked over to the bed that was useless to her and at the case that lay upon it. Protected within its confines was the satori eight prototype. It was a positronic soong type cybernetic brain that had been modified integrating borg technology, and this one was different than all of its predecessors. This one was completely stable. It represented over ten years of her life.
She looked back at the screen and took another bite of her sandwich, allowing its rich flavors linger in her mouth. She almost gagged on the bite she took when she felt the bulkheads shudder. The klaxon of a red alert wailed out. She quickly swallowed the bite she had took and looked out the viewport.
The stars stopped moving.
They were dropping out of warp.
She was on her feet and heading for the case on the bed when the next jolt nearly shook her off of her feet. The ship was definitely under attack and she knew that this far into federation space it could only mean one thing. She grabbed the case off of the bed and began to head for the door saying, "Raiders!"
* * *
"Did we get their shields with that round of fire, Quarn?" Roberts asked as he leaned forward in his captain's chair.
Sitting at the tactical station and intently working the controls, Quarn answered, "Affirmative, hoo-man. Their shields are down, and their engines are disabled. So far it looks like our hand has not been tipped. No signs of intercepting starships."
"Well thank God for small favors." Captain Roberts commented. He stood up from his captain's chair and ordered, "Okay Quarn, do your magic. Scan the Henderson for borg signatures, and beam any targets you find back to the detention cell."
Roberts looked to the young human male sitting at the conn and said, "Mr. Williams, as soon as Quarn gives the okay I want you to plot us a course out of here and to the rendezvous point with the romulans." They had met up with the romulan warbird, the V'rok, and had picked up the members of his crew that were being relayed on it. It was nice to have at least a partial crew onboard. A partial crew is better than no crew at all in a firefight.
The young man replied, "Aye, sir. Course already laid in."
"Good." Roberts replied. He turned, walked towards the turbolift, and added, "Be sure to get us cloaked again as soon as we are underway, Quarn. I'll be on my way down to the detention cell on deck two."
The doors to the turbolift slid open and the captain walked in. He turned around, and as the doors closed he smiled and said, "Deck two. It's time to meet our abductee."
* * *
The doctor was sitting in the office of sickbay. He was staring at the computer terminal and nervously tapping his way through the LCARS system. He mumbled, "There has got to be a way." They must have detected that a message had been covertly sent. However, they must not have been able to detect that he had sent it, for they had not yet deactivated his program. They did, however, disable the way that he had used to send the message the last time. He needed to find a way to get a message off of the ship and back to starfleet command. He thought to himself for a minute trying to decipher the complexities of the ship's communication subsystem.
Then the idea flashed through his mind. He spoke out, "Computer, synchronize the ship's medical database with that of the nearest starfleet medical database."
He nervously waited in anticipation for a moment until the computer responded, "Connection with starfleet command established. Synchronizing database now."
The doctor smiled and ordered, "Maintain connection with starfleet command but cancel synchronization of database."
The computer chirped back and obediently responded, "Connection maintained."
The doctor thought to himself that once again his captors had overlooked and underestimated the medical subsystems. He now had a way to get a message off of the Hydra. "Good, now, open a person to person video conference with the head of starfleet medical."
The screen cut to a blue background with the starfleet logo in the center. The doctor waited impatiently for the conference to come through. About thirty seconds later an older human female with gray hair came onto the screen. "This had better be good, I am a busy woman." The woman complained. When she looked up at the screen and saw who she was talking to she asked, "You are a series AK-one EMH…I haven't seen that outdated of a program in at least ten years! What ship are you on?"
"I am onboard the U.S.S. Hydra, and I don't have a lot of time to explain." The doctor hurriedly answered.
"The Hydra should have been outfitted with an AX-three, as is used in all current federation starships." She said looking puzzled.
The doctor explained, "This is the U.S.S. Hydra, registry N.C.C. eight four two oh one B. Apparently this ship has been mothballed for quite sometime."
"I see, well, that explains a bit. The Hydra was up to the D variant last time I checked. So the Hydra B has been called back into active duty?" she asked.
"Not precisely." The doctor replied, adding the explanation, "This ship has been reactivated, just not by starfleet orders. The crew who is manning her is…shall we say…less than honest in their intentions of what to do with it. Suffice it to say, I need to get a message to starfleet command, and this is the only method I could come up with."
The elderly woman had a look of concern on her face as she responded, "I see. Well you had better just cut to the chase then, doctor."
"Thank you and I will. I don't know how much time I have but I need the following message to be gotten through to Admiral Quro' Nu without haste." The doctor explained.
"As soon as this conversation is finished I will forward it to him immediately, doctor. By the way, I don't suppose since you are a AK-one series that anyone ever bothered to give you a name?"
The doctor nervously snapped back, "No they haven't, and this isn't the time to discuss my christening." He calmed down and explained, "I have discovered through the crew that after they are done with their first mission for the romulans they are intending to return to the federation starbase Bajorana in order to fully complement their crew. I overheard one of the crew who was here in sickbay comment that it would only be a few days until they would be there. If the Admiral wanted to set a trap that would be the ideal place to spring it."
"Right. I will let the admiral know immediately." The woman began to move to tap on the controls of her terminal to end the transmission.
"No, wait!" the doctor interjected. "There is more."
"I'm listening go ahead." The woman replied easing back off of the controls.
The doctor stared intently into the screen and said, "I have also learned that the privateers that have commandeered this vessel are planning to meet with their romulan conspirators and deliver their stolen cargo before setting course for the Bajorana. I haven't been able to ascertain what their cargo is, however, I am sure that the federation would not be served by its release to the romulans."
The woman smiled, "You wouldn't have happened to have 'overheard' the coordinates for that little tea party would you?"
"Unfortunately not. However, I think that the following info will be of assistance. I have learned from one of their engineers who is in here daily for medical assistance, that the cloaking device is not working at one hundred percent efficiency. Apparently there is an EM feedback that is emitting a subspace signal that they cannot isolate and correct. They are waiting until they can meet up with their romulan cohorts in order to correct it. If the admiral were to have a starship follow that signal it may be possible to…" the doctor was cut short when the doors of sickbay opened. He looked down at the woman on the screen with eyes of concern, and tapped the controls to cut the conversation short. The screen quickly reverted to that of the LCARS startup menu. He picked up a data pad off of the desk. He stood up, and placed a worry free smile on his face as he walked out of the office and into the medical bay.
It was Nancy whom had entered. He walked over to meet her, pretending to work on information on his data pad. He looked up at her and jovially asked, "Good afternoon, Ms. Griffith, how are your symptoms today?"
She strolled over to the surgical table, wearily sat down upon it, and gave the doctor a scowl. She replied, "I'm freakin pregnant, how do you think my damn symptoms are?"
The doctor walked over to his stand, and exchanged the data pad for his medical tricorder. He walked over to Nancy and began to scan her with it, replying, "Well your cheerful disposition and colorful usage of metaphors seems to be intact. By this stage in pregnancy, most human females report a reduction in the symptoms of discomfort and nausea. In fact they report a certain feeling of elation and vigor. Are you displaying any unusual symptoms?"
Nancy snarled back, "Bend over and I will use that damn tricorder to show you elation and vigor, baldie."
The doctor looked up at her briefly and raised an eyebrow. He looked back down to his tricorder and continued his scan, asking, "So I take it the abdominal cramping that you have been complaining about hasn't subsided?"
"It looks like your little know it all miracle shots aren't helping, doc." Nancy replied.
The doctor confirmed her observation by completing his scan. He closed the tricorder, and walked back to his stand and set it down. He picked up the data pad and began to type his notes into it. With his back to Nancy he said, "I will have to let you know that this is not a good sign, and that I feel that you should let the father of the child know about the situation. Just incase your condition deteriorates any further. I'm sure he would like to be kept informed."
Nancy laughed, "Well that would be a little bit impossible!"
The doctor looked up from his data pad, turned to Nancy and asked, "Oh how is that?"
Nancy shook her head as she jumped down from the table. She thought about it for a moment and replied, "The sperm donor of a so called man can't be reached yet."
The doctor looked at her in surprise and confusion as he thought about the DNA scans he had earlier preformed on her unborn child. "I am beginning to think that you don't realize who your child's father is, Ms. Griffith."
Nancy walked over to the doctor and answered, "Let's get one thing straight you arrogant photonic penis. I know whom I have slept with recently and I know who the father of this child is. When I say he can't be reached yet that is exactly what I mean."
"At the risk of having you deactivate or do horrible things to my program, I think you are mistaken, Ms. Griffith. My scans clearly show that the father of your child is…" the doctor began to explain.
"Are you deaf, moron? I already told your pathetic ass that I know who my baby's father is." She said feeling a sharp pain shoot through her stomach.
"I don't understand." The doctor replied in confusion. "Why wouldn't you want Mr. Roberts to know?"
She wrapped her arms around her stomach as a cramp nearly sent her to the floor. She gasped for breath in pain as she replied, "Like I told you…its impossible…"
The doctor quickly set the data pad down, and helped to steady her so she wouldn't fall. He helped her back over to the examination table and lifted her up onto it. She lay down clutching her stomach and clenching her eyes and teeth in pain. The doctor quickly grabbed his tricorder off of the stand and began to examine her. "I don't understand, is it that you don't want him to know?"
In her writhing pain she managed to huff out, "No, he will know. I mean he was there and he put what he knew together with what he did. So he already knew. It's just he doesn't know yet, and he can't be told."
The doctor quickly exchanged the tricorder for a hypospray. He held it to her neck and injected her with a stronger dosage of the antitoxin that he had been treating her with. He replied, "I think that the pain is getting to you. You aren't making any sense." He tapped on his com badge and said, "Captain Roberts, this is the ship's EMH, I think that there is something that you need to know."
Nancy looked up at him with fiery eyes and growled through her clenched teeth, "Tell him about it, and I will tell him about how it's been you that has been sending the messages to starfleet command, ratting us out!"
He looked down at her pain filled enraged face in shock. She knew. Why hadn't she said anything to Roberts about it?
Robert's voice came in over the com, "This is Roberts what is it, doc? I am a little bit busy right now."
Still looking down at her, he pondered his situation.
"Doc? Is everything okay down there?" Roberts asked.
Trying to sound convincing he answered, "Yes everything is fine."
"So what is it that was so important?" Roberts asked.
The doctor quickly came up with a convincing lie, "I, I just wanted to report that there are no cases of Thelusian flu onboard."
Roberts paused for a few seconds before asking, "Was that it?"
The doctor tried to force a smile, hoping that it would carry over the com in his voice, "Yes, I just thought you should know."
"Oh well thank you. And keep up the good work, doctor." Roberts commented closing the com line.
The doctor looked down at Nancy. Her pain was obviously subsiding, but the severity of the cramps would only get worse. They would only increase until she eventually aborted the fetus. It was his fault, and his behavioral subroutines didn't know how to deal with it. He wiped the sweat from her forehead and asked, "So if you knew about my transmissions, why didn't you inform Mr. Roberts?"
She scowled back at him and forced his hand away. She replied, "Because, dickweed, just like the informing the father of my child of his role in becoming a parent, your transmissions are fucking impossible as well."
* * *
The borg scientist had her arms crossed as she stood behind the confines of the force field of the detention cell. Roberts turned back to her, smiled and said, "I am sorry for that interruption, Dr. Tzu. Our EMH is a little bit flaky."
She rolled her eyes and replied, "Well the AK-one series EMH always did have some idiosyncrasies that the programmers could never iron out."
He walked over to the replicator in the room and began to tap at the controls of it. Two cups of tea materialized shortly afterwards in its receptacle. Captain Roberts grabbed the saucers that the cups were on and brought them over to in front of the holding cell. He motioned with one of the cups to Dr. Tzu, "Tea?"
She smiled, tapped on the force field with one finger, causing it to flash, and answered, "Sure, just lower this force field and I'd be delighted to share a cup with you."
"No thanks, I've seen what borg nanoprobes can do to a man. I think we will leave it up. However…" Roberts replied, trailing off. He turned to the control station of the holding cells and set one of the cups down onto it. He pulled up his wrist communicator and asked, "Mr. Quarn are we safely underway?"
Quarn's voice returned back a few seconds later, "We are rigged for silent running and are en-route at warp eight for the rendezvous point."
"Good." Roberts replied, adding, "I need you to do a site to site transport of something for me. There is a cup of tea setting on the control station of the holding cells that I need to have transported into the holding cell for our guest."
Within a few seconds the cup of tea on the control panel shimmered and dematerialized, reappearing forthwith onto the floor of the holding cell's interior. Kim picked it up and replied with an obviously faked courteous smile, "Thank you." She sat down onto the primitive bunk that was connected to the wall of the room and began to sip on her tea. It was a white tea, but she couldn't quite make out which variety. She relaxed and asked, "So I wouldn't have thought a rough pirate to be into refined things such as tea. I thought Klingon bloodwine and cursing out dirty limericks was more your kind's style."
Roberts took a sip of his tea, chuckled, and replied, "You haven't seen my chief engineer on shore leave yet." He adopted a more serious tone, and continued, "But seriously to answer your question, I didn't start out my career with the intent of becoming a privateer on my mind. It seems like only yesterday that I was in starfleet, looking at the future with bright eyes."
She took another sip of the hot tea and asked, "Is that where your love affair with the Camellia saneness of the family Theaceae?"
"Not quite." Roberts explained setting his steamy cup back onto the saucer he held in his hand. He continued, "That's where I met my first love who introduced me to the addiction."
Kim took the cup into both her hands leaned forward on the bunk and took a sip. She smiled and commented, "Romance…this is getting better."
"She was an idealistic cadet by the name of Johanna Sivin. She had a thing for tea and would drag me out at all hours of the night to sample them at coffeehouses in the bay area. I would miss morning classes more than once because of her keeping me out so late indulging in caffeinated gluttony. But just like my academy days all good things had to come to an end."
Kim took another sip and asked, "So that's why you turned against the federation. Because you lost the love of a woman?"
Roberts laughed and then sighed. He replied, "No, I didn't leave starfleet because of a woman. No woman would be worth me trading my future of being in command over. I don't care how pretty her eyes are." Roberts walked to the other side of the room, and took another sip of his tea. He continued, "No I am afraid that Cadet Johanna Sivin became Ensign Sivin before I even graduated. She shipped out and became a Starfleet historian specializing in the histories of space stations and star bases."
"I see, so tell me, why did you turn your back on starfleet?" she asked. She tipped her cup to her lips and let the last of the white tea flow into her mouth. She still couldn't identify the specific variety it was.
"That's a very complicated question to answer. Suffice it to say, I was on my way up in the ranks when found myself with the opportunity to settle a matter of family honor. An admiral was almost killed as a result of my actions, and my entire future of being in command of my own starship in starfleet ended with the blow of a gavel and the harsh reinforcements of a federation penal colony." Roberts said walking back over to the replicator. He placed his cup back into the receptacle and tapped on the keypad to make the unit recycle the now empty cup. He turned back towards Dr. Tzu and asked, "So, let me ask you a question. In the dossier I received on you it mentioned that you had been assimilated into the borg collective five years ago. The picture that was included with the dossier, however, didn't show the ocular implants that you have on your face. In fact, if I hadn't read the report, I wouldn't have known you were borg at all. Why is that?"
"Well let's just say that I have gotten good at hiding myself from the public eye since my little lab accident." She replied briefly stroking the remnants of her ocular implant with the fingertips of one of her hands.
"Lab accident?" Roberts asked.
She set the empty cup and saucer down on the bunk next to her, and stood up. The exposed wrists and fingertips that poked out of her outfit were clad with borg exoplating. With the exception of that and the remains of the ocular implant you couldn't tell she was borg at all. Her long straight jet-black oriental hair covered most all of the scarring that had occurred to her cranium when she was assimilated. She walked up to the force field and replied, "Yes, my lab accident. That is how I became borg. I was working on the satori seven project when I accidentally became exposed to the modified borg nanoprobes that I was working with. The probes quickly assimilated my body. It took the best doctors at starfleet medical over ten weeks of surgery and treatment to get me back to being as far human as I am today."
Roberts walked up to the force field in front of her and asked, "So you think you look ugly with the implants that is why you avoid the public and having your picture taken?"
"No I avoid the public and having my picture taken, because I don't need the publicity. I mean, I don't know if you watch the telecasts or not, but borg sentiment is not at an all time high. I mean about the only two races that the public seems to like less than the borg are the changeling founders and their lap dogs the Jem`Hadar. Life is hard for any post-collective drone. People don't want to run up and shake your hand. I guess they are too afraid of our injection tubules. Peace may be the rule of the federation, but bigotry seems to be the reality."
"I see, I had no idea it was that hard for you. You should be glad that the romulans have taken an interest in you. Maybe with them you will find public acceptance." Roberts commented.
Kim's face enveloped with the look of horrified anger, as she exclaimed, "The who?"
"The romulans. They are the ones who are paying me for acquiring you for them." Roberts nervously answered.
Kim beat at the force field with both of her fists in sheer infuriated desperation. She turned around paced two steps back in the cell, spun around and growled, "You have no idea, do you? I mean you have no idea why they want my services."
Roberts took a couple of steps back from the force field. He had heard that in extreme cases that borg injection tubules could penetrate force fields even, and he didn't want to be close enough to find out. He looked at her and replied, "In my line of work, you don't get paid to ask a whole lot of questions. You just deliver the goods, and cut your patron government in on a cut of the bounty. That's how you keep your letter of marque."
She angrily explained, "With the realized second dominion invasion and the ever increasing threat that the alliance is going to fall apart, you have to ask yourself, 'what would the romulan star empire want with the federation's leading cyberneticist?'"
Roberts shook his head, "I already told you, lady, that I don't care what they want with you. All I know is that if I deliver you, they are happy, and I get to have a safe harbor to make repairs to my vessel in."
"You really don't care do you?" she asked.
Roberts walked to the door of the brig and replied, "No, I guess I don't." The doors slid open and he walked out into the corridor. The doors slid shut behind him.
Kim hastily sat back down on the bunk in the cell, and thought to herself for a moment. At first she thought that her kidnappers might have just been looking for a ransom from the federation. Now she knew that there was something much more insidious afoot. She could not allow herself to be captured by the romulans. The entire future of the alpha quadrant could depend upon it.
The first thing she would need to do would be to get out of the detention cell. She quickly scanned the cell there were no terminals she could access from inside the cell. There were no panels to pull open. She wasn't surprised. It was a detention cell after all. That's what it was designed to do, keep people in.
She looked out to the guard's area of the brig. Setting next to the vacant control console was the case that she was carrying when she was involuntarily beamed aboard this ship. Inside it was the satori eight prototype. It might just be close enough to the terminal she thought.
She activated her neruo-transceiver and quickly linked up with the satori eight prototype. "Time to wake up, Athena." She softly spoke, focusing intently upon the case. In a split second two injection tubules broke through the housing of the case, and easily punctured the base of the control console. Within the span of a few short seconds the force field that was keeping her in the detention cell flickered off. She stepped out of the cell and walked over to the case that was lying on the ground. The injection tubules withdrew back into it as she picked it up by the handle. She looked to the door of the room, and she thought to herself that if she were going to have any chance of getting off of this ship and away from her captors, she would have to find the computer core quickly and undetected.
* * *
Captain Keating walked out of her ready room and barked, "Report."
Her executive officer stood up from the captain's chair and reported, "We have managed to lock onto the source of the EM feedback via subspace sensors. We have a course laid in and, we are ready to energize at maximum warp. It looks like the admiral had some good intel on this one."
"You can thank a no-name starfleet EMH program for that, Mr. Evans." She replied. She smiled, as she strolled over to her chair and sunk down into it. She crossed her legs and rhetorically stated, "Last time you got the best of me, Mr. Roberts. This time you won't be so lucky." She looked down to the young bajoran ensign at the conn and ordered, "Energize, maximum warp, Ensign T'ralla."
"Aye, sir." T'ralla complied, engaging the warp engines.
"ETA until we overtake them?" Keating asked.
"At current velocity we will over take them in…" T'ralla started, proceeding to make a calculation at her station. She quickly continued, "Ten hours fourteen minutes."
"Good. And Mr. Evans?"
"Yes captain?" her exec answered.
"I want this ship ready for battle in eight hours. They aren't going to slip away from us this time." She ordered.
"Aye sir." He replied with a smile.
This time she wasn't going to back down from one of Roberts's bluffs. She would see him and his entire crew locked up in her brig, including Nancy. She in fact had a special cell lined up for her.
* End Chapter Seven *
Is Roberts really the father of Nancy's child? Will Roberts really turn the good Doctor Tzu over to the romulans? What do the romulans want with Dr. Tzu? Does anyone really care about where Captain Roberts gained his love of tea from? Will the duckie pajamas ever make a return? For these answers and more, tune in next time because this story is…
To be continued…
P.S.—the I would love any questions or comments that you all have for me you can either post them on the review page or email them to me at: mojo@iowatelecom.net