Chapter Five

Vanguard Station – more commonly known as the Ruins – was uncomfortably close to Cardassian space these days. But it had always prided itself on being an unaligned trading center and spaceport, and so far they had managed to keep their status. The Ferengi, for one, were too invested in having a neutral spot from which to supply both sides in the war, and so far neither of their clients had been prepared to risk losing that supplier in trying to gain a monopoly. After over 50 years of existence, the inhabitants of the station had also grown accustomed to their autonomy. So the uneasy balance persisted, while shady dealers, curiosity seekers, and government officials all mingled freely among the Ruins.

The station's nickname dated back to its origins on Sigma Alpha V, when, halfway through its construction it was discovered that it had been built on the site of an ancient, advanced city, the work of a still-unidentified species. To the horror of archaeologists everywhere, the station's builders – a loose conglomeration of Andorians, Orions, and Terrans – had simply shrugged their shoulders and kept going. There was only one change to their plans: the addition of a shop specializing in the sale of the more interesting artifacts that had been unearthed along the way.

There were other established stores as well, though for the most part they focused on food and other basic necessities. The real trading took place over drinks or in random corners. Of course there was no way to know for certain, but most would not have been surprised to learn that the equivalent of trillions of strips of gold-pressed latinum moved through the Ruins every few months in currency, goods, and services of all kinds.

In other words, it would have been difficult to find a better place from which to supply a secret research facility, or a better place from which to arrange to sneak into such a facility. Most people there had neither the time nor the inclination to pay much attention to any business other than their own, and the strangest appearances and behaviors might be entirely overlooked. Even Data, who'd expected to attract the eye of every being in the station, passed unnoticed, just one cloaked figure among hundreds who preferred not to advertise their identities.

Having always considered himself someone who could adapt to nearly any situation, Arzin was beginning to seriously revise this theory. One of the main reasons his parents had objected to his choice of a career in Starfleet was because they feared the influence of other races, not an uncommon opinion among some Trills of the older generations. As the opportunity to learn more about other races and planets was a large part of the reason Arzin wanted to attend the Academy in the first place, that argument was still something of a sore point for the family. Now he began to wonder if it was possible to have too much of this particular good thing. The longer he walked through the dimly-lit corridors, the more he began to feel like the last Trill left in the galaxy.

But that was how Data felt every day, he reminded himself. For at least the foreseeable future the android was fated to be the only one of his kind, now that Soong was gone and no one else seemed capable of reproducing whatever spark of creative genius had brought Data into being. The possibility of a planetful of others like him – not quite siblings, but at least cousins – must have been the most wondrous shock. Unfortunately, at almost the same moment he'd learned that those kindred beings were almost certainly also in real danger of being sent off to fight and be destroyed in someone else's war.

No, helping to discover what was happening on that planet was the only moral option, and the very least Arzin could do was face up to a little uneasiness without complaint. All right, maybe more than a little uneasiness, he thought, seeing three Nausicaans sneering their way down the corridors looking for trouble, but certainly not more than he could handle.

"What's the name of that ship again?" he asked Data.

"The Corporate Raider." He glanced curiously towards a stall that seemed to sell, among a wide array of other items, a small selection of bound books.

"I'll ask over there," Arzin said, following Data's gaze and sizing up the two Bajorans who were running the stall. "They look less like they want to start a fight than most of the others around here."

He approached the two with his best friendly expression, Data hanging back cautiously. "Hello there," the Trill said, looking over the goods on display. "I'm looking for a ship called the Corporate Raider. I was wondering if you could direct me."

The Bajoran man opened his mouth to speak, but the woman smoothly interrupted. "If you could buy something first, sir," she said, politely but firmly.

"Buy something," Arzin echoed.

"Or you could just purchase the information," she suggested. "We take credits or latinum."

"Hetras, really," the man said, embarrassed. "We don't need to charge for-"

"Everyone else does, and we have rent to pay," she returned, calmly. "Do you really want the reputation of being the only two overly generous shopkeepers around here?"

The man harrumphed and made no further objection, but continued to give a disapproving look to the entire proceedings. After looking helplessly at the merchandise again, Arzin shook his head. "Uh, just the information. I'm in something of a hurry."

A price of ten credits was settled on reasonably quickly, but beyond that the Bajorans clearly felt no need to rush. No sooner had Hetras begun to give painstaking directions than the man rejoined the conversation, insisting she was sending them to entirely the wrong place. Once they finally agreed on the right location, there was further debate on the best way to get there, until Arzin was ready to give up and start all over again elsewhere.

Finally an Andorian who had been purchasing tuber roots at a nearby shop intervened. "You want the Corporate Raider?" he asked, with a sinister smile that seemed to be simply the norm for his species. At Arzin's nod, he continued. "It's docked two berths down from my ship. Follow me."

The debate between the Bajorans now became a full-blown argument over whose fault it was they'd lost out on the credits, an argument Arzin was happy to leave behind. At first not sure if the Andorian could be trusted, Arzin kept an eye both on him and on the route they were following. But he and Data were not led anywhere sinister, and in about five minutes they were in one of the main hangars.

Many of the smaller ships were docked here, and their guide brought them unerringly over to a Ferengi vessel. "Thank you very much," Arzin said sincerely.

The Andorian shook his head. "No thanks necessary. But I'll take the ten credits." His smile became a grin, and Arzin suppressed a shudder at the sight.

"Sure, why not?" he muttered, handing over the funds. "Let's hope this actually is the ship that supplies the facility.," he added to Data once the Andorian had left.

"I studied the routes and cargoes of every supply vessel in this sector and analyzed them thoroughly. Beyond this, I also investigated various unsubstantiated rumors and used them to further narrow the possibilities. This was the only logical prospect," he replied, nodding to the ship before them. "If it is not the correct ship, then I am afraid this mission is already over," he added, with an air of bewildered sadness.

"We'll know soon enough," Arzin said reassuringly, stepping over to the small set of stairs that led up to the main hatch of the Ferengi ship. "You'd better wait here to be on the safe side. Wish me luck."

Before he could reach the steps, however, it was flung open and a shape came barreling down the stairs and onto the floor of the hangar, forcing Arzin to dodge out of the way. "What in-?" he broke off as the shape unrolled itself and was revealed as a Pakled, which scurried away from the ship at top speed. Turning back to the ship, Arzin expected to see a small horde of angry Ferengi. Instead, a single, large figure appeared, filling the hatchway, and he blinked in confusion. It was a Klingon, shaking one huge fist at the Pakled's retreating form.

"Suq chll!" the Klingon shouted, though the moment he spotted Arzin he seemed to forget all about the Pakled. "Expecting someone shorter, I suppose?" he asked, then laughed uproariously at his own joke.

"Uh, well, I'm looking for someone to handle a shipment," Arzin began, still off-balance, though fortunately the Klingon seemed to require little encouragement.

"As long as you aren't with that Pakled, you're welcome to talk business with us. We have a delivery lined up at the moment, but it won't take long. We can still talk terms."

For at least the tenth time, Arzin looked at the name on the side of the ship. "So... you're the captain of the Corporate Raider?" he asked.

The Klingon's expression grew dark. "Of course not, you fool! What an ignorant assumption!" Then he laughed again. "I'm the first officer," he added in a stage whisper. He gestured to Arzin to come aboard. "K'horot, at your service. Come in. Your friend can come in, too," he continued, nodding to Data, who was still a short distance away. "We don't care about your names or your faces, just your latinum." Again he roared with laughter, turning to lead the way into the ship.

Arzin followed slowly, but Data hurried to close the distance and stay close to his friend, realizing he could not risk letting Arzin handle this unexpected turn of events by himself. Ferengi were usually predictable; Klingons far less so in general, and these Klingons in particular.

A few moments later, they reached the bridge, where the captain's chair was already occupied by a second Klingon, a female, who stood as they approached. The four of them nearly filled the small room, and Arzin was disconcerted to realize that the captain was inspecting him very closely from a very short distance. "You have one of those worms?" she finally asked.

Though he'd never had much interest in being joined, Arzin frowned disapprovingly at this question. "I don't have a symbiont, no," he replied, stiffly.

"Good. I can't stand hearing about all those past lives. They drone on and on about them at any excuse. Now tell me – what can the captain of the Corporate Raider do for you?" She leaned closer as she spoke, making the Trill feel distinctly claustrophobic.

"We have a small amount of cargo we need transported," he began again, reasoning even these unusual Klingons would likely prefer to get straight to business. "We understand you're already making a run to the same planet."

The captain tilted her head. "The only planet we're going to right now is Mudd. What cargo would you want to send there?" Her tone was more curious than suspicious, so Arzin ventured on.

"The same kind of supplies you're already bringing there," he said, resisting the growing urge to step back. Anything that might make him appear weak could be disastrous.

"You know a great deal about our mission," K'horot put in, and his tone was decidedly suspicious. "Why is that?"

"We wanted to make sure we weren't wasting our time or yours before we went looking for you," the Trill replied, with what he hoped was a suitable balance of firmness and reasonableness that might win him some respect without also getting him a punch in the face.

K'horot wasn't convinced, though he at least was still talking instead of fighting. "And how is it that you know so much about our mission? We don't advertise."

"And our clients certainly don't," the captain said, grinning as she studied Arzin. "A more paranoid bunch would be hard to find."

"We've got our sources," Arzin said, wondering if he was starting to sound like a bad holonovel. "Besides, few things ever stay secret for long, do they?"

"A philosopher," K'horot said, sounding both amused and contemptuous.

"I like philosophers," said the captain, her grin widening.

"You like anything with a –"

"If we could just get back to business," Arzin cut in, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt. "I'm sure we can come to terms."

"We'd love to help," the captain replied, still standing closer to him than strictly necessary. "But not if your cargo costs us this contract. Some people get nervous doing business with Klingons. I can't imagine why, but it does limit our options. I can't even remember how many long-standing clients disappeared after we... took over the Corporate Raider."

"Fourteen," K'horot informed her.

She ignored this. "We just need to be sure that your mystery cargo won't put us out of business. You understand. And you must admit, it does look suspicious. You're secretly delivering valuable supplies out of the goodness of your hearts? That's no way to make money."

"Though it might be a good way to commit sabotage, or launch a sneak attack," K'horot added.

Arzin shook his head, reminding himself to give a low-key, convincing denial. "There won't be anything like that. Nothing hazardous, nothing alive." He made a mental apology to Data for this, but kept going determinedly. "You can scan the shipment all you want before you take it anywhere."

"I still want to know why," insisted K'horot, but the captain was weakening.

"We can scan it? No tricks?" she asked.

"None," Arzin said firmly.

K'horot growled. "You're not going to go along with this?"

Again the captain ignored him. "You have latinum?" she asked Arzin, nearly purring.

"Of course," the Trill replied.

At that point K'horot decided he'd had enough. With a roar, he raised one massive arm to backhand Arzin. But well before the blow could land, Data's hooded form was between them and he was holding K'horot back effortlessly with one hand. "That would not be a good idea," he said, with an undertone of quiet anger that made even a furious Klingon pause.

"Stand down!" the captain roared. "If you want to take the ship you're welcome to try, but until then I decide what jobs we take. And you don't start fights with the customers!" She paused, realizing the incongruity of Data so easily controlling a being who was a full head taller and looked to outweigh him by 40 kilograms of muscle. "Especially not customers who are stronger than you are," she added, wonderingly.

Data slowly released his hold on the Klingon, ready to intervene again if necessary, but K'horot only grimaced. "If you cost us this contract, I will take the ship," he told the captain, before stomping off the bridge and vanishing into the depths of the ship.

The target of this threat only rolled her eyes. "He always says he's going to take the ship and never does anything about it. Isn't it odd, that he can resist a prize like this?"

She seemed utterly sincere in the question, and Arzin decided not to risk an answer. "As long as you're still in charge, captain, perhaps we can get back to business?"

"Call me Shazenna," She sat down in the captain's chair and patted the seat next to her. "Come and talk to me about latinum."


When they finally escaped the ship and headed out across the hangar some twenty minutes later, Arzin was rubbing his eyes and fighting off a headache. "For a minute I thought you were going to have to rescue me from that captain, too," he said ruefully. "Speaking of which, thank you. I wouldn't have stood much of a chance against K'horot. Or the captain, for that matter," he added wryly.

"You are already risking a great deal by helping me. The very least I can do is help keep you safe from any injury," Data replied with great seriousness, before smiling faintly. "And perhaps safe from indignity, in the case of Shazenna."

"If she'd said one more word about Klingon mating rituals, I would have run screaming from the ship," Arzin said, laughing. "If that's how she always negotiates, I don't know how they stay in business. Who ever heard of Klingon traders, anyway?"

"They do seem to be outside the usual norms for their species," the android said, diplomatically. "But if they take the concept of Klingon honor seriously, then they might make excellent traders. They would keep their word whenever possible."

"Which is more than you can say for a lot of the Ferengi, always looking for a loophole. So you think we can trust them?"

"I believe so," Data said, uncomfortably. "But I am – more emotionally invested in our success and may not have a suitably neutral viewpoint. I would very much appreciate hearing your opinion."

Arzin walked in silence for a moment, then nodded. "Assuming the captain can keep K'horot under control – and she does seem to have had a lot of practice at that – I think she'll stick to the agreement. But we'd better make sure K'horot won't be able to get that crate open, if possible."

"Agreed. In that respect, Klingon discretion is certainly not to be trusted."

"And I'm still concerned about that timer. If it gets jostled around too much in transit..."

"I believe it will suffice," Data said, again trying to convey a confidence he did not feel. "It performed as expected during our tests, and it only needs to work once."

"Well, I'll still be glad when that part's over. Except I won't know it's over until the alert sounds, or doesn't sound," he added with a frown. They had added a simple narrow-beam subspace alarm to the timer, set to sound ten minutes after the time was due to expire, unless Data was awake to shut it off.

"Remember that if you do pick up the signal, you must assume that I am captured or incapacitated and leave the area immediately. That is an order."

"I know, I know," Arzin sighed, then managed a wry smile. "Just don't get yourself captured or incapacitated, all right? Now we'd better get you packed for your trip. So to speak."


Whenever Data was switched off – which had unfortunately happened more today than it ever had before, thanks to the need to test the timer – there was a very brief interval when he could feel his systems individually deactivating. Each time, for 6.8 nanoseconds, he felt himself dying.

"All I can do is keep her comfortable," the doctor says. "It won't be much longer now."

The sensation had never affected him before, of course. There had always been the possibility that someday he would be switched off and never reactivated, a death in all the ways that mattered. It was hardly a pleasant scenario even then, but now he knew better what loss was and what it left behind.

Now the faces of the dead haunted him. Maya. His father. His daughter.

He still approached Lal's too-brief memories with caution. They had been the catalyst for his first truly poignant feelings, and something about that early association still made him wary of dwelling on them too much. It had also been his first lesson in the entanglement of emotion, for he had felt not simply grief at the loss of Lal's potential, but also pride at what she had accomplished in so short a time, the love that he had not been able to share with her in life, and a dozen other emotions that he hardly had time to grasp. All that had stopped him from immediately turning the chip off was the conviction that he owed it to his daughter to mourn her – a conviction that had taken hold of him in many other ways as well.

No sooner had he started to learn to cope with this first profound tide of feeling than he began to wish that he could see Maya again, to share his grief with her and let her comfort him. Even at the time he had thought it odd, to think first of someone who had never met Lal. The obvious conclusion had escaped him for some time, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he hadn't wanted to reach that conclusion. How could the universe be so unfair, to have given him these remarkable people who had loved him, without reservation or hope, and then taken them all away before he was able to give them anything in return?


"I will feel it for both of us." Lal seems to take some comfort from this, but she deserves more.

"You know that I cannot grieve for you, sir," Data says, wishing that this was not so.

But Soong takes this in stride. "You will, in your own way," he assures him, and for an instant the android believes it.

"Data," she breathes, barely a whisper. "I love you." And she does, with all her heart.

There was no way to make amends, though he yearned to do so more than anything. Even before the emotion chip he had wished to do so, driven then by logic rather than feeling, but with much of the same sense of helplessness that dogged him now. He might cheat death for himself – barring accidents, it was probable he would survive indefinitely – but he could do nothing against it on behalf of anyone else. He would live forever, and be forever alone.


"Are you ready?" There was a pause, then the voice spoke more urgently. "Data. Are you all right?"

From his place in the shipping crate – carefully padded at Arzin's insistence, however unnecessarily – Data turned his head abruptly to look at his friend. "Yes, I am fine. Go ahead." Tears threatened, but he blinked them back firmly.

"But if you're –"

"Arzin. I am all right, I assure you. And I am ready."

He sighed, but made no further protest. "Good luck." And he pressed the switch.

"Thank you for my life," says Lal.

"Goodbye. Goodbye, Data." Data calls him father for the first time, and Soong smiles.

"Data. I love you."

He watches the light fade from Maya's gaze, feels her hand slip away.

"I'm sorry, Data," Crusher says quietly.

The last of his systems powers down.