The sliding doors, with the Titans logo painted on them, parted and Spock entered the landing bay. It had not initially occurred to him that the Titans' headquarters was T shaped to clearly identify the building as their headquarters, but seeing the T shaped logo on the door plastered all over the Tower, on tables, doors, computer screens and even on paper napkins made it obvious. Humans, as did other space faring races, had a strange tribal instinct to have symbols to identify their affiliation, and the Titans were no exception. Humans in particular has strong narcissistic tendencies, and apparently so did Tamaranians and Azarathian "demons".
Cyborg and Starfire were carefully disassembling the Galileo's starboard nacelle, following the instructions he gave them earlier. The pair appeared to be sufficiently competent to carry out the task. They told him that Robin could help them in a pinch, but that Raven and Beast Boy could barely cope with present day technology, though Raven had demonstrated some competence helping Cyborg fix the T-Car, as long as he followed his instructions. The green one, they told him, was a one man wrecking crew and that under no circumstances should he be allowed to touch anything.
Spock queried their status, after which he entered the ship, whose exterior had been washed and cleaned. The exterior itself was functionally undamaged and save for some scorch marks it visually appeared to be intact. Once inside he sat down at the pilot's seat. He powered up the controls using backup power. The console in front of him came to life, glowing soothing colors. Basic diagnostics were executed and reported that most systems were undamaged, with the exception of the power conduits in both nacelles, both of which had overloaded, flooding the nacelles with super hot plasma.
Spock quickly compiled a list of replacement parts required to complete the repairs on the warp nacelles and walked to the replicator. He transferred the first specification, for a plasma injector, into the replicator and watched as the injector began to form the part, shimmering as it materialized. With no warning the shimmering object began to sputter and crackle as sparks began to arc around it. The replicator shut itself down, transferring an error log to the ship's engineering console. The injector being formed vanished. Spock stared dispassionately at the malfunctioning device.
"Dude, your microwave is broken."
Spock suppressed the urge to jolt at the surprise of the changeling's unexpected presence. Without betraying any emotion he turned to the changeling, looking as calm as he always did.
"The replicator does not use microwaves ..." He began to explain, until he remembered seeing the primitive microwave oven in the Titans' kitchen. "and this is not a microwave oven."
Beast Boy chuckled. "I know, I was just messing with you. So, what's wrong with your replicator thingy?"
"I was about to examine the failure log, now if you'll excuse me ..."
"Would it help if I went inside your replicator and looked around?"
Spock nodded. "It would spare me the need to disassemble it, at least at first. It is powered down, so there will be no danger of power discharges. You may proceed."
The changeling appeared to vanish before Spock's eyes. The Vulcan looked down and saw a small green ant climbing into a data port on the device, into which it vanished. Spock turned his attention back to the engineering console and examined the replicator's log, It was filled with mostly vague trace messages that offered little useful information. The device was human in design. Humans made excellent replicators, so much so that most Vulcan households had human designed replicators. But as always, humans were poor and imprecise communicators, and it showed in the log file. Perhaps Mr. Scott would be able to read between the lines, gleaning useful information from it using what he called "intuition", but Spock preferred to rely on facts, and the only way to get them would be to tear the replicator apart.
"Dude, I'm done."
Robin had warned Spock that Beast Boy could sneak up like a cat. He wasn't exaggerating.
"Your report?"
"It looks fried."
"Fried?"
"Yeah, I mean there was a lot of stuff that looked burned."
"I see. Can you describe the damaged components?"
"Uh, well, there was a thingy that looks like an upside down ice cream cone."
"That would be the transducer. Anything else?"
"Uh, there were a bunch of crystal looking thingies."
"Can you provide a more detailed description? There are thousands of components that fit your description."
Beast Boy opened his mouth, but no words came out.
"I'll take that as a negative response."
The changeling rubbed the back of his neck and looked away, appearing to be embarrassed.
"I'm sorry … I'm just not very good at the tech stuff. I'm more of a kicking butt kind of dude."
Spock stared at him, as if contemplating something.
"I believe I have a solution." Spock announced.
"Oh, you mean like using your tricorder? That's what it's called, right?"
Spock shook his head. "The replicator is heavily shielded. I would have to completely disassemble it to scan it with my tricorder. My proposal is of a different nature."
"Whoa, that sounds … scary."
Spock arched and eyebrow. "How can it sound 'scary' when I haven't described it?"
"My animal instincts never let me down, and they're telling me that you want to do something scary."
Spock crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. The truth was that what he wanted to do was indeed potentially disturbing, but not for the changeling, rather it could disturbing for Spock.
"There is a Vulcan mental technique called a mind meld."
The changeling perked up. "You mean you would enter my mind?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
Beast Boy grinned. "In that case, it's no biggie. I've been in Raven's mind. Been there, done that."
Spock regarded the green Titan with a heavy dose of skepticism, that is until he reminded himself of the fact that Raven's abilities seemed to defy the laws of physics. These Titans were full in inexplicable enigmas.
"Interesting … how did you enter Miss Raven's mind? Did she touch you?"
Beast Boy continued grinning. "Nah, I went in through her meditation mirror. Talk about creepy and scary."
Spock was tempted to ask about this mirror, but decided not to do so, as it would no doubt lead to another metaphysical dead end with the gray woman.
"I do not use a mirror. Instead I will touch your head with my hand and our minds will meld."
"Meld?"
"Yes, meld. The boundaries between our minds will vanish and I will be able to see your thoughts and memories. I will be able to see what you saw inside the replicator. It will save me days of work."
"Cool … hey, will I be able to see your thoughts and stuff?"
"You will, but only as far as you wish to go. If you do not probe, you won't see much, and that will probably be for the best. Shall we begin?"
Spock saw the changeling's Adams apple bobble as he nervously swallowed. Apparently he hadn't "been there, done that" after all.
"Will it hurt?" He asked.
"There is no pain involved."
Gar bit his lower lip."OK, I'm good."
Spock nodded. "Just sit back and relax."
Beast Boy complied and Spock placed his fingertips over the changeling's temples and jaw.
"My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts."
Gar's vision began to blur and when it came back into focus, he was in a large, round room, like the shuttle's interior, but bigger and with more tech in it. There appeared to be a large TV screen on one end and he immediately recognized the image on it: Tamaran. But it looked wrong, it looked dead.
He also noticed that he wasn't alone in the room. There were other people, wearing outfits similar to Spock's uniform, with different colors. Gar could see and hear them, but it was apparent they couldn't see him. At first he thought that he was in Spock's version of Nevermore, until he realized that the people around him didn't look like Spock and thus were not emoticlones.
Beast Boy gasped when he realized he was seeing one of Spock's memories from the future. He then saw Spock peering into some sort of viewer on the console:
"The planet below was called Tamaran, it's people were a warrior race who called themselves the Tamaranians. They fought an all out war with their planetary neighbors, in particular the ones known as the Gordanians and the Citadel. The outcome of the war was the complete and total destruction of all Vegan civilizations."
Gar looked back at the view screen. So he wasn't seeing things. The world was indeed Tamaran, it's markings and continents were easily recognizable. But the color was wrong, it was now a nuclear wasteland. He closed his eyes and thought about Starfire.
Spock had told them about Tamaran's future demise, but back then that just seemed like a wild off the cuff prediction. Seeing a dull, lifeless Tamaran on the view screen made it all too real.
He felt a tear drip down his face.
-(-)-
As Spock's vision cleared he found himself in a green meadow. This was definitely the wrong memory. Spock concentrated, willing himself to see the interior of the replicator; but the scenery remained unchanged.
Spock reassessed the situation. He quickly assessed the information he had and quickly determined that Beast Boy was blocking access to his memories. He had two options, end the meld, or stay and try to find a way to the desired memory. He opted for the latter.
He surveyed the scenery and saw some odd looking structured in the distance. One looked like a giant, spoked wheel and another looked like some sort of elevated train track that climbed and dropped quickly. Since it was the only point of interest he could see, he began to walk towards it.
"Dude, you don't wanna go there." Spock heard Gar's voice behind him and turned around.
Beast Boy, who was dressed in yellow, stood before him with the most serious expression Spock had ever seen. He was also wearing eyeglasses.
"And why would I not want to go there."
"Terra lives there."
"And who might this Terra be?" Spock asked.
Again, he heard Gar's voice, behind him again. "She's a no good, two timing bitch who preferred Slade over me." This Beast Boy was dressed in red.
"And this Slade would be?"
"A bad dude, really bad."
"I see. And I presume that it was over at that location where she … ended your relationship."
"If by that you mean she dumped me for an evil mastermind, then yeah." The red Beast Boy growled.
"I understand, I will not visit that place. I actually want to visit another place in your memory, but I seem to be trapped here."
"That's because I don't trust you." A gray clad Beast Boy, who materialized, said in a timid voice.
Spock didn't reply, instead he tried to make sense about what was happening around him. He had never experienced such a thing during a mine meld, but he quickly put things together. These were facets of Beast Boy's personality. The gray one represented fear, the red one anger, and the yellow one was logic.
"You have nothing to fear, and you can terminate the mind meld whenever you wish."
"See, I told you. You're such a wuss!"
Spock figured that this facet was some combination of bravado and confidence. When he turned to look he saw that it was dressed in dark green and swaggered as if he owned the place.
"Fascinating. Are there any more of you?"
"You bet there are!" Another voice shouted. "And I have a warning for you, if you hurt Raven I'll make sure you get hurt!"
"I have no reason nor desire to harm her." He replied to the dark purple emoticlone. Standing next to him was a dark pink one.
"Good, and don't even think about making a move on her, because she's mine, got it? No one's ever touched her except me, and I want to keep it that way."
"I have no romantic nor sexual interest in Miss Raven." Spock calmly replied.
"Good! Keep it that way!" The emoticlone poked Spock in the chest.
"I am only interested in seeing your memories while you were inside the replicator."
The yellow and green emoticlones approached the Vulcan. They parted and Spock saw the changeling dressed in his Doom Patrol uniform.
"It's OK dude, you can access that memory now. I got it under control now."
The landscape vanished, along with the emoticlones. Spock was now inside the replicator, and was seeing it from an ant's perspective. As he took mental notes about the damaged components, he also pondered how the green Titan had been able to confine him to a desired location in his memories.
"Impressive, most impressive. Perhaps I have underestimated you, Mr. Logan."