The room wouldn't stop spinning. Around him, lights were flashing and noises were sounding. He started to lift up, to haul his sleepy body up off of the bed, or whatever it was, but he felt a firm hand on his shoulder, and he was persuaded to lie back down. Blinking heavily and several times, the figure standing above him began to come into focus. "It's done?" he asked wearily, reaching up a hand to rub his head. It hurt.
The doctor shook her head curtly and picked up a tricorder, running it over his head. "The operation is complete. Yours took a bit longer than the other ones, however..." Then she faded off, reminding herself that humans often got embarrassed, putting the medical tricorder down. "I advise you not to touch your face for the next few hours. After that, the synthetic skin should have fused sufficiently."
Charles began to sit up again and cast his gaze around the white room, and it quickly dawned on him that he was in the Walsingham's sickbay. "Can I have a mirror?" he asked the doctor, who waved to a nurse. A human nurse, clad in the blue of the Starfleet medical division, brought him over the requested item. He could have screamed, but that would have been ridiculous. Instead, his mouth simply hung open, gormless, and he could have caught many a fly.
"It looks so real,"he mouthed, his voice barely above a whisper. "I look like a Romulan. I am a Romulan." As he looked about the room, he could have sworn that he saw the Vulcan doctor's mouth twitch slightly. But he doubted it. After all, Vulcans rarely got annoyed, and when they did, if they did, they would not show it. But he digressed. His fingers had taken to feeling the deep-set ridges along his forehead, and the pointed tips of his ears.
When his eyes travelled up to the crowd of people that had gathered around his biobed, he blushed when he saw Seb standing over him. He could have sworn that Seb looked even more handsome as a Romulan. Seb laughed at him, no doubt having realised what Charles had thought. "I'm liking the green ears!"
Charles made a face and then regarded his sister and Data. Lara looked small and pretty – far too demure to be a true Romulan. But he knew his sister well, and she could surely hold her own if the time came. Data was quite amusing to look at. His skin was no longer pale, and his eyes were no longer yellow. It unnerved Charles somewhat; he had gotten used to these three people looking the way they had for ages, to way they had been born, or created, and now that had all change. But seeing Data disconcerted him more so. After all, when Data looked as he usually did – with his starkly white skin and his golden eyes – he looked unhuman, unnatural. But now he seemed to be living, breathing. Data was now indistinguishable from other races, but Charles was forced to remind himself: who am I to decide that Data was never 'alive', anyway?
"What's first on the agenda, then?" Lara asked Data as the four cadets exited the sickbay and followed the corridors to the turbolift.
Data made a noise of contemplation, and Charles reminded himself that it was really the android that he had known for a few months under all of that synthetic skin and hair. "I suspect we will converse, eat and then get ready to sleep. It would be advisable to get as much rest as possible – I myself will be renewing my systems – as the Walsingham will be near enough to the Neutral Zone tomorrow morning for us to disembark in a shuttle."
Lara had smiled to herself when Data had dictated the cadets' future schedule. After a moment of hesitation, she reached up to touch her new hairstyle. She didn't much like it. Romulans certainly didn't have an eye for fashion, she decided. Instead of long and brown, it was cropped short with a fringe and had been dyed a darker shade of brown, closer to black than anything. Data's hair was the same shade of slick black, while Charles' dark brown hair had undergone the same change in hue as hers had. But she couldn't help grimacing when she saw how amusing Seb looked. He had kept his blond hair, of course, but it was cropped short in the Romulan-style, no longer wavy and unruly.
The automated computer voicealerted them that the turbolift had reached the proper deck, and they soon disembarked and located their current quarters.
Lara had decided against eating at first, but Data had systematically reminded her that she needed to keep up her strength, as the mission would no doubt be gruelling to biological lifeforms, as he had put it.
When they had eaten, and Data had replenished his chemical nutrients, they all retired to bed. Lara lay awake for quite some time, wondering what would be in store for them all when the woke up the following morning. She was excited, intrigued. Who wouldn't be? But horrible thoughts periodically crossed her mind as she wondered what would happen if their disguises didn't quite work or if one of them let something lose. Yet worrying never worked, as she told herself firmly.
Data was sat on his untouched bed, carrying out another self-diagnostic, wary that his systems needed to be without fault if he were to be at his best tomorrow. He could hear Lara talking to herself in the room next door, and contemplated whether it would be wise to pay her a visit. He looked up the necessary human behavioural situation in his systems, but decided against it. After all, she could have been talking in her sleep, and it would have been wrong to have woken her.
"I prefer you as a Romulan," Charles said softly, looking at Seb whilst he lay awake in bed.
Seb threw him a wry smile. "I thought you might," he replied.
"Seriously, though," Charles added. "It makes you more distinguished."
Seb could do little but laugh at that comment. "I suppose it's better than being a Klingon!"
Lara opened her eyes wearily, sitting up slowly in the bed. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, before getting out of the bed and making for the sonic shower. Once she had washed and dried and dressed, she went into the main quarters and greeted Data.
The android was stood looking rather impassively out of the great window. She couldn't help but smile at him.
Apparently having sensed her presence, he turned to face her and nodded curtly. "Good morning, Lara. I trust you slept well?"
She smiled and nodded genially, as she asked the replicator for cheese on toast and a mug of tea. Holding her breakfast, she replied, "Quite well, actually. I was quite surprised!"
"I have learnt that Starfleet-issue furniture is not renowned for its comfortability," Data opined. His matter-of-fact tone made he smile, and she couldn't dispute his words.
"Data," she began again, her voice laced with curiosity. "Do you have any family?" Uncomfortable with standing up, she took a seat at a table; Data felt obliged to copy her.
His pale face seemed to be contemplating her question. "Not as far as I know," he finally said, after some deliberation.
She looked into her tea for a minute, wondering what to say next. "No father or mother?"
Data's head twitched slightly. "Not in the biological sense, no. But I do understand that my creator could be considered a parent."
"Do you ever think about them?"
"Hmm..." he mused, his golden eyesbriefly looking up at the ceiling. "I do often contemplate what Dr Soong's motivation was for making me in his image."
"Perhaps so that he would live on, or to remind people of him," she opined. Sipping casually at her tea, she added, "You know, like how God supposedly made Adam in his image?"
Data was just about to put forward another theological argument but the door to Charles and Seb's quarters slid open and the two stumbled out, laughing to one another. Data noted the slight eye-roll that Lara gave, but he decided against announcing her reaction.
As an hour or so passed and the cadets had exhausted the realms of pointless conversation, they reported, as ordered, to one of the ship's shuttlebays.
"It's huge!" Seb breathed, his entire attention taken up with gazing in awe at the massive hangar. Charles tried not to look too embarrassed with the situation; every single cadet in Starfleet had seen a shuttlebay.
Captain Radcliffe met them just outside of their designated shuttlecraft, having left his First Officer in control of the bridge.
He had explained to the cadets that the shuttle had been fitted with a new hull; its Starfleet fuselage was covered by a darker green one, reminiscent of the types of craft that Romulus was famous for.
He wished them luck and had his engineers brief the cadets on standard flight procedures. The captain took a long, hard look at Data, as if he were sizing the android up.
Somewhat confused, Data piped up. "Sir, is there something the matter?"
Radcliffe promptly clearedhis throat and tugged his shirt down. "No. Not at all. I've been told how brilliant you four cadets are. If I had my way, I'd have one of you serving on my ship."
Lara, Charles and Seb laughed nervously. They knew that Captain Radcliffe desired Data for his own crew. After all, who wouldn't?
Once in the craft, the cadets began preflight procedures. Data and Seb were sat at the front of the cockpit, whilst Charles and Lara were left to relax for a whole until they swapped with the current pilots. Seb checked his console, making sure that it reflected what Data's console said. He and Data then programmed in the destination and the computer organised a flight plan and estimated time of landing. Satisfied, he gave Data the go ahead for the shuttle to engage engines. The hangar had been evacuated, depressurised, and the doors opened. Once the force field had been disengaged, the Data keyed in a few commands and the small ship exited the majestic Walsingham.
The hulk of the starship was soon a small dot in the distance; it looked as minute as the stars dotted across the sky. Lara gazed with wonder out of the window. It was beautiful. She had seen it before, but that had been in the solar system. Out in deep space, it was a much different affair.