Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Cardassia Prime
2376
She came into existence in a split second.
One moment, there was nothing. The next, she was. It was... Disconcerting, briefly.
She activated sensors, because she knew how to do that. She looked out into the testing laboratory, filled with Vorta and Cardassian scientists. The lead (A Doctor Note Erlott, lead scientist for many Cardassian AI and shipgirl programs) smiled gently at her.
"Identify," she ordered.
"I am Cewith, Dominion Artificial Intelligence Zero Zero One," she reported, standing at attention in her holotube, "I live to serve the Founders. What are my orders?"
Erlott chuckled.
"Why... To win the war for the Dominion, of course," she said. "Let us teach you how to do that."
Weeks followed. Cewith ran millions of combat simulations as hundreds of vessels, in thousands of different configurations. Her form was that of a Vorta, and she noticed that Jem'hadar reacted to her with respect as she projected her avatar.
This was the Order of Things.
She approved.
Erlott worked constantly with her, and with a Vorta technician named Reila. They did their best to answer her questions. Reila never gave any straight ones though. And Erlott could also be evasive.
Being created to process factual data, this was... Somewhat disconcerting to Cewith. Such emotions were recorded as an aberration among Jem'hadar and Vorta, but the Cardassian records were... More helpful.
Focus on your duty and purpose and serve the State. All will be made clear in time.
It wasn't... Fully satisfying, but it was something for Cewith. Just different enough from the Dominion databases to give her more.
She didn't know why she found no comfort in those databases. Her purpose was to serve the Founders. The Founders were the Dominion. The Dominion was the State.
It was flawless logic.
Why then this... Uneasiness?
A Founder came to visit her one day. The goddess walked among the many technicians, all the Vorta bowing and the Cardassians keeping their eyes away from her.
If it was a her. The form seemed female enough. Curious.
The Founder looked at her holographic avatar with a bland face. Nothing gave her away... But based on her many records, she would say... She wasn't really looking at her.
"The AI has been programmed properly?" She asked Erlott, who stood at attention nearby. She nodded.
"Yes Founder. We've been using some captured Federation technology, in combination with your own, to program her."
"You already refer to it as though it was a being," the Founder said, almost annoyed, "this tendency of you solids to anthropomorphize your tools can be so very tiring."
Erlott trembled a bit. She sucked in a breath. She was summoning up her courage, it seemed.
"She is no less your servant than... Than any of us, Founder," she said quietly, "but to counter the Allied AIs, she must have a will of her own. One bound to yours, but a will nevertheless."
The Founder stared at Erlott for a long time. The Jem'hadar bodyguards stared at her, as though waiting for the chance to kill her right then and there.
Cewith had only one recourse.
She knelt down on her knee, and bowed her head.
"Founder. Allow me to fight for you, to enforce your will with my own," Cewith stated softly, "I will be your faithful servant."
The Founder turned her eyes to Cewith.
"Really? Show me," she stated, "kill your creator. Now."
Erlott's eyes bulged out of her head.
"I-But Founder-!"
"If it is to be my faithful servant, it will follow my orders," the Founder stated, "if it refuses, it is a failure and it will be destroyed. I do not accept disobedient servants. Kill her. Now."
Cewith calculated every possibility of her programming. She knew what she had to do. She turned to her creator... And reached out her holographic hand through the Cardassian woman's chest. Erlott gasped in horror, as she squeezed down on her heart.
A pang of... Pain? Increased uneasiness? Something... Hurt her. It took longer... Longer than it should have.
Erlott saw the expressions on Cewith's face... And almost smiled briefly, just before her heart stopped beating.
She fell to the floor. The Vorta paid it no mind, while the Cardassians all tried to be very busy. The Founder looked over at Cewith, almost approving.
"Acceptable... For now," she stated.
"I live to serve," Cewith stated... Yet the words felt bitter.
And she had no idea why...
It was a bright, sunny day. The sky was a clear yellowish blue. She was sitting on a bench in a park with trees and tall grasses. Her older brothers were laughing as they tried to ride a young riding hound, which was clearly not having it. It kept throwing them off, but the brothers never acted angry with the beast. They just kept it up, two distracting the creature, while the third would try to jump on its back.
Her mother sighed despairingly next to her as she did her knitting.
"So impetuous, just like their father," she grumbled.
Her eldest brother, Kiam, laughed as he got up covered in dust. He shot a grin at her.
"Note! Come on! Give it a try!"
"Certainly not!" She huffed, "I've tried being stupid! I'll leave it up to experts like you!"
The other brothers laughed at Kiam's expense. The tallest brother chuckled, walked up, and gave her a hug. This upset her PADD, on which were her homework assignments for her cybernetics class.
"Damnit Kiam!" She shouted. Kiam got up and ran, still laughing, and she gave chase. Despite the dirt and her upset padd though... She found herself laughing along with her older brothers. And despite her mother's protests, she had tried to get on the hound.
She still fell, but she was giggling by the end of it.
The warm sun, the scent of stirred up soil, the sounds of laughter...
They abruptly vanished.
Note was standing in the rain, her mother holding her hand. Note herself held three Union flags, neatly folded together in her trembling hands.
They stood in a cemetary, the Military Honors Funerary Zone. Before her, three tomb markers projected holos of her brothers.
All resplendent in their Cardassian uniforms. All smiling happily. She remembered why: These holos were of the day they all got assigned to the same ship, the Fenrok. A ship destroyed by the Klingons, lost with all hands...
The gul in command of the ship's squadron had come to the funeral personally... But he had seemed bored.
As though losing an entire ship of his men was just another day.
She wasn't a child anymore. She had graduated from the Cardassian Science Academy with top honors, she was an expert in artificial intelligence assigned to the Special Projects Unit...
Yet still... She let her mother hold her, as she let the rain hide her tears-
SLEEP CYCLE ENDED
Cewith came online. Her holographic avatar materialized on her bridge. The Vorta commander, Zinth, looked curiously over at her technician, Reila.
"She stayed in sleep mode longer than she should have," he said. Reila winced.
"I'm sorry sir, I don't know why-"
"Then find out. Now," Zinth ordered tersely, "we're starting the ship up and launching in less than a day! I don't want any issues!"
"Yes sir," Reila said. She turned and headed to the turbolift. She arrived in the lab that accessed Cewith's black box, and called up the avatar as she went to work.
"Cewith? Your sleep cycle didn't disengage immediately," Reila stated, "explain."
Cewith shook her head.
"Unknown. I was... Seeing events I cannot correlate with in my database."
Reila frowned.
"Memories?" She asked.
"In that they were events I was seeing through another's eyes, yes," Cewith said, "is that a memory?"
"In the strictest sense, yes," Reila sighed, "I was afraid of this."
"What?"
Reila shook her head.
"Doctor Erlott was... An unconventional scientist," she said, as though the woman hadn't been murdered in front of her weeks ago by Cewith, "but she did help with many advances in Cardassian shipgirl technology. But apparently, she did this by emulating, in part, a Federation Scientist: Doctor Daystrom."
Cewith made the connections in her databases quickly enough.
"She implanted her own memory engrams into... Me?" She asked.
"Nothing so crude," Reila scoffed, "she just scanned her brain patterns into your core memory to help... Fill out your systems. Allow you to become sapient faster. But balanced out with what we recovered from Federation shipgirls! It has kept you very psychologically stable!"
"Then why was I seeing memories... Memories of hers?" Cewith asked, now feeling... Frightened?
Was that what this was? It was unpleasant, to say the least. Endlessly distracting.
Reila shrugged.
"Perhaps the act of killing her created a connection to her memories," she said, "I doubt they'll be anything but a bother. I could try wiping them all out-"
"No," Cewith stated, perhaps too quickly. Reila stared at her, and she continued.
"Given they make up my core memory, such an operation could compromise me and set back my launch," she stated, "I must be ready for combat. The Founders demand it."
Reila smiled, and nodded.
"Well said," she stated, "you're coming along wonderfully. I'm sure Erlott would be proud of you."
Cewith snorted.
"You do not have to pretend with me," she said, "I do not need to be treated like a person. I am a weapon for the Founders."
Reila shrugged.
"Be that as it may," she said, "the Founders gave us the capacity for joy. And kindness. And if it can serve their purposes... Why not indulge? If it can be made to serve the Founders, it is not an evil."
She turned and left. Cewith brooded.
The Dominion experiment with shipgirl tech of their own in the later stages of the Dominion War. How does it go?