Forging Connections

Posted on Sun Nov 22nd, 2015 @ 5:27am by Admiral Ricky Wegener & Ensign Six of Ten & Niro
Edited on on Sun Nov 22nd, 2015 @ 5:28am

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Bajor - 2360

* Sleeping Tent - Bajor 2360 *

The dreams had come again, but this time there was only Niro in them. She had been in his quarters on the Korenna and once more, he held her, spoke softly at her ear. She could feel his hands on her bare skin and then the dream had shifted to waking, leaving her drifting in between the two. A strong arm snuggled her in closer against a warm body and she sighed with contentment. The long muscular form fitted itself against her back and soft lips whispered her name at her ear.

“Mmmmm... I’m awake...I think,” she murmured, eyes still closed.

“Good, we need to get going,” he whispered to her. “Come on,” he nudged her though he didn’t really want her to move. He liked how she fitted against him and thought he could handle having her stay right there for a while longer - at least until his stomach growled. “We need to get breakfast and get going.”

“Ship,” she managed to say, then rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?” She shifted around beneath his arm, meeting his gaze, and smiled. “Your hair’s a mess.”

“I’ll find a comb, maybe. Otherwise, you’ll just have to deal with me being a mess.” He smiled down at her for a moment. “I’ll let you get up first.”

She touched his cheek gently. “Time to get food, yes.” She, too, was enjoying the small moment of quiet intimacy, but finally she slipped out of his arms and stood waiting for him to get up. “We can check on Darwin once we are back.”

He’d enjoyed not only her gentle touch but also the view of her getting up from the bed. “Oh, I so look forward to that,” he said, only half-sarcastically. He rose, ran his hands through his hair and bent to put his shoes on. “Hopefully there’s something good at the mess tent.”

“We’ll see.” She slipped her hand in his and led the way out and to the mess tent.

They arrived and as they stepped in she looked around. “Lucius?” Then seeing Rick she smiled to him. “Hello, Captain Wegener.”

Rick stood from his table. He hadn’t forgotten his manners even after several hundred years. “Six,” he said with a nod. “Need to fuel up so we can go get your ship, so throw some grub down your neck and let’s get going.” He turned to the man with her. “We haven’t met yet. Captain Ricky Wegener,” he said with a nod, but declining to put his hand out for a shake. He was a bit uneasy around him.

“Should I tell you my name, Ricky?” Niro chuckled and shook his head. “Just kidding, I’m Niro.”

“Nero,” Rick replied. “Have a fiddle handy?”

Six looked from one to the other. “A fiddle? Is that something you need for your breakfast?”

“Uh, Earth’s Roman history,” Ricky replied. “Nero set fire to--you know what? Who cares? Let’s eat and move out.”

“Rome,” Niro filled in, having read Ricky’s mind. “Fiddled while his empire burned. Interesting history lesson there.”

He wasn’t sure if the man knew what he had been talking about, but Ricky really wasn’t thrilled with this guy. But he sat again and waited for Six to get some food and scarf it down so they could get going. They really needed this ship functioning, at least to some degree, to make their rescue plan work. And they needed to get going soon.

Six motioned for Niro to sit, then hurried off to get them something to eat. It didn’t take long, especially for Six. She needed something more than food and soon she was done.

“Ready when you two are.”

Although Niro was tempted to read the young Admiral more thoroughly, and use the information to prod at the man, he knew that would irritate Six. He, too, ate as quickly as possible. “Yep, let’s go,” he said, standing.

“Sorry, Nero,” Rick said, “but you’re not invited. Six and I are going alone.”

“And what? You expect me to just sit here? Babysit Darwin while he convalesces?”

“It’s your time to do with as you please, but this has already been planned out. Six and I go get the ship functioning, at least a bit, and that’s it. However,” Ricky said, standing, “if you need something from the ship I’m sure we could acquire it for you.”

“He’s coming,” Six said quietly. “I need him. Besides, it’s his ship. We’ll need him for the bypass codes and such. He’ll make a good radar too. He can scan the area as we go and warn us if anyone is there.”

“Sorry, Six, but it’s just you and me. And from what I know of the Borg, your little friends,” he said, pointing to her hand, “don’t need him for any bypass codes. They sure didn’t when they took most of the other races that they’ve assimilated.” He started toward the tent entrance. “The fiddler stays here.”

“Fine! I’ll just sit with Darwin, then,” Niro grumbled. “Six, be careful.”

“I will.” She reached for his hand, holding it tight. “We won’t be gone long, I promise.”

He squeezed her hand, nodded and then watched as the two left the tent.

The two walked in silence for a bit until Ricky pulled a phaser and a knife from a shoulder bag he was carrying. “You may need these,” he said.

Six took the phaser and tucked it into her waistband. “Thank you.” They walked on a few more paces before she spoke again. “You don’t like him.”

“Nope. But that wasn’t the reason that he’s still at camp and not going with us.” He kept walking, now checking the area for intruders as they started getting closer to the ship. “You’re new to this time, and this planet. There are things going on here that you may have read in history books, or obtained from races involved and their memories--no offense,” he said, “but history books and memories can be a bit skewed. We’re living it and know what works and what doesn’t. Only sending two of us will make it much easier to do what we need to do. That and losing two of us isn’t as bad if it comes down to it.”

“You must be protected,” she informed Rick. “At all costs. I will see to that, whatever it takes.” She looked up at him and was surprised to note that he looked no different that he did in her own time.

“Thanks?” he replied, quizzically. “But I don’t think we’re going to have any issues. The biggest hurdle will be getting you to break that lock and getting us in the ship. If we can get inside, and a patrol comes around, they likely won’t even notice the lock missing. Then you use your talents to get the ship airborne. Some weapons, even temporarily, would also be nice. I don’t know the status of the thing, but that may be shooting for the moon, from what I’m told.”

“The Korenna is in rough shape, or was,” Six answered. “I managed to get life support and auxiliary power working before your people picked us up.” They finally stepped out into the area the ship had cleared when it came in. Before them was the Korenna, but now the hull showed scattered areas all over the exterior that glowed bright green. Six smiled. “That’s a very good sign. The hull armor has generated. Since we’ll have to cross back through the rift to get home, this should protect the ship and keep us all from getting knocked out on the return trip.”

“For now, I just need it to be flight-worthy. The shielding will help because it’s going to be a great big diversion for the team inserting to go after Julisa the Elder.” He stopped. “Sorry, just Julisa, to you, I guess.” He chuckled. “Anyway, we’re going to use it to fire a few shots at one of their strongholds so they’ll amass troops in that area for reinforcement and leave the guarding of the prisoners with a skeleton crew.”

“Good plan. I know you’re not crazy about Niro, but he should be on the ship with you. I need to be on the ground. Darwin might be better on the ship too since he’s still recovering.” They reached the door and the oversized Cardassian lock. Six used her phaser to weaken the metal, then tucked the phaser away. Reaching out, she took hold of the lock and with a single wrench, ripped it away.

“Amazing,” Ricky said as he opened the door to the ship. “Okay, ladies first.”

Six led the way in and if Niro had been with them, it was likely he wouldn’t have recognized the interior of the Korenna now. The inside was vastly changed, resembling almost completely the interior of a Borg cube. “Welcome to the Korenna, Captain.”

He stood looking around in amazement. Well, hunched a bit, actually, as his six-foot-five-inch frame was a bit too tall to stand at full height. “Wow. So, your--what are those things called again?”

“Nanites.”

“Your nanites did this, or did it always look like this?”

“They did this. They work fast as you see. This ship used to look very similar to the inside of a Betazoid ship. We’ll go to engineering first.” She led the way along the corridor and down a set of steps to the lower deck. “How’s your engineering know-how?”

“Nothing official through Starfleet, but I did my fair share of work on freighters that my family owned, but that was a long time ago.” He shrugged. “Who knows? I might be able to do something with this future tech. Let’s go.”

She pointed to a panel that had once been the site of several sensor displays but had reconstructed itself around the screens. “Activate those large relays. The screens will report the status of all ship’s systems. I’m going to see what state the engines are in.” She moved on around the dark warp core and tapped in some commands on the console attached to the rail that ran around it.

He stood in front of the relays and looked at the console a few moments. Choosing the obvious activation point, he touched the console. The ship immediately went black. “Sorry,” he said and hit the same point on the console. He quickly moved to another and the relays activated. “Heh,” he said nervously. “I guess I’m a little more out of practice than I thought.”

“I have good news,” Six informed him. “Impulse engines are back online. We will have the warp drive up and running tomorrow. The phaser array is also operable once more. That should give you enough of a distraction, don’t you think?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Impressive, and yes. Absolutely. And you said the shields were up and running? I don’t want to be surprised by anything if we take a few hits, although I dare say that this ship is probably much more advanced than anything on this planet right now.”

“The Korenna’s native shields are up as is the new Borg hull armor. It will rotate frequency so that it is all but impermeable.” Six held out her hand and the two small tubes shot out and into the panel before her. There was a small arc of blue light that was there and then vanished. Six grew still as power from the ship began to course through her.

Ricky’s eyes flared momentarily at the sight. He had heard of it, and some very good descriptions as well, but actually seeing it was another thing altogether. “Is that...going to harm you?”

“No,” she answered softly. “This is what keeps me alive and running, what powers the millions of nanites in my system and the implants that couldn’t be removed. There are internal ones that are not visible like the ones on my face. Normally my alcove does this but it’s not here.” She hesitated a moment and turned her head to look over to him. “You do not need to fear, though I can read it in you. I am an empath.”

He looked from the tubes up to her face. “Oh, right. From the… Your race. Halanan. Yeah.” He was still a bit disturbed--scared, more like it, but he was doing his best to compose himself. Lucius had read her and said she wasn’t a threat. But damn she was scary. “Sorry,” he finally said after a few moments of silence. “I just… I get to thinking about the stories I was told of the Borg and my race. Obviously you had no hand in that, you’re way too young, but it just gives me a little shiver.”

“I am twenty-two,” she informed him. “I was taken at just a few months. Four years later, I was as you see me now. I was never a child, Captain. In four years, I’ve had to learn to be an individual, a normal person by Fleet standards. It hasn’t always gone well, but it’s ended up mostly alright. I was...married a month or so ago. That did not go well.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. I was also married once. It ended badly as well, but probably for a different reason than yours.” Bringing it up affected him more than he realized it would. He hadn’t spoken of Narin in ages and wasn’t exactly sure why he had just blurted it out now. “Uh, so how long do you need to recharge your batteries?” he asked, changing the subject.

The mention of being married brought Suresh to mind in a most painful way. Once again, the scene in his quarters replayed in her memory, but as before, just after she left him things got fuzzy and it confused her. “Another few minutes. I am having a slight memory issue, but I cannot diagnose the problem here.”

Nodding, Ricky moved back toward the entrance. “Can we do a scan of the area for lifesigns before we move out? That would be much better than just sticking our heads out and getting them shot off.”

“Yes.” Six closed her eyes and a moment later, the screen next to Rick popped to life. “There.”

“Damn,” he whispered, then laughed. “Better you doing that than me fiddling around and setting off an alarm or something.”

He checked the sensor screens and found nothing but wildlife in the area. The closest beings were back at the camp and they all looked fine.

“Looks good from here,” he said. “I guess we can go whenever you’re finished.”

“How long have we been gone?” She activated her ocular implant and a green beam shot out, illuminating the far reaches of engineering. There was a faint hum, then it shifted to infrared.

“Holy…” Ricky whispered. After ogling her a few moments, he finally remembered the question. “Uh, not even thirty minutes yet. What the hell does that do?”

“Night vision and infrared,” she answered. “They were down earlier but since they are back, I think I’m good to go. Besides, Niro will be somewhere pacing and wondering where I am.”

Rick looked at the scanning console one more time, just to check before they opened the hatch. “Good to go,” he said, “but I’ll go first. I just don’t trust these things completely.”

He opened the hatch and took a look around. It looked clear. Hopping out he waited until Six was out before placing the broken lock back on the door. It wasn’t secured, but it might fool a cursory look by any passing patrols.

Six looked up at the sky, mentally calculating the time until dark. “We have a few hours yet,” she noted. “If this goes well, we should be out of your hair sometime tomorrow evening.”

“No offense, but the less time you and your team are here, the better. There’s no telling what all will be changed when you return.”

“I know of one complication already,” Six answered. “With Julisa.” She bit her lip as they began to walk slowly, now that they were nearing the trees. “Your marriage...what happened? If you don’t mind my asking.”

He sighed, her question coming unexpectedly. As they walked he decided it wouldn’t hurt to tell her. “We were very much in love, so it wasn’t anything to do with that. We married and I bought us a restaurant to run on Delta IV. She took a shuttle to go get some supplies and spices from neighboring planets and, just after she left, a minor war broke out. She tried to get home and wandered right into a battle, got targeted as the enemy and they fired on her.” He let out a big sigh this time, blowing it out audibly. “Just in the wrong place at the wrong time and a very abrupt ending to too short of a marriage.”

“I’m sorry,” Six said quietly. “My friends all think I was not ready but strangely, it wasn’t me that ended up making a mistake. It was him. Perhaps they were right nonetheless. Which is another complication, one I will face when I return. It pales in comparison to what you face here, however. One of my fellow officers was rescued from a Cardassian prison here and was almost beyond repair so I know what’s happening here.”

As they were talking, they had been walking toward the wood line and soon were surrounded by trees for cover. “I will give you this piece of advice: it’s not up to your friends to let you know if you’re ready for something or not. It’s your decision alone because only you know the whole story.”

Something in his words struck a chord with Six. The whole story… But that was just it. She had seen it for herself. Once more the fuzziness came as she thought about Suresh, but his image slipped from memory.

“I thought I did,” she answered.

“I didn’t mean to infer that you hadn’t. It just seemed that you put quite a bit of stock in what your friends had to say, which is a good thing, but just don’t let them make the decision for you. Especially for such an important decision as marriage.”

Six nodded once more. “Perhaps I watched too many movies when I was trying to learn to be anything but what I was. Maybe I still don’t quite get it - being me, being alone, and thought I had to have someone. Maybe I was not what he bargained for. I don’t know.”

He stopped, causing Six to stop as well. “Listen, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t want to know, but I would suggest talking to him and getting his side of the story. It may wind up that it was a mistake, but then again, maybe you weren’t getting the whole story from him either and it’s all a misunderstanding.” He started walking again. “I guess what I’m saying is, don’t be so quick to give up on love. Obviously something was there or you two wouldn’t have gotten together. That means something, and I think it’s worth at least trying to fight for it.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged slightly. “Maybe I should but I don’t think Niro plans to let go so easily.”

As they approached the camp, Ricky’s last words of advice were, “Well, you’re a big girl. You can make your own decisions, no matter what Nero or anyone else thinks. Besides, you have the muscle to back it up if need be.” He winked. “Thanks for the help. I’ll let Lucius know that we’re ready to use the ship. We’ll gather everyone included in the plan soon.”

“Good. I’m going for a short walk, just in camp, then to the med tent to look in on Darwin. Then, I’m going to find some more suitable clothes for a raid.” She hesitated, then gave Ricky a smile. “Thanks for the advice.”

“No problem, kid. See ya’ around. And good work back there. For what it’s worth, I believe our future Starfleet is benefiting from having you around.”

That did get a laugh from Six. “Yeah….tell them that.” She touched his arm a moment, then turned and wandered off.

---------------------------------
Captain Ricky Wegener (2360 version)
Getting Used to a Borg

Ensign Six Of Ten
Getting Used To The Admiral

Niro
Getting Used To Six