USS Athena

What Dreams They Were

CAPTAIN IDA AU of the Federation starship Resilient tried to sleep in her cabin. Like the other cabins on the small Defiant-class ships, this one consisted of two bunks, one on top of the other, a replicator and an accompanying viewscreen and a chair to sit on. Even the captain had quarters like that. The Resilient and ships like it were not intended for long-term missions, but the war had changed all of that. Au was proud of the Resilient, and it had performed admirably in several campaigns-but then it got ambushed. The ship had destroyed both of the Jem'Hadar attack ships that had threatened it, but not without a great cost. Six of her fourty-man crew were dead and the warp core had taken such damage that they had no choice but to eject it. Ejecting the core at the right moment had been the trick to destroy the second Jem'Hadar ship and the only reason that the remaining thirty-four were still alive, but it still meant that they were helpless in space, several light years-and hence many years-from the nearest star system. Au had no choice but to transmit a distress call. There were always ships in the area, and she had been sure that rescue would come. Sure enough, their distress call was answered by the Athena. The big Nebula-class ship would be here in about six hours, she had been told, just enough time for her and her battered crew to get some rest.       She tried to rest. Her chief medical officer recommended some rest. She touched again the mostly-repaired plasma burns on her face, sustained when the power conduits on the bridge gave way, but she knew enough not to fuss continuously over her wounds. She would recover. What she found it hard to do was to try to sleep. Lying in the darkness of her cabin, she could not help but to relive those moments on the bridge, and to analyze and think about her every move. Which order had been right? Which order had been wrong? Did the things she say and the actions she took condemned anybody to death? Could she have done it better had she more time to think? Au hated to reflect back on the moment when she was on the bridge and orders and instructions were necessary and she hesitated-at least she thought she hesitated. When she reviewed the bridge logs, she could not detect hesitation, but she was sure in her mind that it was there.       Just when the first hint of sleep was about to overcome her weary body, her commbadge sounded. She tapped it, summoning the strength to say, "Au here."       The duty officer on the bridge reported, "Commander, the sensors are picking up a ship approaching."       "Is it the Athena already?"       "No ma'am," came the prompt reply. "It's not a Federation ship. It's not an allied ship, nor is it a Dominion or Cardassian or Breen ship. It's like nothing in the database."       "Transfer the visual image to my quarters."       "Aye."       The viewscreen above the replicator, which normally showed the status of the replicator and operating controls, or other information that the captain would need, was changed to a visual representation of the sensor data. The image was long-range and so not very clear nor detailed, but Au immediately knew that she had never seen a ship like that. It was surprisingly large, and looked to have been augmented over its travels. The main part of it looked like some kind of hold, a large open area that could hold a starship. All around it, and particularly above, were additional modules and components, clearly not of one consistent design and looking to be heavily modified and altered. There was no symmetry, no balance and certainly

no elegance to the ship. About the only thing that did balance were the main warp engines, as the nacelles looked to have design similarities with the open area underneath. Au had the crazy notion that the strange ship could have been a self-propelled drydock of some type that had been heavily modified by the Borg.       "Have you scanned for lifeforms?" Au asked.       "It's too far away for decent readings."       Other possibilities that came to mind was that it was a pirate vessel of some kind, although it was surprising to her that pirates would operate something so ungainly and so prone to damage. Pirates tended to favour small, fast, manoeuvrable and powerful ships. Another possibility was that the ship was operated by some kind of scavenger race, a race that operated in modified, altered ships like this and were now trolling the battle lines for damaged but salvageable ships. Such races were known to the Federation, and their ships were in the starship recognition database. Unless this was a new race, Au doubted that she was looking at a scavenger ship.       "How long until it arrives?"       "Given its current speed and assuming no changes," replied the crewmember, "about three hours."       "Damn," Au muttered.

THE STARSHIP Athena was at yellow alert, speeding at warp nine point nine nine to the last known location of the starship Resilient, which had tangled with two Jem'Hadar attack ships and won-but at the cost of its warp core. The ship sat helpless in space, with undoubtedly injured crewmembers who had swamped the rather basic medical facilities on the Defiant-class ship. As a result, Doctor Psakolaps had been told to expect injuries when the rendezvous was made, and so to prepare for that, he had to make sure that sickbay was ready.       Psakolaps was going over a checklist of medical equipment on hand while running the diagnostics on the dedicated medical replicators when Ashana Ngyguen, the head nurse and head lab technician, stuck her head through the open doors of the doctor's office, and said, "You've got a guest."       "Let me guess, Lieutenant Wilder burned her arm again working on the transporter system."       "I said a guest, not a patient. Perhaps I should be more clear, a colleague." Psakolaps seemed to have some recognition, so Ngyguen added, "You mean you were not aware that the Styx just returned about ten minutes ago?"       "Oh," sighed Psakolaps, as he stood up. He followed the head nurse back into the sickbay ward, where he saw the new officer standing. She was a tall human woman of about fourty, with slender features, a narrow face with a pointy, narrow nose and close-set eyes. She had light brown hair, slightly wavy and worn in a short style that some might call archaic. She was wearing a Starfleet uniform in the colours of science, and with the rank pins of a full lieutenant. Of course, the chief medical officer knew who this person was. Walking towards her, and shaking her offered right hand, Psakolaps said, "Welcome on board the U.S.S. Athena, Doctor Wildeman. I'm Ger Psakolaps, chief medical officer of this ship."       "Glad to be on board," replied Antonia Wildeman, the new assistant chief medical officer, and replacement for the sadly-missed Ilych Loetens. "Of course, my being here means that you lost somebody in your department. It is sad."       "Of course, and he is missed. I also understand that what we feel with the loss of our colleague cannot really compare to the fact that you lost your entire ship." Wildeman had been serving on the Buenos Aires and was on the surface of a planet assisting in the rescue of the survivors of a shuttlecraft crash when the ship was attacked without warning or provocation. The Buenos Aires had been destroyed quickly, leaving Wildeman and the other

survivors on the planet for four weeks until another ship, looking for the Buenos Aires, stumbled upon them.       "I know. I think about it constantly. I also worry that those memories might hamper me in the future, and could make me think along lines or act in ways that are contrary to what I should be doing. Words for this, doctor, are difficult to come by. For now, I would prefer not to talk about it."       "I understand," Psakolaps replied, keeping his voice soft.       "I asked Starfleet Command for another assignment as soon as possible, just so that I could get back into the feel of things, and not be able to dwell too much on what happened. When this posting became available, I decided to take it. The Athena is a step up from the Norway-class ship I had been on. This sickbay looks pretty sophisticated. Do you have an emergency medical hologram?"       "We do," Psakolaps replied.       "Version one or two?"       "Version one."       "Good, I've heard too many negative comments about version two, as if they programmed too much personality into him and it did not quite take right."       "Anyway," Psakolaps continued, "The Athena is currently en route to a crippled starship near the battle lines. There could be casualties from that ship, so we're getting sickbay prepared. Now, in terms of emergency procedures, we don't differ that far off the Starfleet norm, so I assume you're comfortable with the procedures." Wildeman simply nodded. "In terms of the non-emergency, routine things, I'll be filling you in on how we do things on the Athena, the procedures and processes that are probably unique on this ship, just as they are on the other ships too."       "I understand. On the Buenos Aires, Sotar ran a very rigid, a very tightly controlled and disciplined medical staff."       "It's the Vulcan way."       "And it works with Vulcans, but not necessarily everybody else."       "I do know what you mean. Anyway, we've got work to do, so lets get at it..."

"Captain's log, stardate 52931.4. The Athena continues to close in at top speed on the last known location of the Federation starship U.S.S. Resilient, which was heavily damaged in a Dominion attack and is now stranded without a warp core. As we close to the location, the sensors have detected no ship, but there is a decaying energy signal signifying that a great deal of energy had been released into space-such as in a space battle. Nevertheless, with no sign anymore of a ship that apparently cannot hardly move even at sublight, we have become concerned and have gone to red alert."

"SENSORS ARE SHOWING nothing," Matsubara said as she looked up from her console. In front of her, the viewscreen showed the frantic streaking of the stars as the Athena raced to the last known position of the Resilient.       "Any sign of debris or other ships?" asked the captain.       "No other ships, but we're still too far away to detect small debris." Nevertheless, Matsubara ran the sensor routines again, and noticed something more. "Wait... I'm picking something up now." She focused on one of the sensor readings, and concentrated the instruments on that point. She got a little more data, and had the computer compare the readings with features found on Defiant-class ships. She got a pretty good match. "Sir, I've detected an escape pod."       "They must've abandoned the ship," Rocha suggested.       "But where did the ship go?" Johnson asked. "If it exploded, we would've detected the explosion. Besides, without a warp core, how could the ship explode?"       "Its antimatter," chief engineer Rodall Dewuchun suggested.

      "But they would've dumped that when they dumped the core," the first officer replied.       "We'll know soon enough. As soon as we're within range, start beaming off the survivors from the escape pods that you find."* * *THE SENSORS had picked up five escape pods. The Defiant-class ship had eight of them, and each could hold eight individuals. That they launched five was at least a positive sign. Sensors had indicated thirty-four individuals on those pods. "We're coming up to the first pod now," transporter chief Megan Wilder reported. "I'm reading five on board."       Psakolaps and two of the medical orderlies were waiting in the room, along with a security officer standing by the entrance. Johnson was also in the room, and she was equipped with the special tricorder that could detect a Changeling no matter what shape the being was in. Since the Athena and this rescue was close to the battle lines, the crew could not take any chances.       "Bring them in," Johnson ordered.       "Activating," Wilder remarked, as she quickly worked the controls. She picked out the individuals and since they appeared to be supporting each other and otherwise in contact, she had to go to a more power-consuming zone transport. The five officers appeared on the platform, posed as if they were half-standing and half-sitting. When transport was complete, the five, in awkward positions, almost stumbled and collapsed to the ground. Nevertheless, Psakolaps and the orderlies were quickly onto the platform, tricorders out and assessing injuries. Johnson simply scanned the group with the special tricorder, and found them all to be humans.       In the middle of the crowd, the front of her uniform covered in grime and soot, was a petite Oriental woman, with a rather slender build and short, slightly wavy black hair. She did not at all look like one would imagine a captain of a starship, but the pips on her collar suggested that she was. Johnson had heard of Ida Au in a sense, since her grandmother was well-known for being the captain of the Bonaventure in its short, ill-fated lifetime.       "How are they?" Johnson asked.       Psakolaps provided a quick summary. "They've sustained injuries, partly treated, from the original encounter with the Jem'Hadar, and now they're suffering from oxygen depravation and minor smoke inhalation."       Au explained, "When we launched the escape pod, something went wrong. Life support was damaged. We were trying to fix it, even as the air was running out." She stood there, sucking in lungfuls of fresh air between words.       To the doctor, Johnson asked, "Is she well enough to meet the captain?"       Before Psakolaps could answer, Au jumped in, saying, "I must meet with the captain. We've got to get the ship back!"       "She's well enough," the doctor said.       "Captain, Lieutenant Gorwitz will escort you to the ready room."       "I know the way."       Johnson repeated herself, "Lieutenant Gorwitz will escort you to the ready room." The two women exchanged looks before Au backed down. "We've got to clear the transporter platform for the next group of survivors."       "You're telling me you have only one transporter on this ship?"       "No," Johnson said, "but we have only one Changeling detector. We're taking no chances, you know," the first officer quickly added, to avoid another glaring look from Au.       "Very well..."* * *GORWITZ SAID just one thing as Au followed him to the nearby turbolift, "Bridge." The doors closed, and the lift car made the short trip to the bridge. The doors opened on the

starboard side of the bridge, so Gorwitz escorted the captain of the Resilient to the ready room and tapped on the button that sounded the chime.       "Come," Captain Thorpe's voice could be heard from within.       The security officer simply stood back as Au approached the doors. They opened for her, and she entered. In the ready room, she found the captain of the Athena sitting behind his desk. "Captain Au," the man said, briefly standing up and gesturing for the woman to sit down in one of the two seats in front of the desk.       "Captain," Au remarked, taking the seat she had been offered.       Thorpe had a very simple question, "What happened to your ship? My understanding was that it was damaged but not destroyed."       Au hesitated for a moment, to gather her thoughts and make sure that they came out in some kind of coherent manner. She had this fear that if she let it all pour out, she would come across as some kind of babbling idiot. "Captain, my ship was badly damaged by the Jem'Hadar. I lost my warp core, and hence any mobility in space. While waiting for you to arrive, another ship, an unknown ship, approached. We tried to hail it, but got no response. We scanned it, and found nobody on board."       "An automated ship?"       "Apparently so. However, it was quite a large vessel, about half the size of a Dominion battleship, but seemingly made of hundreds of non-related, non-matching parts. We tried to run, but with only impulse engines and not even sufficient subspace factorization, we couldn't go very fast. That robot ship was on us in no time. It grabbed us with tractor beams and drew the ship into an opening on the underside, and then extended a connective to snare the ship and somehow disrupt the power. At that point, I ordered the ship abandoned, hoping that whatever it was would ignore the escape pods."       "It did?"       "Yes, it did. Once it had the ship and once we were off, it took off at warp."       "Do you know where?"       "I couldn't tell. The escape pod I was in was damaged, a consequence of escaping the robot ship, and we had only limited instruments. I was more concerned in keeping life support running than taking sensor readings. Did the Athena detect anything?"       "No."       Now with a bit more urgency, Au said, "Captain, we've got to get my ship back!"       "I don't believe the Resilient is very operational as it is."       "No, but we can't let some alien ship simply take it. Now it took a ship in deep space without a warp core, but what if that robot ship decides to grab something more functional? It could be a hazard to operations in this section of space. Hell, it could even be Dominion. In addition, if not Dominion, then what happens if the Dominion encounters it? There is advanced technology, even classified technology, on the Resilient. We can't let the Dominion get their hands on it."       "You could have used your self-destruct codes."       "They didn't work," Au replied. "The alien ship had already compromised the computer, and without a warp core or antimatter, self-destruct is not all that efficient."       "I see," Thorpe replied. "What do you want me to do."       "Go after it!"       "That could put my ship at risk."       "Other ships might already be at risk. We've got to learn more about this alien ship, like who built it and why does it go around and steal other ships."       "Maybe it's designed that way."       "What do you mean?" asked Au.       Thorpe replied, "An automated salvage ship of some kind."

      "I've never heard of such a thing."       "Which doesn't make it impossible."       "But we've got to find it!"       "I know."       Au, who looked flustered with her efforts to convince Thorpe of what she wanted to do, leaned on the edge of her seat again. "Captain, I regard this ship as a threat to the Federation. It might not be the only one. Learning more is essential. Getting my ship back is essential! If you are so reluctant to act, then I..."       When Au hesitated, Thorpe quickly said, "You'll do what?"       "Although our ranks are equal, I do have more seniority at this rank than you do. I have the authority to replace you and take command of the Athena."       Thorpe simply smiled, saying, "And my chief medical officer has the authority of relieving the captain of command, which is what he would promptly do should you attempt such a stunt."       "Captain, you're not taking this seriously."       "I am taking this seriously, but I must also balance potential risks to my ship and also my prior mission in this region of space. This is, afterall, a war zone."       "Very well, but I must get my ship back!"       Thorpe held out his hands, palms down, and gestured them downwards. "Calm down, commander." He reached out and tapped at his commbadge, saying, "Thorpe to Johnson."       The reply was prompt, "Johnson here."       "Are all the survivors off of the escape pods?"       "Affirmative."       "Thorpe out." The captain stood up, and without saying anything to Au, walked out onto the bridge. The captain of the Resilient followed. Facing Matsubara and Vorwoorts at the central console, Thorpe said, "Captain Au has informed me that her ship was captured by some kind of automated salvage vessel, of unknown configuration. Are there any signs of where it might have gone, any unexplained warp signatures or the like?"       "That'll take a few minutes, captain," Matsubara remarked. "The battle here and the destruction of the warp core has masked any such signs in the immediate vicinity. I'll have to scan outwards. Assuming it did not travel in the same direction we came from-otherwise we would have scanned it or its signature-I'll start outwards."       "Proceed..."* * *SICKBAY WAS FILLED with wounded. All the biobeds in the wards and in the active treatment areas were filled, and all of the medical staff, all the doctors and nurses and orderlies were on duty. Despite the sheer numbers of individuals, there was not a great deal of urgency in sickbay. The most serious injuries had already been treated on the Resilient, but that small sickbay and its small staff had been swamped, so there were the minor injuries to tend to. Wildeman was working on one patient, who had been brought in unconscious. "What happened?" she asked, to a less seriously injured Resilient crewmember.       "During the attack, he got thrown against a bulkhead and took a plasma discharge in the chest. He hasn't responded since."       Wildeman had the medical tricorder out and was conducting a scan over the body. "Plasma burns largely treated, underlying wounds healing." She moved the scanner upwards, adding, "Detecting some brain damage, concussion, skull fracture, untreated."       "I don't know why."       Concussions were hard to treat, even with twenty-fourth century medicine, since each one was different and the brain had to heal on its own. Wildeman got a bone knitter from the nearby tray. She switched on a graphic of the patient's skull, and had the computer highlight

the damaged area. She made some adjustments to the bone knitter and aimed its beam onto a certain part of the skull, and watched the representation of the location on the monitor. Once she activated the device and moved it over the fracture in the skull, the transporter function in the device beamed in bone-like material to mate with the real bone and form a bond that was as strong as bone. In time, bone would grow into the gap and replace the artificial material, which would be absorbed by the body. It took Wildeman only minutes.       A tone sounded on the diagnostic monitor. She glanced at it, and called up some numbers. "Uh oh," she muttered to herself.       "What?"       "Fluid pressure buildup in the brain, near the affected area." She looked around, "I'll need a microtransporter shunt, to drain off the fluid."       The Resilient crewmember was completely lost on what Wildeman was asking for, so the doctor got it herself. Just as she returned, the man woke up, screaming, and his body was rocked with convulsions. She tried to hold him down, and was joined by the other Resilient crewmember, but it was not enough. Blood pressure was rising, and she was suspecting a hemorrhage in the brain area. However, she could not do this alone. "Doctor!"       Psakolaps, already aware of the commotion, walked briskly over, and quickly realized what was happening. Near the active treatment bed was a medical replicator, so he hit the icon that activated the device, saying, "Fifty of isolopoline." Within two seconds, a vial of the muscular suppressant came out of the replicator, so Psakolaps snapped it into a hypospray and pressed it against the neck of the convulsing patient. Seconds later, the muscles lost the ability to contract and expand wildly, and the patient fell still on the table. Wildeman looked up, saying, "Perhaps more brain damage than we anticipated."       "He's got a fluid buildup near where his skull was fractured."       "Did you repair the fracture?"       "Yes. We'll need to drain it."       "Agreed."       Wildeman placed the shunt on the skull of the injured patient, while Psakolaps put on a neural suppresser unit on his forehead. The device would intercept all nerve signals to the muscles and prevent the brain from controlling the body. While she monitored the vital signs, and how they stabilized now that the excess fluid on the brain was being gradually drawn off, she looked over at the chief medical officer, and asked, "Is it always like this on the Athena? I didn't think I'd be this busy this fast."       "In a war zone, it's like this, only worse. Sometimes, you can't save the patients."       "We saw little action on the Buenos Aires. We were doing rescues mostly, and not getting many patients at once. I guess they thought we couldn't handle combat assignments."       "The Athena is a science ship, not designed for combat. We still get our missions, though." He looked down at the young man from the Resilient. "At least this one should make it."* * *"CAPTAIN," Matsubara finally said, "I've detected something. It looks like a warp signature, but it is clearly not Federation and probably not Dominion either."       "Heading?"       The science officer read off some numbers on her display, "Bearing one fifty four mark minus thirteen." Looking up, she added, "Obliquely into Dominion space."       Glancing at Au, sitting to his left, Thorpe added, "Not exactly where I would want to go."       "All the more reason we should go."       "Vorwoorts, anything on long-range?"       "Negative, captain. All's clear. I've scanned along the indicated course, and nothing. Unless this ship is very fast, we should have detected it by now."

      "Unless it can cloak, or otherwise inhibit sensor beams. On the Resilient, we didn't detect it until it was almost upon us."       "Very well," the captain finally said. "Helm, adjust course to bearing one fifty four mark minus thirteen, and go at warp five."       "Course laid in and executed," Indesakar said. The stars shifted across the screen and a little upwards as the Athena reoriented itself. The impulse engines came on to propel the ship to the speed it would need to make the jump to warp. "Vorwoorts, maintain comprehensive scans. If there are Dominion ships out there, I want to know as soon as possible..."

"CAPTAIN," Vorwoorts said, "I believe I've got a contact."       "Finally," Thorpe remarked, as he again took a look at the chronograph display on the small console beside his chair. The better part of this shift and then some had been spent trying to find this mysterious robot ship that had captured the Resilient. More than once, Thorpe wanted to abandon the search and leave the ship to the Dominion to deal with as it choose, but Au insisted that the search continue. Thorpe had been contemplating a deadline, after which he would not be searching for the Resilient anymore, and he was going to have to endure Au's criticism. He was still worried about her reaction when they found the ship, likely in a state in which it could no longer be recovered. However, he thought as long as they had a warp signature to chase, the Athena could follow this pointless search, even if it did take them into space controlled by the Dominion, at least nominally.       "It's not Dominion, is it?" Thorpe asked.       "I doubt it," the tactical officer replied. "It's almost as if the Dominion had quit this section of space."       "Rumour has gone out about a general Dominion retreat," Rocha admitted.       "I'm aware of that. Vorwoorts, where is our mysterious ship?"       "I've traced the warp signature into this orange dwarf system," replied the tactical officer. "The robot ship made a sudden course change, suggesting that it scanned something interesting in this system."       "Matsubara?"       "Our information is incomplete, but there are indications that some unknown race once had mining operations here. There is the remains of an orbital station around the third planet."

      "Another salvage," suggested Au.       "Helm, take us in. Just so that we don't spook it, Vorwoorts, engage the cloaking device."       The Athena moved into the system controlled by the orange dwarf star. There were a number of planets in the system, with the third planet containing a number of rare earth elements that some other race thought valuable and worthwhile enough to mine. The planet appeared on the viewscreen as a brownish-green world, barely class-M but without a truly extensive biology. The ancient orbital station, long ago stripped of anything worthwhile, consisted of little more than a broad ring connected to a central column by thick spokes. Matsubara was not sure if this station had ever been explored by a Federation ship before, although the design was so simple that it did not identify the race it belonged to. Once she had the station on the screen, she easily detected the ship, and had the image on the viewscreen magnified.       "Interesting," Thorpe remarked.       "That's one ugly ship," Johnson commented.       The vessel was quite large, and clearly the composition of many different ship parts grafted onto the original vessel. The ship looked ungainly and even fragile, with pods and modules connected by rather narrow pipes and conduits and struts, and nothing much matched from side to side beyond the original nacelles and what looked like support craft docked to it.

The dominant feature, however, was the open area underneath, like a partial starship construction frame. The Resilient was clearly visible underneath, although extensions of the robot ship had reached the hull of the Federation warship and perhaps even pushed right through. The sensors also detected a number of small craft moving out along the big, four kilometre wide ring, perhaps to determine if there was anything salvageable in that or if the hull material was salvageable.       "That's my ship in there!" Au remarked, her voice at a higher pitch with her excitement. "We can free it."       "I'm not so sure about that assessment," Thorpe replied, still trying to keep his voice and his emotions calm. "It might be too damaged to free."       "Then we must destroy it. There's no way we can let that ship fall into the hands of the Dominion."       "That too might not be easy to do."       "It's only a robot ship. It's not as if you'd be killing anybody. It's just a machine, probably a long way away from home and acting on the edicts of the controlling computers."       "That's not what I'm thinking about. First of all, that robot ship might be quite capable of defending itself, as it perhaps had considering that it must've come from a distance away. Where it came from is also a question that needs answering too." Thorpe turned back to the central console, and added, "We'll take the risk involved in conducting active scans from behind a cloak. If it is simply a robot salvage ship, it shouldn't respond too strongly to being scanned from a source it cannot see. Matsubara, scan for any lifeforms on board."       Matsubara was also uncomfortable with the order to scan from a cloaked ship, since the sensor beams would give away the ship, which was unprotected while under cloak. Nevertheless, she followed the order, and watched as the information came up on the screen. "Captain, I'm reading no lifesigns on board that ship. In fact, I'm reading very little in the way of organic material. In addition, I'd say that ship has no provision for life support, and no means to support any kind of living, breathing crew on board."       "So we can't board?" asked Johnson.       "Not without environmental suits, and there are simply no spaces within the ship where we could go."       "Not even in the original ship? Although the ship is a robot vessel now, wouldn't there at least be a section where a living crew could board in order to work on the ship?"       "Maybe they're short beings," Matsubara remarked.       "But what about the Resilient?" Au asked.       The science officer conducted another scan, and replied, "I'm reading life support on the top two decks only. It appears that the hull has been pierced in the lower sections, and I'm reading activity on board, as if the alien robots are disassembling the ship from deck five on up. They seemed concentrated on the engines, as if there are materials in the warp engines of use to them."       "We must stop them!" Au implored. "We must somehow either free the ship or destroy it."

      Thorpe ignored Au's suggestion for now, and tried to ignore her presence on the bridge as well. Instead, he said, "Vorwoorts, attempt to hail that ship. Perhaps there is some kind of automated response, and an attempt to communicate with it could help us identify where it came from."       "Opening hailing frequencies now," Vorwoorts remarked. "I'm sending a hail in known widespread languages." After about a minute, the officer replied, "I'm getting no response. I attempted to do a data link as well, thinking that it is a robot ship, but there was no response at all. They're simply ignoring us."       "We must go on board," Au said, bringing up that line of reasoning again.

      "It is too risky."       "Captain, if you don't want to risk your crew, that's fine. I'll go over with some of my crew."       "And what do you plan to do there?"       Au hesitated for a moment, looking in one direction and then the other. What she really wanted to do was to see if she could free her ship. She simply found it difficult to accept that without a warp core and now being dismantled by robots from some unknown robot ship, the Resilient was essentially nothing more than scrap metal. She wanted to hang on to her ship as long as possible and as hard as possible, since there might not be another command in her future. However, with Captain Thorpe sitting beside her, she had to be realistic as well. "I'd like to go on board and do a download of the computer. We've got quite a bit of data in there that we don't think should be lost, even if some of that data is of a more personal nature. Then, we'd have to destroy the ship. We can bring on board a small amount of antimatter, and set it to be released from its containment once we beam back to the ship."       "That could destroy the robot ship," Johnson commented.       "So what? I'm surprised that it lasted this long. I mean, if it operates by stealing ships and breaking them down, then why hasn't some other race, angered at losing a ship to it, already taken it out? Eventually, it will be destroyed."       Thorpe sat in the central chair going over his options in this matter. His main aim was to get this over with as quickly as possible, since there were other needs and other missions out there waiting for him. Au would not be satisfied until she had some kind of closure on her ship. If she was beginning to realize that she could not recover the ship but merely wanted some of the data left behind in the computer core, than he could live with that. He was not completely sure on destroying the robot ship, but there were ways around that.       "Very well, captain. You'll be able to go on board, however, subject to several conditions."       "Yes?"       "Lieutenant Commander Rocha will accompany you, to make sure that you do not do anything beyond the parameters of the mission you're telling me about. I'll also assign an engineer from my staff to go over and monitor the antimatter vassal. The fourth member of the away team will be an officer from your ship. I'll set the computers on the Athena to receive and archive your data."       "I understand."       "And in addition, Commander Rocha will take charge of the away team if you're going to attempt to do something you're not qualified or equipped to handle. He'll inform me, and I'll have you beamed out without a moment's hesitation. Do you understand?"       "I do, captain," Au replied, but she did feel a little uncomfortable at being talked to as if she was some kind of underling. She was simply used to giving the orders and having them obeyed, and not having to obey orders from others. She just put it down to the custom that the captain of a ship was the master of that ship even if other officers had seniority and even rank over him.       "Very well, then get ready," Thorpe said. He watched Au virtually run for the nearest turbolift exit. "Helm," he continued, "take us within transporter range, but maintain the cloak. Any indications that we've been scanned?"       "Negative, captain. Our scans of the alien ship and the station have not met with any kind of response."       While the others on the bridge went about their work, Johnson turned to Thorpe, and asked, "Captain, is letting them go on board the Resilient a wise move?"       "It's not something I would do if I was in that position," Thorpe replied. "However, as a captain, I do have an appreciation for the ship. It becomes a part of you, an extension of

yourself. You begin to feel for it, sympathize for it and you yearn for it when you're apart. It's why some captains end up commanding the same ship for extended periods of time, even as newer, better ships become available. To such individuals, the ship just becomes comfortable and being elsewhere would provoke a powerful feeling that the person was not where he belonged or thought he would be."       "I guess I'd have to become a captain to understand that."       "Someday, you will, commander."       "But in terms of the danger from the ship itself."       "There is always risks, I knew, but Captain Au wants to finish this off her way." Leaning a bit closer to the first officer, he added, "I'll make sure that the antimatter never gets used. I'll let her get her data, but I won't let her destroy the robot ship."* * *CAPTAIN AU entered the sickbay ward. Psakolaps had worked a long shift, so Doctor Wildeman was on duty. Au walked straight for her, and said, "I'd like to see Lieutenant Pichesque. How is he?"       "He took a plasma blast to the chest," Wildeman replied. "He does need some time to recover from that."       "I'd like to see him."       "Very well," Wildeman got up. She led the excitable captain into the recovery ward, where the most seriously injured of the Resilient crew were recovering, usually with the screens around their beds extended for a little privacy. The less seriously injured crewmembers were assigned unused quarters on one of the lower decks for their recovery, while those whose injuries had been fully repaired had been given assignments on the Athena, until the ship would arrive at Starbase 158 and offload the survivors. Wildeman led Au to the bed where Pichesque was sleeping. The man was tall, with dark features and short, slightly curly black hair. He had a stocky, almost muscular build, but now did look a little famished and weakened. Au looked at the diagnostic monitor, and found all of the man's vital signs strong.       Wildeman stood back and simply watched, as Au stood near the head of the bed, and looked at the man in the eyes. "Lieutenant," she said, getting his attention. He seemed alert. "How do you feel?"       "Pretty good. I've been up and around. There's still a little shortness of breath."       "Your lungs will completely heal," the captain said reassuringly. She had one of her hands on his, to comfort him, but Wildeman could not help but notice how small Au's hand was compared to Pichesque. He would likely tower over the diminutive captain, and yet that diminutive woman had the man's complete and total respect and loyalty.       "I'd like to get back on some kind of duty, captain."       "As long as we're on the Athena, there will probably be no duty for you. Captain Thorpe's that kind of captain. He'd rather be safe than sorry-or rather safe than successful. Anyway, I do have a mission for you."       "What?"       "We're going to get our ship back. There's no way we're going to let some ship of robots have our ship. Are you with me on this?"       Now Wildeman stepped in, saying, "Lieutenant Pichesque has not been released from sickbay and not cleared for any kind of duty."       "I'll decide when members of my crew are ready for a return to duty, doctor," Au said, her voice firm and surprisingly loud. "I know when they're ready to go, based on my own impressions and how they feel. Doctor, I know that the Athena is a science ship, and so the life of its crew is soft. You can relax in sickbay and take all the time you want to recover, but on a Defiant-class ship in the middle of the war, it's not like that at all. You're needed back on

duty as soon as possible, sooner even. That's the way I run my ship. That's what the crew is used to. Lieutenant Pichesque is my security officer. He has the access codes that I need to release the computer and the information within."       "And you don't have the codes?"       "As a security precaution, I only have some. He has the rest."       Wildeman stepped aside. She had not been on the Athena long enough to know how Psakolaps would deal with situations such as this, but she had been here long enough to realize that the phrase "just a science ship" had a certain amount of sting to it. It was as if Au did not know what the Athena had done, the battle at Pusedchou and the invasion of Torkor and enough Jem'Hadar ships to last a career. In fact, Wildeman was pretty sure that the Athena had seen more action than the Resilient.       Lieutenant Pichesque stood up, and again Au asked him the question, "How do you feel?"       "I feel okay," he replied. Standing up, Wildeman could see the size difference between the captain and her chief of security. He would make a very convincing bodyguard. "I'd imagine that I can't do anything physical and could still tire easily."       "All I need form you is to sit down behind the computer console and type in some numbers. Come on, lets go." Au seemed almost eager to get back onto her ship, Wildeman noticed. Reactions by the captain towards his ship such as what Au was showing were regarded as danger signals, the assistant chief medical officer knew.* * *"CAREFUL, CAREFUL," DeWillis said, as he escorted the two engineers manoeuvring the antimatter containment unit into the transporter room. "One bump and..."       One of the engineers, Lieutenant Don Pak, replied, "Sir, really? We can drop this thing and the antimatter will stay contained."       "But do you really want to try such an experiment?"       "Well, no."       The antimatter containment unit was a large device, roughly cylindrical but with a cone-like column between the twin magnetic field generators. About half of a kilogram of antimatter was inside the unit, chilled to a low temperature and held at a high pressure within a magnetic confinement field that had quintuple backup systems. The engineers manoeuvred the device using components for a portable antigravity lift and propulsion frame. They stopped somewhat short of the platform, since a similar device was already sitting on the platform. However, that device was empty. DeWillis stepped onto the transporter platform, and at the containment unit, he snapped out a box of circuitry and processor chips, and slipped in another identical-looking set. Nobody questioned what the assistant chief engineer had just done.       "Ready?" DeWillis asked, looking at Wilder behind the controls of the transporter.       "Ready," replied the woman. "I've got a clear lock on the bridge."       "Beam over the cylinder." DeWillis watched as the empty containment unit disappeared into the transporter beam.       "Transport confirmed," Wilder replied. DeWillis simply gestured for Pak and the other engineer to bring the second, full unit onto the transporter platform, where they positioned it over one of the plates. At the same time, Wilder was using the controls to activate the containment system on the other antimatter storage unit. With the full unit on the platform, Wilder scanned in accurately the co-ordinates of the antimatter itself and linked those co-ordinates with the exact co-ordinates of the unit already transported. Wilder and DeWillis, and the others in the room, knew that transporting antimatter was tricky. The usual procedure in beaming out was to transport the antimatter first, and then the containment unit. while at the other side, the process was reversed, with the containment device rematerialized first and then the antimatter within. Doing that required two transporters linked together, but DeWillis

thought that beaming over an empty container and then beaming over just the antimatter into it was more effective.       "Are you ready?" DeWillis said, as he walked over to stand beside Wilder at the console, and looked over her work.       "This is always a tricky procedure."       "I know."       Wilder had the assistant chief engineer check over her numbers while she did likewise. When they determined that they were as ready as they ever were going to be, Wilder hit the icons that activated the transporter sequencer. She watched on her display as the computer actually conducted each transport step and verified each result. DeWillis, on the other hand, simply watched the viewscreen, which was sowing a live view of the robot ship and the barely-visible Resilient. Several seconds later, after which no change was apparent to the containment unit on the platform, Wilder said, "Transport confirmed and successful."       "Yes indeed. Nothing blew up."       Just as the two engineers were getting the antimatter containment unit off the transporter, the away team showed up, with Au and Pichesque arriving first, and Rocha close behind. Au noticed the antimatter vassal being removed, and asked, "I thought you were transporting antimatter onto the Resilient?"       "We have," DeWillis explained, "and the safest way to do it is to beam the other vassal over first and beam the antimatter from one to the other."       "Then we're ready to go?"       "We are," Rocha remarked. He did his best to assert himself as the leader of the away team, although he was pretty sure that Au was going to, at some point, pull rank on him. "DeWillis, you'll be with me." He walked over to the engineer, and in a hushed voice, asked, "Did you make the adjustment?"       "Yes," he answered simply.       The four officers got onto the transporter platform and turned to face Wilder behind the transporter controls. Rocha spoke up, saying, "Lieutenant, energize when ready." As he spoke, he got this look from Au, as if she was expecting to be giving orders.       Seconds later, the four rematerialized on the bridge of the Resilient. The bridge was in shambles, with some of the controls shattered, and others apparently taken apart. Pieces of equipment and what looked like alien tools were scattered about, along with what looked like robots or parts of robots, machines with probes and tools mounted on articulated arms and other assorted, almost unidentifiable equipment. Everybody on board noticed that the air was somewhat thin, and gravity was out even on certain parts of the bridge.       "Oh my god," Au remarked, "they're taking my ship apart."       Rocha had out his tricorder, and was scanning around the bridge and beyond. "Internal power has been disrupted totally. The power we're getting is being supplied by the robot ship."       "Well," remarked the Resilient captain. "Lets get this over with." She sat down on the captain's chair, and began to access the computer controls. At the same time, Pichesque sat down at a computer control station at the rear. Both immediately realized that the computer was not responding as it normally would.

THE TWO ATHENA officers could only stand around and wait as the other two accessed the computer and began to download the information to the Athena. DeWillis stood near the antimatter containment unit while Rocha paced around the room, peering out into the corridors beyond the bridge as the doors had been somehow removed. The doors were not retracted into the walls; they were removed. In the corridor, he could see that the robots had been working on disassembling the ship, exposing sections of circuitry and other wiring. The

duroplast wall coverings had been cut into neat rectangles and were sitting stacked on some kind of cart. Not even a Federation decommissioning team would take a ship apart with that much care, Rocha noticed.       Out of the cornor of his eye, he noticed something. He turned the other way, and saw one of the robots coming down the corridor. It was a simple robot, floating on an antigravity platform that also propelled it. There were tools attached to the front, and something that looked suspiciously like a weapon. At the very top, Rocha saw something different, a metal disk about a metre in diameter and about ten centimetres thick. Lights were located along the rim, and they flashed in bizarre sequence, as did some diodes on the top side. Rocha assumed that the disk on top was the control unit for the robot. Stepping back into the bridge, he said, "We've got possible trouble. How are you making out?"       Au sounded frustrated as she said, "I can't access communications functions. The computer is unable to link, but I'm not sure the problem is with the computer."       "Maybe communications has already been taken apart," DeWillis said.       "Perhaps then we'll have to physically remove the core."       "That could be quite the undertaking."       Through both open entrances to the bridge, the robots moved in, floating on antigravity. Pichesque yelled, "Get down!" Au took his advice, just as a powerful bolt of energy streamed through the captain's chair. The robot immediately turned on the other Resilient officer and fired at him, with Pichesque having no chance to avoid the beam. The impact threw what was left of his body against the rear bridge monitors. Rocha was the only member of the away team with a phaser, so he had it out and thumbed up the power setting to the highest level. He fired at the first robot, and the beam caused it to explode, hurling the control disk into a monitor with a resultant shower of sparks.       The second robot went after DeWillis. The bolt fired by it just missed the containment unit and sent the engineer sprawling to the floor. "That's antimatter you're firing at, you stupid machine!" he yelled out. Au scrambled to her feet, and was pondering what she could do. Helping Pichesque was her first thought, but she quickly surmised that he could not be helped in any way. Just then, she heard one of the robots fire again, a crackling white beam that struck her right in the rear end. She was thrown across the deck, screaming and crying out in pain as her body from her knees up to her midsection was seemingly on fire.       Rocha dispatched the second attack robot, but before he could do anything else, he felt another shot hit him from behind. It was not a strong sensation, more like a shock than what had happened to the Resilient security officer, but the numbing pain caused him to stumble and collapse to the floor, dropping his phaser in the process. DeWillis saw that, and saw how the back of Rocha's uniform was burned. He had no idea how badly hurt the security chief was, nor did he have any idea how the robot even got into the bridge. All he thought about was getting that phaser and somehow getting out of here. But when he reached for it, he too was shot in the back and felt the same, searing heat that rendered him unconscious.* * *ON THE ATHENA, the robot salvage ship was monitored visually and through scans. Within a couple of minutes of the away team getting on board the Resilient, Vorwoorts reported, "Sir, there still has been no attempt by the officers on board the Resilient to begin to download their data."       "Can you track the away team?"       "So far," replied the tactical officer. "Wait, something's happening on board."       "Get them out of there!" Thorpe said sharply.       Vorwoorts accessed remote transporter operations on her console and activated the necessary routines. However, strange information started to come up on her screen. "Sir, I can't get a lock onto them."

      Thorpe was quickly on the communications line, saying, "Lieutenant Wilder, can you get the away team off that ship?"       "I'm working on it, sir, but I can't get a transporter lock on any of them. The amount of interference is increasing dramatically. There are energy discharges within the bridge of the Resilient."       "Damn," muttered Thorpe. He never really expected robots to fire on the away team on the Resilient, although he knew that he should not have dismissed it out of hand.       "Sir," Matsubara remarked, "I've confirmed the energy discharges. I don't know what to make of them, though. The energy levels are not sufficient to cause serious injury, at least at the levels they are at right now." On the viewscreen, the alien amalgamation of ships began to move and accelerate. "The ship is also moving away."       "Wilder?" Thorpe said over the communications link.       "Sorry sir, but I've lost all contact with the away team."       "I see," the captain said, numbly, as he sat down in his chair again. "Helm, follow that ship, but maintain cloak. What is its heading?"       "Right now," Indesakar said, as he worked the helm controls. "It's heading on a course mark fourteen point six bearing minus four point two."       "Deeper into Dominion-controlled space," Thorpe commented.       The pilot added, "Unfortunately."       "Vorwoorts, attempt to contact that ship again. There must be some way to communicate with it, or its controlling computer."       "I'd say that we attempt to disable it before it makes the jump to warp. We can locate its drive components and a couple of quantum torpedoes in the right area ought to achieve the desired results."       "As of yet, we don't know its capabilities," Thorpe replied. "We don't know what weapons it has or its shield or tactical abilities."       "It's just an automated salvage ship."       "Perhaps, but first we must know more..."* * *ALEKSANDR ROCHA became aware of consciousness. He was aware that he was thinking, that he was somewhere and that information was being sent to him by some means. He had his memories, of being on the Athena and talking with Lieutenant Connie Lee and working out in the gym and leading his security officers on anti-boarding procedures practice. He recalled being beamed onto the bridge of the Resilient and seeing its state of partial deconstruction. The last thing he remembered was being shot in the back by some robot, complete with the burning, hot sensation and the feeling of electricity that rendered his body immobile. He could clearly recall falling into unconsciousness. Now he was struggling to awake.       He half-expected to wake up in the sickbay ward on the Athena, but that was not what happened. When he became aware that he was conscious, he tried to open his eyes. When that failed, Rocha felt a brief moment of panic. It was as if his nervous system no longer worked. However, he did become aware of something else. He was not really sure how it was happening, but the closest thing he could compare this to was lying on his back, his eyes closed, and imagining something that he could see with his mind's eye. This was just like that childhood activity, except that the images were detailed and he could see nothing but. What was curious was that Rocha could not comprehend what he was seeing. It looked something like a circuit board, with lots of connections and lines and loops and devices he could not understand. He realized that the images were three-dimensional, and that he could focus on any part of the image in front of him. The shapes, the curves, the geometry here was beyond what he could comprehend. He could never see such things in a normal existence, and so the

part of his mind controlling the input could not make the thinking part of his mind comprehend the images. He simply had to accept on faith what he was seeing.       Rocha could not shake this image. He could not wake up, and could not restore the normal image that he should be seeing. He started to panic, to become scared. He was expecting his pulse to race-but there was no pulse, and no breathing and no heartbeat either. Rocha gave the mental commands to move his arms and legs, but there was no feedback, no way of knowing whether or not his instructions were carried out. The burning in the back, he wondered, did it take out the spinal cord as well?       "Where am I?" Rocha said-or more accurately thought, since he could not speak either. Yet the words were booming, coming at him from all directions. The thought was enough. "Why can't I feel my body, move my arms and legs, open my eyes. My whole body is missing."       Something dawned on Rocha. He focused on the thought, "my whole body is missing."       From somewhere else, another voice came. It sounded a lot like his, but there were differences-which he could not easily explain-that distinguished one voice from another. "He is beginning to understand." What was more, Rocha could somehow sense-again he was not sure how-where that voice was coming from. It was coming from a spot on the complex circuit-board grid that filled his mind's eye. Rocha found that he could focus on that particular spot, and learn more. Something, or someone, was there.       "Who are you?"       "I am unit fourty-six four fourty-four." To Rocha, that sounded like a designation for one of the robots. "I've been assigned to instruct you."       "Instruct me in what?" Rocha thought.       The reply came back load, "In the ways of this world."       "The others?"       "Are here with you."       Rocha looked around, wondering why he was doing it with this image still floating in his mind's eye. However, as he shifted his apparent point of view, the image shifted too. Rocha found that he could turn around, look up and down, and see that he was fully immersed within the circuitry and the pathways and the branches and conduits of the peculiar geometry. He was not sure where the realization had come from, but Rocha realized he was able to sense the entire ship, every part of it, and every function on board. He could also detect the location of... something, some kind of entity. There was a lifeform on board, he was sure.       But he also thought about the others. "Captain Au." He was greeted with silence. "Lieutenant DeWillis." He heard something, but could not tell exactly what. He could also sense where in this confusing graphical representation of the ship DeWillis was speaking from. He focused on that spot, and it seemed like he became aware of the presence of the assistant chief engineer.       "Commander?" came the voice. Rocha could tell that it belonged to DeWillis, although his memory of what the engineer sounded like was vivid and sharp and this voice did not match the memories. "Where am I? I can't feel anything. I'm like in the middle of some kind of engineering diagram. I don't understand."       "The diagram is a representation of the salvage ship and all of its functions, components and..."       Rocha hesitated, so DeWillis added, "some kind of life form."       "You sense them too?"       "I'm not sure how... but I can."       Another thought came to his mind-he was amazed at how fast he could think and how perfect his memory suddenly had become-and this one was scary. "Mark, I believe that we have been absorbed into some kind of communal mind. One is with me, fourty-four of four or

something like that. Can you hear me?"       "Fourty-six four fourty-four actually," came the reply. According to the grid, this individual was very close. "You are quite perceptive, Aleksandr Rocha."       "I've had experiences of being absorbed into some kind of virtual world."       "We know that."       "How do you know that?"       "All of your memories, all of your knowledge, is common information now." Upon hearing that, Rocha felt very embarrassed and even a little bit alone.       "Why did you do that?"       "You were attempting to interfere in our attempt to salvage the vessel and convert it into useful parts, into things to create new units and expand the living space and the technological abilities of our minds. We could not accept that. Bringing on board antimatter was considered a hostile act, although now that we have the antimatter, we can put it to good use."       "You realize that there are controls, security features and the like to prevent tampering with the vassal."       "All procedures and access codes are known to us," the alien mind said, although it was a more telepathic communication, thoughts entering Rocha's mind, than any kind of spoken conversation.       "Of course you do," Rocha mumbled. "You have all my memories, all my knowledge, all my security access codes." Shifting back to the original line of discussion, Rocha added, "But getting back to what we were talking about, you said that we were threatening your existence, your survival. What did you do to get us into this current state?"       The alien said, "A number of our units were damaged during a faulty mission. Their memories, their personalities and the very essence of what they were had been erased." Rocha could almost imagine what that must have been like. There had been a few instances of alien probes scanning a person and removing every memory and bit of knowledge in that mind. The person was left behind with the intellectual development of a newborn, and had to relearn everything and experience everything again as if for the first time. Unfortunately, the brain is more susceptible to learning when young and growing, so such re-education attempts were doomed to failure. The person was left with the mental state of a five year old at best.       Fourty-six four fourty-four said, "So you can understand why there was no attempt to re-educate those lost units. They were put into a stand-by mode, a kind of stasis or suspended animation, until we could learn to deal with it." Rocha was momentarily concerned that this alien had somehow read his thoughts. He had absolutely no privacy in this environment. "However, one of the alien ships that we salvaged contained a device that allowed for the copying and transfer of the essence of life, the knowledge and memories of a person, from one vassal to another. We believe that our experiences can be enriched by having among us individuals who come from a quite different background."       "Wait," DeWillis interrupted. Again, Rocha knew it was him, but the "voice" was not his. "You're saying that this information was copied? Our bodies are still alive, everything in the brain intact?"       "I believe so."       "So there's two of me now? There's my original self, on the bridge of the Resilient and this copied self, inside some kind of artificial life form?"       "That is one way to look at it," fourty-six four fourty-four replied.       A new voice came into the scene. "What happened to me! Where am I!" Rocha recognized the voice instantly as being that of Au, although his mind, still thinking in terms of being a person, registered the tone and quality of the voice to be the same as that from DeWillis and the alien.       "Captain Au?" Rocha asked.

      "Yes," she replied. Her tone was controlled but not calm.       "We have been absorbed into some kind of artificial intelligence. This robot ship is not really just robots, but apparently it contains some kind of machine intelligence."       "I don't want this! I can't feel my arms! I can't feel my legs! I can't see. This is not right. Return me to my body!"       Fourty-six four fourty-four stepped into the conversation and said, "That is not possible in your case, Captain Au. Our sensory equipment indicates that the organic version of your body is no longer capable of supporting life."       "You mean I'm dead?"       "That is one interpretation."       "Does that mean I am confined to this existence? What kind of existence is this?"       "What kind of existence did you have before?"       "I was a person, a starship captain. I had friends. I had lovers. I felt love! I could eat and sleep and enjoy a simple run or a swim. I could feel the sunlight on my skin, the grass under my feet. I could see stars and planets and the people I am talking to. Now, all I can see is this grid, this confusing array of symbols and circuitry. I have no arms. I have no mobility. I am trapped here."       "That is untrue," fourty-six four fourty-four remarked. "Our life is different than yours. Our experiences are different but no less emotionally satisfying for us."       "But that's not me! I'd have to learn all over again! I don't think I want to. I can't even see! I don't even know what I look like."       Rocha listened to this conversation, and as he did, he got a greater sense of understanding. Just as his organic brain could operate parts of his body without conscious effort in handling the mechanical details, Rocha found that he could do the same thing here. He did not have to get into the specifics of what he wanted to do, he just had to want it done. In the process, just as a person could learn about how the body works and how the brain controlled the body, he was learning about how his new, artificial "body" worked too. In fact, he found the way to activate the visual sensors-and give himself eyesight as he understood the term.       Suddenly, Rocha could see. The grid was gone-but there again at an instant when he needed it-and instead, he could see where he was. Rocha found himself in a room equipped with a number of pedestals, columns embedded with wiring and circuitry and connected to machinery beyond. All around were rings that glowed blue and gave the room the ambient glow in a faint blue. Light was dim here, but unlike in a real body, Rocha could adjust the sensitivity of the sensors to get a clearer view. He could see that some of the columns were occupied, as docked to the top of many of them were disks like he had seen controlling the robots. The disks were about a metre in diameter, and about ten centimetres thick. Sensors and lights played along the circumference and on top, and he could see docking brackets and assorted jacks and openings for power and data leads. The disks sitting on the columns appeared to be quite content, with "relaxing" coming to his mind. This was where they were charged up, and perhaps where they could link into the communal mind, or just the community of minds, that made up this ship.       A shocking thought came to Rocha's mind right now. He was one of those disks. His mind, his intelligence, his very essence of being was trapped inside this metal disk. Likely inside were sophisticated memory units and a processor to act as his brain. Storage batteries held the power that kept him going, and docking to these columns would restore that power, like food would restore the power to a living being. Communications with others was through a computer link, so it could be possible to shut off those links and simply be alone, to rest, and to think.       "Captain Au?" Rocha said-or did he simply think it?       "I... am... a... metal... disk," came the response. It was her, even if the voice was not.

      "Captain," the security chief continued. "Please relax."       "My life is over. Is this what it is like to be assimilated?"       "Assimilated?" asked fourty-six four fourty-four. "What does that mean?"       "To have your personality removed and your body turned into a piece of machinery, a Borg drone."       "We are not familiar with that," replied the alien.       "Maybe because the Borg have no interest in assimilating metal disks. They don't need to assimilate robots."       "We are not robots."       "Then what are you?"       "We... never really thought about that before. We simply are."       Now Rocha spoke up again, and he asked, "Who built you? Although you might consider yourself a lifeform, and perhaps the Federation would classify you as one, but still, someone else had to build you. This vessel looks like it was designed to be a salvage vessel of some kind."       The voice that replied was identical in its details to the other voices Rocha had heard while in this state, but he just knew that it was a different individual speaking. "This vessel was an automated salvage ship developed by the Zantree Alliance." Rocha had never heard of such a thing, which was not surprising. This ship might have been moving away from such a political organization for a long time now. "The control units-we are the control units-were designed to interface with machinery that would allow us to carry out our tasks under the direction of the central computer. An incident happened. We are not sure what it was, but the central computer was damaged, and our purposes became corrupted. We were left to operate by ourselves, and since that time, we have attempted to understand who we are and why we are here."       "Then you don't know where the Zantree Alliance is?"       "No. That is no longer within our sphere of knowledge."       Rocha was getting a feel for what happened here. The "units" as the alien lifeforms called themselves were originally control units, likely operating under the direction of a central computer with enough internal processing to operate somewhat autonomously. Something happened to the computer, and that left the units by themselves. Somehow, in surviving, the units developed a kind of artificial sentience, and in the process, created an entire existence for themselves, even if their knowledge had extensive holes in it.       "You are very perceptive," came the response from the newest alien to talk to him.       "Is there no way to be alone with my thoughts? Must everything I merely think become common knowledge?"       "You must learn to separate private thoughts from public ones." Of course, it was all the same. His "thoughts" were computer codes coursing through his artificial components, and his words spoken out loud were likewise. This was going to take some getting used to. Right now, it still all seemed like a dream to him. Maybe it was.       But Captain Au did not think it was a dream.

CAPTAIN THORPE sat in the centre seat, watching the viewscreen, and seeing the alien amalgamation of starship parts moving at a surprisingly high speed. A quick check on the tactical display indicated that they were going deeper and deeper into Dominion space. Fortunately, the transgression of the robot ship had not yet been noticed by the Dominion, as long range sensors had detected no other ships in the area. Thorpe could have asked Vorwoorts if she was having any luck with her attempts to hail the vessel, and failing that, to hack into its communications routines, but he remained silent. If she had made any progress, she would not hesitate to inform him.

      The bridge doors opened, and as he quickly turned in that direction, Thorpe noticed that Psakolaps had entered. "Captain," the doctor started. "Any developments?"       "None."       "I am concerned, though."       "What do you mean?"       "After the away team beamed on board the Resilient, there were energy discharges recorded. Now, when we are able to conduct a scan, we notice that three of them are in the same position they were in when the energy discharges ended, and one has disappeared."       "So if they are not dead, then they could be injured?"       "That is possible. The longer we delay treatment for any injuries, the worse they might become. Their chances for survival drop with each hour we cannot reach them."       Vorwoorts now spoke up, saying, "Captain, perhaps there is a way that we can learn more. I've had no luck breaking into the alien systems, but they're making no efforts to block the attempts. I simply can't decipher technology I don't know. However, it might be able to hack into the Resilient's systems, in particular the automated bridge visual recorder."       "Do it."       Vorwoorts activated access codes that when transmitted would compel the ship being hailed to transmit assorted computer files, covering log entries, automated log data and the like. This was usually done in cases where the crew of the ship was lost for some unknown reason and the captain of the rescuing vessel did not want to blindly beam an away team on board. The data would give him some information on how to proceed. Unfortunately, when Vorwoorts attempted to access the files, she found that they did not exist anymore. Nevertheless, that was not her intention. Just getting in was enough to allow her to access the recording system. After searching through some arcane code numbers, she finally got the access she wanted. It only took her about fifteen minutes, during which time she had to listen to a dialogue between the doctor and the captain on possible injuries sustained by the away team, as if the gruesome details would hurry her more quickly to success. "I've got it," she reported.       "On screen."       As seen from the ceiling about two thirds of the way back, the bridge of the Resilient looked to be a mess, with some of the consoles damaged, and others apparently disassembled. Pieces of equipment, alien and otherwise, littered the floor, and parts of one of the robots lay scattered about the remains of the captain's chair. The video pickup also showed three of the away teams. Even by the relatively low resolution that they were looking at, Psakolaps could tell that there was no hope for Captain Au. A substantial part of her body had been blown away. However, Rocha looked to be in a different state. "Commander," the doctor ordered. "Focus on Rocha."       Vorwoorts called up a grid that overlaid the image, entered the code number for the grid and then had that grid expand to fill the whole screen. The computer cleaned up and enhanced the image, which showed Rocha rather clearly. "I do not believe such wounds would be life-threatening," Psakolaps remarked, "unless the simple energy discharge was accompanied by something else. Enhance and focus on the face." Vorwoorts repeated the procedure with the grid, and though the resulting enlarged image was not as clear as the first enlargement, Psakolaps studied it, looking for any tell-tale sign that the security chief was still alive. He believed-he wanted to strongly believe-that he could detect Rocha taking breaths. "I believe that he his still alive."       "Somehow, we have to find a way to stop the robot ship," Matsubara remarked, "bring it out of warp."       "Stopping a ship at warp is almost impossible," Thorpe admitted. Usually travelling at warp made the ship safe from attack, especially at high warp. What few options were

available were risky since they could just as likely destroy the target ship as force it out of warp.       Indesakar had been working on an idea, and now he spoke up. "There is one possibility."       "Yes?"       "That ship likely responds to only one thing, derelict ships. We simply move ahead, drop our cloak and make ourselves look like a derelict."* * *ROCHA WAS LEARNING, although he was not sure that was a good thing. He was learning that he was now an intelligence inside a metal disk with limited capabilities, but he also had to realize that he was not really dead. The "real" Rocha was still on the bridge of the Resilient, and now the version of Rocha inside the metal disk was increasingly curious on how the real person was doing. He was concerned... for himself. With the grid display turned off and visual sensors turned on, Rocha moved out of the location he could only term the "recharge room." He realized that this ship had no life support as he would understand it. Instead, the ship was a vacuum, and there was no gravity either. Instead, the corridors were circular and barely wider than the disks. Rocha found that magnetic coils in the corridors reacted with something within his structure to propel him down the length of the corridor. To turn, he simply had to stop and point himself in another direction, to head down that corridor. Unfortunately, Rocha realized, this kind of easy travel was only possible in the corridors. Much of the rest of the ship was taken up with cargo holds and processing and manufacturing equipment. He could see other disks-and he could access the grid display to identify them-and noticed how they docked with all manner of devices and operated them as extensions of themselves. Rocha felt he could do something like that.       "Sir," DeWillis spoke up.       "Yes."       Tentatively, the assistant chief engineer spoke up, saying, "What do we do?"       "What do you mean?"       "Our minds have been transferred into these metal disks."       "Copied," Rocha corrected.       "That means... there are two of us. That would imply that we're trapped here. Even if our real selves get returned to the Athena, we'd be trapped here."       "Yes, unfortunately."       DeWillis hesitated for a moment, and said, "You almost sound as if that is a good thing."       "I am... unsure."       Again, Au spoke up. "It is a bad thing! This existence is so limited. I can hardly move."       "It takes a little practice to move in the corridors," Rocha explained.       "But I don't want to be a metal disk! I'm a person!"       "If the choice is between being a metal disk and nothing at all, what would you choose?"       Au did not answer that immediately, perhaps because she was thinking about it, thoughts that Rocha could tap into if he wanted to. However, he did not. He continued to focus on the task at hand. His mission was to get onto the Resilient and determine the condition of the away team. He thought only for a second-subjective time-on whether he had authorization to do that, or even if there was any kind of command authority here. He also had to figure out the physical problem of going where the magnetic coils were not located.       Finally, the captain of the Resilient spoke up. "I'm not so sure I can be this. As I said, this existence is so limiting. We're trapped on this ship."       "Without the proper equipment, we can't leave our own ships either."       "But these corridors. We can move in these corridors, but when we're not in them, what then?"       "You use a device that travels on its own." Rocha found one even as he spoke. He could

tell that it was unused at this time, since it was one of several docked to power slots outside of one of the cargo holds, the hold that had the main connection to the Federation starship. It was a simple device, basically little more than a small gravitonic induction drive, a power source and a control interface. Rocha, maintaining simple visual sensors since that was most natural for him, noticed that the docking mechanism was perfectly adapted to him. He was able to settle down in the socket and link, and suddenly new abilities came to him. He explained, "Captain, this is nothing more than getting into a vehicle in our own existence, when the distances are too large or the terrain too difficult. It's all a matter of scale."       "Even so," Au remarked. She realized something else too, and asked, "Where are you going?"       "Onto the Resilient. I have to know if... I am dead." So far, nobody was opposing him, although he did get the feeling he was being given a little leeway by whatever ran this ship, perhaps because the other units wanted him to get familiar with his new form.       "Are you sure... you want to know?"       "I have to know."       Rocha began to operate the travelling device, moving through the cargo hold, with the other units docked to their various robot components going about their assigned tasks, although Rocha was not exactly sure what they were. He found his way through the various connectives that were used to reach ships docked in the salvage hold. As Rocha moved through it, he found that the Resilient had been punctured at one of its airlocks. Inside, he found other units slowly and carefully disassembling the ship from the hull inward, leaving just the spaceframe. Debris which could not be used, such as the carpeting and the other vinyl and cloth fabrics, were being stacked up, perhaps for some kind of disposal or perhaps deconstruction. All the other units simply ignored him, and let him pass as he headed to parts of the ship that were more intact, including the bridge. He moved through the open doorway slowly, carefully manoeuvring the travel device and hovering about one and a half metres off of the floor. To his "eyes," the bridge looked like it would had he been standing here for real, and for the first time, Rocha was getting an appreciation for what had happened to him. He was in moderately familiar surroundings, but he had the powerful sense that he did not belong here. It was a haunting, disturbing thought and one that did not easily go away, especially when he saw his counterpart lying on the floor.       One lifeform had become two. Rocha could help his living self return to the Athena and that individual could go on living the life he knew, but the metal-disk version of the ship's security chief could exist nowhere but here. Suddenly, the dream did not seem so vivid anymore.* * *THE IMAGE from the log recorder on the Resilient was transferred to a secondary screen on the bridge of the Athena, and left running while the ship continued its business of attempting to recover the away team. Now the main screen showed a rear view, with the front end of the robot ship centered on the screen and slowly receding as the Athena had overshot the other ship and was moving away from it. "Captain," Vorwoorts remarked, "one of the robots is back on the bridge of the Resilient."       Thorpe turned his attention to that, and studied the image he saw. The robot was not large, with a disk shaped component on top and a simple, box-like device underneath that looked like it had no tools or weapons. The captain watched the device, wondering if the purpose was to somehow eliminate the survivors of the away team. Both DeWillis and Rocha were apparently alive but unconscious, while Au, it was assumed, was dead. The automated log recorder could not detect the fourth member of the team. In his mind, Thorpe knew that if this particular robot attacked and killed Rocha, then he felt he would have no choice but to destroy the robot ship. That could be accomplished with little difficulty by getting closer to the robot

ship and beaming quantum torpedoes inside the range of its deflector array. The ship could not deflect the torpedoes, which would almost instantly slam into the ship and destroy it. It was, afterall, just an automated ship, and a possible hazard to navigation in this region of space. Yet, as he watched, Thorpe saw no indication that the robot was going to finish off the job started by another.* * *WHAT WAS THIS LIKE, Rocha asked himself. Was it like looking down into a mirror, or was it more like those out-of-body experiences some claimed to have experienced? Rocha looked down at himself, still unconscious but still alive. It was eerie and surreal, almost like that person on the floor was not really him at all, or at least not him anymore. He checked on DeWillis as well, and on Captain Au. How could he inform her that her body was dead already? Rocha noticed something else. The remains of the first robot he had shot out were scattered around the rear of the bridge. Included in the wreckage was one of the disks, slightly dented, with some components broken off or missing, and not a single light flashing. At the time, it seemed to be nothing more than a simple piece of electronics, but now, Rocha got the feeling that the disk actually represented intelligence, actually represented an individual who had been as alive as the carbon-based lifeforms still unconscious on this deck. It was a powerful thing to realize, but it just seemed instinctively so. Although it had been in self defense, Rocha realized that he had killed.       "I am... sorry," he remarked.* * *ROCHA GRADUALLY became aware of the surroundings. He became aware of the dryness in his mouth, the taste of carpet on his lips. He was groggy, and when he tried to move, he felt shooting pain in his back. His first thought was that was not good. He felt hunger and thirst as well, as he had no idea how long he had been laying unconscious on the floor. That he was still here was not a good sign either. With a deep moan, his face momentarily contorted by the agony that he felt, Rocha lifted himself up and turned a little so that his left side was off the floor. With numb, stiff hands, he attempted to reach for his commbadge.* * *ON THE ATHENA, Psakolaps, still on the bridge, remarked, "Captain, Rocha has awoken."       "That robot," Vorwoorts said, as she too looked at the secondary viewscreen. They both could see the slow, painful movements of the security officer. "If it realizes what is going on, it could... Alex looks like he is trying to use the commbadge."       "We're way out of range," Matsubara remarked.       The doctor added, "Now that he is awake, he will become much more aware of the pain that he feels and how there is nothing he can do about it there. This does become urgent."       "We're almost in position where we can attempt to trick the salvage ship to come after us," Thorpe admitted. "We can do nothing until we can get that ship out of warp."* * *ROCHA HAPPENED to notice some movement in the other Rocha. He attempted to sit up. He was probably moaning in pain, along with other remarks, but though the units had vision, they lacked any means to detect sound, which was only natural since they were designed to work in a vacuum. More than anything else, Rocha wanted to help his alternate self. He wanted to get his bodily version back onto the Athena.       "Fourty-six four fourty-four," Rocha called out. "Can you still hear me."       "I can always hear you," responded the alien voice.       "Is there any reason why we have kept the physical form of Rocha and DeWillis on board, like this?"       "We know of no alternative means of removing them," the voice said.       "We can beam them back to the ship from which we-they-came from. They should be

allowed to carry on their lives."       "There is no other ship," fourty-six four fourty-four informed him.       Rocha found that hard to believe. He was sure that Captain Thorpe would somehow follow the ship, if only to establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that the away team was in fact dead. However, there was something else. The security chief said, "But you would never have scanned a ship. The Athena was cloaked when it approached and we beamed over. It could still be out there. We must stop, to at least let them beam off the survivors."       Now Captain Au spoke up, saying, "If we can contact the Athena, then I can return to the existence I once knew."       "You can never return to that," fourty-six four fourty-four explained. "You cannot exist in that environment, just as they cannot exist in this environment."       "You should've never done this to me!"       "What is done is done," the unit leader replied. "Do you wish to be deactivated?"       Au hesitated for the longest time before she said, "No."* * *ON THE BRIDGE of the Resilient, Rocha managed to tap his commbadge. He heard the chirping sound of a link opening. If he said nothing, the device would, in a few seconds, open a link to the ship. However, nothing happened. That suggested a limited number of possibilities. One was that the ship had left them behind, and the second was that the robot ship had gone to warp, in which case contact by commbadge was not possible.       Slowly, very slowly, Rocha turned around, grimacing from the pain, and fearing that each movement could be further injuring him. He noticed something. His vision was not completely clear, but when he focused on the unexpected object, he saw another of the robots. The big disk on top looked the same as the ones on the robots that had been destroyed, but the rest of it was different, smaller and more compact, and without obvious weapons. Rocha looked around. He had no idea where the phaser was, but knew that it was not in the immediate vicinity. Struggling to get into a more upright position, very aware that the robot seemed to be looking right at him, Rocha managed to call out, "What do you... want?" The weakness of his voice almost shocked him.       The machine Rocha was hovering nearby. He could see the man open his mouth and speak, but neither the travelling device, nor his disk-shaped body, was equipped to receive sound. If only he could read lips. He studied the man, and realized that whatever he was trying to say was being garbled by the pain that he felt. "He is trying to speak to us," Rocha said, for the benefit of the others. "I have no way of speaking to him. These devices do not come with sound capability."       "We mostly exist in a vacuum," fourty-six four fourty-four said. "We have no need for sound."       "I know, but we must find a way to communicate with our physical selves."       DeWillis offered up, "Perhaps we can link with the commbadge."       Rocha replied, "You're the engineer. Can you do that?"       "I understand the commbadge system, but I don't understand this. I know we're communicating, so it must be by some kind of EM or SEM signal, but it would be difficult to modulate these signals into something the commbadge can receive and translate into speech.       "I just wish... we can do something now. To our physical selves, we're the robots that attacked. My alternative self could think that we might attack again. Yet, somehow, I want to comfort him, and tell him that everything is alright. We'll try to get them back to the Athena."       "Increasingly, we're sounding like we're different entities from our physical forms."       "In time, we will be," Rocha remarked.       Au suggested, "Commander, perhaps it would put your real self at ease if you left the area. That might also convince him that we mean him no harm. Which of course, brings up the

question about why we were attacked in the first place."       "You brought antimatter on board the salvaged ship."       Before fourty-six four fourty-four spoke up, a new voice joined their communal conversation. "Prospect ship detected!" Even Rocha and DeWillis could sense the rising sense of expectation in this community of artificial intelligences. Their survival, their chance at procreation and expansion, rested on finding resources, and the only resources that they understood were derelict and salvageable ships. They likely diverted their ship to investigate any possible derelict ship.       Yet another new voice came on. "We will alter course to investigate this new find. Prepare for the course alteration. Survey teams assemble in the staging area. We will be dropping out of warp momentarily. Assume defensive positions, maintain shielding. Non-essential units are to retreat to the standby areas."       "Non-essential, I guess that means us," DeWillis remarked.       "That is correct," responded fourty-six four fourty-four.       "Wait," Rocha asked. "Is there any chance to see what this ship looks like?" Fourty-six four fourty-four provided the necessary instructions on how to access the sensor grid through the overall circuit-board view of their existence. When Rocha switched that on and looked in the indicated direction, he saw the ship, and it was a familiar ship. "The Athena," he remarked.       "You recognize that ship?"       "It is the ship I-my biological counterpart-serves on, the ship I asked you to locate." He watched it momentarily, seemingly adrift, seemingly without power. "Now it is dead in space."       "What could have happened?" asked Au.       "I don't know. We are deep in Dominion space. Maybe it was attacked. The way it looks suggests that it might have been hit by that Breen energy dissipating weapon we had heard about."       "That would imply other ships in the area."       The unit who had been giving out the orders spoke again, and Rocha just knew that the entity behind that voice was the overall leader of this strange group of artificial lifeforms. "Enhance security procedures..."

CAPTAIN THORPE sat on the bridge of the Athena, a bridge that was mostly in darkness. The red alert klaxons blinked on and off, surprisingly bright on the otherwise dim bridge. Some of the consoles were on, and running on minimal power. The warp engines had been shut down, with the lights turned off through most of the ship, and all other visible indications of power also shut down. The Athena was simply drifting in space, and Indesakar had used the gravitonic induction drives to give the ship a little of that helpless-looking spin. Thorpe knew that setting the ship to appear dead like this was not something commonly done, especially in the era of cloaking devices, and he also knew he was taking a chance doing this here deep in Dominion space. The systems were set so that they could rapidly be brought back to power if necessary, but there was this delay, no matter how short, in which the Dominion could attack if they had ships in the area. Because of that, Thorpe could feel the tension on the bridge. It was so silent, as even life support had been shut down, and gravity on much of the ship turned off as well. What sounds were present were magnified. The viewscreen was on, and it showed the robot ship dropping out of warp and approaching, cautiously, scanning the Athena. Hopefully, Dewuchun's tricks with the structural integrity field would make the ship appear to have no lifesigns on board.       "They're taking the bait," Johnson admitted. Her voice seemed loud on the bridge.       Matsubara, her face lit by one of the few active panels on the ship, remarked, "But they're

approaching cautiously, with shields raised."       Then Vorwoorts spoke up, saying, "Sir, away from the robot ship, I'm detecting... something."       "On screen."       The image shifted to show a section of apparently empty space. However, even Thorpe could see the slight wavering and warping of the starlight, and that indicated only one thing. Even before he got the word out, those distortions started to solidify into the shapes of three Dominion attack ships and one much larger warship. "Oh damn," Thorpe muttered. "Get power back up! Raise the shields!"       The Jem'Hadar ships swept inwards towards the Athena. The lights on the bridge came back up and life support kicked in. Behind him, Thorpe could hear the officers move quickly to bring all systems up to operational power, but all he could see were the three attack ships coming for him. They fired their polaron beams, and the whole ship rocked severely with the effort. Thorpe had to grip the armrests of his chair tightly to avoid being thrown to the floor. At the rear of the bridge, a power relay snapped in a shower of sparks.       "Return fire!" Thorpe ordered.       Vorwoorts quickly replied, "Main phasers non-operational, bringing up photon torpedoes."       The Jem'Hadar fired again, and once again, the ship was rocked. Power flickered on the bridge. The klaxons continued to blare. Vorwoorts fired a spread of photon torpedoes, and though one struck a Jem'Hadar ship, it only dented its shields. Hakamura, at the security station, reported, "Sir, I'm getting damage reports. Hull breech on deck thirteen, power out on decks fifteen and lower in the saucer section."       "Helm, get us out of here." The ship was rocked again.       "Shields holding at minimal power."       "Sir," Indesakar reported, "warp engines are off-line."       Thorpe looked back at the engineering console, and could see Dewuchun working the controls and speaking with his engineering department. The engineer briefly looked up and at the captain. There was no need to ask the question, "A power surge through the positive-energy conduits has taken the injector array out of alignment. We're working to at least get minimal power. Impulse engine power is available."       "Divert such power to the shields."       "Most shield generators have taken some damage," Hakamura reported. "Power flows were too high."       On the viewscreen, the Jem'Hadar attack ships were coming around for another pass.* * *ROCHA AND AU, through their access to the sensor images generated by the automated salvage ship, could see the four Jem'Hadar ships suddenly appear, an appearance that startled fourty-six four fourty-four and the others. Apparently, they had no idea of the existence of cloaking technology, and perhaps were still wondering about a certain piece of technology on the Resilient. The big warship hung back as the smaller ships streaked towards the Athena, their weapons firing. The way the explosions flashed indicated that the shields on the ship were not fully formed, but there were signs that the starship was coming alive. Rocha also realized that the ship had not been attacked by the Breen or anybody else until now. Captain Thorpe had made the ship look like a derelict in order to lure the salvage ship here with the only bait it would take. Rocha could think of only one reason the captain would do that, to rescue the away team. It could be a disastrous mistake.       "Whoever leads this ship," Rocha started.       "It is I," came the leader.       "Are there weapons on board? Can we defend ourselves?" He was very aware that the

warship was turning its attention on the salvage ship.       "We can run."       "Not if you want to head in this direction. This is what you're going to encounter."       "Then we can change direction," replied the leader.       "But we just can't leave them."       DeWillis now spoke up, saying, "Commander, I believe that this ship has docked attack ships. I'm not sure why they're here."       The leader spoke up, "The Zantree Alliance is in a dangerous area of space."       "Can't you use them?" asked Rocha.       "We had six. Now we have only three. We simply lack the knowledge on how to operate them, on how to attack and defend and avoid being destroyed."       "Tactics?"       "That could be the word."       Rocha had an idea. "We can operate the three. Captain Au and Lieutenant DeWillis and I can operate the ships. Give us the information to operate them, and we can supply the tactics."

      The leader hesitated. Rocha watched as the Jem'Hadar attacked the Athena, and in response, the Federation starship was responding with photon torpedoes. Large sections of the ship appeared to be dark too, this time likely for real. "What are you waiting for?" Rocha finally asked.       "We can try it," the entity said at last.       "Captain?" Au hesitated with her response, so the security chief continued, "Captain, I know you know how to fight the Jem'Hadar. You know tactics, and so do I. DeWillis is not entirely inexperienced. We can do this."       Tentatively, Au said, "I will try." Nevertheless, Rocha could sense a certain amount of fear in the woman.* * *"STATUS OF THE PHASERS?" Thorpe added.       "Still off-line," Vorwoorts replied hurriedly, her attention focused on the three Jem'Hadar ships. They were not going full out to destroy the Athena, and one reason, she speculated, was that they were wary of the salvage ship. Undoubtedly, they had scanned it, and detected at best upto four lifeforms on it, while the ship would be like nothing in their database.       Dewuchun added, "We've sustained some damage to the lander docking pylon. I've got crews up there trying to get the lander's own engines on-line to at least give us the pulse phaser canons."       Two of the Jem'Hadar came in for another sweep. Indesakar turned the ship to present stronger shields to their attack, but the small purple ships fired anyway. The ship rocked under the impact. "Starboard upper and mid shields down to fifteen percent," the pilot reported.       The rear port side doors opened, and two security officers entered the room, bearing phasers and phaser rifles. Type-two phasers were handed out to most of the bridge officers, including the captain, while the phaser rifles went to Hakamura and the two security officers. Johnson had speculated, "The Jem'Hadar are not going all-out to destroy us. They're likely seeking to disable us and board us, perhaps to determine what we are doing this deep in Dominion space accompanied by the robot ship."       "Perhaps," Thorpe had replied, so he put antiboarding procedures into effect. The crew was armed, and those with the training assigned to protect potentially vulnerable locations. Hakamura brought up the controls that would allow him to access the gravity plate controllers. Should the Jem'Hadar beam in, they would experience instantly eight times normal gravity. That should slow them down, Hakamura felt. Now, the captain sat in his chair, wondering what was happening, and wondering how much damage his ship and his

crew was going to take because he could not leave two of them behind. It was strange, Thorpe thought, but he never once considered leaving them behind. It just never crossed his mind. Now look what was happening, he said to himself.       "Another pass," Vorwoorts remarked.       Thorpe checked the tactical display, and saw the ship orientation and position and the approach of the enemy ships. "Helm, evasive pattern omega three. Keep those weakened shields out of direct fire." Even as he said that, the two ships were splitting up, aiming to approach from different angles.       "Target lock acquired."       "Fire!"       Another spread of photon torpedoes shot out from the launchers at the front end of the ship. The bright points of light streaked towards the Jem'Hadar ships. One deftly avoided them, firing its weapon on the one closing in and detonating it. The other did likewise, but another torpedo found its mark, spinning it off course and causing it to trail plasma and atmosphere. Indeskar rolled the ship in response, to avoid having the weakest shields take the brunt of the impact.       "Captain," Matsubara spoke up. "Something's happening on the robot ship... it's launching smaller ships."* * *ROCHA CONSULTED the grid display of the ship to find the route to the fighter craft. He discarded the travelling device he had been on and relied on the corridors and their magnetic rings to move him quickly through the ship. He could almost sense in this community of artificial intelligences a growing sensation of alarm. The big warship was coming for them, and these entities, who had the ability to disassemble a ship, lacked the abilities to fight a war. In time, those abilities would come. These entities were capable of learning, and at a terrific speed, but first they needed a teacher, someone who already knew about tactics and defense and who could pass it on. Perhaps the teacher could come through trial and error and experience, or perhaps that individual would come from the outside.       As Rocha found the access hatch to the fighter and rose on a platform into it, he realized he had suddenly learned a lot. A great deal of information on how to actually operate the vessel had been given to him. It had been inserted into his memories and then integrated so that he was a natural at flying the fighter. "This is DeWillis," came the voice. "I'm in position."       "So am I," Au remarked. "This is so weird. This whole ship... it's like me."       "Yeah," DeWillis remarked. "And when you get hit, you'll feel the pain."       "I have no intention of getting hit."       Rocha stopped and let the disk that was his body secure itself to a platform. This platform rose into the body of the ship, and just as Rocha was connected to it, the platform connected itself to the ship through various connectives. Equipment lit up with flashing lights and other visual signals. This was all very limiting to Rocha since the interior of the craft had no windows. Instead, he could simply adjust his view so that he was seeing what the sensors were seeing.       "This is operations command," came the voice that Rocha deemed to be the leader. "The support fighters are cleared for operations. We wish you... success."       Rocha activated the routines that launched the fighter. "The view is incredible!" he said, feeling just a little rush of exhilaration. "Lets go."       From three locations on the large ship with so many modules and extensions and platforms rose three craft that were rather consistent in their shape. They were flattened ovaloids, almost wing-shaped, and relatively featureless on the surface. At the bottom was the access hatch for the connectives with the main ship an access for the controlling unit, but this

sealed as the ship launched. There were engines front and back, and weapon ports at the front and back. Rocha noticed two kinds of directed-energy weapons, including pulse mode and continuous mode, on energy transfer or disruption base. He set the weapons for pulse mode with energy transfer, the most effective way to deal with shields. He watched the sensors, and found the Jem'Hadar ships. With a simple mental command, not much different than to "run faster," Rocha was able to control the ship. It felt odd. The ship was like an extension of himself, and gave him the arms and legs he did not think he could ever feel again. Space rushed past him, and he was closing in rapidly on the Athena and the Jem'Hadar. One of the purple-hulled ships fired on the big starship, and up close, Rocha could see signs of wavering shields and even some hull damage. Rushing so fast that even his computer-accelerated brain could not keep up, Rocha caught up with the Jem'Hadar, and poured in a round of fire into its shields. Sensor readouts confirmed some damage, but the Dominion ship did spiral away. Rocha spun around the top of the saucer, ducked around the lander pylon and streaked out the other side. He had never seen his ship quite like this-and probably never would again, he realized. He again checked his sensors and located the other two salvage-ship fighters, the Jem'Hadar and the big warship, which he noticed was beginning to track towards the salvage ship.       "This is incredible," DeWillis remarked. "I never thought I could handle information like this. It's like I'm in space, moving on my own. This ship is me. I can't explain it."       "I don't think I want to," Au remarked. "Commander, I'm coming up behind you." Rocha could sense that. "Lets interrupt this attack run." With a little effort, Rocha shot forward, leaving the Athena behind him. Right behind him was Au, her ship a silvery, glowing line against the blackness of space. He glanced back. He glanced ahead. He could do it instantly. He knew where the Jem'Hadar ships were. In seconds, it seemed, he was on the first of the two ships. Au shot over him, and together they poured their firepower into the Jem'Hadar ship. It tried to evade them, but Rocha and Au could react instantly. The Jem'Hadar tried to fire its rear weapons, but the sensors-and Rocha and Au-picked it up immediately. They eased aside. Finally, the shields on the Jem'Hadar ship collapsed under the blinding glare of the weapons. The explosions, seen from virtually within, was brilliant.       "Yes!" Au shouted. "I think I'm getting the feel for this."* * *"THOSE SHIPS," Matsubara pointed out, "are automated. They're robot ships, but they're displaying pretty sophisticated tactics."       "But they're giving the Jem'Hadar something to think about," Thorpe remarked. "They're going to have to concentrate on them as well as us."       Dewuchun spoke up, saying, "Sir, I've got the pulsed phaser cannons on-line."       "Good," the captain said.       "And we're getting some of the shields operational as well."       Johnson added, "There's still that warship. It's going after the robot ship." On one of the secondary screens, the first officer could see the two ships close, and they began to exchange some rather distant shots. "Those robot ships are going to have to worry about the attacks on the salvage ship as well. It is trying to move away."* * *DeWILLIS CAME AROUND after dispatching the damaged Jem'Hadar ship, leaving just one of the smaller attack ships to menace the Athena. "Sir," DeWillis remarked, "I'm reading power to the pulse phaser cannons. They appear to be operational."       Rocha checked his sensors, and replied, "I believe you're right. We should concentrate on the remaining attack ship, and the Athena should use its powerful weapons on the warship."       "But can the Athena's shields withstand the return fire from the warship?" Au asked.       "That's the question."

      The small Jem'Hadar attacker was trying its best to stay away from the three robot ships, and it attempted to do so by keeping the bulk of the Athena between them, feigning to draw them off and getting close to the ship again. Meanwhile, Rocha offered thoughts to the others, and felt the responses from the other two, and they quickly co-ordinated a way to finally destroy the remaining attack ship. Rocha came around the underside of the engineering hull, and close enough that he could see the access ports, the ventral phaser array and he was close enough to some windows that he could look in. It seemed like a blur, but he could see everything clearly. It was like time was flowing more slowly in one respect, and normally in another. The Zantree fighter streaked out from underneath the engineering hull and raced upwards, scooting past the captain's yacht and then to the sensor ports on the underside of the saucer. He saw the lower phaser array up close, and then the escape pods. Finally, he reached the rim of the saucer. Right there, blinding flashes of light interrupted his view. The Jem'Hadar was caught in the crossfire of the three robot ships. It lasted... Rocha could sense just a couple of seconds. The Dominion ship got off one round with its polaron weapons, and the beam had struck Rocha. The momentum transfer and the physical sensation-which his mind interpreted as heat-were intense, but Rocha fought hard to keep his flight path level and avoid crashing into the Athena. Even so, he felt himself brush against the shields, although he quickly compensated for the spin.       "We got them all," Au remarked.       "But not the warship. It's going after the salvage ship." Rocha, with Au and DeWillis in close pursuit, turned away from the Athena and streaked across space towards the much, much larger warship, a vessel that was even larger than the Athena, and packed with weapons. His sensors scanned the hull of the big ship, looking for the weapons ports, the shield seams and anything else he could exploit. The information was coming fast, but he found he could handle it. The feeling was incredible.* * *"THE ROBOT SHIPS DID IT," Thorpe remarked.       "There's still the warship," Johnson pointed out. "It's targeting the salvage ship, and Rocha and DeWillis are still on board."       "We'll do what we can," the captain said. The viewscreen showed the three small, sleek, silvery robot ships rush across space to the remaining Dominion ship. "What's our status?"       "We're working on the shields," Vorwoorts remarked. "We've got quantum and photon torpedoes, and the pulse cannons are on-line. We're battered, but functional."       "Warp core?"       "Still off-line," Dewuchun reported.       Hakamura took the moment of relative silence to speak up. "Sir, those robot ships, they were using our tactics. They were using tactics that Rocha had talked to me about, the latest in close-combat tactics against the Jem'Hadar. Aleksandr and I had been working on them in simulations."       "You're suggesting that the robots on there have access to this information?" Thorpe asked.       "I would not rule it out. We're completely unfamiliar with the technology that exists on the robot ship."       "That's almost implying sentience on their part."       "Sentience can only explain how those robot ships dealt with the Jem'Hadar."       Johnson added, "That's an advantage that we have, then."* * *TO ROCHA, the Dominion warship came up awfully fast. It was as if had simply thought he had wanted to be there, and he was. He had mastered the sensor displays, so he was able to pick out the weapons ports and the weapons'-level sensors from the ship to indicate that he

had a lock on him. Then he evaded the weapons. The bright blue beams streaked all around him as he bored in on the warship, and then fired at close range. The powerful pulsed weapons rippled the shields, but they held. Rocha found he had to concentrate, and watch the Dominion ship. He had to be aware of the weapons, the arcs they fired in and their reset rates, but he was also aware that the three attack fighters could not handle this ship alone.       "We need a strategy," Au said over the link.       "We need firepower," DeWillis added.       "The salvage ship will never be able to provide it."       Rocha turned around. He saw the Athena in the distance, and he saw, on the sensors, that the three robot attack ships were giving the Jem'Hadar warship all it could handle. They stabbed inwards, avoiding the bright beams meant for them, and concentrated their fire on the shield seams, which became so apparent on their sensors. Suddenly, DeWillis said, "They've changed strategy, no more weapons sensors." Just then, the warship fired again, and hit Rocha. He saw it coming, and avoided most of it, but the impact caused him to spin and become momentarily disoriented. His mind interpreted what happened to him as if something large had slammed into him. It felt like pain to him. He wanted to scream.       "Get your bearings, commander," Au shouted.       "I'm trying to," Rocha replied quickly. He had to figure out the sensor displays and pick out something to focus on. He stabilized the fighter and got himself reoriented on the sensor displays. He picked out the Athena, still closing, and the warship and the other fighters. Suddenly, everything around him lit up yellow. He looked, and saw that it was the Athena firing the pulse phaser cannons on the warship. It quickly changed course, and abandoned its advance on the salvage ship.       Au said, "The lower rear shields are weakening. There's a power conduit down there that if we take it out could take down most of the rear shielding."       "Got you," Rocha replied. Ahead of him was Au's ship, and he followed that in, dodging the close-range polaron beams. Au took a glancing blow, but held her course. At the optimum moment, she opened fire. Rocha lifted just above, and fired too, concentrating his firepower on one spot on the shields. DeWillis did likewise from underneath, but in the second they had, it was not enough. "Pull up!" he shouted, and then watched Au do just that, her shields grazing the shields of the warship. More light flashed all around him.       "Oh god, I've been hit!" DeWillis remarked. Rocha looked back, and saw extensive damage on the rear fighter. It was venting plasma and debris were flying off, as DeWillis lost control. "The pain... the incredible pain."       "Hold on," Au remarked. "Are you personally damaged?"       "I... don't know." With another bright flash of light, DeWillis and his fighter were hit again, but the shielding that was left held out most of the damage. However, the one-time engineer knew that he was finished, and that his craft was coming apart. He decided to make his demise as useful as possible. Rocha could see the way that the other man's fighter, still trailing plasma and smoke, began to spin towards the warship, which was trying to accelerate away.       Rocha and Au both had the same idea. They had no need to express it to each other. Follow him down, their thoughts said. Rocha slowed down as the tumbling DeWillis passed by him, and he just knew that he had Au right behind him. Ahead, DeWillis' fighter slammed down against the shields of the warship and exploded with more energy than debris, and some of that energy was directed against the shields and through them. The energy reached through to the hull, scorching it in places. But Rocha's eyes and his mental image of the sensor display told him the same thing. He took the small, fast, powerful fighter through the gap in the shields and underneath. With Au right behind him, no more than a metre from his craft and he was skimming just metres above the warship, they picked out their targets. Au fired first,

taking out a weapons array just behind the platform containing the bridge. Rocha fired on the platform. It came apart with a burst of energy and debris, and was soon overwhelmed by the energy released when the weapons array came apart. The two fighters streaked through the plasma and heat, and both could feel it. Both still shrieked out with delight at what had happened.* * *"CAPTAIN," Vorwoorts called out, "the upper shields on the warship have been compromised."       Thorpe briefly looked around the smoke-filled bridge. One damaged relay was still snapping, but his ship was holding together. "Helm, take us up and over the warship, orient us down!"       Indesakar put the ship into something of a roll, "over-the-hill" the movement was called. He tipped the ship upwards to gain relative altitude, and as he passed closer to the Dominion ship, he shifted the orientation downwards. Ahead on the screen was the Dominion ship, seen from above, and the Athena was heading right for it.       "Target and fire!" Thorpe ordered.       Vorwoorts did not hesitate. She had the pulse phaser cannons on their highest power setting and hit the trigger icons. Rocha, ahead of the warship and still dodging its polaron beams, was able to look back and see the bright yellow bolts streak down and into the unshielded section of the warship. The first explosions blew out sideways from the warship, but as the explosions erupted on the underside and then the bolts started to tear right through, Rocha knew that this warship had met its end. The polaron beams stopped coming. The front end of the ship was rapidly engulfed in flame and heat and reduced to an expanding sphere of debris. The destructive force eventually caused the warp core to destabilize and breech.* * *AS THE FIREBALL began to cool, the larger debris still tumbling outwards in all directions, Rocha remarked, "Is that cheering I hear?"       "I think it's coming from the salvage ship," Au remarked.       "Indeed it is," fourty-six four fourty-four replied. "We watched. We knew that we could never have done that, even with the assistance of the other ship. We were staring at our doom, and you managed to hold it off."       "But we did lose one of our own."       "I understand."       "Lower the shields so that we can dock."* * *ON THE BRIDGE of the Athena, Thorpe asked, "Matsubara, any sign of any other Dominion ships?"       "Negative, captain," replied the science officer.       "Any escape pods, any survivors from the warship?"       "Negative again."       Vorwoorts added, "Sir, we're within transporter range of the robot ship. I believe that when the robot fighters dock, the ship will lower its shields. We can beam out the away team then."       "Co-ordinate it with Lieutenant Wilder. Have them beamed directly to sickbay." As he said that, the captain tapped his commbadge, and said, "Thorpe to Psakolaps."       "Psakolaps here," came the prompt response.       "How is it down there?"       "Chaotic. No deaths reported, one serious injury, but sickbay is swamped."       "We'll be sending you three more shortly. Stand by."

      "Sir," Vorwoorts spoke up. "The robot ship has dropped its shields, and Lieutenant Wilder has locked on to the away team and is beaming them into sickbay..."* * *ROCHA DOCKED HIS FIGHTER, and then, still on the operating platform, lowered himself into the body of the ship. As he released himself from the platform and moved into the corridor, he encountered another disk. It was metallic, just like his, and consisted of blinking lights and diodes. That, Rocha knew, was Captain Ida Au. He realized again that he looked just like that as well. He too was a metal disk. This might have seemed like a dream, but it was not. He was like this now, but still believed he had a chance to go back. He could imagine what it would be like to return to the Athena with the memories he now had. On the other hand, that option did not exist for Au.       It was Au that spoke up, "What is to become of us?" She was not sure whom she was directing the question to, either fourty-six four fourty-four or the one who they had assumed was the leader.       "You will stay on board this vessel," fourty-six four fourty-four replied.       "Then we do not have a choice?"       "You could not exist in any other environment. Even if we found a way back to the Zantree Alliance, they would simply reprogram us."       "But Lieutenant DeWillis," Rocha remarked. "He died... or did he? You couldn't just recover the memories, the essence, of him again?"       "Our sensors indicated that the other ship used a teleportation beam to retrieve the individuals who came on board the salvaged ship. We no longer have those individuals. However, it is not our desire to take individuals like those people and transfer, or even copy, their essences into other units, even if they had been damaged and erased. We did it with you, in a sense, because we needed to learn more. We needed to know about this section of space, and we did it because we honestly thought your biological existence would not continue. We would much rather grow as a society on our own merits, by developing new units and teaching them to be members of our community. However, every society at times needs outside teachers, to show us what is out there, to advise us, to help us acquire knowledge and skills we could never acquire on our own without a cost."       "And that's what you want us to do?"       "We would like for you to do that. We can't force you to do anything."       Au hesitated for the longest time, and said, "I guess I can live with that. It is perhaps not the way I wanted to go, but sometimes, you have to take the choices that life has given you. My only other alternative would be a total loss of existence."       "And yet," Rocha continued, pondering his own thoughts and hesitating over them. "That's not so true with me. I still exist in my other form. There are two Aleksandr Rochas now. Is there a way I can communicate with the Athena?"

"Captain's log, stardate 52944.1 Lieutenant Commander Dewuchun reports that the warp engines should be on-line within the hour, and we can get underway. Repairs are on-going, but we can never fix all the damage. The Athena will unfortunately continue to carry some scars of battle. It is with regret that I log the death of Captain Ida Au, late of the starship Resilient, but I can only say that she died in the line of duty, in the defense of her ship. Rocha and DeWillis continue to recover in sickbay. As for the robot ship, I really don't know what to make of it. We cannot contact it and we cannot really investigate it in any way."

ASSISTANT CHIEF MEDICAL officer Antonia Wildeman walked into the recovery ward, where she found Rocha still laying on his stomach, and feeling a little cranky as a result. "You know, doctor," he said, "this is not the way a human being was meant to lie or sleep."       "I'm aware of that," the new doctor remarked. "However, until the regenerated skin grafts

fully take and integrate-within three or four days-it would not be very good, not to mention very uncomfortable, to lie any other way."       "I see."       "By the way, we've finally managed to establish communications with the robot ship. In fact, they asked for you specifically."       "Me?"       "You didn't talk, or otherwise communicate, with anybody on board that ship, did you?"       "I saw one of their robot things, but unless... it's telepathic, there was no communications." Nevertheless, he watched as Wildeman worked the controls to open the link. "This is Aleksandr Rocha," he started. "Who am I talking to?"       The voice that came back was mechanical, almost of indeterminate gender, and yet there was emotion and feeling in those words. "I'm Aleksandr Rocha."       Even Wildeman stopped walking away and turned to listen. "What?" Rocha repeated.       The other individual said. "This is an automated salvage ship from some place called the Zantree Alliance, possibly thousands of light years away. It got separated from others, and the robots on board developed sentience."       "That's pretty incredible, but why are you using my name?"       "Because I am you. Your essence, your personality, was transferred-perhaps more accurately copied-into one of the units. Do you remember this small device, when you awoke injured on the bridge of the Resilient, and on top was a metal disk, a metre and a half in diameter, ten centimetres thick."       "Yes," Rocha remarked. The image was quite vivid. All the robots had such a thing on them.       "That is me."       "I have been... duplicated?"       "So was Captain Au and Lieutenant DeWillis. Au is with me, but Mark, unfortunately, was on the fighter that crashed into the Dominion warship. I hope his original self is alright."       "He is recovering. I am too, by the way. I just find this hard to believe."       "But it is true."       "So what becomes of... two of me?"       "We're separate individuals now. You are yourself, and I am myself. From now on, our experiences will be quite different, and in time, we'll truly be separate individuals. Perhaps I am still uncomfortable with this."       "Tell me about it," Rocha remarked. He was not sure of what to make of such a thing. He had heard of transfers of the essence of a person, including his memories and knowledge, but never had he heard of it being copied from a living person into a kind of artificial intelligence.

      "But I must accept it. What alternatives do I have? I have been given a role on this ship, and I feel I should carry it out. I really just wanted to let you know. I feel that you should. Perhaps in the future, we can meet again."       "Long-separated twins?"       "That's one way to look at it."       "We can share stories of our lives from the moment of the split. I look forward to it."       "I guess... perhaps I will too. I just have one request, though?"       "What?"       "Don't change too much, okay?"       "You have my word," came the response. By now, Rocha thought he had heard some of his own voice in that rendering, or at least some of the emotion and feelings he knew he had. Yet, Rocha could not help but shake off the feeling that something was not right, that something of his was violated, and yet he had to wonder if it was any more wrong than

keeping detailed records, or even a holorecording, of oneself around. He needed to think about it.       Once the message was complete, Wildeman returned and asked, "Problem, Aleksandr?"       "I... don't know yet."