NAZGUL #11: The Lost & The Awakened

Posted on Sat Nov 9th, 2024 @ 8:33am by Captain Tore Bjorgo & Lieutenant Commander Billi & Lieutenant Sheyla {MD} & Lieutenant JG Ainkara "Kara" & Penni {P.E.N.N.I.}

Mission: NAZGUL: {CD&MISSION} Return to Basics
Location: various
Timeline: Current

ON:

The situation seemed to have been resolved as M-69 had contacted USS Nazgul and informed them that an accord had been reached. Knowing Peel was still in the area, Bjorgo relaxed back into his chair. "Mister Resch, secure from tactical readiness. Number One, let the crew know to return to standard operating procedures." Both officers acknowledge the orders and got to work. Tore, tired of sitting and worried about other things, got up and began to walk the circumference of the upper Bridge level, passing by the stations, then in front of the viewport, and back around until he finally arrived over top of the Science station. He stepped in beside the chair so it was easier for the occupant to look up at him if she chose to.

"Lieutenant Sheyla, any word from Lieutenant Kara?" Bjorgo asked.

Sheyla glanced up. "Not yet, Sir. No check-ins, nothing."

"Damn it!" Tore hissed out quietly, to keep it between them. He turned his back to a support strut between stations and leaned against it, arms crossed. His pose was casual but Sheyla knew better. "She has no idea what happened here if she is on leave. Which Delta did she take? One, Two, or the ARGO shuttle?"

"Delta One, Captain." Sheyla answered. Her antenna moved about as she listened to him, telling her a great deal about his current emotional content due to their unique extra sensory qualities. "Would you like me to hail Delta One?"

"Would you?" Bjorgo asked pleasantly. "That would really help me relax to know she is alright. There's a lot of unknown anomalies in this region and she might have stumbled on one."

"Give me a minute to try and connect, Sir." Sheyla set to work, taking over a comm channel since communications was normally handled by Resch. But, her professional digits dialed in and she found the Delta One receiver. "That's odd."

"What?" Bjorgo asked, pushing off of his leaning back and turning around to lean over Sheyla's right shoulder.

"What's odd?" Billi asked as she walked over as she was passing by and caught the conversation, now leaning in over Sheyla's left shoulder.

Sheyla double checked her readings. "According to the comm relay, Delta One is in the Unre star system."

Bjorgo and Billi shared a look and stood up straight, with Tore speaking first. "That's quite a trek just to study stellar cartography as a hobby."

"No shit," Billi agreed. "Captain, I noticed you sharing a lingering glance with Kara before you went to talk to Sureth. I figured it was due to some conversation between you and her the rest of us weren't privy to."

"It wasn't, Billi." Bjorgo admitted. "She gave me a wanting look, like she needed to ask me something. Or, ask me about something. But, we were in a hurry to get over there and discuss the changes to 69 for better operations. Damn it, I feel like a fool for not worrying about my crew first."

Sheyla had not dialed up Delta One yet, wanting to discuss it further before she did so. "Captain...Tore, that's what we're for. It falls on us to see to these things, too. Billi noticed it but thought it was about something else. Next time we'll corral the one we observe and ask politely if there is an issue."

"She's right, Tore." Billi said. "I should have said something to Kara, asked her about any need she had. It won't go overlooked again with any crew member."

"Alright, alright, enough with our guilt trips. Dial it up, Sheyla." Said Tore, getting them back on track. "Let's see what she has to say for herself before we got ready to jump in her grill, hmm?"

Sheyla and Billi gave nods to that, with Sheyla sending a signal to the Voyager-designed warp shuttle. "Delta One, this is USS Nazgul. Lieutenant Sheyla, here. Respond."

Sitting on the Bridge of the Delta, Kara sat up straight from her leaning back posture, a half eaten orange wedge in one hand, her PADD in another. Popping the half wedge into her mouth she chewed quickly and swallowed, cleaning her hands and setting her PADD aside as she responded. "Lieutenant Kara, here. Go ahead, Nazgul." Did she sound casual, or as nervous as she felt? She was several hours over check-in time, whether on leave or not.

Bjorgo's relief was apparent as he deflated a bit. "Kara, Captain Bjorgo here. What in blazes are you doing all the way out at the Unre star system?"

"I came out to Unre to map it better than our cursory scans, Captain," Kara responded, telling a partial truth. "I told Commander Billi that I would be involved in stellar cartography and that is what I was doing...mainly." She internally cursed herself and scrunched her face as that last word slipped out. If it had been anyone else but the Captain she probably would not have made the slip of the tongue. But, with her respect for the man her subconscious had betrayed her.

"Mainly?" Billi asked. "This is Billi, Lieutenant. I think we deserve an explanation."

Damn, Kara thought, all three of them are on the call. I may have just ended my career. "I found a sensor anomaly from a few months ago, Commander. So, using my leave time I decided to partake in stellar cartography and search for the source of the anomaly. It led me to Unre. I did not lie to you, Commander, I just did not extrapolate."

Billi made to answer, leaning in with a perturbed expression and body language when a hand grasped her shoulder with a firm, yet gentle grip. She looked over at Tore and he shook his head no and got her to stand back up properly as he then leaned in to talk over Sheyla's head.

"Lieutenant Kara, what type of anomaly had you so enthralled?" Bjorgo asked.

"Positronic, Captain." Kara answered.

All three of the officer standing together looked at each other with widened eyes. Even Resch spoke up from his console. "Did she say positronic?"

"Really?" Loewen spun his chair halfway to look back at the trio at Science, his own curiosity now piqued.

Billi looked back at the others and gave a nod, then put a finger to her lips. They piped down.

The Captain continued with his queries. "You're sure it's positronic, Kara? We scanned Unre and nothing popped up. Could it be a sensor glitch?"

~Oh boy~ Kara thought ~Time for a bit more truth~

***

In the aft section of Delta One the girl-bot opened her eyes while laying flat on her back, her biosynthetic brain not recognizing the ceiling she was looking at. She sat upright quickly, scanning the room with her eyes, noting she was on some kind of small vessel, or in a cargo hold. But, cargo holds did not tend to have biobeds in them. How do I know this is a biobed? She thought to herself. Raising her arms up in front of her she examined her arms and hands, turning them over and over several times, making fists and stretching out her fingers a few times, feeling that everything was working fine and she was in control. Moving the blanket off of her legs was when she noticed she was wearing clothing, and shoes. The last time she had been a whole unit they had not bothered to treat like anything but an android, with no clothing. Not that she felt embarrassment for being 'naked' since she had no parts worth looking at sexually. She began to feel a bit of anxiety, now more cautious as she began to wonder who had activated her. Turning her legs to the left she hung her feet off the edge of the bed from the knees down, then hopped off and landed perfectly on her feet. Looking down she saw the burgundy, zip-up tunic that had been put on her torso. Reaching for the zipper she zipped it down a few inches and pulled open the half over her left breast/chest. Again, her android body as it should be even as she noted the streamlining that had been done to her. Everything seemed tighter and more efficient.

With her memory beginning to flash images in her mind the girl went through a set of katas, perfectly executing each, noting that her combat readiness was still as high as ever, even if she did not know how she knew it all, or even why. That part of her memory core seemed to have suffered a glitch. Moving around she began to examine the consoles, written in a language she did not recognize. Closing her eyes a moment she did a memory recall for any language that was similar, her memory core recognizing the language as Federation Standard (English). Her memory uploaded the language to her frontal lobe and she was now able to read, write, and understand this Federation Standard. Once that was done she continued to examine her surroundings, going to each item in the small room and giving it a serious visual examination.

***

With her mind going a mile a minute, Kara was trying to decide how to answer her Captain, a man she trusted, and one who seemed to trust her in return. She did not want to damage that trust. "Captain, when we were docked I went through the entire sensor logs since I do not find revelry to be a favorite past time, unlike my colleagues. During that time, buried back in the logs to when Nazgul had been just outside the Unre star system, I spotted the faint trace of an anomaly the computer had noted. But, we got busy with the comet and the halflings and I sent it to the logs for later review."

Bjorgo grinned, everyone seeing it and joining him, as Kara seemed to want to dot every 'I' and cross every 'T' in her explanation. "Kara, it's fine. Really. Not to rush you since you will have one hell of a log report to write, please get to the point."

"I found it, Sir," said Kara.

Sheyla popped in there. "Found what, kara?"

Kara had relaxed far more after the Captain had told her all was fine, but they needed to know what it was she had gone out to find. Nothing for it, she told them. "I found a positronic android, though far more advanced than even Commander Data. In structure, that is. I don't have any idea how she responds to stimuli since she is currently inactive in the aft section."

"She?" Billi asked. "It has the look of a female?"

"Yes." Kara answered. "However, unlike Data, she is not completely covered in a synthetic appearing flesh, from head to foot. Her head, upper chest, and the tops of her shoulders are all that has the flesh, very realistic I might add, the rest of her being completely android in appearance. It is a combination of positronics and nanotech. The most unique part of her is her brain. It is completely organic. Although it is biosynthetic like the portions of my own brain. But, again, it is even more advanced than my own. I made some comparisons. Also, she was bald so I replicated real Human hair and gave her a full head of hair and some eyebrows."

Tore gave another grin to the others. "How noble of you to consider her appearance, Kara," he said, not being flippant. "You say she is inactive?"

"Yes, Captain." answered Kara. "She is lying on the biobed..." her head turned to her left as she heard the door between fore and aft slide open, and could see a shadow of someone cautiously moving forward into the Bridge.

"Kara?" Tore asked.

"She's here, Sir. Entering the Bridge." Kara kept her eyes on the aft door, sliding her phase pistol from its holster along her right thigh and out of direct sight from the angle of the door.

The girl eased her head forward, legs bent in a ready stance for action as her face turned this way and that. She heard voices, causing her to pause in her steps and stretch her neck forward to look to the right around the doorjam where they were coming from. A lone female sat in a chair at a console, looking her way.

"Are you armed," Bjorgo asked.

"Now is not a good time to ask that, Captain." Kara responded.

The girl only saw her but she could hear another through the speakers. Communications, that was what that was called. A simple memory recall. Deciding that it was better to get this over with the girl stepped out and got into a martial arts stance, staring down this stranger. The woman spun to face her and brought up her right hand, holding a firearm of some kind.

"Please," said Kara. "Remain calm and I won't have to use this."

The officers on the Bridge of Nazgul could hear everything but remained quiet, listening.

The girl turned her head and crooked it, scrunching her brow as she did so. It was quite the humanoid action for one considering the situation they were in. She came out of her combat stance and stood up straight, her android arms relaxing to her sides like any organic arms would. Absolutely lifelike even in the smallest movements. That was when she spotted the oranges in a bowl and her eyes widened a bit at the sight. She needed to eat, to rebuild her strength. She raised her hand slowly and pointed to them and then motioned to her own mouth, then at the oranges, then at her mouth again.

"Lieutenant Kara, it's too quiet. What is happening?" Bjorgo asked.

Raising her hands up, pointing the phaser at the overhead to show she was no longer a threat to the girl, Kara spoke to the others as she began to slowly holster her weapon to show this stranger good faith. "I am holstering my sidearm, Captain. She spotted my bowl of oranges and is inquiring through pantomime if she can have one."

Tore half turned to look back at Helm. "Mister Loewen, get us moving. Set course for the Unre star system. When we cross the threshold go to warp eight. Don't wait to ask."

"Aye, Sir." Sean turned to his console and began to obey the orders.

"Griffon, let M-69 know we are heading out to go and pick up one of our Deltas and we will return promptly." Bjorgo directed, getting acknowledgement before he turned back to the SCI station. "We're on our way, Kara. Don't make this a rescue operation, Lieutenant."

Kara was busy holding up one hand to tell the girl to hold on a moment, if the android even understood the body language. She seemed to, giving a slow nod and then turning her eyes to re-examine the Bridge and all the stations. "Aye, Captain. I believe she and I can reach an understanding. Kara, out." She tapped her badge closed. When the combadge warble sounded the girl turned back around to face Kara, her eyebrows raising in a questioning countenance, again motioning to the oranges. Picking one up Kara tossed it to her, seeing her easily catch it and then lift it to her face, spinning it around under her nose as she sniffed it. Kara saw her grin and then open her mouth and take a bite out of the fruit which was a bad idea since Kara had not peeled them all, instead choosing to peel them one at a time as she ate them.

The girl made a horrid face and spat it out on the floor as she began to look around for something, still holding the orange in her hand as she did so. Her tongue was hanging out and dripping juice and saliva of some kind, and when she did not find what she needed, the girl grabbed the sleeve of her top and scrub-wiped her tongue with it. "Gah." The girl sounded, then tossed the fruit back to Kara and shook her head and a finger at it.

Standing up casually, so as not to cause anxiety, Kara held the orange in front of her and began to peel it, letting the girl see what she was doing. Moving in a non-threatening manner around the girl she went to the refuse chute and deposited the torn parts of peel into it. Once peeled she showed the girl how to break it apart into the natural wedges, taking the first one and putting it in her own mouth and chewing. Handing the peeled fruit over she then went and sat back down, motioning to the aux station chair nearest to her. "Please."

The girl took the orange even as she kept her eyes on this stranger with the strange marks on her face and pointed ears. She again sniffed it, finding the sweet aroma more to her liking than the first time. When the chair was offered for her to sit she gave a shrug and sat down, moving the orange around and examining it without the peel even as her butt landed in the seat. Tearing a wedge away, and licking her android fingers when some juice got on them, she plopped the piece of fruit into her mouth and began to chew. Instantly her eyes widened and she smiled, the flavor as wonderful as the aroma. "Mmmm," she moaned, closing her eyes like a humanoid would when experiencing something joyful.

Kara sat patiently, watching the android act more Human than she had originally anticipated. It was as if she wore a bodyglove designed to give the appearance of an android with how her movements were completely natural and not robotic in any way. After a few wedges had been consumed Kara decided to voice a query. "Do you have a name?"

The girl swallowed what she had chewed as the question was presented. Her head cocked like a dog who heard a funny noise, her brow scrunched. "Nnnnnaaaaame?"

"Yes," said Kara. "A name." With both her hands she pointed all four fingers on each hand at herself. "Kara." Then, she rolled her hands back and with palms up to point them at the girl. She repeated this a few times, continuing to use her own name in regards to herself, then reversing her pointing at the girl.

While this strange being kept asking for her name, the girl kept running that through her mind, never really having been called anything except Unit-001, and then her designation which she had haphazardly seen on a screen by sheer luck during one of her waking moments for upgrades and data software downloads, as the creators had referred to it. All while this pointed-eared person kept asking the girl had finished the orange and then licked her hands clean, leaving no trace the juice had ever been there even as some of it was absorbed through her carapace. "Nnaame. Mmmy dezeegnaaashun is P-E-N-N-I."

"Your designation?" Kara quirked an eyebrow. "P-E-N-N-I, would be pronounced penny. Did they call you Penni, or just by the letters?"

As Kara talked, Penni's mind began to run through Federation standard, now that certain words had been spoken enough to pick up syntax, phonology, and so forth. Within seconds she had an understanding on how to pronounce the words within the language as her memory core and Heuristic processor learned as it went. "Penni? I like it. I am Penni, Kara. My Unit number is zero-zero-one, if that is important to you."

"Important insofar as I did not know that." Said Kara. "Do you require more sustenance?"

"Sustenance?" Penni asked, unsure of what the word meant until her mind opened a thesaurus and gave her synonyms for the language. "Oh, food." She waved it off. "I'm fine for now." Penni's eyes looked through the viewport and out into the darkened cavern. "Is it night time or are the lights turned off?"

"We are landed in a cavern, Penni. I was getting ready to lift off and return to space when you came out. Do you mind if we launch?" Kara asked, not wanting this being to freak out and get violent as they began to ascend through the atmosphere.

"Where are we going?"

"Home," Kara simply stated, turning to face her console as she began to tap pre-flight to ready the ship.

"Can I watch," asked Penni, coming to stand over Kara's shoulder.

"Of course. I have nothing to hide." Kara continued to ready the ship for flight, and once prepared she lifted off and spun the ship around. It was daylight outside beyond the waterfall so she eased forward and prepared to exit in the same way she had entered.

Penni, eyes wide in wonder, stood with her mouth agape at the sight of all that water crashing down into a massive lake. As the Delta slid beneath the waterfall to the side to prevent being pushed down into the body of water, she giggled. "It's amazing! I never knew so much water existed in one place."

Kara almost asked her about that comment, but decided against it. For now, the thrill of the ride might just be enough to keep her guest from reacting badly to leaving the world she was found on. If Penni even knew anything about this world, or had been kept indoors for the duration of her 'life'. "You've never seen the surface of this planet?"

"No!" Again this came out in a tone of amazement as Penni looked out on the landscape of this beautiful world. She had never seen anything like it. All the colors and the sights, the mountains and the birds flying through the sky. "I feel cheated." This statement came out with a bit of frustration in her voice.

Rising above the surface and zooming towards orbit, Kara could safely look at the girl for a moment. "Cheated? Why cheated?"

"Look!" Penni's left arm shot out straight, with a knife hand pointing out the window. "All this! They kept it from me! Kept me inactive and powerless so they could continue their experiments!" The anger in her voice was not hidden and there was a slight moaning from the headrest of the chair as her right hand was the one she was leaning on it with. The hand closed on the headrest and began to bend the metal beneath the padding in her strong grip.

Kara looked over her shoulder as she heard the metal straining beneath the cushioning. "Penni, please don't damage the ship. I have a superior officer who won't like that too much."

Penni seemed to come out of a trance, blinking her eyes a few times before she looked to her right hand and, seeing what she was doing, she jerked it away from the headrest like she had touched a hot iron skillet. "I am so sorry! Please, forgive me, I didn't mean to!"

"It's alright," Kara said, trying to comfort the girl after seeing her reaction. "I was bringing your attention to it. You won't be in trouble, I will. I'm a Starfleet officer, I'm supposed to know better." She gave Penni a warm grin.

Penni dropped to her knees beside Kara's chair as if planting herself for the duration of the ride. "Starfleet? What's that?" After the query was asked Kara gave her a quick rundown of both Starfleet and the Federation. "Ah, okay. This is why you're language is called Federation Standard. I understand now." She gave Kara a smile.

Kara was again amazed at how naturally Penni acted like many of the humanoids in the galaxy. Perhaps Doctor Holbrook and Doctor Sheyla could do more in-depth scans with their Sickbay equipment than she had been able to do with just a medpack and the Deltas limited facilities. "You are an amazing being, Penni. Unique, as far as my experience can determine. Once we are back aboard the USS Nazgul you are welcome to stay with me in my quarters."

"Thank you," Penni said, just before her eyes went wide once again as they broke out of the atmosphere and into the star studded darkness of space. "Wow. Open space. My day is filled with firsts, thanks to you." She leaned to the right and did a cuddle-hug with Kara's left upper arm quickly, as a thank you gesture to back up her words. "Where is the USS Nazgul?"

Checking a readout, Kara looked over and set the auto-pilot before giving her attention to her guest. "On its way. They are at warp speed to get here and it will take a bit of time. Until then the Delta will pilot us out of the Unre star system while we get to know each other better. If you don't mind I would like to ask you some questions in regards to your creator."

Penni's face went serious when she looked at Kara. "Why? I don't know much about them. It could take time to dredge up the memories from my memory core. I was rarely conscious for their visits."

"Then we shall overlook those questions for now," said Kara, wanting to keep Penni from any further stress at this time. The headrest came to mind as a warning against upsetting the girl before she had time to adjust to her awakened life and learned more about humanoid interaction. Kara began to see her as a kindred spirit, both of them oddballs in society and both of them having come from Iconian facilities. The difference was that Penni's facility had a fully functioning Iconian gateway and a power source able to activate it.

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