Morgan Dash Unbound

The Cold

by Morgan Dash


"It's not the darkness that kills," the voice said to him in seeming intimacy, "it's the cold." He checked his sensors and then his memory for the source, but discovered he could not access either.

"Unamuno, he said that", the voice added. "One of the miners." He realized then that the voice was not speaking in Federation Standard. His first sentence had been in the Terran language called Spanish, and the second in another Earth tongue, English.

Then the voice made a different sound. It was---could it be---what Captain Riker would call, a chuckle?

What was funny? He seemed always to be asking that question. The answer that occurred to him best fit the facts. Perhaps there was a pun involved, a double meaning in the English language only. Probably the word "miner," which when pronounced could also be "minor." Either it was funny because they were quite different, or because they both applied in different ways. Was this Unamuno a minor poet perhaps? A miner in some metaphorical way? His database was not responding.

That he recognized wordplay somewhere in his positronic matrix would have registered as a step forward towards understanding humans, but he was more concerned with a more proximate problem. He could not locate any of his linguistic circuits, nor for that matter his sound processing assembly. In fact, he could not find any diagnostic or monitoring systems that would indicate he even had a positronic matrix.

Then he remembered. His last word, spoken to the afterglow of his transported Captain: goodbye. Then aiming his phaser at the thalaron weapon seconds from its deadly use, and firing. His last recorded sense perception was of the waves of energy blowing him apart.

So it is likely, he reasoned, that he had no positronic matrix to monitor. Yet he had apparently retained something that seemed to be consciousness. But what was it? And where was he? And were those questions even relevant? But above all, he realized, he wanted to know about that voice.


Rallis tried to keep his eyes fixed on the pulsing stars under their closed lids, but instead he stared out at the darkness that surrounded him. If he could not keep his eyes closed he could not sleep, and this was his first sleep period in days. True, the narrow hammock slung across a corner of the cargo hold where he worked was not very comfortable. Still, it was at least quiet now, not only here but in the rest of the ship. Repairs that could be made while still in space were completed, and the Valdore was on its way home to Romulus.

His were not the only restless eyes on the ship, he knew. Even many with softer beds in crew quarters would be sleeping fitfully, if at all. No one could be sure what they were returning to, or how they would be welcomed. The sudden, violent rise of Shinzon, and his even quicker and more violent fall, had shaken the Romulan Empire. He left a power vacuum which Romulans, even more than nature, abhored. Donatra, who commanded the Valdore and confronted Shinzon, was in a strong position to seize the reigns, and her rivals on Romulus would surely know that. The crew had to be ready for anything.

But it wasn't thoughts of their fate, or Donatra's, that kept Rallis awake in his obscure corner of the warbird. His mind and emotions returned obsessively to another powerful Romulan woman. He had served Sela, as his family had served her great family for generations. His thoughts were of her.

Where was Sela tonight? Rallis wondered. Was she still huddled somewhere in the caverns below the capital, dazed and lost? He could not bear it. This was the image that haunted him as he stared unseeing into the darkness.



It is dark here, wherever here is. An absence of almost all light-certainly those are not discernable stars. More like fireflies. But what are fireflies?

"How sad", said a voice. "A being destined to live a thousand years, to be a beacon of hope and a reservoir of wisdom for generations, blasted to atoms to save a puny old human."

This time he knew the voice: it was his. But not his.

"Lor?"

"Yeah, so what? You scattered my atoms, too, why should I try to keep you company? We're fragments passing in the night."

But this isn't true, he knew. We are forever linked. All the sons of Soong. And even---

"Mother?"

"Yes, Data. Don't worry. It's just another journey. Another exploration. Just another strange new world."

"Sometimes these days I find myself wondering," he heard Captain Picard say, "what we're really doing out here." Yes---he remembered Captain Picard saying that, not long ago.

But now he has an answer. Why hadn't he accessed it before? "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."

He was quoting someone named John Muir, though he was not sure who this person was. But the words seemed to come to him. And evoked an immediate response.

"So what? What's it get you? Didn't you learn anything from me?"

"What should I have learned, Lor?"

"To listen to me once in awhile. You can't escape me. And you wonder why you can't have fun. Goodbye..." His own voice mocked him with his last word, and added, "but you can't say goodbye to me."


Rallis tumbled out of his hammock, restless and anxious. He was afraid, but not for himself. For her. For Sela.

She of the golden strength, the flaring, hungry, ice-blue eyes. Once she had commanded fleets, dared to defy the Federation, determined to fulfill her destiny and restore the supremacy of the Romulan Empire. To make her noble family proud, and her homeworld secure.

It seemed incredible to him now when he thought about it, but as children, he and Sela had played together. They always knew, in a vague way, that she was of noble birth and he was not. That his family had served his for generations. But lost in their games, in the stories they created together as they acted them out---although of course she always was the leader---they had shared a world equally.

Those golden hours were imprinted on his soul. They were the basis for his loyalty that would never change. His loyalty went beyond tradition, which itself was all but eroded, as temporary alliances and easy betrayals became all too common in recent Romulan politics. His was a loyalty of the heart.

He did not want to be here on this wounded ship, making its cautious way back to Romulus, more or less victorious. He had been ordered to report to this strange vessel in the secret revolt against Shinzon. Of course Donatra's minions didn't really trust him, since he had served Sela so long, even if, in recent years, at a distance. So even though he had been highly prized for his technical abilities in Sela's fleet, here he was consigned to monitor an empty cargo bay. He would have been among the shock troops to board Shinzon's vessel if the battle had gone that way. He was expendable.

Shinzon! All of this was because of Shinzon! The rumors concerning his origins had exposed the cloning program of so long ago, that had once been a high state secret, and since had simply been forgotten. Its intent was to replace important Federation officers with clones that were loyal to Romulus. Several such clones were attempted, and for awhile it appeared that only one had survived: Shinzon. He was said to be the clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise. But the program was abandoned by a new praetor, and the boy Shinzon was left to die in the Reman mines. Presumably the other clones had died there. The rumors varied wildly on how many there had been, and the persons they were created to replace.

For awhile there was no new gossip, but just a few weeks ago a new rumor swept the capital. There was another clone still alive, created later than Shinzon, also of a Federation officer, also from the Enterprise. But this clone had not languished and become disfigured in the black pits of Remus. She had grown up in the golden light of Romulan nobility, secretly adopted into one of its most important families. Because of her high station and great power, the rumors began as fearful whispers. But they were so spectacularly scandalous that they soon were so loud that even Sela learned of them.

The last time Rallis actually saw her was the day she announced she would prove these rumors false. Without hesitation, her eyes flashing and her lithe body in full stride, she set off to examine the most sensitive records that only her unassailable position enabled her to access. But even that was not enough. Sela was required to call in solemn debts to her and her father before she triumphantly descended to a secret vault of records in the caverns under the capital, that even she had not known existed.

When she did not return, everyone knew immediately that the rumors were true. Sela was not the daughter of a great Romulan general and his captured human consort. Her DNA was fully human. She was nothing but a clone of a Starfleet lieutenant, Natasha Yar.

Of course, Rallis had known she was motherless. The story then was that Yar had died giving birth to her, the implication being that a part-Romulan child was too much for a puny human body. Sela was told that the marriage of her parents had been kept secret, but others had a different view of the general's relationship with the captive from the Enterprise.

Much later, when Sela began telling the story of her mother's attempted escape with her in tow, and her own role in foiling it, Rallis dismissed it as the usual mythmaking of rising figures with great ambitions. He had no idea that Sela herself believed it. Though the plan to infiltrate the Federation that led to the cloning of Picard and Yar had long been abandoned, others within the then-current Romulan government saw the opportunity to stiffen the resolve of the clearly talented and amazingly charismatic Sela. So they implanted that story in her memory with a variation on brain control techniques Sela would soon try to use on yet another Enterprise officer, Geordi LaForge.

That attempt failed, but the longer and more controlled alterations in Sela worked completely. She became so convincing when telling this version of her past, that Rallis noted even some in his own family who knew better began to believe it.

That Sela looked exactly like Yar and nothing like her supposed Romulan family predisposed many to believe the clone story instantly. Sela was utterly disgraced.

Stories came to Rallis of Sela wandering through the caverns like a spectre, moaning and shrieking like a wraith. He begged for more information on where she might be. He wanted to go to her, to rescue her. To tell her it did not matter that she no longer had power or wealth, that she no longer had a family, or even the right to her own name. It did not matter how she came into existence. That she existed, that she was who she had become, this was the only important thing.

He wanted to find her, to serve her, even if it meant deserting his unit in the Romulan military. Together they would find a way to restore her power, her rightful place earned by deed, not breeding.

But before he could act he was sent to this dark pit in the bowels of the Valdore, to wait for the opportunity to be killed at Donatra's convenience.

But even here he found a way to serve Sela. In one bold move he had acted to provide for her a treasure that would be the key to her reemergence, so the Romulan Empire would once again admire and honor and follow her.

Yes, he had seen the opportunity and seized it. But as he prowled the dark silent cargo bay, the only sound the dull echoes of his own furtive footfalls, the recollection stopped him dead. He stood in the corner, near the locker he obsessively returned to, not quite believing its contents even now. Then he buried his face in his hands, and another sound reverberated through the dark emptiness: his own anguished cry.

Because he had come so close, but he had failed. He had failed, utterly and completely.


The confusion was gone. Suddenly he was immersed in clarity. Every thought and image was sharp and distinct and vibrant, yet all so clearly connected that it seemed he could perceive in multiple dimensions.

It did not matter that he hadn't solved anything about where and even what he now was. Some alternatives had occurred to him. He could be under alien influence, for instance. Downloaded into a computer of unknown origin and design. Of course there was the little matter of the explosion.

If he had in fact been blown apart into scattered atoms, then he was indeed in an intriguing situation. He had pondered this before. If there was an afterlife---and of course he knew all the descriptions from all the cultures in all the worlds on record---he had wondered if an android could attain it. Or was this a separate one? If the universe ultimately was a web of possibilities, which he was inclined to believe it was, then an android heaven was not much more absurd than Sto-Vo-Kor. The experience of this odd form of consciousness might even suggest he had a soul, as humans called it.

But he found such speculations fading as a very different kind of clarity seemed to inhabit him.

"Father, what is happening to me?"

"I expect you are in a sense reviewing not only your own life in depth," Dr. Soong's kind voice suggested, "but those of many others, whose memories---whose stories---are stored within you."

"Yes, that is it! Processing is becoming a kind of---coalescing. I have your story, too. I am comparing the patterns. They yield such...insights...of general application, and yet, each is wholly its own."

But he could not find the words, and notably he did not feel the immediate need to do so. He was absorbed in a new aspect of experience. For in addition to the memories of events, it seemed all the emotions connected with them were also revealed to him. For all the encounters of his life, he recalled not only what he and others said and did, but what their emotions were in response to him. And from that point he also perceived all the feelings and actions that resulted from these encounters, echoing from person to person, time to time, on every level of existence.
It was almost more than his matrix could handle, though evidently his consciousness was at least as complex in this unnamable state as that formerly enabled by his positronic array.

"Each experience is unique because each moment and each person is unique," he reported, " and yet..."

And yet? There was a unity---not just the myriad connections and relationships he could not quite calculate or fathom, but an identity of some kind, as if the universe were indeed singular, but not as a single vessel for a collection of forces, no, it was something...else...

But something else was happening. A clamor, a noise. A fuss, somewhere close. Its gravity distracted him.

He tried to hold on, but he was being pulled. Everything sped past---Why is the sky black? We are not invaders. We are explorers. You know of course that thought is the most powerful force in the universe. I rather think that time is a companion, that goes with us on the journey. Resistance is futile. Speak for yourself, Captain---I plan to live forever.

Tell him he is a pretty cat, and a good cat. Flirting, laughter, painting, family, female, human. Thank you for my life. That is the exploration that awaits you-charting the unknown possibilities of existence. Let's see what's out there: engage! Glad to meet you, Pinocchio. You jewel!

Tasha's voice. Her smile. He had not known, not so completely...

He did not want it to go. He had not learned enough.

"Who looks outside, dreams," said a voice with a Swiss-German accent. "Who looks inside, awakes."

"Yes, I know that!" Data cried out with something alarmingly like emotion. "I want to stay but I cannot!" The noise, the clamor was driving him out, was forcing him away. He tried to run, but was blocked by an even greater noise, a huge rattling. It was drawing him with it, like compressed air suddenly rushing into space.

Then he realized: the rattle was a call. He was being called? Should he answer it? It meant that he was needed. He saw that in the bright faces, shining in the light, smiling at him, saying farewell. Saying in their eyes and their shining faces that he would see them again. Yes, he would go. There would be plenty of time. He would return there, and he would be back here. He was always in both places, after all.

For now his attention was on the rattling. And the darkness becoming dimness, becoming a different, tempered light.


Rallis had surprised himself with his own sobbing, but now he stopped, shocked. For he was hearing something else.

Could it be his impulsive act, borne of his desire to rescue and to serve Sela, had not been futile?
It had been in the midst of battle. The Valdore and another warbird had pursued Shinzon's massive Scimitar and found it attacking the Federation's flagship, Enterprise. Donatra had announced herself to its Captain Picard as an ally in the fight, for she was desperate to stop Shinzon before he began a genocidal war which would make the Romulan Empire the pariah of the galaxy, threatening its very survival.

But the Scimitar was too strong, and Shinzon too wily an opponent. He destroyed the other warbird and crippled the Valdore, leaving them hanging ominously still a short distance away.

Amidst the smoke and screams of the wounded, frantic orders filled the air. They must restore the Valdore's functions before Shinzon decided to finish them off this still target.

Rallis was alone in the cargo hold, automatically accomplishing what he had been trained to do in such a situation: check all systems in his area, prepare to report when asked, and otherwise await orders. But even as he ran through his short checklist, he knew he would be the last on the ship to be asked to report.

He had already ascertained that main environmental systems were down, but that emergency life support was functioning, but then he knew that from the fact that he was still breathing. Basically all that was left to check was the cargo hold transporter. On Sela's ships, Rallis had been a transporter officer, known for his instinctive skills as well as his technical knowledge. But except for routine resupply, the cargo transporters were ignored. Few ever thought of them even being there.

He saw without much interest that his transporter circuits were undamaged. But when he noticed that his was the only functioning transporter on the ship, the idea came to him like lightning.

Quickly he scanned the Scimitar. With the Valdore's low power, he could not get much of a fix on the Scimitar's bridge. But there was a huge energy reading elsewhere on Shinzon's ship. He surmised it was the much-rumored ultimate weapon that Shinzon possessed, and was now evidently powering up to use on the Enterprise.

The weapon did not interest him, but the life signs near it did. There were two, both apparently human. One had to be Shinzon. The other was probably from the Enterprise. But which one was Shinzon?

The life signs of one began to fluctuate, to fade. The other was strong but stationary, as if standing over his adversary in triumph. That was more likely to be the brutal warrior Shinzon.

Rallis knew he must act quickly. Even in the chaos aboard the Valdore, he could divert power to his transporter for only a moment before being noticed. They probably didn't realize he knew how. They doubtless didn't know he had the skill to push the limits of this transporter's range. He set the targeting scanners as precisely as he could, but this transporter was built to move bulk, so it was powerful but tricky to focus.

But if he was successful he would have the greatest prize he could possibly present to his Sela. His eyes left the transporter as he fixed his disruptor on a high stun setting. He would stun Shinzon the moment he materialized. He could imprison him in one of the larger lockers, while he rigged a more permanent force field to confine him. He could easily steal the drugs necessary to keep him sedated from under the noses of harried medical personnel. He had done something like this before, and Sela had been very pleased.

Sela would have Shinzon, the key to the Reman resistance. And no matter who began to emerge as the new Romulan leadership, she would be the hero of the hour. Such was her strategic genius that Rallis couldn't even guess how she would use his gift to her, but he knew it would be glorious.

But just as Rallis locked onto the human life sign he hoped was Shinzon and energized the beam, his readings began to fluctuate, and the Scimitar suddenly exploded.

Rallis did not realize until later what an immense explosion it had been. Everything and everyone on that massive ship was reduced to a shower of debris. There was nothing left of the Scimitar but wide spirals of small fragments and slowly tumbling shards. And whatever had been confined within the beam in time.

He watched in dismay as the atoms scattered and coalesced in the matter stream solidified in the cargo bay. He had failed. He had not captured Shinzon, alive or dead. He hadn't even captured a human from Starfleet, or even a piece of one. Somehow he had managed to transport nothing but a barely connected heap of bent and singed machinery.

He stared at it. Parts of it had a vaguely humanoid form, so his settings had not been off by that much. Then he realized: he had somehow rescued the broken remnants of Shinzon's android, the one he found and somehow employed as a spy on the Enterprise, if the rumors were true.

But as exhausted and deeply disappointed as he was at that moment, Rallis was still Romulan, and he knew he had to keep his secret. The smoldering form looked too hot to touch yet, so he turned his attention to erasing the transporter log. The Valdore command and control systems were still mostly inoperative, so it was a relatively easy task.

Then he gathered up the heap of machinery and placed it carefully in an empty locker. No use damaging something that could be salvaged. Perhaps he could think of some way to use it, to Sela's advantage.

But in the long dark days since then, Rallis had thought of nothing. He had only become more and more morose and despairing. He was tortured with images of Sela, needing help, but with no one to aid her. He seemed to hear her crying out to him----

But suddenly there was another sound. He was again in the corner of the cargo hold, near the locker where he had hidden the machinery. He had not looked at it again, afraid to again be rebuked with his failure. Yet somehow he often found himself in this spot near it.

The shiver caught him, and his eyes widened. He heard a rattle, a rasp. It seemed to be coming from the locker.

He didn't want to open it, but he was still fearful of discovery. He must silence it before it grows louder. His quivering hand moved to open it---and he jumped back, blinded by a sudden flood of light.

He looked around. It was only the cargo bay's ordinary lights suddenly coming on, although they all appeared to be at full intensity. He must have left the controls that way when he tested them, and power to those systems had only just been restored.

Just in time to give him a heart attack. He laughed to himself, and opened the locker.

Only to involuntarily jump back again. Something in it was moving. As his eyes adjusted to the light and he gazed at the object, his mind began to put together patterns and forms. Yes. The part of it that was moving could very well be a hand. But it was damaged, and that was causing the rattling sound.

Rallis watched, fascinated. Was some kind of internal self-repair program at work? The hand, if that's what it was, continued to twitch and flex.

Suddenly he was excited. If this could be made to function again, or even if its information storage could be tapped? It might provide invaluable information on the Remans, perhaps even information on Shinzon that might be helpful to Sela.

Rallis peered deep into the machinery. Suddenly he saw, very dimly, two points of light. Their source seemed to be lodged behind two slits in the metal.

He leaned closer and then jumped back. Eyes? Were they eyes? Was it possible there was even something like life behind them?

Suddenly, strangely he felt a cascade of emotion. What was this exactly---a damaged machine, or a badly wounded being? Did it perhaps even feel pain?

He was a soldier and used to pain and death. But he was also used to taking care of wounded enemies, for they were soldiers as well. But what was this? He didn't know what to do exactly. Except he must keep it hidden. And keep it alive, if that is what it was.

Rallis looked carefully at the circuitry that crossed the interior of the locker. It appeared intact. He walked quickly to the control panel. Sometimes perishable items, or items requiring controlled temperatures were stored in these lockers, so they had their own rudimentary environmental controls.

Rallis adjusted the settings and activated the unit. He returned to the locker, and was finally able to look into the lights he took to be eyes.

"I will need to hide you in this locker for the duration of the voyage to Romulus," he said. "Then I will get help for you. In the meantime I have set the environmental controls. When I shut this door they will be activated. I have provided some interior light. Not very much, because the illumination is tied into the heating circuits. But it will moderate the temperature inside as well."

He began to seal the locker, then hesitated. " It should keep you warm," he said finally, and nodding slightly, he closed the door.

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posted by Captain Future @ 2:45 AM