Stardate 52013.7 Still on the bridge, Lt. Kalamarina glanced around nervously. Her transporter was supposed to materialize her in Reman’s shop, not on the bridge. She was anxious to meet him. Captain Mason turned to her and said, "Well, as long as you’re here, make yourself useful. Take Carter’s console and see if you can find that Caradassian ship." "Yes sir." she said and strolled over to the tactical position. After fumbling with it for a few moments, she looked back up, "Captain, the sensors are shot to pieces, I might be able to get better readings with some manual adjustments to the deflector dish. Request permission to leave the bridge." Mason nodded curtly and she opened the turbolift doors. Not trusting the lifts themselves she lowered herself and swung into a Jeffries tube and began the long descent down to deck 18, where the core of the dish was placed. She gave her access code to the doors and scrambled into the core access tube. As the doors closed behind her she was comforted in the fact that no one would bother her. Since she had began all her tweaks to the ships systems, she had also laid out security protocols so that no one would get into here but her. She removed the cover from an EPS conduit, or at least that’s what it was before she had installed a bioneural gel pack that she’d grown in her quarters. Running a tricorder over it, she realized the pack was sick and dying, and she was unable to grow anymore without more equipment. Maybe Reman could ‘borrow’ some stuff from sickbay. She pulled a micronic modulator, a homemade toy, out of her pocket and began readjusting the circuitry, attempting to preserve the modifications she had made and then almost lost with the obliteration of the lowest two decks. ************************************************************************ Meanwhile, in the holodeck, Carter stood gasping air, relieved the deck was shut down. The shipwide intercom whistled, it was Engineering, "Auxiliary power online!" Oh crap, thought Carter. The holodeck program resumed and he stood ready to take the charge of another Jem’Hadar soldier. The walking reptile raised his weapon, ready to cave Carter’s skull in, when Carter did the most unexpected thing. He sneezed. The confused soldier stopped a foot away, with weapon still raised in air. "Sorry," said Carter, "I’m allergic to violence." Reacting quickly, he grabbed his phaser and shot the soldier with it. Knowing full well this was a holodeck, he set the weapon for overload and lunged it at the image projection generators, at least where he guessed they would be. He was right, the holodeck deactivated and he got to his feet. Accessing the ship’s computer, or what was left of it, he checked the security logs to see if there were any problems. He couldn’t explain why he felt this sudden devotion to his duty, except maybe someone was trying to kill him with the holodeck. All problems were being monitored except and intrusion into the deflector core. Only senior officers were supposed to have access to that. Grabbing a phaser out of an emergency supply locker in the wall, he bolted for deck 18. ************************************************************************ Back in the deflector core, Kalamarina’s manipulations were succeeding. She had found the Cardassian ship, and someone else too. The ship was nearly 10 light years away, in the direction away from the alpha quadrant and it was engaged in battle with a long range Borg scout cube. The Cardassian ship must have some new weapon, because the cube was losing. She whipped her head around as she heard someone trying to get in. When the person apparently gave up on opening the doors peacefully, a phaser blasted a hole in them, narrowly missing Kalamarina. What kind of careless targ is this?! Carter’s head popped in the core and he stared at her intently. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "What are you doing?" was her brilliant reply. "My job!" he said, climbing in. "Too little, too late." she muttered as she bent back over her gel pack, thinking to herself. Okay, my personal transporter obviously is affected by warp field fluctuations. I wound up on the bridge because of the core breach, so if I dematerialize this guy and reroute his pattern from the buffers to the deflector core, I should be able to get him off the ship without killing him. I hate how limited a range Federation technology has. Thank Kahless that my ancestries have connections to those outside the UFP! A Ferengi had sold her a stolen version of long range Dominion transporter on her last shore leave. When Carter realized he was being dematerialized he shot his phaser at Kalamarina, putting a hole in her shoulder. A minute later, Carter and his phaser were gone. She checked the sensors to see if he’d wound up on the Cardassian ship like she planned. He wasn’t. The Cardassian ship had fired its new weapon, apparently a subspace one, during the rematerialization process and deflected Carter’s pattern. She heard another security team coming and left the opposite way, heading back down the Jeffries tubes to see what damage she had done to her two decks. Climbing down a turbolift tube and noticed structural integrity fields holding a turbolift to the ship. She cut the top off and peered inside. "Reman," she said. "What a pleasure to finally meet you." The Ferengi glanced up at her and said "Hu-man technology is unprofitable." She laughed in agreement and arranged for her transporter to beam them both to sickbay. When they got there, no one was on duty, no doubt scattered around the ship dealing with various wounds. "Computer," Kalamarina said, "locate acting chief medical officer." "Deck 22, section aft." Oh, yeah. Kalamarina’s manipulation of the warp core had triggered all the photon torpedoes stored for the rear tubes on that deck. She had personally eliminated the security chief and half the tactical personnel in one day. Whoever the new security chief would be was going to get to make the department over however they wanted. "Computer, activate EMH." A glimmer appeared in the air as a bald hologram in a blue uniform stated "Please state the nature of the medical...uh." It glanced around then began muttering. "An empty sickbay with a Klingon in a gray uniform and a Ferengi? Is someone tampering with my program?" "He’s a civilian," said Kalamarina, nodding to Reman, "and the uniforms have changed since you were programmed." "Oh," said the virtual doctor. "Being deactivated for so long leaves me feeling like I’m lost on the other side of the galaxy sometimes." "Shut up and heal us!" roared Kalamarina. "Okay!" The EMH grabbed a tricorder and began scanning both of them. "No need to be a pain in the astrometric photons, Lieutenant." She merely growled. When he was done, she addressed the computer again. "There’s a virus in the EMH program, delete all records and reboot!" "What did you do that for?" stuttered a nervous Reman. "I don’t want anyone knowing I was shot in the shoulder." She grabbed him by the lobes and lifted him into the air. He smiled and winced simultaneously. "Is this bullying or oo-mox?" "Tell anyone anything about me and there’ll be vacuum sucked disks of you circulating around the FCA. Stay quiet and the profit is your life. Deal?" Reman nodded and she dropped him to the floor before storming out of sickbay. Reman laid on the floor, aroused by thoughts of their next arrangement. ************************************************************************ Carter realized he was being transported, but had no idea where he was. Obviously it was a small Borg cube, but it had taken a lot of damage. He set his phaser for a high setting and began exploring. He remembered from his briefings of Enterprise encounters with Borg, that there should be five drones. He counted at least four dead. The fifth, he heard, was behind him. He whirled around and recognized the drone. "Commander Metcalf?" My security chief from the Rutledge! How did my mentor ever get assimilated? He taught me everything I know! The drone didn’t respond and Carter blew him in half. Kneeling down to inspect the upper torso of the drone, Carter noticed an interesting contraption on arm. He picked it up close to his face to examine it more closely. Two assimilation tubules plucked into his eyeballs. He fell backward screaming in agony as nanites began rearranging his body at the subatomic level. His screams filled the whole cube, but the closest people to hear him didn’t care. The Cardassians kept firing at the cube.