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Data's Journey
By : K_nz
Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation
Views: 1351 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for full Disclaimer
Chapter List
- 13
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He had made it to the cargo bay of the Enterprise, his plan going without a hitch. He released the latch on the hidden compartment at the bottom of the container and crawled out. Lore stood, examining his uniform – an exact replica of Data’s – and smoothed the fabric.
Lore had last seen his brother when Dr Soong’s homing device summoned him to Terlina III. He had left with the emotion chip intended for Data – a chip that had nearly cost him his life. It threatened to overload his neural net, and he barely made it to the ex-mining planet, Dutan 4, before he crash landed. He lay in the rubble for over two years, incapacitated by the emotional surges, before he was able to regain dominion over his body and mind. He then made his way to the abandoned mining settlement, and as he struggled to control the emotion chip, he knew what he had to do.
He used the computers at the site, retrofitted with components scavenged from the wreckage, to track the location of the Enterprise and to ensure Data was still on board. He had seen on the Enterprise manifest Data was sharing his quarters with a Neara Na Ahta. So Data had taken a mate. This would be easier than he thought. He looked up her record. Her photo was there, but the rest was sealed. Curious. He thought she would be a Vulcan, but she wasn’t. What other species would be with an unemotional hunk of machinery?
For months he kept watch, and when the Enterprise was finally in range, he put out the counterfeit call. Imitating her voice, he identified himself as Jessica Compton with Science Station Mezmar. They needed to do some drilling into the planet’s duplenium core, and they needed a specialized drill to do so. Starfleet had informed them there was one left on Dutan 4, but they were unsure of its condition. Since they were the closest vessel to that planet, would they mind picking it up and delivering it to Mezmar so they could try it out? It might save them waiting months for a new drill to arrive.
Picard had, of course, agreed. Lore easily placed the giant drill into the container in which he had created the false bottom. Then all he had to do was wait.
Once on board, he made his way quickly to engineering. He nodded to people who thought he was Data and walked purposefully into the engine room. He reached under his shirt and removed the concealed dion plate. He opened the required access panel and inserted it, disrupting the warp plasma flow. Now they would remain in orbit long enough for him to complete his plan.
He then walked to Data’s quarters where he would wait for Data’s mate. Hopefully Data wasn’t home and would not arrive first. If he did, Lore would improvise – perhaps hide and wait for an opportune moment.
It would be best if she arrived first, though. It would work perfectly for his plan, but he would manage with whatever circumstance was thrown at him. He had waited too long and worked too hard to let anything stand in his way.
He listened outside the door. He did not hear any noises from within. Good, no one was home. He went inside and did a quick reconnaissance. There was a cat sleeping on the couch, but otherwise no one else. It looked like the best place to hide, if necessary, was under the bed. How cliché.
He went back to the door and listened to the noises in the hallway, the device ready in his hand. He heard people walking to and fro, people talking, but no one coming up to the door. He heard voices in the hallway – two females. He heard them approach the door and he moved to the side of it. They came in and smiled at him and the rest happened in an instant. He immediately recognized them. The dark-haired one was Counselor Deanna Troi, whom he had met when he was on the Enterprise after being reassembled all those years ago. The time when his brother and the man-child shot him out into space. His burning hatred flared hotter than before. As her smile dropped, he grabbed for the blonde he knew was Neara Na Ahta and clapped the collar device on her. He squeezed it tight against her throat.
At the same moment, a shimmering bubble of energy encapsulated Neara, but Lore’s hand and forearm remained inside it. She was choking. She tried pulling the collar away from her neck.
Neara buckled. The pain emanating from this being was excruciating. His fractured emotions and intense anger stabbing at her like a million knives being driven into her flesh. This was not her Data, this had to be his brother Lore.
Her fear was confirmed when she heard Deanna say, “Lore, please let her go.” He lifted her off the ground, her fingers scrabbling at the band around her neck. She managed to pull it away enough to take in rasping breaths.
“Lore, you’re hurting her,” she heard Deanna say.
“Why don’t you just let my brother know I’m here,” Lore instructed.
Deanna tapped her badge, “Captain Picard, is Data on the bridge?”
“Yes Counselor,” Picard confirmed.
“Lore is here, in his quarters, and wants to see him. He has Neara,” she somberly informed.
Data instantly shot out of his seat to the turbolift, Picard following.
“Number One, you have the bridge,” and Picard signaled for Worf to follow.
They arrived, with two additional security contingent, and rushed through the door to Data’s quarters. “Neara,” Lore heard Data say as he reached for her.
“That’s far enough,” he commanded and they pulled to a halt. They saw Neara, suspended off the floor in Lore’s choke hold, a bubble of energy surrounding her with what looked like Ahmrian blue lightning dancing within.
“So this is your mate, I take it.” He turned her back and forth, examining her, “I thought she would be Vulcan, not.. whatever this is.”
“I am here now, ready to discuss your demands. Please Lore, you do not have to hurt her,” Data pleaded.
“You mean this?” Lore indicated Neara’s bubble of blue lightning with a sweeping gesture of his open hand. “This isn’t me… this is aaalll her. Your mate,” he said, giving Neara a vicious shake, “seems,” shake, “to be,” shake, “malfunctioning,” shake, shake, shake, shake.
“Lore!” Picard raised his voice to get his attention. “If you expect us to cooperate, you must stop harming your prisoner.”
“I wouldn’t call her a prisoner, more of a bargaining chip. Or an insurance policy,” Lore clarified. “I have no intention of really harming her. Not as long as I get what I want. And that’s up to you, dear brother.
“You see, I had a near-death experience trying to control this emotion chip of yours. And it gave me an epiphany. Why should I struggle with substandard parts the old man gave me when there are perfectly good parts? In you.
“All I need to do is wipe your neural net and transfer mine onto it. Then I can put the emotion chip into the body it was designed for and wallah, I’ll be a new man. And who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if your mate fell for me. I mean, I’d certainly be a ‘better half’ with my emotions!” Lore laughed derisively.
“How do you plan on accomplishing this Lore?” Picard asked. “You’re surrounded and we have no intention of giving in to your demands.”
“That really isn’t up to you Picard, that’s up to Data. You see, this nifty little device here,” Lore indicated the collar choking Neara, “is rigged with explosives. Not only can it be activated manually, and trust me I plan to keep hold of it as long as I need, it’s also linked to my neural net. So if anything happens to me, say if I were to be deactivated or my neural net were wiped – even if I were a little too far away from the collar – it will explode. So what do you say, dear brother, am I going to blow her mind, or are you going to cooperate?”
“What is it you need me to do?” Data asked gravely.
“Very good. I knew you would go along with this,” Lore said with glee. “That’s the problem with caring for these decaying chunks of animated meat. Well, that’s your problem at least, not mine. We’ll just wipe that defect away. It’ll be like Data 2.0, except you won’t be there to enjoy it.
“First I’ll need your chief engineer, since I can’t do the transfer on my own. And not to say I don’t trust you… actually, I am saying I don’t trust you. I’d feel better using my own equipment with just the four of us there. I’ve got everything ready to go on the surface…” and Lore abruptly broke off as Neara flew backwards taking him out the door at speed.
“Damn you, sack of shit!” Lore screamed as he held on and squeezed her collar tightly, attempting to cut off blood flow.
Neara was in agony. She knew she didn’t have much time before she blacked out. She saw Data and the rest running after her as she flew around the corner. She needed to get to the nearest transporter room. She had used up a lot of energy in flight, but she had just enough to create a psi doorway to the transporter pad. Once there, she used telekinesis to move the controls and they were away to the planet surface. As they left, she saw O’Brien quickly turn from the panel he was working on and look on in surprise.
“Where did they go?” Worf asked as they rounded the corner.
“Computer, what is the location of Neara Na Ahta?” Data inquired.
“Neara Na Ahta is not on the ship,” the computer responded.
Just then, O’Brien hailed, “Captain, Commander Data and Na Ahta just beamed down to the planet. It wasn’t authorized. I didn’t even hear them come in. I just turned around and they were on the pad beaming down. And Captain,” O’Brien hesitated, “Commander Data seemed to be garroting her.”
“That was not Commander Data, Mr O’Brien,” Picard clarified. “We’ll have to explain later. Worf, I’d like you to find out the exact coordinates where they beamed down. I assume they’ll be making their way to the mining settlement, and it would be helpful if they were delayed as long as possible. See what you can come up with.”
“If Lore is planning to use equipment at the mining station, perhaps we should destroy it,” Worf suggested.
“No,” Picard disagreed, “he’ll need a way to contact us. If the instruments were destroyed, we’d need to find him, and then he would expect to use the ship’s equipment to complete the transfer. If we didn’t contact him, we risk him thinking he was abandoned on the planet. He would most certainly kill Neara in that instance. We can’t risk that. We’ll let him contact us once he’s there.”
The senior staff converged in the conference room and Data began, “I believe Neara took this action to give us time to formulate a rescue plan.”
“I would agree,” Picard acknowledged. “Is there any way to sever the link between the collar and Lore?”
“If I were designing the device, I would have a modulating frequency converter with instructions supplied directly from my positronic matrix,” Data stated. “It would be impossible to determine the appropriate frequency with enough time to disable it.”
“Perhaps we could try and deactivate the explosives,” Geordi suggested. “We could use a mybarr wave. It works on a lot of them.”
“Too risky,” Riker said. “We have no idea what explosives he’s used. The wave could potentially trigger them.”
“And it might disrupt the frequency converter, producing the same outcome,” Data stated.
“Perhaps Neara’s electrical current is an attempt to short him out,” Troi offered.
“I do not believe so,” Data disagreed. “Neara seemed to be in a great deal of pain. I believe the current might be a response to that.”
“I think you’re right Data. In my research into Ahmriana psi abilities, Neara never mentioned an electrical current form of defense,” Crusher confirmed. “But perhaps we’re going about this the wrong way. Perhaps we should think about this like we did with the Borg, when Hugh was with us. Maybe we need to get to the point where Lore is connected to the equipment to make the transfer, and we implant him with a Trojan horse program.”
“That’s a good idea doctor,” Picard affirmed.
“Perhaps we could transfer Data’s ethical programming to Lore – make him rethink his actions,” Troi suggested.
“I believe, given this delay, Lore will expect a scheme against him. I believe we should give him this anticipated deception,” Data recommended.
“You mean, give him a Trojan horse program, but make it so he’ll recognize it. Then when he’s busy dealing with that, start the real program,” Geordi comprehended.
“Yes,” Data affirmed. Then they devised their plan of action.

Lore was dragging Neara across the ground by her collar. She was so weak, having used what little energy she could muster to take them to the surface. The only energy she had left was her desperate attempt to pull the collar away from her throat. He was incredibly angry now. Her psi wounds were so numerous, it was draining her life force away.
Neara was not sure why her protective sphere did not defend against Lore. Data and Lore’s construction must have been nearly identical – she could not think of any other reason. At this rate, she was not certain how much longer she could live. If she died, she would at least find satisfaction in the fact that Lore’s plans were thwarted and her beloved Data would survive.
Lore was dragging her quickly, making good time. When he crested the ridge, he saw a large and long water mass below. “Damn it!” he screamed and lifted Neara off her feet to show her the water. “Now we have to go all the way around this!” he told her with a savage shake. “You’re gonna pay for what you did you stinking, putrid sack of guts. Just as soon as I have what I want.” Then he continued on, the ground ripping Neara’s flesh, trailing her in his wake.

They finally made it to the abandoned mining settlement. Lore dragged Neara over to the computer console and hailed a ship that was not the Enterprise. In the haze of Neara’s mind, she felt a stirring of surprise. Why did he not contact Data? Her mind tuned out as he spoke to that ship. She tuned back in when she heard Data’s voice, his beautiful voice. But her mind was very fuzzy, so weak – the sound of his voice comforted her.
She did not know how long she was out, but she awakened when Lore started hauling her across the room to the conference table. Equipment was set up at one end of it, ready and waiting.
The next thing she saw was Geordi beaming down with Data lying at his feet on the transporter pad. A sickening dread landed in the pit of her stomach. As if he could read her thoughts, Geordi quickly said, “Don’t worry Neara. We’ve put Data’s core memory into the ship’s computer. We’ll put him in Lore’s old body once the transfer is complete.”
Lore mocked, “Yes, don’t worry Neara. Everything will work out perfectly.
“Bring him over here,” Lore commanded, and Geordi dragged Data over to the conference table. “Put him up there,” and Geordi struggled to pull Data onto the table. He finally succeeded.
Lore took a chair beside the equipment, “Remember, don’t try anything funny. I’ve got hold of Data’s mate, and I’m certain Data wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, would he?”
Geordi nodded his acknowledgment and started connecting the equipment, first to Data, then to Lore. “I’ll need to scan all your programs before we start so I can keep track and make certain everything is successfully transferred. Especially since Neara’s life depends on it all going without problems.”
“Alright,” Lore consented. Geordi started scanning and a couple of minutes in, Lore said, “I knew you’d try something. You thought you could implant an ethical program into me and get me to rethink my actions, didn’t you? You need to wipe that program right now before somebody gets hurt,” and he gave Neara a shake.
Geordi looked upset and defeated. He erased the program. Data had said that Neara’s life was more important than his own, and he didn’t want to put her at risk by pushing things, waiting to see if the ethical program would take hold.
The transfer from Lore to Data took some time, but was finally finished. It had gone successfully. “Now, the emotion chip,” Lore instructed. Geordi followed his directions and retrieved the emotion chip and placed it in Lore’s new body. He sat up, went over to Neara, released his old body’s arm and held onto Neara’s collar.
He pulled Neara and his old body over to the transporter. He threw his old body onto it and activated the controls, beaming the body away.
“What are you doing?!” Geordi yelled as he ran over to the transporter controls.
“Don’t bother trying to get it back. I programmed a scattered particle beam to diffuse the signal into space. You won’t be able to retrieve it,” Lore stated. “I told you you’d pay,” Lore said to Neara. “Two birds with one stone, because Data was due payback as well. And I think the punishment rather fits the crime, don’t you? I was beamed into space and now he’s beamed into space. Well, not him exactly, but the body he was intending to inhabit. Looks like your beloved Data is just a bunch of zeros and ones in a computer now,” he finished with a nasty smile.
Neara looked at the transporter pad, a single tear running down her cheek.
Lore changed the programming and beamed the three of them to the Enterprise bridge. Lore instructed Picard to take him to a destination inside the Romulan/Federation neutral zone. Picard did not want to agree, but he made Data a promise. Neara’s life was more important than his and Picard must do anything he could to ensure her safety.
They arrived at the destination and put shields up and went to red alert. There was a Romulan ship waiting.
“You’ll need to lower the shields and beam me to the specified coordinates on their ship Captain,” Lore instructed.
“I will do no such thing until Neara is freed,” Picard asserted.
“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Lore acknowledged. “If I release her, I lose my bargaining chip. You won’t beam me over, and you’d probably try to take me into custody. If I don’t release her, I’ll never get over to that ship.
“But I did plan for this contingency. I’ve just remodulated the frequency in my positronic matrix and the collar device is now on a countdown. Now instead of exploding if I am incapacitated or too far away, it will explode if I am not beamed to my specified coordinates within twenty seconds. It’s your choice Captain.”
“How do I know it won’t explode anyway, or you won’t explode it as you’re beamed away?” Picard asked.
“You don’t,” Lore answered. “But if I did that, I’m assuming you’d stop the transit and I would remain on the Enterprise. Once I’m on the Romulan ship, you’ll put your shields up, which will block my communication with the device. If you don’t beam me over in, well, ten seconds now, I’ll at least have some payback. Nine.. eight.. seven..”
“Beam Lore over to the coordinates,” Picard instructed…

Data sat up, got off the table and went over to Lore. He removed Lore’s hand from the collar and released the collar from Neara’s neck. She sagged to the floor, unconscious. He checked her vitals – she was alive, but her pulse was weak.
“Geordi, please take Neara to Sick Bay. I will follow you momentarily,” Data requested.
Geordi nodded and crouched by Neara, “Two to beam directly to Sick Bay,” and they were gone.
With Lore and Data still connected to the equipment, Data took Lore, the collar, and the equipment over to the transporter. He beamed the collar into space, where Picard confirmed its explosion. He then opened Lore’s cranium and deactivated him. Now he was able to discontinue his dream program, the one he was guiding to lure Lore into a false experience of victory. As an extra safety precaution, he disconnected Lore’s head from his body.
He then beamed back to the Enterprise and gave instructions that Lore needed to be disassembled. Afterwards, he quickly made his way to Sick Bay.
- 13
- 14
- 15
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Data's Journey	By : K_nz Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation Views: 1351 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for full Disclaimer

Data's Journey