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Blind Chess	By : madradena Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation Views: 1334 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own ST:TNG, nor the characters. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The moment they set foot in the mines, Data felt, his resources were almost thoroughly occupied by fear. It was distracting, and he did all he could to somehow dispel this growing sense of foreboding, but the deeper they got into the mines, the worse it became. He was silently grateful for the fact that Earl seemed to willingly take up the role of the leader, and almost felt bad that his pride had been hurt when Picard had questioned his ability to lead an away-team comprising of his mother and his lover... How naive he'd been to think he could manage such a responsibility!
Then when Jones noticed their presence, it was almost a climactic feeling: as if he knew all along that the inevitable would happen. Almost as if they were predestined to get caught. He didn't need to think twice to get up from behind the rock with the sole purpose of protecting Emma and Juliana - at any cost.
He didn't reply to Jones' insults. It would have been pointless. He just hoped that the man's hatred for him would be enough distraction from his wife. He was proven wrong a moment later.
"Search the chamber! You'll find a woman hiding somewhere around!" Ed ordered, and Data was vaguely surprised by the fact that the Romulans were ready to obey him!
As the soldiers took a few steps from Jones and Sela to look around, Data used his only remaining asset to their advantage: his speed. In a fraction of a second, he wrapped his long fingers around Edmond Jones' neck: "Stop them, or he dies." he told Sela on his usual silent voice.
Ed felt the pressure of his rival's fingertips on his neck: it wasn't strong enough to break his neck, but it was unyielding, and he knew if he moved even an inch, he could be dead the next moment. At this thought, panic spread over his face, and he started to breath harder - and with Data's hand on his throat it was terrifyingly difficult.
Sela raised a hand, and his soldiers stopped only to point their guns at Data.
"You don't stand a chance against our disruptors, android!" Sela hissed "Let him go!"
"I do not mean to be rude, but judging by the conclusion you've come to, I believe you erred in your calculations." Data replied only looking into Edmond's eyes who stared at him shocked at the terrible tranquillity he'd displayed.
Sela raised an eyebrow in irritation as she unfolded her arms "Is that so?"
Data nodded still with a deadpan expression on his face, while Edmond wrapped his trembling hands around his wrist and tried in vain to free himself. Data didn't seem to care about Jones' efforts, he kept on holding his neck as he answered "First, you would have to give them an order to which they would have to react." Data told her on a matter-of-factly voice turning his head to her, still ignoring Jones' struggle "Romulan reaction-time is slightly faster than the corresponding human value, but it still is somewhere around 150 milliseconds. By this time, we are still only at the point, where your subordinates know what they have to do, but have yet to act to obey the order. They would still have to pull the trigger. The nerve conduction velocity of Romulans is slightly slower than that of humans and depends on age, hight and other factors, still it would be around 130 milliseconds, in general. I have no detailed information on this certain Romulan disruptor type, but I believe it would take some more time for it to heat the plasma, and for the emitted material to cross the air and reach me. I'd estimate, this process would give me about 500 milliseconds altogether to simply tighten my grip..." he turned back to Jones to look deeply into his eyes "That action only takes about 200 milliseconds, maybe less, based on the fact that I'm very motivated." At that, Edmond stopped struggling and just gaped in fear.
Data started a separate processing thread to examine what had just left his lips - because, however shocking they might seem, these words WERE true! This man who had tortured Emma for a decade, and still tried to use all means to possess her, now proved himself to be a traitor to the Federation and to all that he believed in. He knew he could have tried to understand his behaviour to make more reasonable decisions - but he didn't feel quite like that right at the moment. He rather felt more like getting rid of him... for good.
Sela could barely cover the frustration in her voice when she asked "What makes you think I care about a human?!"
Data cocked his head to look at Sela once again. He opened his mouth to answer, but to their utter shock, he spoke on Edmond's voice: "I need all the money I can get to stabilize my power. And THIS IS an interest of the Romulan Empire as well, not just me! Think about it with your superior intellect! Who would you be doing your deals with, if I was overthrown, and some hardheaded fundamentalist, like Hague used to be, takes my place? Your fruitful little business would be over for god-knows how long." he gazed back into the terrified eyes of Jones "Do I need to continue?"
"What do you want?!" Edmond burst out trying hard to catch his breath through his teeth.
"I want all of my companions to leave this place safely!" Data answered still on an enviably calm voice "Beam us back to our ship. And I will give you a leeway before starting to look for your ship, so you can get back to Romulan space before the Enterprise discovers that you committed a sever breach of the Treaty of Algeron."
Sela eyed him with disgust. It took her a few more moments to conceded to the fact that she was beaten "Fine." she spat eventually.
Data nodded and loosened his grip around Jones' throat before letting him go - it was oddly difficult, and the peculiar feeling made Data almost scared of himself.
Ed stumbled a few steps away as he started to cough painfully and felt his neck with his hands. Then in the next moment, they heard Emma's panic stricken voice.
"No, Deadpan! Don't let him go!" she screamed, and as Data turned back from her to Jones, he had only a fraction of a second to react. He ducked and avoided the disruptor blast which reverberated in the huge chamber. In the same moment, Emma reached Edmond's arm and grabbed at it to get the gun. They struggled for only a short moment, Ed was a lot stronger than she was, and by the time, Data reached them, Ed was holding the gun to Emma's head making Data stop short.
Edmond smiled as the Romulans walked up to them pushing Juliana and Earl up to where Data was standing.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" Emma hissed but stopped struggling when she felt the muzzle right under her jaw line. Data stood as if frozen to the spot. A chill slowly crawled up his spine - he never had such a sensation of terror before.
Ed chuckled "Now-now, ma chérie. No more rude language, you are back in your home, remember? You're not a uncouth soldier but a celebrated primadonna here! Anyways, why do you blame me? You knew exactly what would happen, didn't you. Only your little fuck-toy could have been so naive to believe the promise of a single word against disruptors!" he laughed and looked into Data's eyes "Welcome to the 21st century! You really thought I'd let you go?"
Then in the next moment, he turned the gun from Emma to Earl, reached out with his arm taking aim, and shot.
"No!" Emma screamed as the green light left Edmond's gun.
Data had plenty of time - in android terms - to decide what to do. He calculated the odds and the time he would need to reach Earl and push him out of the blast's way, but he knew he wouldn't have made it in time. He had no other chance but to take the risk of taking the blast himself.
There was no pain, only the android equivalent of feeling something extremely hot against the skin as his uniform burned into the bioplast and endo-skeleton of his body underneath. He was prompted from several monitoring systems that he was losing hydraulics fluid from his fractured shoulder servo, and that there was no viable connection from his primary processors to his right hand and fingers anymore. He realized he could not move his right arm from the shoulder down - the metal of his endo-skeleton was visible under the shreds of his clothes. He'd have to run a full diagnostic once they were safely out.
"No! Data!" he heard Emma's panic stricken scream, saw that Ed turned the gun this time to him - with a delighted smile on his face nonetheless - but he had no time to react to either of them. Suddenly, the earth underneath their feet began to shake violently, and they all stared around startled.
"What's this?" Sela asked with growing agitation in her voice as the shaking became wilder with ever passing second and rocks started to fall from the walls and the ceiling of the chamber.
"Just a tremor. It's usual on Epsilon. It'll stop in a..." Jones started, but Juliana cut him off on an alarmed voice.
"No! This is no tremor! Dilithium lattices fracture under ricochets! The chamber will collapse!" she shouted as the noise of the shaking earth-crust creaked all around them.
"Get out of here!" Sela ordered and started to move towards the elevator, but she barely could remain standing on her feet. A huge piece of stone fell onto a Romulan soldier right next to Jones who lost his footing too at the impact. The soldier never stood up again, and as Jones fell to the ground, he pulled Emma with him. The gun fell and disappeared under some debris. Grabbing at the opportunity, Emma tried to get away from him, but she could barely get up on her feet, the ground was moving so violently.
Data slowly managed to realize that in the disruptor blast, he lost his third and forth sub-processors, which meant that as his other processors were under a higher load, his reactions became considerably slower than usual. He looked around and decided that their only chance was reaching the elevator. He took his mother's arm with his good hand and started for the elevator door. Earl followed without a question.
Emma was grabbed by two Romulans and was dragged towards the elevator too. "Let go!" she screamed as she fought them mightily. She actually never thought it through how she could have survived if she didn't leave with the elevator, she just didn't want to be separated from her friends.
By the time Sela, the two Romulans, Edmond and Emma managed to reach the elevator door, the ceiling of the chamber fractured and started to come down upon them. The door opened just in time for them to get in before a huge chunk of chrystaline stone fell between the two groups.
Ed laughed out loud as the Romulan soldiers pointed their guns on Earl, Juliana and Data just about to climb over the pile of rocks "You see? That's a sign of heaven! You stay and keep our little secret 10000 meter deep! Au revoir, madam, monsieur... and you too, machine!"
"You bastard..." Earl growled. The three of them stood there helplessly staring at the closing door from behind the pile of rocks.
Emma was released by the soldiers who ran to the panel to push the buttons on the control panel. She looked at Sela and Edmond, but they were both staring outside the door as it slowly started to come down to close - enjoying their pathetic victory. Nobody was paying attention to her. Here was her chance! She lunged from where she was standing next to Ed and pushed herself through the narrow crack of the metal door. She just heard the satisfying sound of Ed screaming "No!" from inside. She snorted. Not everything goes the way YOU plan it. Chérie.
"Open it!" Ed shouted to the Romulans, but no matter what the soldiers pushed, it didn't work anymore. The elevator was rushing up seemingly at an unstoppable speed.
"There's a safety system in function, Commander." one of the soldiers explained "We cannot go down during tectonic activity, only upwards!"
Ed rushed to the panel and frantically pushed the buttons in vain. Then ran back to Sela "You have to do something! You have to get her out of there!"
But Sela just laughed "You, humans... I cannot have any less respect for you, you vermin... You're worried for your little concubine? Why aren't you rather worried that we'll lose four months of income, while we'd need to rebuild the whole system?! Ha?!" she shouted "And on top of that all! I lost the android too! So stop this pathetic whining, human!"
Ed only could hit the wall in his impotent anger.
"Climb over!" Earl commanded seeing Emma jumping out of the elevator. She landed on the other side of the pile of stones which kept growing with the ceiling coming down. She started to climb over to them on all fours trying to duck from the falling rocks.
Data could see that she needed help, but knew that her mother and Earl could do little to assist "Take cover!" he told them and climbed towards Emma as they obeyed him and hid underneath one of the large consoles.
Emma lost her footing the third time before reaching the top of the pile - she felt her muscles couldn't take any more of the sudden load - but rocks were falling all around her so the adrenalin of fear kept her going. And not just that...
"Here I am!" Data declared as he finally managed to take her hand. She looked up at him kneeling on the rocks and couldn't help herself: she smiled. Here they were at death's door, and her Deadpan reached out to her and held her hand - and she knew he would not let go for his life.
But no more time remained. One last wave of shaking rippled through the chamber walls and broke another chunk of chrystaline material from the ceiling. Having lost a good deal of his processing capacity, Data could not react in time to pull Emma away. The heavy rocks buried her fragile body underneath them with a deafening rumble, and she disappeared without a single scream.
With the last of the quake's noise dying down, nothing remained, only silence. Nothing moved anymore. It seemed it was the last blast of fury of the dissected mountains above them. Data stared at their grip for a long moment - the only visible part of Emma's body was her hand still in his. Then slowly her grip loosened, and he felt her hand letting his go.
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Blind Chess