Chapter Nineteen: Braving the Rapids

 The conference room, at the insistence of Sorak, had been secured. Only Moriarty, D'arko, Klortho and Starr had been permitted in, the latter three at the requirement of the Captain. It was, after all, his ship, though that seemed, at the moment, to be a tenuous claim at best. Sorak's delegation would beam directly to the conference room. It was an unusual request, if, indeed, it could be called a request, but these were unusual times.

At the appointed time, three transporter beams coalesced around the table and a Vulcan male, am Andorian female and what was, apparently, a Breen materialized. They all wore nondescript black uniforms devoid of any rank or division insignia. The Andorian female eyed D'arko with unconcealed suspicion.

"Professor Moriarty. Captain D'arko. I am Sorak, Captain of the Nebula. This is my first officer, Tarah Low," the Vulcan said, indicating the Andorian. I understand you are having a little bit of a... difficulty here. We've come to help."

"Wait just a krething moment!" D'arko snapped. "Who are you people? I've never seen a ship like that and don't give me that 'Special Intelligence Service' nonsense. Federation Intelligence is forbidden from having their own ships by charter."

"Captain, please be calm. What you need to know will become clear. For now, know that what I've told you is true. We're... with a special branch. The important thing, though, is that we have a solution to your issue."

"My dear Mr. Sorak..." Moriarty began.

"Please, Professor. It's just Sorak. Plain, simple Sorak." The Vulcan stated.

"As you wish, my dear Sorak... What could you possibly offer that would improve my situation? I have control of this mighty vessel, the ability to travel the stars in it. I have my freedom, which, while somewhat limited, allows me to walk the streets of a myriad worlds. I have my mind, and I have my life. Truly, what more could you offer?"

"Quite simply, Professor, everything."

D'arko swallowed hard. None of this was making any sense to him, but he could tell this wasn't going to end well. Judging by the tension in his officers, they concurred.

"You will need to provide something a bit more specific than that, Dear Sorak," Moriarty grinned.

With that, Sorak nodded to Low and she moved toward the silent Breen. She uncoupled the clasps of its helmet and slowly lifted it.

Beneath it, was no Breen. It was a humanoid male face with golden skin and eyes, brown hair and a completely blank expression. Moriarty's eyes widened.

"Well this is truly unexpected. A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Data."

"Not Data." Tarah Low interrupted.

"No, Professor. I'm afraid the reports of Commander Data's death are fully accurate, "Sorak continued, "This is one of his brothers, or... what remains of one of his brothers. This was Lore."

The stories of Lore and his atrocities were required at Starfleet Academy these days in Ethics of Cybernetics. Genocide, attempted genocide, leading a faction of Borg against the Federation, all these crimes and more attributed to the android. D'arko knew this situation was getting worse by the moment.

"When we recovered Lore, we completely erased his mind. He was far too dangerous. His body, however, had too much potential to dispose of. So, we kept it. Cybernetics weren't advanced enough for us to create a new mind out of whole cloth... We could have recruited Dr. Maddox, but... the nature of our work would have made that problematic."

Low continued, "When we got Duth's message at K7, we realized this was our answer, so we popped by."

The instant rage Da'mi'en felt at hearing the old insult again temporarily blinded him to the fact that K7 was not the station he sent the probe toward and was, in fact,  nearly four full weeks away from the wormhole at maximum warp.

"Ah," Moriarty interjected, "So what you are proposing, then, is that you place my mind into this body in exchange for?"

"You do some work for us, of course."Sorak completed the thought, "We won't have need of you all the time. You will have plenty of opportunity to... do as you like."

A smile grew on Moriarty's lips. D'arko was reminded of one of Earth's sharks.

"I believe we can make this accord work." Moriarty said, extending a hand.

"Excellent," Sorak replied. "We have the equipment on board the Nebula to do this. Download yourself into the mobile emitter for now and we'll beam everything we need over. "  He tapped a comm unit on the back of his left hand. "Sorak to Nebula, 3 to beam up, plus one mobile holo emitter. Lock on to the foreign data node in the Pendragon's computer core, as well."

"WAIT!" Starr interrupted.

"Lieutenant?" Sorak replied.

"This is nuts! You're talking about giving the superhuman body of a genocidal monster to a being that has already committed mass murder without even HAVING a body?"

"No, pink-skin," Low answered," We're creating the best intelligence asset the Federation as ever known."

Sorak nodded. "Energize!"

The sound of transporter beams filled the air, and then, they were gone.

Upon returning to the bridge, the Nebula blinked from view. There was no warp trail nor shimmering from an activating cloak. It was simply there, then it wasn't.

D'arko sat heavily in his command chair, rubbing his temple.

"At least we're done dealing with Moriarty. Helm, set a course for..."

The red alert klaxon peeled through the air as red lights began to flash. Professor Moriarty's voice came through the ship-wide speakers.

"Reichenbach protocols initiated. Warp core overload imminent. 10 minutes until warp core breach."

"GROZIT!"