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Deep Space Wintreath, Medical bay
Sol gave the now identified as a clone clone a glare. But, knowing she was small enough to escape through a broken vent, should one be available, she wandered out into the main bay anyway. It was a mess out here, but less of one than she had been expecting. Darn. That lowered her chance of escape. She waved her tendrils in frustration.

But then she spotted it: a loose panel on the wall, just big enough for her to crawl into. The door was blocked by the clone, but the panel was neatly hidden behind one of the beds.

Trying to act normal, she floated over the panel, yanking it away from the wall with a loud clattering noise. She shook in a way that any clan member would have recognized to mean something truly nasty. She spun out a bit, then made a mad dash for the hole in the wall. Just a little further...

Yoink. Her vision blurred as a familiar shock bounced her away from the hole in the wall. She had hoped it wasn't active here yet. Where was she gonna go anyway? Sulking, she slowly began to test how far she could go before the stupid invisible hand pulled her back in, repeatedly bouncing off walls as she tested. She couldn't quite reach the front door, being a few meteres short. It appeared to be a radius around her grounding pad in Kry's office. She cursed out Kry once more, though it looked like some odd combination of shaking and bouncing to the casual observer.

Deciding her best source of entertainment in this predicament, would be the clone, she wandered over to see what he had been up to. After a few minutes of observing what was probably his toolset, she still had no clue. She almost wanted to ask, but would her intentions be obvious then? So she picked up his tools and began to look at them one at a time before moving them to different locations in the room, with no real rhyme or reason. She tried to maintain a straight face, but her eyes betrayed her. Her enjoyment showed far too clearly.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay

K011 almost immediately regretted letting the plant creature out of the Doctor's office. The creature pulled at his tools and started moving them around the room. All things considered he had worked with far worse conditions, but it was nonetheless irritating. He worked around the creature's interruptions and continued with the repairs and clean up.   

Paeban shook his head as QWERTY floated off. He turned to Commander Kusulk.

"As you can see, Commander, our resources are quite strained. I don't have enough men to hold down security on the station, and many of the security officers I do have are sorely lacking in training and discipline. After you've settled, sir, I'd like to make a request for more seasoned security officers to help bolster our numbers and serve as an example for the more inexperienced. Frankly, I'm embarrassed by the number of security risks you've already been exposed to on your first day on the station."

Zerick quickly brought the injured crewman to the medical bay and dropped him off before hurrying back to the bridge for the staff meeting.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medical Bay
Sol was less than interested by the new patient, she had seen more than enough of them. She was however interested by her restrictions lifting as the senior officer entered. Figuring it must reset when the senior staff was around just in case they needed to take her somewhere, she saw this as a perfect opportunity to escape. Sticking as far away from the officer as the radius would allow, she moved took in some of the rest of the station. It was a mess. Twice she nearly hit her head on some random open panels, but she also wasn't paying too much attention as to where she was going.
And then she realized they were going to the bridge. Crap. She couldn't be discovered there. Bracing herself against the far side of a door the officer went through, she felt the pressure increase around her before releasing with a pop. They had moved out of range. Squirming with discomfort from the sensation, leaves already darkening from damage, she was still happy. Freedom.
She wandered aimlessly for a bit, taking it slow as not to strain herself more for the day.

Shivali's shop
Kry sighed as she got the summons for the crew meeting. Turning to the seller of wares, she began to apologize.
"I'm sorry, it seems my presence is needed elsewhere."
She then commed a few nurses to hold down the sickbay and alert her to any new patients. Finally she made her way up to the bridge. Wouldn't do to be late on day one.

Deep Space Wintreath, Bridge
Kry took in the controlled chaos of the bridge and smiled, one that was rather sad but humorous. At least the rest of the station was doing about as well as her medbay. She looked around, trying to spot the other officers. In red there had to be the station commander, who she gave curt nod to as she scanned through everyone, intending to introduce herself formally later. In yellow there were a number of people, whom she really couldn't tell if were engineering or security, or even operations. She looked forward to the meeting. It was so much easier to learn who did what in a controlled environment.

The lieutenant pulled back his lips in a silent snarl. He had been working almost nonstop to get the station fixed up for the last four weeks, and any more setbacks would be unacceptable to him. "Thank you for notifying me," he said with a bit of a growl before closing the comm link and opening a new comm link with Hangar Bay 1. "Lieutenant Zerick to Aki Tel'Yorak. Aki, I swear if you damage any of the deck plating I'll shove my furry foot up your tiny lizard ass! Whatever you're doing can wait for engineering oversight. One more explosion, and I'll have security come pick you up." Without waiting for a response, he closed the comm link.

Aki's lips curled in distaste. You couldn't please everyone.

Aki finally gets back to Lishku. "I daresay my good sir, you are a genius. This will do perfectly,". He shouts orders to his staff and the chattering increases to almost unbearable levels as the Gorram use Lishku's biocogitator in their newest design. Aki beckons Lishku over to the final product that is currently displayed holographically. "Does this look about right?"

"Oh, please, I didn't come up with it! I just made them."

Lishku looks at the design for a few seconds.

"You might want to add something to cycle in new coolant fluid inside the cogitator, but otherwise that looks like it should work."

"Amazing! We shall get this prototype up and running!". Two Gorram once again make a mad dash towards the production facilities, awaiting the new prototype.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medical Bay

Soon after the arrival of the new patient, the plant creature slipped out of the bay, K011 was unable to do anything to stop it as he was once again elbow deep in wires. Once he had removed himself from them he found himself in a conundrum. He knew that the creature was not supposed to be even out of the Doctor's office, let alone out of the medical bay. With nothing else left that he could effectively do in the med bay for the moment, he could either return to his quarters and await further orders, or he could take the initiative and hunt down the plant creature.


K011 put away his kit and removed his uniform, replacing it with one of his three sets of civilian attire, and left the medical bay.

Deep Space Wintreath, Promenade


 It was a rare thing for him to leave his area of standard operation, nevertheless he knew his way around quite well. He'd studied the layout of the station many times and it came in handy here even in this messy state. He did not have much to go on to search for the creature, but he made do, he thought back on the psychic communication the creature's 'voice' had sounded like a little girl. Perhaps he could use it. How did children think? He didn't know much about such things, but there was one small thing he remembered about his own childhood. Curiosity. Where would he have explored? With nothing else to go on he headed towards the bridge, perhaps the creature had followed Lieutenant Zerick. He didn't have permission to enter the area as he was not Wintrean Federation personnel, but he didn't need to. Near the entrance to the bridge he found a number of dead leaves. He had a real trail to follow now. With luck he'd find the creature before the Doctor knew it was gone...

Deep Space Wintreath, Corridors

For the first time in nearly a year K011 felt like he was in his element, even if he was lacking the vac-sealed armor and high powered assault rifle. He was on the hunt down narrow corridors, even the mess was accurate to his nostalgia. Little by little he tracked the plant creature down, until eventually he spotted it. He seemed to have caught it unawares, using this to his advantage K011 crept up behind it and in a quiet version of his near monotone he said, "I am giving you one chance to come back to the Medical Bay willingly."

Deep Space Wintreath, Corridors
Sol turned and blinked at the voice. Then she gave the clone a version of her eye smile before floating along down the corridor, not ready to return to confinement yet. It wasn't fair that the rest of the people on the station could roam freely while she couldn't.
She slid into a hole in the wall, and promptly felt herself making a rapid descent into the darkness below. Well. She hadn't anticipated that. She landed at the bottom with a soft thud which echoed though the expanse of tunnels. Time to see where these things go. Surely the clone was too big to fit in here, right? Then again, the station was built for people bigger than her, and she had quite a bit of room in the dark tunnels.

Deep Space Wintreath, Corridors

K011 had tried to be courteous to the creature by giving it a chance to come willingly. But she had made her choice clear in her actions by diving down into the sub-deck tunnels. In training there were fewer things K011 despised more than being assigned as the squad tunnel rat. He very seriously considered turning back and letting Doctor Kry know about the creature's escape. But he had come too far now to simply give it up. Removing his work gloves and a headlamp from his pockets, he squeezed into the tunnel and dropped down, hitting the tunnel floor with a metal denting thud. There would be no more pleas for compliance from the Clone, only the efficient completion of his mission. He spotted the creature further down the tunnel and began his pursuit.

Mercy General Hospital, Aspenwood, United Gralend, Wintreath, several hundred years ago

Dr Jordan Royce

Jordan Royce was a genius. One of the most brilliant minds alive in the field of robotics and AI. He could make robots stronger, smarter, simply better then any man. He could write programs that were on the cusp of sentience. But for all his intelligence, all his work and everything it was he could not save a life when it truly mattered.

Jordan was in the hospital waiting room, knees in his chest as he sat on the floor. Tears were streaming down his face as he looked at a picture of his daughter. After everything. All the treatments, all the doctors. Everything, it meant nothing. For all his genius Jordan could not save her from her illness. The bitter irony of a man dedicated to building new life unable to save his own daughter was more then he could bear. He closed his eyes and sobbed, unable to do much else as the pain of his loss overwhelmed him.

Deep Space Wintreath, Room 44-232, occupant HKR-07, present day

HKR-07

HKR woke up with a jolt. It's system report was one of elevated alert. The closest thing it could think of was panic. Then HKR remembered the......memory? Dream? The images it had just seen. Jordan Royce. The pain, the anger, the helplessness. It made HKR feel....bad? Then something else grabbed HKR's attention. Dream? What time was it?

It's internal chronometer told it 6 hours had passed since it last recalled anything. It looked to where it had tossed the widget in anger. It was still there, in pieces. HKR remembered that it then felt this....immense fatigue. It had leaned back in its chair and then.....nothing. Then the dream came. What had happened? Had it.....had it gone to sleep? HKR got up from its chair in shock.

Anger. Emotion. Its own memories. Now this? What was happening to it? HKR felt something it had not in a very, very long time. Real, actual fear. It was afraid of what was happening.

Deep Space Wintreath, Maintenance tunnels
Sol was having the time of her life, and no clone was going to ruin that. For the first time since the Cyaranea had removed her and her clan from their home, she was excited. For however much longer it would last, she was free. She was bruised, being chased by a colne who wished to bring her back to confinement, but it was al worth it. Bumping past several engineers, she noted the lights in the tunnel were on in this section. And there was an access hatch coming up. Cool.

Sticking a tendril through the narrow slats, she felt around until she hit the latch, causing it to tumble to the floor, almost taking her tendril with it. She jumped out after it, taking in the area. It appeared to be a living quarters, maybe a crafting room. She wasn't sure. Standing next to a chair was a robot. Crap. A robot. Sol weighed her options, a certain end to her temporary freedom, or going past the robot that may or may not be hostile, as she didn't know its function. Neither option looked great, but the robot gave her better odds. So she headed towards the door, hoping for a quick escape.

Deep Space Wintreath, Room 44-232, occupant HKR-07,

HKR-07

HKR barely had any time to think about what it had just experienced when the most extraordinary thing occurred. The ventilation duct in the roof burst open and some....plant thing landed in the middle of its room. Who or what is was HKR did not know. It took HKR less then a second to react. HKR turned, grabbed its staff behind him, activated it and launched itself at the door, landing with a loud bang on its feet. It reached behind him and locked the door with a tap of the control panel. Then it raised its right arm, the arm with the staff in it, and pointed it at the intruder. The tops of the staff arched with purple electricity. HKR advanced slowly in a combat stance.

"Intruder. Do not move or I will hurt you." It began to rotate the staff, a sharp whirling sound filled the air as the staff rotated faster and faster, the electric tips arcing loudly as it did so.

Deep Space Wintreath, Maintenance tunnels

K011 kept close on the plant creature's heels, for once the fear his presence seemed to instill in people from the station served him as the engineers in the tunnels cleared out of his way as he pursued. It would have been more helpful if they had tried to assist him in his mission, but he was locked on target and did not have the patience or authority to ask Federation personnel for aid. The plant creature opened a side panel and climbed through it.

Deep Space Wintreath, Room 44-232, occupant HKR-07

Not willing to lose the target now, K011 squeezed through and dropped into what he discovered was a residential room. It was occupied by Kuark's robot bartender who stood at arms with what the clone recognized as a very old but nonetheless effective power staff. Fortunately the robot was blocking the door. He had the creature now.

"You have nowhere to run, give up!" he snarled at the plant creature, his voice was no longer his drab monotone, but now the rabid dog he was trained to be in combat. The adrenaline was starting to get to him, and flashes of the past echoed in his head.

Deep Space Wintreath, Room 44-232, occupant HKR-07,

HKR-07

Before HKR could get an answer another figure, the janitor from the medical bay, dropped down into HKR's room. Now there were two intruders. What the janitor wanted or what it was doing here was beyond HKR but it figured it would be wise to limit the number of potential threats in its room. Given that the janitor was a squishy organic HKR figured he would be the easier target.

It turned, spun the staff even faster, raised it and swung down hard, sending the electric tip of the staff towards the janitors head. With the impact and the shock he should be incapacitated when it hits. The one thing that surprised HKR as he did this, however, was the stance the janitor had taken. It was almost...martial in manner. No matter, he would no longer be a problem as HKR swung.