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Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office
Kry looked at K011 like he had grown two heads, then muttered something to herself.

"Mr. K011, Sol has no ability to speak. Did you hit your head? I did not register any damage, but it might be just as well to check.

"As to your question, Sol and her species are considered wards of the government, and I am her caretaker. She has potent medical value in areas our technology has yet to surpass, which is why she was assigned to my care. Like a service Tarantus is to the civilian military. Now please answer my question as well. Last time you saw Sol, was she injured?"

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

"My head is not damaged Doctor, she spoke with me via psychic communication. As to your question she did seem somewhat hurt after the explosion. Fortunately she seemed to receive the least of the fragmentation." K011 left out the part where the plant creature had been the cause of the explosion. He had no intention of getting the young one into any more trouble. 

Zerick looked over at the security officers who were standing there with his engineers and holding the plant creature. What were they still doing here? "Are you daft?" he asked them. The security officers looked at him with confusion. "You see that plant creature in your hands? You see how it's looking rough? Remember how I ordered you to take both persons to the medical bay? What in Hel are you still doing here with it?" Suddenly realizing their mistake, they began rushing to get Sol to the medical bay. As they passed by Zerick, they received a light slap on the back of the head each. "And don't forget to apologize to the doctor for being so tardy with it!"

Jordan Royce's home, Aspenwood, United Gralend, Wintreath, Several hundred years ago

Dr Jordan Royce

Jordan Royce sat at his study. He felt like he was in a daze. It had been days since his daughter had....passed. He still felt the pain. The loss. Time went by and Jordan barely noticed. It was like he was on autopilot. Hours had passed and Jordan had just sat, not moving. Stubble was growing and he barely noticed. It all seemed so meaningless without her.....

His computer dinged in front of him. A message. From Dr Curtis Lloyd, his boss. Jordan summoned the energy to get up and read it. Curtis was worried, he wanted Jordan to return to work as soon as possible. Typical. Curtis could care less if a bomb went off, he would still focus on work. The message was the normal nonsense, sorry for your loss, get back in the saddle, your job is in jeopardy, come back to work soon. How could Jordan work when all he could think about was his daughter.

But the end of the message was different. That caught Jordan's eye. "I know you feel sad but consider this, your daughter loved your work, your robots and the lives you built. Surely she would want you back to work as soon as possible?"

My work. My robots. Mine. Jordan stared at the screen for a good, long while.

My work.

My robots.

Mine.

Uncharted planet, Several hundred years ago

HKR-07

HKR had been sent down too this planet 'just in case they needed backup', Captain Erikson had said. HKR suspected that the Captain wanted HKR to....'socialize' more with the crew. After the big brouhaha at the station and their less then...ideal exit that HKR helped them in the crew seemed to....accept it more. Or at least accept that HKR was not going anywhere. Now the Captain seemed to want to integrate HKR into the crew more. Hence this little expedition. Going along were Zerick Chase and Hendrik Wolfskemer and his little AI along with Aria Wells. The surveyor, sure, but why was the engineer and the pilot going along with as well as HKR? Because they would be interested in HKR, of course. HKR found that prolonged company with the crew was making it more....aware of organic tendencies. Strange but not unwelcome. As time went on HKR found itself coming to like this crew.

Aria was standing in front of it, blathering on about plant life and the ecology. It was a lush planet, certainly, with a breathable atmosphere. HKR was sure that, given enough time, this planet would become just as metropolitan as Wintreath was. Hendrik and Zerick were looking at their shuttle, apparently Hendrik was sure it was 'flying a little wobbly" and Zerick was insisting it was nothing. Which meant HKR had to listen to Aria talk about plants.

She seemed rather interested in a particular plant, a vine, she said something about 'interesting properties' or some such. She reached out to pull one of the vines to take a closer look when something caught HKR's attention. The vine was wrapped around a big rock up in the tree. Pulling would make the rock fall right on her head. Before HKR had time to warn her she pulled the vine and the rock started to fall. HKR had less then a second to act. Judging from Well's shocked face she was in no position to move and would likely be crushed by the rock. HKR could not stop the rock. The only option was to push Wells out of the way. HKR used its right armed and roughly pushed Wells out of the way, she went tumbling forward out of the path of the rock. HKR, on the other hand, was not so lucky. The rock smashed into it's outstretched hand with a sickening thud, snapping several of the fingers and bending the metal.

HKR looked at it's damaged hand. Some of the fingers had been disconnected. It registered several error messages flooding into it's central processor. But stranger then that it....felt something. It felt something bad, very, very bad. It had never felt anything like this before. In fact, HKR never really felt anything before. It was suddenly aware it was making a noise, a loud, shrill, distorted shrieking noise. Almost like a scream of pain. Hendrik, Zerick and Aria all looked at HKR with a look of shock and surprise....

Deep Space Wintreath, present day

HKR-07

HKR shot up, shrieking as it did so. Between the pain it had felt and the shock of the memory it could not help it.

This was not the first time it had happened.

HKR stopped shrieking and turned to the scared looking Federation officer, it assumed an engineer by the uniform, and grabbed it by the tunic. Whatever these damn memories or whatever the heck they were would wait. The most pressing issue right now was in front of it.

"Where am I? Who are you? And what happened?"

Eyes a little wide, surprised more from the shriek than the aggression, the Lieutenant raised his hands in a non-aggressive manner to show he meant no harm. "Calm down. You're in the corridor outside of your quarters. I just finished repairing your systems."

It was one thing to study assassin robots. It was entirely another to be at the mercy of one. And Zerick Aldrnari was finding this out first hand. His pits began to sweat and heart race a bit as he came to this realization, but he kept his composure just as he thought any Wintreath officer should.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

"Impossible." Though she denied it, was it possible that they had missed something when they discovered the IMs? Could they really be more intelligent than the scientists let the public know? And if so, was the government hiding something?

Her attention was diverted by two security people carrying Sol in. Her relief at seeing Sol was only temporary as she noted how rough she looked. She motioned for them to bring Sol into her office, setting her on her grounding pad to alleviate the physical stress on the plant. Tending to the external injuries would be a more time consuming matter, as the regenerators didn't work so well on plant flesh. Kry opened her luggage and pulled out an odd looking paste, which she applied to the wounds, leaving streaks of grey all over the plant's body. She then took the lap off of Sol's head, closed the door to her shelf, and turned on the UV lights overhead. She would be okay, if Kry could convince her to stay put for a while. After a few moments of debate, she gave the computer orders to lock Sol's door for anyone but her. She couldn't take any chances.

She then turned back to K011. Her face showed no emotion as she took her chair across from him.

"So. Do you have proof of your claims of Psychic communications? What exploded to reset Sol's biomagnetic rhythm like this? I want to know everything you can share with me, but if there is something better left out, I understand. I just want everything that relates to what happened to Sol so I can treat her more effectively."

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

The sight of Sol's sorry state made K011 feel bad enough that he almost showed the emotion on his face. If he was still among his brothers they would have seen the look in his eyes and called him the nickname everyone in his unit inflicted on him as an insult 'Mercy'.

"Proof? I don't know how much the Federation uses Psychers but any Bellarum clone is familiar with psychic communication. We're by now means Psychers ourselves but it is used extensively for programming purposes. As to Sol, her voice was like a little girl's, and I doubt she is used to communicating with humanoids because it was the most painful psych-comm I've experienced." K011 paused and thought about the second part of the Doctor's question, "During my encounter with the protocol droid..." he didn't want to cause the plant creature more trouble but from what little sense for caring he had in civilians the Doctor seemed to have it for Sol, "All of the metal in the room collected near Sol before it was launched out like a grenade. I didn't say so earlier because I did not want her to get in more trouble because of my mistake... I apologize again Doctor." Much to K011's dismay the regret showed on his face breaking his deadpan, emotion even showed a little in his voice.

Deep Space Wintreath

HKR-07

HKR held the engineer in its hands for several more seconds before letting him go, smoothing out his tunic as he did so.

"Apologies. I was....startled. Several intruders came into my room and attacked me."

It ran quick diagnostics. Its tertiary photo receptor was functional and all systems were working. Better yet, that...feeling was gone, if not the memory. This engineer did good work.

"All systems functional. My thanks. What happened to the intruders? How did I get here?"

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

"You have no need to apologize to me. Perhaps the resident you disturbed, but not me. Thank you for telling me what happened."

Kry had no idea how to deal with this new knowledge, and even less of a clue what Sol had done to cause the explosion. IMs weren't supposed to be able to use their biomagnetic field to do much more than float. And to hear she could communicate... but at the level of a child? That both confused her and made a certain amount of sense. Sol had been picked up from her home just over a decade ago. Though it was predicted that Sol was physically older than her, her mental age by Federation standards would be much less based on her limited interaction with people and how they had treated her. If she remembered correctly, Sol had been hard to assign out as it was predicted she had suffered some damage in the same crash she got her name from. Her mental facilites might never develop to the level of obedience that the other IMs had shown. She would have to look into the matter more.

She turned to the computer at her desk and began to try an organize her thoughts. She would have to write to the scientists who were on the IM project, see if anyone had more information for her. She almost forgot about the janitor in the room.

"Get some rest. We'll let you know if you are needed, but I want you resting for the next 12 hours at the bare minimum. With anyone else, she would have ordered a full day, but with the clone's already accelerated recovery and the fact he was awake, she figured she could check in at the 12 hour mark and go from there.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

"Understood Doctor," once again it took all of K011's being not to salute her. As he reached the door he had fixed he turned back to Kry he considered asking her something but he felt he had more than pushed his luck today, so he faced back into the bay and wandered over to his barracks. He practically collapsed onto the simple cot face planting into the pillow. The exhaustion and pain that he had bottled up and hidden away as he'd been trained to do flowed out as he passed into a very uncomfortable sleep. It didn't take long for the monsters to come...

Wintrean Destroyer, WVS Helios, Nine Years Ago

Blood curdling screams echoed down the halls of the WVS Helios as Bellarum Clone Marines fought their way through the Wintrean ship. No one was spared, anyone not in Bellarum Armor was killed. Blood and gore painted the walls a rainbow of colors dominated by the human red. First Squad, Kilo Company of the IBVS Indomitable were tasked with the taking of the enemy ship's primary crew quarters, and the Federation Voidsmen were fighting with ferocity. K011 trembled in his armor. He was glad he had his visor closed and tinted so his more veteran brothers couldn't see the fear on his face. Thus far he had only fired in the general direction of the enemy as they retreated deeper into the labyrinth of halls and compartments. But now it seemed he would get his chance to kill the Wintrean Scum. With the expert use of a few grenades the entrance to the crew cabins was cleared forcing the defenders to withdraw into the various rooms. K001 split the squad off into their battle brother pairs and ordered breach and clearing. K011 and K010 stacked up on a door and prepped a breaching charge, and flash grenade respectively. They gave each other nods to signify readiness, K011 clicked the detonator on the breaching charge and K010 tossed the flash grenade into the room. With the explosion of the flashbang, the two clones swept into the room carbines raised. Inside the dazed crewmen tried to put up a fight but most were quickly dropped by well aimed bursts from the pair of clones, their flesh ripped and torn splattering blood everywhere. One of the crewmen in the corner who appeared to be shielding something behind him picked up a wrench and swung, slamming it into K011's head knocking him to the ground and cracking his visor. K010 killed the offending crewman and knelt down to his brother.

"You alright?" his voice crackled over the helmet comms.

K011 shook his head bringing himself back into focus and staggered up. "Yes."

As they went to leave the room, K011 heard a faint sobbing sound. K010 must have heard it too because he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back looking in the direction of the last crewman who fell. Underneath his body there appeared to be something moving. The two clones walked back to the body, and K010 grabbed it by the collar and tossed it aside revealing a blood covered child wearing a Federation pin on his stained shirt. The child somewhat resembled the body that K010 pulled off of the boy, must have been his parent, the clones thought.

"This one's yours," K010 said patting K011 on the shoulder.

K011 went to aim his weapon at the child, but something odd happened in his head, he hesitated. He tried to shake it off and went to put his finger on the trigger, but looking into the boy's tearful eyes filled with grief and terror, K011 couldn't bring himself to do it. His hands shook, he tried to bring up the will, but no matter how hard he did it did not work.

"I... I can't do it..." He said.

K010 shrugged, "That bastard must have hit you harder than you thought..." he sighed, "More kills for me I suppose." In one fluid action, K010 raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash highlighting the look on the boy's face before the burst of lead caved it in.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medical Bay, Janitor's Closet

K011 jolted awake shivering in a cold sweat, the image of the boy still in the forefront of his mind. That memory had long ago been locked away by the Indomitable's Psycher to increase K011's efficiency, how was it back? K011 did not have the mental capacity to think about the how or why right now, but he knew well that he needed to solve this. Alcohol might work, but it had too much of an after effect. The best thing he could come up with in the short term was to work, he Needed to work or else he feared he would not be able to function at all. He got up from his cot, put on his uniform, and picked up his tools before heading out into the medical bay on wobbly feet. It appeared to be very later or very early, but K011 cared little about the time, He walked up to the shift nurse who looked at him with a look that he couldn't quite tell was fear or concern, and asked her where there was a mess that needed cleaning.

As he set to work, he tried to banish the memories from his mind but it was proving troublesome.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay, Kry's office

Kry had just finished sending her messages to the IM project when she noted K011 was up and about. It took every fiber of her being to not go out and demand just what he thought he was doing. She knew that was not the right approach. There had to be a good reason for someone like him to disobey direct orders. Leaving her office, she approached the clone, trying to keep her face neutral, though she was sure some annoyance was leaking through.

"K011. Are you alright? You really should be resting."

Rayn, Sol's clan, ten-ish years ago

It was quiet in her clan, a few of them drifting around, moving branches to block out the wind, breaking them off of larger trees to allow better sunlight access. Sol herself was returning from the edge, where the lush forest met the sand of the desert, after conducting a ship inspection with one of her clanmates, Ijukipit. They were about ready to cast off of this rock after far too many seasonal rotations, to make contact with their brethren they had been separated from when the small planet they had been living on was destroyed, casting them across the system. They had just made it back to the clan's home, greeting the master in their native tongue and beginning their report when the crash happened. It landed next to Sol, Ijukipit not surviving the impact. Sol was thrown back a few hundred feet.

Fire ravaged their home, and many of the clan scattered, moving towards the denser, wetter parts of the forest. The master gave the order to follow when they heard it. The skin freezing scream. She and the master approached. The ship blasted them with fire as a door opened, a young biped falling out the door. She was bleeding, the ground around her turning red, her skin boiling to the touch. The fire was starting to shrink now, something Sol knew was a very bad thing. As the master checked for other salvageable life, Sol took the biped's life into her own. Immediately she felt heavier. The ship groaned behind her, and the master came flying out, biomagnetic field on full blast.

He told her to run. She wasn't going to leave the master behind. Instead she reached up and pulled master behind her. The added weight of her new ward and the master slowed her. The ship groaned again, and she felt the heat wave before anything else. She tossed the master clear of the impending explosion, felt herself engulfed in flame. When she could open her eyes again, a different type of biped was standing over her, shouting something in what could only be language.

She was scared. Separated. She had to find them. She had to get away. Reaching up, she tried to talk to the being, but was met with walls unlike anything she had ever seen before. Lights danced in her vision. These things weren't fully organic. There was no way to quickly learn their language, for what good that would do. And then she lapsed back into darkness.

Deep Space Wintreath, Kry's office, Present day

Sol's eyes flew open, a deep set panic setting in. Ship. Why was she thinking about a ship? That didn't make sense. She thrashed, pain lancing through every movement. Why was this so familiar? She thrashed against the glass door. She needed to get out. She needed to go home. She needed to find the ship. What ship? Her thoughts continued in a frenzied circle, unable to process what was happening.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay

K011 looked up from his scrubbing of the floor at the Doctor, she looked irritated, surely because of his disobedience. He pushed himself off the floor and clumsily assumed a position of attention. He was still in a cold sweat, his face was pale. Donning his parade ground voice in an attempt to camouflage the broken flood gates of terrible memories swirling in his brain making him feel weak and horrified, "I apologize Doctor, routine is hard to break." he half-lied. It was true that it was by his usual doctrine to awaken early, but really he was having a hard enough time blocking out the nightmares while he was wide awake and working, let alone what it would be like if he tried to sleep again.

He let out his breath, apparently holding it from the suspense. "The two were taken by security to the med bay to be treated for their injuries. Hopefully they won't be bothering you again. As for how you wound up outside in the corridor, I don't know. I wasn't here when that happened. I do have some questions for you though. Provided a Hunter Killer Robot doesn't mind that..."

Deep Space Wintreath

HKR-07

It took one second for HKR to respond to what the engineer said. It lunged forward, grabbing the engineer, slamming him against the bulkhead as it wrapped both hands around his neck. If this engineer knew what it was then he had to die. Models of HKR's design purpose were still wanted by the Federation even if the exact nature of HKR's model was fuzzy. Still, it might be suspicious if a body turned up outside HKR's room. Thinking, it decided to try and contain the situation. It raised its arms, lifting the engineer off the floor, then carried him by the neck to its quarters.

When the door closed behind it he brought the engineer right up to its face. It was applying enough pressure on his neck to make him feel it if not choke him.

"Choose your next words very, very carefully. What do you know about me?"

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay

Kry noted K011's appearance, and a quick scan revealed elevated heart rate and brain activity. Something was going on here that she wasn't sure how to deal with. Sure, she had taken basic Psychology back at the academy, but that was geared towards traumatized patients and those in shock. She wasn't sure if this fell into either category. She idly wished the station had a counselor she could refer K011 to.

She opted for the safest route she could think of.

"Of course it is. But you really shouldn't be working yet. But if you must.." She needed an alternate distraction. "I could use your assistance putting together a few of the new lab stations, if you wouldn't mind."

It was very light work, mostly snapping pieces into place. Nothing he could hurt himself on without serious effort. And he could sit while doing said work. Best of all, she could reasonably assign a nurse to watch over him.

"And if you need anything- My office door is always open. If you ever need to talk. I won't force you, but I know there is something bugging you." Her eyes showed concern, even as she tried to keep her face as professional as possible.