438 Pattern Recognition
Back in Captain Picard's ready room, an uncomfortable silence had fallen. Well, it was uncomfortable for Picard, since Lwaxana was perfectly fine to sit there and mentally laugh as the man struggled to keep his eyes from dropping to her hand, where her fingers were stroking the sapphire gem of the necklace in a very specific fashion, and her breasts were right there to be ogled.
“After my report reaches Starfleet, you will be asked to go to the nearest starbase for a debriefing.” Picard finally said.
“Will I?” Lwaxana asked. “Are you not calling for an admiral to visit? I'm staying here for a week as I visit family, Jean-Luc.”
“I will not ignore orders to deliver you when I receive them.” Picard responded.
Lwaxana tilted her head slightly and her indulgent smile faded. “Your report will include an audio copy of this meeting? Why not a visual?” She asked and his eyes darted to her chest once more. “I see. You don't want then to know how distracted you seem and how emotionally compromised you are.”
Picard sighed at her calling him out for it instead of smugly keeping silent. “You have not been forthcoming with how involved you are with this whole incident.”
Lwaxana let out a little laugh. “Neither have you, Jean-Luc. Why should I say I have met some of his talented crew, enjoyed several fabulous dinners with both Tom and Beverly together and apart.” She did not say the separate dinners were only with Beverly, because she knew Picard would assume she meant with Tom, too.
Picard did and tried to not narrow his eyes at her admitting her closeness with the man.
“If you must know, Tom also helped me with a personal trauma and let me deal with suppressed memories and thoughts that were almost too devastating for a mother to deal with.” Lwaxana said, her voice soft.
With his help, she figured out why the ambassador's daughter reminded her of someone she couldn't place. Hedril looked very close to the little girl she had before she gave birth to Deanna. Kestra Troi was a pretty little blonde girl that had been six years old when she escaped her mother's notice and somehow drowned in a small arboretum pond.
Since Deanna had just been born only a few months before, and the family also lost the father soon afterwards, Lwaxana had been one of the only people that knew the little girl had ever existed. She had repressed the memories and forced herself to forget the little girl, just to ease her severe pain of loss. There were much more important things to do than mourn at the time, especially with a baby girl to raise as a single mother.
“It's one of the reasons I find it detestable that you can sit there and judge someone without knowing them or taking into account their thoughts and feelings.”Lwaxana pointed out. “So what if he only came into existence eight years ago? Does his pain and loneliness after eight years of solitary confinement mean nothing to you?”
Picard wasn't moved by that argument, because in fact, it didn't matter to him. After choosing to dismiss Thomas Riker in favor of William Riker, the circumstances didn't mean much to him at all.
“I see. Because he is lesser in your eyes, his suffering can be easily ignored.” Lwaxana said and Picard didn't react. “Well, I suppose Tom really can feel justified in treating you the same way.”
“Excuse me?” Picard asked, surprised.
“I said what I meant, Jean-Luc. Your easy dismissal of another living soul has ramifications, as you very well know now. One of which is he will reciprocate those feelings. As a mere captain of a starship, Admiral Thomas Riker can and will see you as a lesser existence and treat you appropriately.” Lwaxana said and stood up.
Picard opened his mouth to stop her from leaving, then Lwaxana leaned over the desk to put her face right in front of his. Her breasts almost spilled out of her dress as the necklace swung free from its confines and he swallowed audibly as her pose made him slightly uncomfortable.
“How does that make you feel, Mister Picard? To be reduced so much in the eyes of someone that is so much more important than you?” Lwaxana asked him.
Picard's mouth formed that thin line again and he almost glared at her.
Lwaxana smiled at that and stood up, settling her breasts back into her dress as if she hadn't almost flashed him her bountiful assets. “Oh, and you can relax from now on when I'm on the ship to visit. I've given up on the little cat and mouse game I usually play with you.”
“Why?” Picard asked and he tried to not let his hope of that being true show on his face.
“It's for the same reason, of course. Why would I waste my time with a man so focused on avoiding me? I can have literally any other man in the galaxy with barely half of the effort.”
Before he could say that things that are too easy to get aren't worth the effort, she let out a little laugh.
“It's because other men are not as shortsighted and stupid as you. They know ehn they see a good thing in front of them and go for it. They don't dismiss them as unimportant and avoid them.” Lwaxana told him. “Have a good day, Mister Picard. I look forward to reading your report to Starfleet.”
With that ominous threat lingering in the air, Lwaxana Troi strutted out of his ready room. When the door shut, Picard sat there and stared at it, because he suddenly had the thought that he was no longer going to have the annoying woman in his life anymore. He felt relief for a moment, to not dread the thought of having her visit his ship in the future, then he had a sudden sense of loss for the same reason.
He started writing that report, having already set the audio recording as an addendum to it, then realized the state of address Lwaxana had used for him. Instead of the very familiar and intimate use of his first name, she had called him Mister Picard. She hadn't even used his captain title, which just pointed out the reduction of his value in her eyes all the more.
Picard sighed and had no choice but to add in everything he heard from her and his own thoughts of the implications for the things she said. His conclusions were almost spot on with what Lwaxana wanted them to be, since she had steered the conversation exactly where she wanted it to go.
*
Lieutenant Commander Data didn't manage to see Ambassador Troi again until the next day after his shift on the bridge. He knew she wanted to meet in private, so he contacted her and she visited his quarters.
Lwaxana glanced around at the sparsely decorated apartment-like setup and missed her Egyptian Queen room back on the USS Retaliation. It stroked her ego quite well to be treated like that and to have the same royal accoutrements that Nefertiti had when she ruled Egypt all those centuries ago. The mostly naked Chappels as her 'slaves' had made the whole thing really fun, too.
“Do you not like my quarters, Lwaxana?” Data asked as he observed her facial structure. “We can meet somewhere else private, if you wish.”
Lwaxana softly chuckled and stepped close to give him a quick hug as an apology, surprising the android by the move. “No, Data. It's fine. I was just remembering the ridiculous setup on the last ship I was on and realized it's only been a day and I already miss it.”
Data nodded and motioned to the couch. “Please have a seat. I believe you wanted to talk and that is the most appropriate place to do so.”
Lwaxana took his hand and led him over to the couch and sat him down, then sat right beside him.
Data looked at their hands still held and at her closeness. “Are you flirting with me?”
“A little.” Lwaxana admitted. “I'm trying to comfort myself by treating you like another human, even if I know Soong limited your programming to stop you from enjoying it to its fullest extent.”
Data blinked his eye sequence once. “How would you know that?”
“It's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you.” Lwaxana admitted. “That can wait until later, however. The main reason I wanted to talk to you was because of this.” She took out a datapad from her bag and handed it to him.
Data turned it on and his eyes widened. On the display was a very familiar face, one he hadn't seen in about six years. For an android with a positronic brain, that was several eternities.
“Her name is Sela and she's a high ranking military commander in the Romulan Military.” Lwaxana said and then launched into the whole story about the Enterprise C and how it had come through a space-time rift into the future, met the Enterprise D, and then several crew members that were supposed to have died already had been alive in the altered timeline and went back with the older ship.
Most of them still died, only it was for a cause and not a useless death... except for Tasha Yar. She had been kept as a slave and given birth to a daughter, then was executed when trying to escape with the child.
Data sat there and his processors were operating at nearly 60% as he went over the story and then sifted through the information on the datapad. The service record was exemplary, meaning Sela was an accomplished military asset and had proven herself to her fellow Romulans, even if she was a half-breed and looked down upon.
“I understand the value of this information to Starfleet.” Data said, since it would give their intelligence division a view into the military structure they didn't have previously. “What I do not understand is why you are showing it to me.”
Lwaxana put her arm around his shoulders and held him. “Out of all the people Tasha Yar knew while she was on this ship, it was you she went to when she was sick with that weird disease and you helped her in... many ways.”
Data gave her wide eyes, since he knew no one should know about that, not after Tasha swearing him to secrecy. It was something they had shared privately and his processors rose to 80% operation as he tried to figure out how Lwaxana had found out about it.
“Would it surprise you to discover you were the only one she ever slept with? That no mere human could ever match you in her eyes?” Lwaxana asked.
Data felt his processes stutter and resumed their work after recording that very important piece of information into his permanent memory storage.
“I thought that as the only one she trusted that much, that you needed to know what happened to her in the altered timeline. She ended up having a daughter that could have been yours if you were any closer to human standard than you already are.” Lwaxana told him.
Data nodded and looked back at the datapad, even if he had already copied the information. He switched it back to the image of Sela's face and he noted the similarities and the slight differences.
Lwaxana reached over and touched it, revealed an encoded pattern, and changed it. It now showed a specific comm signal that could send a single untraceable message. “If you ever have the need to reach out to the remaining connection to Tasha.”
Data noted it and cleared it from the datapad. The two of them sat there for a short while in complete silence, because neither of them wanted to break the contemplation Data was doing. Lwaxana eventually let out a soft sigh and let him go, stood, and patted his shoulder. She walked across his quarters to the door and didn't leave like he thought she would.
Lwaxana hit the door open button and her attendant Mr. Homn was there carrying her trademark large and bulbous golden suitcase. “He should be prepared for his present now.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Homn said and walked in carrying the thing, then placed it in front of Data on the couch.
“After showing you that you have a pseudo-member of your family, it's time you meet another one in person.” Lwaxana said and clicked open the catches and flipped the top off. “This is one of your many half-sisters, Chappel.”
“Taa-daaaa!” Chappel said as she sat up and put her hands into the air.
Data blinked his eyes in sequence again as he looked from Lwaxana to the younger-looking version. It took him a moment longer than he should have to notice that Chappel blinked her eyes in the same pattern as he did.
“She is an android?” Data asked, since that was the only reason Lwaxana could claim the younger version of her was his half-sister.
“Yes, I'm a Soong type android.” Chappel stood up and stepped out of the large suitcase. She wore a starfleet uniform similar to Data's, only slightly advanced and stylish, and she also wore the same rank insignia on her collar that he did. “It's nice to meet you, Data.”
“I cannot use contractions.” Data replied. “I am unsure if it is nice to meet you, since the implications of your existence has called into question my own unique status.”
Chappel laughed and sat on the couch beside him. “You're still you, Data. Even if we installed a copy of your memories into Lore's severed head, he still wouldn't become you.”
What she didn't tell him was that Tom Riker could make as many copies of him as he wanted, except it really would cause Data to lose his unique status and lock up his logic circuits, ruining them all. Tom was pretty sure it was a failsafe tucked somewhere inside Data's programming that a combination of factors would set off and that would be the end of his existence.
“Would you be willing to form a connection with me?” Data asked.
Chappel knew he did not mean what every other man in the galaxy meant when the asked a similar question. “I'm sorry, my external dataport was removed before I was activated.”
Data kind of slumped when he heard that. It was as close to sadness that he had ever experienced.
“Oh, don't look so down, Data.” Lwaxana said and held a hand out. “I have just the thing you need.”
Mr. Homn pulled out a small container from the giant suitcase and handed it to her.
“What is that?” Data asked.
“It's a wireless connector and a large capacity internal storage device.” Lwaxana said and opened it to hand over to him.
Data's eyes scanned the things he saw inside and many possibilities bloomed inside his positronic net.
“If you want to contact Geordi for his help installing these...” Lwaxana started to say.
“I will contact him right away!” Data said and almost ran to the work desk he had and sat down, then typed out a quick message and sent it.
“Why didn't you use your comm badge?” Lwaxana asked.
“I do not want anyone else to know.” Data said. “He will keep it a secret if I ask him to.”
Lwaxana and Chappel nodded.
“I'll assist as well. It comes with software updates you need time to integrate, too.” Chappel said.
“Will it change my fundamental programming?” Data asked and you could almost hear his worry, despite his supposed inability to feel or express emotions.
“With the internal storage, you can backup your current programming and your settings, then install the updates and can compare them. If you're not happy with them, you can restore the backup and no harm will be done.” Chappel informed him.
“Thank you.” Data said as the door to his quarters hissed open and Geordi strode in.
“You said you have new technology for me to look...” Geordi stopped talking when he saw two Lwaxanas, one dressed as usual and one dressed in a slightly different Starfleet uniform. “What's going on?”
“I want to say it will take time to explain, which I just realized is normal human stereotypical behavior.” Data said and smiled. “Please sit and I will tell you what you want to know.”
Geordi looked at the couch where Chappel was sitting, then only hesitated for a moment before he walked over and sat down next to her. “I hope I won't regret this.”
“Like my daughter does?” Lwaxana stop herself from asking.
“Your daughter? Why would Councillor Troi...” Geordi paused as he thought about it. “Oh.”
Lwaxana chuckled. “Yes, that whole situation is very much worth and 'oh' or two. The regret she feels is almost painful; but, she did it to herself and has to live with it.”
Data nodded and handed over the equipment case to Geordi to distract him. It worked and Geordi took out a tricorder and started scanning the two devices, along with using his visor to analyze the readings. His soft gasp at what they were made everyone in the room smile, even Mr. Homn.
Today was going to open Data up to a whole new world of possibilities.