#45 Regrouping

Posted on Sat Mar 30th, 2024 @ 4:04am by Captain Rogue Green {Meji} & Lieutenant JG Ainkara "Kara" {Meji} & Cosmo {Meji}

Mission: Hijacked
Location: Starbase Danvers
Timeline: Current

ON:

Down on the Risa-like planet for Starbase Danvers Commander Green worked diligently with Security and other recovery teams. Bodies, hundreds of them, were recovered. Up to, and including, Nira and her daughter Sera, as well as, Ro's own children and her 'husband' Dwight. Even with her mastery of the strange energy known as the Core, Green could not help but shed tears as they brought the bodies in for those she loved. The repair and recovery effort was proceeding quickly, with the utmost professionalism. Ainkara, standing firm and forever loyal, remain at her Master's side and, when necessary, was there when Ro needed a shoulder to lean on.

Both of them still wore their Meji 'robes' (Ro's bio pics) as they aided in the recovery of bodies. Ainkara, currently, stood on a rocky shoreline. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she reached into the Core and began a standing meditation, aligning herself and grounding herself after witnessing the carnage that had been brought upon the innocent by nefarious means. Someone needed to pay for this, whether that be through career or violence. In her opinion, which didn't amount to much since she wasn't royalty from some far flung world, the only people responsible were those in command. Not department heads, not executive officers, but those who were CO's. If called to testify then Ainkara would have no choice but to voice the obvious. She would not lie. She would not sugar coat. People died, innocent people who only sought a better life, and for their trouble of trusting the Federation they were assaulted, murdered, and shown that they really did not matter. Tears poured down her cheeks and she did not try and hold them back.

As a Voran, a Vulcanoid species, one that was a servitor race to the Iconians, she held a deep hatred for corruption and depravity. A hatred that she fought with, wrestled with, every day of her life. Her initial reaction was to kill them all without remorse. But, thankfully, Ro Green had come into her life. This was not a coincidence. Kara was a person who believed that everything, absolutely everything, happened for a reason. The Core had shown her how right she was. Evil begets evil, pure and simple. Watching Master Green deal with her grief was heart rending, and she had seen her Master seething with rage. With wrath. So much so that she had seen Ro's eyes change color, from the ice blue beauty to the amber glowing rage of one who, if released, would destroy whole civilizations for vengeance.

Kara left her place on the rocks, returning to the sand. As she did so her legs began to shake, weakening, and she let it happen. Falling to her knees and pitching forward, Kara held herself up on a four point stance. Two knees, two hands. Sitting up, only on her knees, Ainkara gave in to the emotional maelstrom. Her body was suddenly set upon by all the mourning, sadness, and sorrow that this event had produced. She cried for the dead, she cried for the living. Sobs that shook her entire body, with tears pouring down her face like a river.

"Ainkara?" Green came in, feeling through the Core the tribulations her apprentice was going through. Coming in quickly she dropped to her knees before the person she sought. Grabbing Kara by the face, a hand on each cheek, Ro forced her to look into her eyes. "Talk to me, Kara. I'm here, right here." Green's face was lit up with light reflecting off of liquid as she too had been crying. The tear tracks were evident. "There is no need for sorrow, Sister. They are where they need to be so we can continue."

"Continue what!?" Ainkara asked with a raised, angry voice.

Green let her hands drop to her own thighs. With what Ainkara had already been through due to the Iconians, Ro was not willing to add to that. "Justice, sister. Justice must always continue. Judgement does not halt for anyone."

"Judgement?" Ainkara asked. "Are you promising me that justice will be served?"

"Yes." Green said, plainly. "Do you trust me?" She asked after a few moments of silence.

Ainkara actually had to think on that. Everything Master Ro had taught her about justice and law was being tested. Yet, when confronted with the truth of all that transpired, it was hard for Kara to acknowledge it as proof. "I am afraid."

"Fear unbalances you," Green said. "That doubt, that mistrust, comes from dark places. It is there to manipulate and confuse you. I promise you, Kara, I am here for the crew, the innocent. I have lost everything, Kara. Everything. And, even with that fact, I do not doubt good and evil. Good will always overcome what is evil. It may take time, may not happen the way we think it should, but it is a fact. If I gave in to my base emotions and attacked all those responsible, sought vengeance for myself, then all I fought for would be null and void. Meaningless."

Hearing that made Kara cry even harder. she fell forward and as she did so. Green caught her in a loving embrace, hugging her and rubbing her back and the back of her head. "Ssshhh. Regain control, Kara. You are a bright light in a dark space. I saw this in you long ago. And," she pulled Kara up and back to a conversational stance. Upright and engaged. "You are far stronger than you know." She gave a grin to her apprentice.

"I feel beset upon, from all sides," Kara explained. "Seeing your sorrow over your loss. the amount of death and destruction. And, more than anything else, that it should never have happened. How do you move forward, Master?"

"With faith, Ainkara." Green said, her tone empathetic and understanding. She too had been through many trials, things that had shaken her to the core. "All will unfold as it should. The biggest problem with it all is that we, sentients, think we can control it all. We don't even know the secrets of the Universe, yet we think we are important enough to understand all that is. All of creation. It is not evolutionary processes. It is intelligent design. From the Q down to the meekest of humans. Nothing is made that was, and is, not meant to be."

"It is hard to grasp." Ainkara responded.

"As it should be," Green said, a grin forming that caused her apprentice to finally grin in return. "I don't believe in religion, Kara. I believe in a way of life. Religion is a set of rules made by those who have no true idea as to how things work. I don't lose because I have faith. Imprisoned, tortured, beaten, nothing will cause me to toss aside my beliefs...my faith. If I am not meant to be somewhere then I will never see that place. Period. Once you begin to follow doctrine rather than faith, it all falls to pieces." She stood up, bringing Ainkara with her as she held both of Kara's hands in hers. "My soul has been shredded." As she spoke it took great effort to keep the sobs back now that she was talking with someone who knew her far better than anyone else. The pain of all her losses still trying to break down her walls and dams. "I should be the first one through the door for all responsible, killing them in the most painful of ways. Making sure their pain matches the pain in my spirit. But, when that was all over, then what? Would I feel better? Will it bring my family back? No, on all accounts. I would be in limbo, lost, not knowing where to turn or where to go since I had achieved my goal of vengeance. It leaves you lost. Alone."

Ainkara had held Ro's hands, not only as Master to Apprentice, but as one sister to another. They had formed an unbreakable bond during her Meji training, and that had flowered into a grand friendship. A sisterhood. "I am beginning to understand, but we will need to talk on this in greater depth at another time."

"Whenever you're ready, Kara." Green said. "My Meji door is always open." Ro's bracer began to send an ever-so-slight electronic pulse into her flesh beneath the item. A static electricity type feeling. Getting Kara to go still she then pressed the key for the communication coming in. "Cosmo?"

"Master!" Cosmo said, no longer using the vocabulator he used while around others. He knew that his Master preferred the binary language over standard speech because it was who he truly was and how she had initially designed him. "So good to hear your voice."

Kara smiled as she saw Green's entire demeanor change as she heard form her little robot buddy. It was uncanny, but also heart warming, that a machine could elicit such a response from an organic, sentient, humanoid.

"Are you alright, buddy?" Green asked.

Cosmo looked around at the interior of the maintenance crawlway he was in aboard the Amandora. "I am fine, Master. Safe and away from enemies." This all came through as the bleeps, whirs and chirps he had always used. But, through the Core, Ainkara could understand every beep and whistle. "Sabbath, Johnson, Frazier, and Montgomery are all aboard Amandora, which has been stolen."

Green couldn't help but smile, despite all that was going on around them due to the theft of the Amandora. Here she was, on a beach scattered with debris from the destruction, yet his innocent little proclamation still made her smile. "We gathered that, Cosmo. We'll talk when we get back together. Now is not the time." Her face went serious once more. "Anything further?"

"The four of them plan to retake Amandora," stated Cosmo. "I have estimated their chances of success at one hundred-twenty seven, to one."

"Those odds aren't bad, but a little skewed, don't you think?" Green asked, again grinning as her automaton best friend was just being thorough.

"I cannot be inaccurate, Master. Blame the maker." Cosmo said. It was a joke, and the first he had ever spoken to Green. She was, after all, his maker.

Ro gave a chuckle. "You rascal." She could see that even Ainkara found that comment amusing. "Anything else?"

"Your quarters are marked for transport, Master, should you choose to beam aboard." Cosmo told her.

Green smiled at that, her eyes showing the appreciation she felt. "Cosmo, I do appreciate how steadfast you are, my friend. But, I am back at Danvers and you are light years away. I'm afraid any beaming aboard will be impossible under the circumstances."

Kara stepped into the view he would get on his end, with Green angling her arm to better include her. "You have any ideas, little man?"

"Of course," Cosmo announced proudly. "Mister Scott's equation for transwarp beaming. It will get you anywhere in the galaxy if you know how to set it right. I have ran the equation numerous times in regards to Amandora and all the parameters. I can either beam you directly to a transporter room, or to your quarters, Master."

Smiling broadly, Kara glanced at Green. "I see why you love him."

"He is my baby, and the only one of his kind here in the Milky Way," Green responded. "And, now, the only son I have left."

Cosmo, at his end, heard that. "What? Isaac is non-functional?"

Having Cosmo ask her that, knowing how much he had enjoyed spending time with the children, caused Green to clamp her jaw. She had to reach into the Core for the Control she needed to maintain her composure. Her sorrow, however, did keep trying to come out as she spoke, causing her to pause between words here and there. "Yes. He has been terminated, Cosmo. Alona, too, along with Dwight. They did not survive the attack."

There was the saddest of sounds put forth by Cosmo, a whirring that dropped in sound as he, physically, drooped his head in sorrow. His Master could not see him but she knew that he too felt their loss. "You have my sympathies, Master. I shall redouble my efforts to reacquire Amandora. To honor those lost with victory."

"You do that, buddy." Green said. "When you have everything in place that you think we'll need, give us a call. If the others haven't been successful by then we will arrive to aid them. For now, we still have Danvers to see to. Be safe, Cosmo, you hear me. I can't lose anyone else right now. I love you, and need you."

Cosmo's loyalty could be akin to love for his Master. And, as he looked at it from that vantage point, made sense. Green, in times past, had risked her life to save him, a mere machine in the eyes of many. Having heard her say he was now her only son really set his loyalty to maximum. She had created him from scratch so, in essence, she was actually his mother. "I will, Master. Here, I will send you the transwarp equation. You may find it useful."

Ro's mind immediately began to formulate a plan as he mentioned it. "I will, for sure. Keep your dome down and stay safe. Green, out." The comm cut and she dropped her arm.

A smile was on Kara's face, matching her friend and Meji Master's smile. "I know that look. Talk to me."

Green began to lay out a plan that took into consideration three different activities, depending on which one they chose to pursue.

OFF: