Thanks to Graham Gilligan, who gave me a much-needed lesson in the physics of spaceflight, and why we all need inertial dampers.

Military Log, Stardate 41168.3. This Galaxy-class battleship Enterprise has barely taken on its full crew when we are asked by Starfleet to prove our mettle. We have taken on board at Starbase 114 an intercept scout, a new class of vessel developed for use in reconnaissance missions deep into Klingon territory. The scout has warp capability but it can also use liquid fuel for propulsion, a sort of "stealth mode" since Klingon sensors are attuned to look for the sophisticated energy signatures of impulse engines and warp drives. It has minimal armament and shielding capabilities, but the most sophisticated sensor and recording equipment available. It's sleek, stripped down, built for surveillance and evasion, not battle. Chief of operations and second-in-command Lieutenant Commander Data, with his information processing capacity and superior piloting skills, and chief tactical and weapons officer Lieutenant Tasha Yar, the top Klingon strategist and armament expert on the front lines, have been selected to take the scout, christened the Cixous, for its first mission.

Captain Picard tugged at his silver phaser sash absently and reactivated the recorder. "Captain's personal log." He paused, remembering the look on his new first officer's face as he'd left the ready room. "Perhaps, in another lifetime, Will Riker and I could have been friends, instead of having to play this adversarial, devil's advocate game with each other. He's right, of course. This isn't the time to ask a new, unseasoned crew to undertake something like a reconnaissance mission in the heart of Klingon territory."

Picard sighed. "But during war there never is a good time. And Will was right when he said Starfleet had no business sending such young people into battle situations. Yes, they are the best in their classes and at their specialities, but they don't have any time on the lines. But I have no choice. Someone has to take the mission, and the computer concurred that the best people for the job are a young, brilliant tactical officer and the only android in Starfleet, neither of whom had shown that they knew how to get along with other people, that they are good mission material. The android, although a walking encyclopedia, lacks in the social graces. And the tactical officer has an almost hairtrigger temper." He touched the intercom.

"This is the captain. Lieutenant Yar. Lieutenant Commander Data. Report to my ready room immediately."

Picard noticed the contrasts between the two officers as they faced him: Yar's stance was tense, energy running palpably through her as if she were a live wire, while Data held himself with perfectly correct posture, calm and composed.

After he had outlined their mission, Yar pointed out anxiously, wanting to prove herself to the captain, "Sir, I'm a class-10 rated pilot. I can take this mission by myself, there's no need for Commander Data — "

"Commander Data is rated class-12," Picard told her. "He has the skill and the reflexes necessary to perform the second-by-second compensations called for during evasive maneuvers." When he saw that she might object further, he added, "In any case, a Human could not withstand the potential G-stresses in such a craft and remain conscious to do the necessary piloting. But Commander Data can."

She swallowed her disappointment — she hadn't wanted him to think her weak for not doing the mission solo — and her trepidation at flying a mission with the android. She looked over at Data, who appeared unperturbed by her outburst, and then back at Picard. "Aye, sir."

Yar reported to the shuttlecraft bay with her equipment case and wearing the special flight suit designed to help her with the worst of the G-stresses and found Data, dressed in a similar flight suit, already checking out the scout. She took a deep breath and strode onto the hangar deck, unlimbering her case and taking out a tricorder to do her own scan.

Data noted what she was doing and commented mildly, "It is not necessary for you to run a diagnostic, as I am already — "

"I'd prefer to do my own scan, thanks," she cut him off.

He persisted, "But if we are both doing the same scan, with virtually identical equipment, I see no reason that — "

She turned to him, exasperated. "Do I have to explain everything I do to you? I've been on other missions where even triple redundancies didn't pick up something that should have been noted. We're going into unknown territory with an unproven piece of equipment, Commander. I'd like my chances of coming back alive to remain as high as possible."

"But surely you realize that, as an android, it is impossible for me to ignore even the slightest divergence from the scout's normal parameters."

She circled the small craft, checking her readings. "Yes, I realize that, Commander. And I won't dispute your abilities in that regard. What I'm talking about is — intuition, knowing that something appears right but doesn't feel right."

The android frowned. "Yes. Intuition is not part of my programming." Then he brightened as a thought occurred to him. "Perhaps you will be able to educate me with respect to intuition during our trip."

She looked sideways at him and then back at her tricorder screen. "Yeah," she said noncommittally.

He finished with his tricorder and closed it as she finished with her own scan and nodded.

"Okay, let's do our pre-flight," she said, and palmed the dorsal hatch open. As he got ready to climb up top, Data observed,

"I sense a level of discomfort when you are around me."

She whirled on him. "Look, Commander, I didn't ask for this assignment! I would have volunteered to do it all by myself, but it wasn't my call to make so let's just do our jobs, okay?"

"As you wish."

She climbed up the scout and in, taking her place at the right-hand science and information console. He quietly followed her and sat down to her left, at the navigation, helm and defense console.

As they did their pre-flight checks, Yar's conscience got the better of her. She knew she wasn't being fair to him and yet she didn't know how to rectify all the anger buried beneath her words. It gnawed at her and the silence built between them until finally she turned to him and said, "Listen — " but when he turned his attention to her, she suddenly didn't know what to say.

"I am listening," he told her patiently.

"My behavior was uncalled for," she blurted. "I'm sorry."

"Your assumption is that my feelings were hurt but, since I am an android, I have no feelings to hurt." He inclined his head. "However, I accept your apology in the spirit it was intended." She breathed a small sigh of relief, but he continued, "I regret that you are uncomfortable working with me, but I understand the reaction. It is often difficult for Humans to work with artificial life forms as — "

"Wait — what?" she asked. "Commander, did you think — did you think this was about your being an android and my not — " When from his expression it became clear that was exactly what he had thought, she actually grinned. "Commander, you couldn't be more wrong!"

"Then my appearance, my very fact of being does not disturb you?"

"That was the farthest thing from my mind, Commander," she assured him. "I don't think I've given your appearance half a thought since I came aboard, and I'm not the kind of person to contemplate questions of metaphysics, believe me!"

"But I have made a study of Human body language and other verbal and physical cues and I believe I read your discomfort around me correctly, did I not?" he asked.

"Yes, you did. But it wasn't what you thought." She looked away, wondering how much she should tell him, but realized she owed him an explanation after the assumption he'd been laboring under all this time. "Commander, I came from a world where you simply couldn't trust anybody. And you learned to survive by relying only on yourself, no one else. It goes against every instinct to put my life in someone else's hands." She looked at him. "That's why I made such a big deal at the briefing about my pilot rating, about why you were needed on the Enterprise. I didn't trust you, because I don't trust anyone."

Data assimilated what she had told him with what was on her service record, and realized that she wasn't trying to spare his nonexistent feelings, but was telling the truth. He looked seriously at her. "Has that changed?" he asked.

She looked away again. "I don't know."

He nodded, and turned back to the helm and navigation console. "Launch in 35 seconds," he announced.

Yar opened a comm line. "Enterprise, this is the Cixous. Launch in...30 seconds."

"Cixous, aye," Commander Riker's voice acknowledged. "Good hunting."

"Thank you, sir."

Data eased the scout out of the launch bay at one-quarter impulse. Even at that speed Yar could feel every pitch and yaw and knew that no matter what Data's piloting skill, it was going to be one rough trip.

"Course plotted and laid in," Data said. She acknowledged with a tight nod of her head.

When they had left the Enterprise far enough behind, Data reported, "Switching to 'stealth mode.'" He scanned his readouts as he did so, and made some rapid adjustments. "I will need to take the inertial dampers offline, Lieutenant, while I accelerate the scout in this mode. I will try to keep the acceleration time to a minimum, but — "

Yar knew he was trying to warn her that she might lose consciousness, and gripped her chair arms as she mentally steeled herself. "Let's go, then, Commander."

Incredible pressure forced her back in her seat, and she fought to keep her eyes open. The starfield blurred and burst, then narrowed to a thin line of light surrounded by blackness, and then there was only the dark.

"...Lieutenant?" She blinked, tried to focus. The stars were standing still in the viewport. She looked to her left, and saw that Data was pointing a tricorder and Feinberger at her.

"I'm fine," she said impatiently, turning to check her screens and readouts, but the android placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Please let me determine that this is the case conclusively," he requested in a mild voice, and she sat still. He carefully checked his readings. "Are you experiencing any unusual visual input?"

She glanced down at her console and read the information there easily. "No. Vision normal."

"Auditory?"

She concentrated. "Just normal ship sounds."

He continued to consult the tricorder readouts, and finally pronounced, "All vital signs are reading normal for a weightless environment."

Grateful, Yar started calibrating her instruments. "How long were you trying to bring me out of it?" she asked.

Data put the tricorder and Feinberger away. "You regained consciousness approximately three minutes after we dropped out of warp."

"What did I miss?"

"An uneventful trip. We flew a mostly straight-line course to our present position. Returning to the Enterprise will present the more difficult challenge."

She nodded and checked a wall readout. "We're getting some telemetry." She fed the readings to the navigation console.

"Changing course," Data confirmed, "two three five mark two eight."

Yar was pushed back in her seat by the change in speed and vector and fought to keep her hands on her controls. "Shields?" she asked.

"One hundred percent and holding."

As they neared the center of the telemetry readings, they came to a dead stop and Yar activated their focused sensors. Working quickly, they collected as much information as they could, the both of them so in tune with the instruments and procedures they barely had to speak to each other, as if by telepathy they told each other what had to be done, and when they discovered they should go even deeper into enemy territory to get a crucial piece of information, there were no questions, just two people in absolute synchronicity who knew what their job was and getting it done.

All their information collected, Data carefully proceeded to guide the scout to a safe distance from their previous position so the Klingons wouldn't pick up its warp signature when it returned to the Enterprise.

Yar, with nothing to do since Data was doing all the piloting, essayed gamely, "So, Commander..."

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

After a pause, she admitted, a little sheepish, "I'm sorry. I meant to make small talk but I have no idea what to say!"

"Small talk — inconsequential conversation meant to fill a socially awkward silence or to put another person at their ease."

"Pretty much."

His expression became intrigued. "I have not had the opportunity to speak of meteorological phenomena with anyone previously."

She had to think about that for a little, and when she realized he was referring to the standard opening gambit of discussing the weather, she smiled at the oddly precise way he had of expressing himself. "Neither have I, which I guess is the problem." She spoke lightly, but his gaze was intent on her. "You seem surprised, Commander."

"I would think that, as a Human among other Humans, you would have ample opportunity for inconsequential conversation."

"You're forgetting what this particular Human's background is." She watched, fascinated despite herself, as his gaze turned inward as if accessing and processing information. When he focused on her again, it was her turn to be surprised.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said.

"For what?"

"For wanting to make small talk, whether your intention was to put me at my ease or to end an awkward silence. Thank you for considering me worth the effort."

He had spoken matter-of-factly, as if making a report, and yet she felt strangely touched by his words. She'd always been so focused on outrunning her past, on trying to make it in Starfleet, she'd never found within herself the time or the inclination for small talk. And yet she'd somehow found them now, with of all people her commanding officer. There must be something about Lieutenant Commander Data...but she wasn't quite ready to figure out what it was.

"I think," she said slowly, meeting his bright-eyed gaze, "we're both trying to find a way to fit in, is all. I hope you don't mind my experimenting with you."

Before she could be thoroughly embarrassed by her choice of words, he answered with the same honesty, "No, I do not. Is it acceptable to you if the experimentation is reciprocal, Lieutenant?"

"Of course, Commander."

He nodded, and then said in a passable imitation of nonchalance, "Nice weather we are having, is it not?"

She broke into a sudden grin. "Especially in space...!"

When they were performing their pre-flights before going into warp, she reached to adjust the astrogator at the same time he did and they inadvertently grabbed each other's hands. She dropped his hand hastily and avoided his eyes as they finished their checks.

Then he turned to her and asked, "Ready?"

She looked into his yellow eyes and deliberately took his hand in hers. She hoped he understood what she intended the gesture to mean, that although it went against her every instinct to put her trust in him, she trusted him now. "Ready," she affirmed.

He held her hand tight in his and put the ship into a high-g turn, pressing them both back into their seats, and Yar's hand slipped from his as she lost consciousness. Data took them safely home.

Data went to answer the door to his quarters and found Yar standing in the corridor. She began without preamble, "Commander, if you've got the preliminary–" She suddenly stopped herself.

When she didn't continue, Data prompted politely, "If I have the preliminary what, Lieutenant?"

She smiled at her own expense and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Commander, it's just that...what's that music you're playing? I've never heard anything like it."

"Ah. Wolfgang Mozart, a Terran composer. What you hear is his Symphony in G Minor, the allegro con brio movement, which has a moderately challenging part for the violin section."

"Symphony in G Minor. I'll have to remember that," she said shyly, never having been affected by music to the point of being distracted from her duties. She cleared her throat, embarrassed. "Uh, anyway, I just came by to see if you'd done a preliminary analysis on using controlled oscillations in the Cochrane coils as a possible offensive measure?"

"I am just completing that analysis now." He gestured for her to enter.

She stepped in briskly, then stopped short just inside the door when she realized she'd never been inside the android's quarters before. He had the larger officer's cabin with a sitting room, but instead of a sleeping area, he had installed a complete library computer station.

"Damn," she breathed. "I should have thought of that!"

He turned, already halfway to the main console. "To what are you referring?"

"Your set-up. You don't need to sleep, so you take out the bed and put in a workstation! I never have guests, so I should take out the living area and put in tactical repeater screens so I always know ship's status even if I'm not on the bridge!"

"You never have guests, Lieutenant?" the android asked, curious.

She shook her head. "Not enough time; too much to do." She spied the violin and bow laid carefully on top of the low table in front of the sofa and, in spite of herself, walked to it, only just stopping herself from touching it by folding her arms across her chest. She looked at Data, who calmly watched her. "Do you play?" she asked unnecessarily.

"I play in order to attempt to understand human creativity. I have some facility, but nothing approaching feeling, much less genius."

Yar seemed hardly to hear his explanation as the recorded violins and horns, repeating and augmenting the passage that had caught her attention when she'd walked in, reached a swirling, abandoned crescendo and she unconsciously held her breath, a smile lighting her face. As the movement ended she looked at Data a little blankly, having forgotten why she was even there.

"Would you like for me to start the movement from the beginning?" he offered.

She tried to collect her thoughts and took a deep breath. "Um–wait, that's not...I mean, yes, I'd like to hear the music again, but–the preliminary report!" she remembered suddenly. "Do you–"

The android went around to the working side of the console and checked. "Yes. I have rough estimates and working models ready now."

"Good," she said, relieved, offering him the tricorder she'd been clutching. He plugged it in and downloaded the information for her.

"Would you like to hear the recording from the beginning?" he offered again. "Or do you need to leave?"

She didn't answer right away. "Do you...play along with the music?"

"It is one way to practice, to imitate the great violin masters and try to understand their techniques and what made them unique and great."

She marveled, "When do you find the time?"

"You pointed out yourself that I do not need sleep," he said, and she nodded, thoughtful. "However, there is no reason that you could not combine activities so as to optimize the time you do have."

"Such as?"

"Listening to music while you work on your report," he said, rising and gesturing for her to take his place at the library computer.

Surprised and pleased, she complied shyly, realizing what he was offering her. She sat down to go over the figures, and Data started the music and began to play.

At the end of the movement, Data turned and looked at her expectantly.

"That was wonderful, Commander," she told him sincerely. "Thank you for sharing that with me. I never thought–" She stopped.

"Please do not truncate your sentences when speaking with me, Lieutenant. Please speak freely. I cannot be offending by anything you say."

"You can't, but I can," she explained. "I'm just embarrassed at how little I used to think of you, Commander, and how generous you've been this evening...how generous you've always been. I'm really sorry. Can we start again?"

"If you feel it is necessary for our working relationship to continue to develop satisfactorily–"

"Yes, I do."

"Then let us start again."

She stood and extended her hand. He took it in his and gripped it firmly. "Off-duty, please call me Tasha."

"Please call me Data. And I hope you will feel free to come by my quarters at any time if you would like to listen to music or to my playing."

"Really?"

"Really."

On their second mission, when they were set to return, she again held her hand out to him. He looked at her as he took her hand and she explained, a little embarrassed, "We held hands before and made it back safe. That's how superstitions start."

He brightened. "Ah! A practice or behavior resulting from a false conception of causation. I have never been present at the inception of one," he told her, taking her hand in his.

She grinned at him. "And we have to do it every time or we won't make it back safely."

Picard pounded his fists once against the arms of his command chair before he levered himself up and stalked to the tactical station behind him, the only outward sign of frustration he'd shown since Data and Yar had failed to return almost five hours ago from their latest reconnaissance mission.

"This is the last time," Picard muttered as he crossed behind the tactical console. "The last time we use a manned scout to get us front line information–it's too damned dangerous!"

Riker bit down on his impulse to point out that Yar and Data had survived over a dozen such missions and, not for the first time, he wondered how Picard had drawn a command like the Enterprise. He could see that in peacetime, Picard would have been the man to captain an exploration vessel, he had the heart, the imagination, to do so. But in a time of war, as now, with the Federation fighting a war it had never wanted with the Klingons, Picard cared too much. People died during war, that was what war was about, you just tried to keep the number of deaths as low as possible. Picard felt death, every death, too keenly to be a captain. He had often made decisions that directly contradicted Riker's own inclinations, and that had been a source of tension between them from the very beginning. Idealists, in Riker's opinion, should never take a ship into battle.

"We risk the Enterprise abandoning us the longer we remain here," Data felt he had to remind Yar.

"I know, Data," Yar said, her eyes and hands busy as she collected and manipulated the readings they were getting. "But this is big, bigger than anything the Klingons have attempted yet. We've got to know how many ships and how much armament they're committing or our coming here in the first place won't make any sense. We've almost got it."

Yar cast a sideways glance at her mission partner and–yes, her friend. Data knew her better than anyone. They had spent so much time together, just the two of them waiting, watching, that there was almost nothing he didn't know about her.

"Okay, Data, let's go home." She checked her pressure suit and restraints, then put out her hand to him.

He took her hand in his and asked, "Ready?"

"Ready," she confirmed, grasping his hand tightly.

"Captain," Ensign Wesley Crusher's young yet rock-steady voice announced, "sensors indicate–"

Picard didn't even wait for him to finish his sentence. There should only be one thing that could sneak past their long-range sensors, and if it wasn't what he thought it was they had to move, fast. "Identify. Helm, ready to move us out on my order."

"Helm, aye," Crusher confirmed, manipulating helm controls as he continued to eye the sensor readouts. "Coming into range...it's the Cixous, sir. ETA 4.7 minutes."

Picard hit the comm. "Dr. Crusher to the hangar deck." He turned to Riker and ordered, "Command crew briefing thirty minutes from their ETA."

"Aye, sir."

Picard strode down to the ready room and ground out between his teeth, anger masking the fear he'd felt at the thought of losing Yar and Data, "And it had damn well better be worth it!"

"I'd have to recommend the Lexington be warned off its current position," Yar concluded. She drew an arc into the tactical screen, which showed the projected battle plan two days hence. "If they could move even thirty degrees to the left of this arc, they and the Yorktown teamed could drive a wedge into the Klingon position above Deraien star cluster." She looked to Data to continue.

"Highest probability is that they were massing into a rhihok nor position," the android stated. "Second highest probability is the qahok baph flight pattern. I recommend we tell the lead ships to prepare for both contingencies."

Picard considered the information only a little longer. Data's and Yar's recommendations were never discounted lightly, since they almost always coincided with Picard's own.

"Make it so," Picard said, turning away from the tactical screen. "Ensign Crusher, you will implement heading 172 mark 8, warp 6. Commander Riker, you will forward our intelligence report and recommendation to the Lex –"

"I can do that, sir," Yar said quickly.

"Lieutenant, you're due for a rest period," Picard said.

"Sir, it's my duty shift on the bridge. I should — "

"Lieutenant," the captain said softly. "You and Commander Data just returned from a mission. The fact that your return coincides with your normal work schedule on the bridge does not mean I expect you to — "

"Sir, I feel I — "

"Lieutenant," he said even more softly. "Stand down." Everyone in the briefing room heard his unspoken, "That's an order."

Color rose in Yar's cheeks as she realized how her insistence must have looked to everyone. Tasha Yar, the overachiever. Yet again. "Yes, sir," she acquiesced.

Picard finished giving his orders and looked at everyone around the table. "Report to your stations. Dismissed."

Riker grinned at Yar as he rose and left. She rolled her eyes, acknowledging that the joke was on her and that she wasn't taking the reprimand to heart. Wesley Crusher gave her a sympathetic glance — both of them had an almost driven need to keep proving themselves to Picard — and she smiled at him, grateful. She turned to leave behind LaForge and Doctor Crusher.

end Chapter 1