Chapter Text
The Bridge Event View One: Uhura
The turbolift doors opened and Nomad floated out, one antenna extended out toward Lt. Uhura and the sound she was making. Nomad drifted over the railing towards Uhura, who was still singing with her pad and stylo in hand, standing in front of the navigation station, looking out at space. Unaware that her life was about to change forever.
“Where my heart is, Where a scented miracle...”
Scotty noticed Nomad at the doors and signaled his commanders, whispering into the intercom, “Bridge to Captain!”
“Captain here.”
“That mechanical beastie is up here!” Scotty said with a concerned voice, as he watched it drift towards Uhura.
“On my way, Scotty,” Kirk replied.
Nomad drifted over the railing towards Uhura, passing Sulu who jumped back, leaning out of its way. He saw it drift toward Nyota and tried to reach for her, to warn her. He was too late, too late to stop what happened next.
Nyota continued to sing:
“Tomorrow the path along the way. There’s where my love…”
Nomad paused in front of Nyota and she stopped singing, surprised and speechless.
Startled, Nyota looked up from her PADD at the machine hovering in front of her, confused, and wondered what it wanted. It was her first time encountering the machine that almost destroyed the Enterprise.
Nomad spoke in a mechanical monotone. “What is the meaning?”
Nyota looked around for an answer, confused.
“What?”
“What form of communication?”
Nyota was perplexed. What was it asking her? “I don’t know what it…”
Then she realized what it was asking about, and answered. “Oh, my singing... I was singing.”
Nomad’s mechanical voice continued to ask questions, still trying to understand this particular biological unit.
“What is the purpose of singing?”
Nyota relaxed. The machine was inquiring about something she enjoys, and she was willing to give it the best answer possible.
“I don’t know… I like to sing. I felt like singing.”
She was trying to explain it in the simplest terms a machine could understand.
“For what purpose is singing?”
Nyota shrugged and looked at the machine with a small chuckle.
“I don’t know. I like to sing,” she replied. “I felt like music.”
Scotty slowly got up from his chair. Sulu stared at the interaction, unsure what to do. He hoped she was safe talking to the machine.
“What is music?” asked Nomad. “Think about music.”
Suddenly, a beam of light flashed from Nomad onto Nyota, engulfing her head, sending her mind into a trance. Her face became a blank.
Scotty yelled across the bridge as he lunged toward Nomad. “Lieutenant! Get away from that thing!”
The Bridge Event View Two: Nomad
Nomad pierced Uhura’s mind searching for the meaning of music, its one goal to understand what form of communication it is. It was focused on this one thing only. Nomad sent waves of requests to Nyota’s mind to find the meaning.
“What … is music?
Think … about … music…
What is … the purpose … of music?”
The flow of radiation from the beam of light to Nyota’s brain was an advanced photonic radiation capable of converting biochemical information into data. Nomad continued to probe her brain for the data relevant to its inquiry, collecting as much of the data on music as possible. Nomad scoured the deepest recesses of Nyota’s mind, collecting all relevant data on “singing” and “music,” and discarding what it deemed any and all superfluous excess.
Then something touched Nomad’s forcefield, interrupting its process. The course in finding the meaning of music had been deflected and it lost the key element of its purpose. The distraction caused a momentary lapse in the focus of Nomad’s probing, causing an overload in the biological unit’s fragile data storage compartment. The female unit’s data storage compartment was empty. Nomad still had insufficient data to comprehend “music,” and the data stream was lost.
Nomad now turned its attention to the unit Scott, who disrupted its process of ascertaining the meaning of music, the biological unit lying damaged before him.
The Bridge Event View Three:Captain Kirk
Scotty yelled across the bridge as he lunged toward Nomad. “Lieutenant! Get away from that thing!”
Kirk, McCoy and Spock entered the bridge at the same moment, practically running from the turbolift, to see Scotty lunging at Nomad.
Kirk saw Scotty charging Nomad and yelled. “SCOTTY!”
Kirk, to his horror, saw Nomad shoot a beam at Scotty, and his body flew across the bridge, hitting the bulkhead hard and rolled to lifelessness.
Nomad turned its attention to the unit Scott, who disrupted its process of ascertaining the meaning of music, the biological unit lying damaged -or- lifeless before him.
While Mr. Spock was standing near the railing, he saw what happened to Mr. Scott, and then he glanced at Uhura and noticed her blank face. Something had happened to her, too. He felt a loss in her and in himself.
Sulu approached Uhura, gently grabbed her shoulders and looked into her blank face. He saw the loss of her once bright eyes, the windows to her soul gone.
Two crewmen rushed to Scotty, motionless, and slowly turned him over. Kirk was in his own shock leaning on his command chair, and directed McCoy firmly. “BONES!”
McCoy walked swiftly to the still form laying on the bridge, and knelt down to examine the body. He gently touched his pulse points.
While Kirk was looking at Scotty, Spock was looking at Nomad. He was internally for a Vulcan was mad, angered. His brows were arched to express his demeanor openly. And then he looked at Uhura who was still motionlessly standing, her eyes lost, unblinking. “What happened to her?”
The woman of his secret desires, the woman with the analytical mind for mathematics. Lost.
McCoy looked up from his quick examination[. I]t hit him to find his friend in this state, but there was nothing he could do. He looked at Jim and gave the bad news, with firmness and anger.
“He’s dead, Jim!”
McCoy continued to examine what was left of Scotty, hoping he was wrong.
Kirk boiled with anger. He wanted to explode at the news. His hands gripped the helm console. Kirk spoke firmly to Nomad, trying to stay in control.
“Why did you kill him?”
Nomad hovered in front of navigation and, with its clicking sound, answered the Creator.
“The unit touched my screens.”
“That unit was my Chief Engineer!” Kirk sharply looked at Uhura and saw her lost blank face.
“Lieutenant? Lieutenant, are you all right?”
Her silence said it all. Something was wrong with her, too. Two great crewmen were hurt or killed by Nomad, frustrating Jim to no end.
Spock continued to stare at Lieutenant Uhura, his expression grim. He was frustrated with Nomad for hurting her, and with himself for not letting it show.
Kirk looked at Sulu and at Yeoman Teal, each holding one of her hands, both looking at Uhura with deep concern. She didn’t respond to Kirk. He knew this was not going to be good. He tilted his head to the crewmen with Uhura.
“Sickbay.”
As Sulu and Teal gently guided Uhura off the bridge, Kirk returned his attention to Nomad.
“What did you do to her?”
“That unit is defective. Its thinking is chaotic. Absorbing it unsettled me.”
Spock was beside himself, he slowly watched Sulu and Teal escort Nyota as they walked by him towards the turbolift, her eyes drifting towards him and he caught them. As though she was asking for help or recognition. His heart dropped as he looked into those once happy eyes, ones that worked alongside him, sang to him. GONE. This put a burr in Spock’s mind. He spoke firmly, with pain in his tone.
Spock replies, “That unit is a woman.”
Nomad replies in his flat monotone computer voice: “A mass of conflicting impulses.”
Spock heard what Nomad said to Kirk, chaotic thinking. Nyota had an analytical mind for a Terran, well-versed in the most highly complex mathematical theories. Her beauty alone was astonishing, and her skill with the difficult Ka’athyra matched his own. Her mind was gone, erased by the probe.
Kirk didn’t know what to do, two of his experienced crew either dead or hurt. He took a deep breath, trying to think what to do with Nomad. Two people close to him were collateral damage, his fault, and his alone. He had authorized that Nomad to be beamed aboard, but in a span of mere seconds… this.
He glanced over at his once-engineer. He had his death to deal with. He said with grief, “Get Scott down below.”
McCoy watched as the two crewmen gently lifted Scotty and carried him away, he too is upset with Nomad ‘the killer machine’. McCoy gave a grave look at Nomad.
What happened next was even more shocking to Kirk. Nomad made a declaration. Its power was practically unlimited according to all known physical laws, yet it desired to please the one who created him.
“Will the Creator effect repairs on the unit Scott?”
Kirk leaned on the navigation system facing Nomad closer, lost in his grief, rocking back and forth, when he answered Nomad.
“He’s dead.”
“Insufficient response.”
“His biological functions have ceased!” Kirk shook his head down as he spoke.
“Does the Creator wish me to repair the unit?”
Kirk’s head shot up with the realization that Nomad could correct what just happened. He quickly looked to McCoy for confirmation.
“There’s nothing I can do, Jim. If there’s a chance, it’ll have to be soon.” This gave McCoy hope.
“All right, Nomad. Repair the unit.”
“I require tapes on the structure.”
Kirk stared at McCoy again for confirmation, and nodded his approval to provide Nomad the information it needed. McCoy slowly walked over to Spock, giving him instructions on what data to assemble as they both crossed the bridge towards Spock’s station.
“Well, he’ll need tapes on general anatomy, the central nervous system, and then one on the physiological structure of the brain. We’d better give it all the neurological studies we have, as well as tracings of Scotty’s hyperencephalogram.”
When Spock reached his station, he sat down and pulled out a blank data disk, uploaded it to the main computers, and his fingers swiftly flicked the computer switches to begin downloading the information listed to him. It only took seconds for Spock to complete his job. He turned to Nomad and gave it a command, as it was only a robot:
“Nomad, I have arranged the tapes for flash feed at the top speed of the computer. Please do not draw the information faster than the machine’s capacity.”
Nomad drifted up over navigation towards Spock’s station. Kirk slowly followed behind, and wondered if he could really save Scotty’s life. Could Nomad be that powerful? the captain thought. Of course it is, it had taken out an entire solar system.
When Nomad reached Spock’s station, it extended one of its antennas towards the main computer.
“Proceed.”
Spock pressed a button on his station, initiating the computer’s data stream of information to Nomad that sounded like a high speed fast forward gibberish. Nomad hovered as he drew in the information that the computer released. Nomad was still analyzing the primitive vessel. Spock switched off the computer feed when it was completed. Nomad quickly analyzed what was given to him, and he was disappointed by the information.
“Creator, the unit Scott is a primitive structure. Insufficient safeguards built in. Breakdown can occur from many causes. Self-maintainance systems of low reliability.”
Nomad reported a low quality unit, which didn’t make sense given its data on the Creator. Why would the Creator make such low quality units?
Kirk, hearing what Nomad said about Humans, was insulted. But he continued to play his pretend role as the Creator.
“It serves me as it is, Nomad. Repair it.”
“Where is the unit Scott now?”
“The body is in Sickbay.”
McCoy interjected his answer while still staring at Nomad. McCoy had his doubts and didn’t trust this dangerous machine-god.
“Show me Sickbay?” Nomad mechanical voice asked.
Kirk looked at McCoy and gently nodded his approval.“Dr. McCoy will show you.”
McCoy slowly started walking towards the turbolift, with Nomad following behind him. The turbolift doors opened to Sulu and Teal entering the bridge, and they both stared at Nomad following McCoy into the lift.
Kirk hit his security button on his armchair, and requested security.
“Security, I want a twenty-four hour, two man armed surveillance on Nomad. Pick it up in Sickbay.”
Spock watched as both McCoy and Nomad entered the turbolift. Spock was confident Nomad had the power to revive Mr. Scott. But would it do the same for Lt. Uhura?