SubAccount: Alice

That seems rather arbitrary. First, Alice is not a Soong android or synth and she comes from outside the Federation; joining Katra or as a civilian would avoid that issue anyway. Second, Shadow Fleet didn't have a fixed timeline when I was last here, and nothing a month would make a difference to; we have stardates for a reason. Third, SF accepted an Exocomp last week, and the only difference is their appearance. And fourth, Alice was already approved.

In any case, I planned to rejoin alongside Moonhunter, and since that's not happening, I rescind my request.

All repaired and recharged, Alice 312 is requesting reactivation!

Character(s) affected: Alice 312 (and Alices 404 and 360 too)
Assigned ship(s): USS Athena
Period of time absent: For the foreseeable future
Date of last period of activity: 13th April 2020
Date returning: Unknown

Any relevant comments: I'm burned out on roleplay and need to cut back so I can form a better life balance and focus on other games. While I enjoy Alice and like several players on Athena, the missions themselves haven't been interesting enough for me to stay for. The Alices have returned to their home planet for repairs, and are on reserve until further notice.

[[Transporter Room 1]]

[Transporter Room 1]

The android starship was fast. After all, it utilised advanced Andromedan technology that the Federation would envy, and it didn't need much in the way of life-support, or inertial dampening, or creature comforts for its artificial crew. And they had come to collect three of their wayward daughters, and bring them home.

The Alice triplets had become conjoined: cables from Alice 360 and Alice 404 snaked inside Alice 312 to provide back-up processing and power, to replace what she'd lost in the cultists' phaser blast. As ever, 360 provided the soul, and 404 the heart. The three androids walked closely, side-by-side so as not to dislodge or pull out the cables. Behind them was an antigrav sled carrying their possessions – 312's Transformer toys, 404's weights, 360's kitchen things. And the little cleaning bot 53 was still following 312 like a faithful puppy.

The androids didn't see a need to say goodbye. It would probably just hurt anyway.

There was still so much they wanted to do and explore, fellow crew they wanted to know better, but fate had gotten in the way. It was time to go home, to be repaired, upgraded, and made whole.

[[Bunker, Village]]

[Bunker, Village]

With a precise tap on the pressure sensor, Alice 312 opened the bunker door and stepped swiftly inside, covering for her companions, her phaser raised as photoreceptors recorded the scene; as software conducted image analysis, mapped the environment, picked out figures, identified hostiles by their raised weapons; as targeting systems calculated trajectories, raised her arm, and squeezed the trigger. Her phaser beam struck and stunned one cultist, then another, and another, the android shooting with unerring efficiency.

Then she was overwhelmed by a flurry of error messages and internal alarms, she registered system failures, she estimated damage. Alice looked down, saw sparks exploding from the hole in her lower torso. How did that happened? An enemy phaser beam had hit her. 'Oh scrap.' she said, and shut down—

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

Alice 312 followed Jacob's direction to the alley, confirming it was the one that the high priestess (of the cult, she realised) had emerged from earlier. Minus Jacob's intervention, she realised this was still the same plan as earlier, only without the estimated 3.5 seconds that would've been spent finding the pressure sensor and plus the estimated 3.5 minutes spent speaking to Jacob. While the team assembled, Alice ventured towards the alleyway, searching for RF and wifi signals that might indicate further security. They needed to proceed quickly, before the captain was sacrificed, or, in legal terms, ritually murdered. The android had no hope that he would survive, nor fear that he would not, it was out of her control. But she had a strong requirement that they succeed in rescuing him, and her neural network would be so depressed if they failed and he was killed.

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

Estimating her distraction mission to be on hold, if not cancelled altogether, Alice 312 walked away to collect her discarded uniform tunic and jacket, as well as her combadge. That tactic had likely run its course too. Putting them back on and returning to the group (she'd not missed hearing any of the exchange, of course), Alice inquired 'Do you mean they took him to the rift in the sky? That would be difficult to access, because it is a complex space–time event at least twenty kilometres off the ground and twenty-two days in the past.'

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

To say the guard wasn't amused would have been a gross understatement. Very suddenly the man raised his phaser rifle and pointed it directly at Alice. "I don't know what you're trying, but I'm going to give you one more chance. Leave and no one has to get-." A loud metal thwack abruptly cut him off as the man crumpled to the ground. Jacob shook slightly as everyone else in the courtyard turned to look at what he'd done.

In Jacob's hands sat a small piece of sheet metal, just larger than a book. "Look. I'll help you, but you and your Starfleet friends have to leave and take the crazy cult people with you." His voice shook as he spoke, clearly afraid of his life.

One moment, Alice was working out how to argue her need to be here, to collect her uniform, and to continue creating a distraction. The next, her aggressor was unconscious, having been struck by a man previously classed as a hostile but now offering assistance. The android might not have been surprised like a humanoid would be, but this was an abrupt change of circumstance she was unprepared to process. Was she still meant to create a distraction? 'Why did you hit him?' she asked, in need of some clarification. 'We only came to collect our captain, not crazy cult people.' But she detected clear signs of fear in his face and voice, and started to discern there might be two factions in this village, these crazy cult people and others, the former evidently hostile to the latter. 'How can you help us?'

Meanwhile, she transmitted an update to the others: 'One of the villagers attacked another. He is afraid of crazy cult people and is offering us his help.'

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

But Alice just stopped and smiled and waved at the man. It was important to always follow proper communications protocols. 'Yes, your leader said almost exactly that!' she called back pleasantly, raising her volume to a level not just appropriate to the social distance, but to shouting clear across the village. 'But she did not specify how we should communicate afterward! I had to come back to ask a few questions in order to arrange our going away and not coming back! Are you able to answer them, or would you like to call back your spokeswoman?!' She could've gotten straight to the point, but didn't; she needed to keep them talking, or rather, herself talking.

Meanwhile, Alice transmitted a signal from her wifi to the team's combadges. 'I am gaining their attention now.'

[[Outside the Village, Vallen]]

[Outside the Village, Vallen]

'Yes, commander.' Alice 312 confirmed and, as the away team returned stealthily to the village, the android marched gamely ahead. She chose a direct route back to the village and into the main street, intending to be seen, not to be concealed, and adopted a steady walking pace calculated to give the others time to get into position and her not to look like she was sneaking or charging in. And she smiled pleasantly the whole way. The whole oddity of the smiling topless android striding confidently back in to a place that had previously driven her team out at phaser-point was enough of a distraction itself. But if it came to it, Alice was preparing many more ways of being distracting to the villagers...

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

Alice 312 heard K'lizh's proposal, but, after estimating the potential risk to the Caitian running through the village and being shot at, her programmed compulsion to help meant she had to offer a revision. 'Sir, on that basis, I will have a better chance to elude them and resist damage if I am shot. Furthermore, I have a valid reason to go back into the town and draw attention, to collect my clothes and combadge. I should begin the distraction.'

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

At the praise she received for her unconventional tactic, Alice 312 smiled brightly, satisfied to have made a useful contribution. And, with the success and approval of the action of undressing, a slight bias in her artificial neural network was applied towards removing her clothing as a solution to future problems. This was how effective strategies were developed. 'Thank you, sir. However, I have no urgent requirement to be your superior. I can wait until after you've retired.' It was meant to be nice and respectful.

'What kind of distraction should we make?' Alice asked. 'I could go back for my clothing. Or I could remove more clothing.' Well, if it had worked once as a distraction...

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

"I don't know if we can activate that comm badge without giving it away, depending on who's in earshot. Who knows, they might even carry that bundle away."

'I already did. I activated it when I took my uniform jacket off.' Alice 312 reiterated for Gid. 'While those watching were distracted by my disrobing, I concealed the action under the jacket. Fortunately, humans are remarkably inattentive when mammaries are displayed, and when they think their opponent is foolish...' The feminine androids had learned early on that if they want to distract Lord Mudd or lower his intellectual capacity while they worked against his reign, they should emphasise their artificial busts. 'Of course, as the villagers were listening, and you lack internal communications, I could not explain my plan then.'

"All the same, we'll be able to hear what's going on," said Jael with a smile. "Maybe we can figure out where the Captain's being held from overhearing."

'No, we already have. Please hold.' Alice signalled for attention, then, from her internal voice speaker, she began to emit entirely new sounds, not her voice but the recordings from her discarded combadge.

The older man said in his gruff, uncaring tone "Let's return to the bunker. We need to finish our work so that we can get off this gods-forsaken planet."

The younger woman said "Agreed. The sooner we can leave this rock behind the better."

'The bunker is logically accessed via the alley they emerged from. If they are holding the captain, then he is likely to be there.'

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

In summary, it was all very strange. Not even taking off her uniform had helped, even after the village representative made that the condition of entry. Somehow, Alice 312 expected that there was no condition in which she would allow entry, or even any discussion at all. She seemed very unsuited for the role of representative, or else she was actively obstructing their investigation for any excuse she could make. But which?

With Commander Brighton's indication, Alice 312 turned and followed her and the rest of the team out of the village. Behind her, she'd left her tunic and jacket lying in the street, and walked away unconcernedly in her uniform pants and bra (it was unnecessary, but saved Lieutenant Van'Roe from overheating). They'd been told to leave immediately; she could hardly go back for them. The androids had no real need for clothes, except for preventing wear to their plastic skin, the convenience of pockets, and not perturbing many organic sentient species, so they had become customary. And she was a Starfleet officer and therefore required to wear a uniform. So, it was impossible for the android to have forgotten them. Wasn't it?

*

Outside the village, Alice listened to Commander Brighton's new plan, and felt obliged to say 'Commander, I'm afraid I must report that I am out of uniform.' Maybe that wasn't the key part. 'And I have left behind my uniform and my communications badge.' That wasn't the key part either. 'I also left my combadge switched on 'record' and transmitting all it receives to my wireless connection. I will overhear any conversation taking place in its effective radius.' That was it. When the villagers walked by or collected it, Alice would be listening.

[[Village, Vallen]]

[Village, Vallen]

Without receiving a direct answer on the question of removing her uniform, Alice was left with her hands at the button of her pants and wondering aloud 'Shall I continue?' Her attempted negotiation and show of concession seemed to have been unsuccessful, but the android did not dwell on the failure, but simply noted it and moved on.

Easily tracking the woman's eye movement, as the android did normally for identifying facial features, Alice conducted a local scan for life-signs and energy signatures, and found one life-sign coinciding with a common phaser-rifle power source. 'Do you mean the person with the phaser rifle on the roof behind us, eleven degrees to the right and thirty-six degrees up?' she queried calmly. She hadn't even turned her head.