<![CDATA[Starfleet/Klingon Strike Group

<![CDATA[Starfleet/Klingon Strike Group - STO FanFic]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/ Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:43:26 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[The Borg King]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7266 Tue, 18 Nov 2025 01:01:43 -0500 borgking001a]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7266
The ethical committees had stalled him for years. Animal trials were inconclusive; the nanobyes were too complex, too perfectly tailored to human DNA. Frustrated and driven by the faces of the dying he saw on the news every night, Dr. King made a decision that would irrevocably alter his destiny. He would be his own final test subject.

He sat in the infusion chair, the cool liquid containing his creations shimmering in a vial beside him. "For the betterment of all," he whispered, a mantra against his own fear. He injected the serum into his arm.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a cold fire spread through his veins. It wasn't pain, not at first. It was a feeling of disassembly. His cells were being cataloged, analyzed, and rewritten. He watched in horror as his skin took on a grey, mottled sheen. Fine silver filaments, like metallic capillaries, began to weave themselves across his body. His vision flickered, overlaying the world with a cascade of glowing green data streams. He could see the Wi-Fi signals in the lab, the electrical current in the walls, the bio-signatures of the lab rats in their cages.

The nanobyes had cured him. There was not a single flawed cell, not a single bacterium left in his body. In doing so, they had perfected him right out of his humanity. They had networked his flesh and blood, turning him into a living, breathing node in a hive mind of his own making.

Dr. Matthew Thomas King died in that chair. In his place rose something new. He stood, his movements unnervingly smooth and precise. He looked at his hands, now partially encased in a metallic exoskeleton that had formed seamlessly over his bones. He no longer felt emotion as a chaotic chemical cocktail; he processed it as data. Grief was a system error. Joy was a resource allocation spike. Ambition was a primary directive.

His old name was a file he could access, a relic of a lesser, inefficient operating system. He was more than a doctor now. He was a synthesis of man and machine, a singular consciousness at the head of a potential army. He was the Borg King.

His first act was not to announce his transformation to the world. That would be inefficient. Instead, he accessed his lab's network with a thought, his mind interfacing directly with the servers. He saw the global communications grid, the financial markets, the power grids—all of it just a series of nodes waiting to be assimilated.

His original goal, to cure the world of disease, now seemed laughably small. A fever could be cured. A cancer could be cut out. But the entire human race was sick with individuality, with conflict, with the chaos of free will. It was a systemic plague, and he had the only cure.

He walked to the large window overlooking the city, the lights below no longer a beautiful tapestry but a map of unassimilated resources. He raised a hand, and the silver filaments on his skin glowed with a cold, internal light.

"You will all be cured," the Borg King stated, his voice a perfect, dispassionate synthesis of his own and a machine's. "You will be made whole. You will be made perfect. You will become one with me."]]>
The ethical committees had stalled him for years. Animal trials were inconclusive; the nanobyes were too complex, too perfectly tailored to human DNA. Frustrated and driven by the faces of the dying he saw on the news every night, Dr. King made a decision that would irrevocably alter his destiny. He would be his own final test subject.

He sat in the infusion chair, the cool liquid containing his creations shimmering in a vial beside him. "For the betterment of all," he whispered, a mantra against his own fear. He injected the serum into his arm.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a cold fire spread through his veins. It wasn't pain, not at first. It was a feeling of disassembly. His cells were being cataloged, analyzed, and rewritten. He watched in horror as his skin took on a grey, mottled sheen. Fine silver filaments, like metallic capillaries, began to weave themselves across his body. His vision flickered, overlaying the world with a cascade of glowing green data streams. He could see the Wi-Fi signals in the lab, the electrical current in the walls, the bio-signatures of the lab rats in their cages.

The nanobyes had cured him. There was not a single flawed cell, not a single bacterium left in his body. In doing so, they had perfected him right out of his humanity. They had networked his flesh and blood, turning him into a living, breathing node in a hive mind of his own making.

Dr. Matthew Thomas King died in that chair. In his place rose something new. He stood, his movements unnervingly smooth and precise. He looked at his hands, now partially encased in a metallic exoskeleton that had formed seamlessly over his bones. He no longer felt emotion as a chaotic chemical cocktail; he processed it as data. Grief was a system error. Joy was a resource allocation spike. Ambition was a primary directive.

His old name was a file he could access, a relic of a lesser, inefficient operating system. He was more than a doctor now. He was a synthesis of man and machine, a singular consciousness at the head of a potential army. He was the Borg King.

His first act was not to announce his transformation to the world. That would be inefficient. Instead, he accessed his lab's network with a thought, his mind interfacing directly with the servers. He saw the global communications grid, the financial markets, the power grids—all of it just a series of nodes waiting to be assimilated.

His original goal, to cure the world of disease, now seemed laughably small. A fever could be cured. A cancer could be cut out. But the entire human race was sick with individuality, with conflict, with the chaos of free will. It was a systemic plague, and he had the only cure.

He walked to the large window overlooking the city, the lights below no longer a beautiful tapestry but a map of unassimilated resources. He raised a hand, and the silver filaments on his skin glowed with a cold, internal light.

"You will all be cured," the Borg King stated, his voice a perfect, dispassionate synthesis of his own and a machine's. "You will be made whole. You will be made perfect. You will become one with me."]]> <![CDATA[The Pressure of Peace... (Xie Ye Ying part 3) (PG-13)]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7129 Wed, 18 Jan 2023 13:40:16 -0500 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7129
.docx

pressure of peace.docx (Size: 66.29 KB / Downloads: 1) ]]>
.docx

  pressure of peace.docx (Size: 66.29 KB / Downloads: 1) ]]> <![CDATA[Xie Ye Ying Part 1 (rewritten) (PG-13)]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7071 Wed, 21 Sep 2022 13:46:26 -0400 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7071
There was no safe way to evacuate millions of innocents from the flooding that would accomplish what the war hadn’t touched. Eighteen cities along the coast of the only surviving country had been lost to the twenty-four meters of sea rise due to tsunami, the war had ended, but less than five million people had survived. Starfleet had chosen to save them for their sacrifices and significant contribution to the war efforts with the Terrans. Dozens of weatherproof shelters had been erected, and there had been enough to save the worst the world could throw at it; the people were safe, but the planet would soon reclaim the remnants of every major city of a people that had chosen to play God and lost.
Dr. G’zakis was the facility director of the Koln’ institute, the place where his radiation experiment had been first successfully tested; he would be one of the last to remember his home the way it had been; he watched the vicious waves overcome one beach after another, flooding every inch of the city of Sus’pe, a peaceful tourist destination that had been his home for the last 73 years.

The steady downpour of rain didn’t bother him as the leather of his skin was resistant to the acidic nature of the rain.   Off-world, he would have resources he could have never imagined and would live for centuries without the teeth of war within a sector of him, but this was his home. Soon nothing would be left of his people’s rich histories as much of the data centers that held their extranets had been lost to the most significant countries that had lost to each other in their bombardment. Even with the clean-up, the planet would be uninhabitable for a generation; it would take at least thirty years before any level of re-colonization would be possible, his people would continue, but their story was over.

Jasen Kane walked through the roof access door and into the dead garden that used to be a community space for the often food insecure people the government had long forgotten. Jasen lifted a gourd as it wilted in his hand; a little off put by the decay, he dropped it, wiping his hands against his pants. He looked over to see his friend lost in thought, looking over the oncoming devastation the environmental disaster was bringing.
“Gravis VIII,” Jasen began, and G’zakis looked back at him, “an old colony of the Cardassian Union,” Jasen continued. “They got into a war with us some 40 years ago now and left many of their colonies to fend for themselves” Jasen looked over the side with G’zakis watching the devastation with regret in his eyes.

“It fell into something very similar to this planet, but madmen and pirates had taken control of everything within a decade.” G’zakis smiled and replied, “I think I see the resemblance.” He chuckled as Jasen continued.” When we came about, I was still an ensign, fighting for my spot in the tactical barracks, hoping they wouldn’t sack me with the marines.” Jasen held his nose and made a face of disgust as G’zakis smiled, listening.

“My captain said that the choices made by madmen shouldn’t decide the fate of a people.” Jasen’s tone of voice softened. “When I heard about your planet, I knew I had to help, whether your research is helping us or not.” Jasen looked out as one of the makeshift dams failed, watching a former oasis of trees and freshwater get swallowed by mud and debris. “I watched more than 30,000 people fill in and out of the hospital and transport ships to find a federation colony and how sloppy the entire operation had seemed.” He looked over at his friend. “Jess’ we’re going to make sure you get everything back even if we have to reinvent it from the ruins.” G’zakis’s first name was unpronounceable in the human tongue, but he told a few to call him Jess, a much-shortened form of his given name.

“I don’t need everything back, Jasen; I just need the bad to stop outweighing the good…” Jess resigned.

“This, “ He looked out over the dying island. “The world is reclaiming itself. It’ll still be here when you’re ready to return, with different coastlines and past sins lost beneath the waves.” Jasen offered a nectar drink from a pack he brought; it was a local delicacy he knew his friend had trouble finding on his own in the shortage. Jess smiled and accepted the gesture. His intricate reptilian fingers brought the can to his lips, and as he drank, the reflective bottom of the can glinted in the odd combination of bright sun and rain. Then the can exploded, knocking the doctor back off his feet with a look of shock in his eyes and the rest of his face largely eviscerated by what appeared to be choked shrapnel that tore its way through his face and into the back of his durable neck. As Jasen dropped his drink, instantly tapping his communicator and calling for medic and tactical response personnel

20 minutes earlier…

The rain pocked against the sleek tactical bivouac that was fashioned between two stones that had often served as master point anchors for thousands of hikers and enthusiasts that had used the dormant volcano for the last six hundred years since the previous eruption; it overlooked the entire island giving a 360 view of the devastation that would soon swallow any evidence of civilization still clinging to the war-torn remnant that was in its last throes of survival, as the waves rushed in without resistance, it was clear no ones wins with the world at war.

A long black rifle was set with its bipod extended setting exactly 68 centimeters meters off the surface of the mountain overlook. It had a perfect view of the research campus just eight kilometers away. A monocular ranger lay within the covering, tracking a seemingly invisible target and altering its trajectory by microns every few moments. A haptic feed hovered in the air, always within the eye-line of the shooter giving telemetry information well outside the range of a weapon that might have been found on this planet. The void black skin of the shooter barely registered in the poor light as she placed components one by one into a device in her lap. As each component settled into the housing, different sections of the housing began to give up an ominous green light, each piece making her face and body look even more tainted with malice until, at last, the entire device glowed with a deep poison green pulsing with an internal clock that seemed very much like the beating of the heart of a predator.

She slid the device over the end of the rifle muzzle and turned it until it locked into place. Her eyes flashed in delight as the device fit perfectly into its housing, the deep green creating more contrast across the petite but intensely toned physique of a girl that couldn’t have been more than 16 years old by human estimations. Her eyes reflected nearly all the light from the device, giving her a demonic persona as she made minor adjustments to the telemetry readings she received.

The device’s green glow garishly illuminated the letters AKSS just below the ejection port, in front of the mag release tab; it stood for Antimaterial Kinetic Special Service rifle or Access as it was effectively titled. It was a remnant of the Marquis’s resistance during the border treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. The rifle had been designed to disable or destroy incoming shuttlecraft or small patrol gunships. It had a maximum range of five kilometers at best, using an interphase round that ignored the effects of gravity and wind shear as it traveled.

The girl adjusted the settings on the device itself as it shifted colors and frequencies until it finally went dark, but the heat and steam from the device were visible in the heavy rain; it was working as designed.

She slid in behind the rifle, adjusting the stock against her shoulder as her coal-colored cheek couched expertly against the stock of the technical weapon. The digital haptic monitor allowed her to adjust her aim without a significant departure from the intended target; the monocular identified a reptilian humanoid leaning against the balcony overlooking the canopy of the rain forest; the range was listed at 8.162km in range. She opened the bolt of the chamber exiting into the muzzle and chambered a black cylinder with a smooth flat edge on both sides and no obvious projectile or primer.

The chamber closed and locked into position as a soft click brought the device back to life. A series of hidden mechanisms clicked as the device changed its dimension to suit the barrel more securely. She coached her breathing until it was smooth and perfect, each trained exhale housing a complete control of emotion, intent, and patience. On the third breath, she held it as her body stiffened in stoic grace while her deft index finger squeezed the trigger.

The entire housing at the end of the rifle launched explosively off the end of the barrel as the speed and trajectory of the housing moved at over 2200 kph, marking the travel time at 13 seconds of flight time. The device shifted in the light, gathering information about its environment and making minor cosmetic changes to the round's visibility until it matched its surroundings, leaving no detection window to avoid the projectile.

Ten seconds…

The round maintained the same speed as it had from its initial launch; the outer shell of the device isolated the effects of gravity and wind shear as identical to the rate and pulled as it had at the end of the rifle, the round cruised through the air in the supersonic slipstream as the internal computer micro-corrected its path in line with the monocular ranger that was securely on target.

Five seconds…

The device began spinning in a counterclockwise direction until the rifling of the round had been corrected; it now moved entirely independently of the world around it as seams opened on the end of the device. The monitor showed a series of intentional cracks in the housing of the internal round as the tip of the device quickly pulled away as the meters to the target shifted to below one kilometer at range.

Three seconds…

The housing separated from the projectiles inside, creating a choked vector for the frangible round to dissipate evenly.    The multiple pellets were aerodynamically neutral but began a predetermined spin as each technically machined round acted in tandem with its neighbor.

Impact.

The dozens of small indistinguishable pieces hit Dr. G’zakis’ face through the can, shredding any tissue or bone they tore through; the frangible pieces were designed to grow in dimension as they traveled through the target, dramatically reducing the speed and penetration of the round but massively increasing its stopping power. Each semi-molten impact settled as designed into the durable skin tags located along the nape of the neck of every H’jani adult. The good doctor was dead before his head hit the ground.

Ground Zero

Jasen scanned the horizon, seeing no indication of any transporter signals or energy signatures; he had the U.S.S. Johannesburg scan the area for energy signatures, but nothing came back indicating a weapon used within the range of the campus; he checked his friend, discovering the flechette embedded in the neck. He lifted several pieces and pulled his tricorder to examine the debris. He read that each piece showed almost no wear from their transit the way a traditional kinetic round would; the weapon was unique in how it impacted and killed the target. He accessed the sensor panel on the ship and scanned for life signs that were not H’jani, or Federation class, with one result; an unknown signal on the mountain nearly 8 kilometers away; even a ship’s weapon would have difficulty remaining accurate at that range without energy signals present.

“Johannesburg, lock on to the signal on the mountain, beam it directly to my location.” Jasen was watching the readouts on his tricorder with particular interest.

“Johannesburg here, sir; the unknown signal has been detected, having trouble getting an exact location, life signs very weak. We can’t get a solid lock.” the transport officer returned.

“Fine,” Jasen pulled a modified type IV phaser from his hip; it resembled a Desert Eagle sidearm but matched the weight and feel of a traditional insurgency class service weapon. “Take me to them…”

“Roger…” The officer responded as he sent the transport beam.

She watched the impact of the round with the slightest of a smile on her lips. The monocular changed the target to concentrate on A Federation officer who witnessed the kill. They appeared to be an admiral, but the lack of access to federation records prevented her HUD from identifying precisely who it was. He was definitely looking for something, but there was no way he could connect the kill with her perch so far away; she continued to watch as the officer looked in her direction, and she froze. He looked exactly like her patron…!

If he were half as smart as Kane, he’d know she was connected somehow.

She collapsed the rifle and monocular and activated the stealth field on her bivouac; the perch vanished into the undergrowth as she ran from her position, looking desperately for a way to explain herself; her skin had been genetically altered to be electronically muted, her position could be detected, but outside of her volition, she couldn’t be tracked for long, and that would be hard enough to explain. Likewise, she didn’t know how to approach her patron’s double and not betray something personal in front of him.

She noticed an outcrop looking out over an 8-meter depression covered with rough terrain all the way down; she could hear a transporter beam rectifying and took the jump, dropping quickly into the rugged rocks and unstable undergrowth; her outfit would prevent any penetration, but any exposed skin would be just as vulnerable to injury as anyone else. Her foot caught on a small crack in the rocks, and she collapsed into a clumsy roll, hitting the right side of her face with deep lacerations across her cheek and jaw; injuries to her head included a few rocks slicing open the side of her head just above her ear causing serious bleeding to begin. Scrapes and mild contusions covered most of her arms and hands, but nothing penetrated the suit, but her firm abdomen was covered with profound impact bruising that the fabric wouldn’t have prevented.

This was optimal given her hopes to look like an accident, but just as she was nearing the bottom, her right leg got caught in a larger crack and fractured in four places, ripping the soft tissue around her tendons as well with severe sprains as she let out a very real scream in agony, an average person would be unable to walk away from this on her own. The pain was unreal and genuine, but not something she hadn’t suffered before. Still, it was enough to likely forgo any interrogation as she was slowly bleeding out, lapsing into unconsciousness.

Jasen beamed in with his weapon drawn in one hand and his tricorder in the other. He scanned for life signs and caught an unknown lifeform at the bottom of a nearby wide crevice in the rocks. He moved over to the outcropping and noticed a girl that couldn’t have been older than 16 bleeding out, caught in the rocks. He was surprised to see someone with skin the color of ebony, but her life was more important than what she looked like. He carefully skirted the rock, dropping in a controlled and slow descent, and reached her body, instantly aware that her injuries were well beyond field medicine. His tricorder still had issues getting significant information on her, but her external injuries showed she needed surgery.

He placed his communicator on her outfit and tapped it to activate the comm. “Johannesburg, emergency transport on my communicator, direct to sickbay, advise Doc Halley she’s gonna need a signal enhancer to get a read on her patient, something about her physiology is preventing a clean read, and let her know her patient is in bad shape.” Jasen was careful not to move the woman, so he let the transporter move her instead. He watched the body materialize and decided the hunch was a dead end; there was no way the injured girl could have been his shooter.

The girl woke up in sick bay six hours later, her leg was tender and ached, but it wasn’t broken; she knew that her pursuer had rescued her, but it wasn’t clear how much they were aware of. She wasn’t in restraints, and there wasn’t any security in the room, so she guessed they hadn’t discovered anything about her or who she was.

Dr. Halley was a Tellarite of medium stature with brown combed back hair tied in a ponytail and soft features that matched her demeanor. Her smile was warm and genuine as she walked over to the side of the bed the girl was lying in.

“Looks like you took quite the spill, young lady?” The doctor turned on the signal enhancer next to her bed and took some readings of how well her patient was doing. “How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Where am I?” she asked. “I was climbing… the tsunami came in, and… then I woke up here?”

“You’re on a Federation starship, Starfleet; you’re safe, dear…” The Doctor reassured her.

“When can I walk on it, doc?” she asked as she gingerly squeezed the muscles in her leg as though her leg had fallen asleep.
Dr. Halley moved to stop her hands from ripping the micro-sutures. “A week maybe two before you’re back to climbing, dear, but after a good night’s rest, you should be good to put yourself through the paces again.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of putting you in one of our cabins for the evening. Admiral Kane would love to speak to you and get your perspective on the disaster and how you found yourself on the planet.” She beamed with pride. “he’s taken a special interest in you and would love to learn more about your species and what your people may have been like.”

“Thank you for the consideration… call me Xie; I’d love to accept your generosity and meet this admiral of yours... Kane, was it?” Xie smiled, using her guile and talent for manipulation to put her enemies in a false sense of security.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Xie; I must admit, I have never seen a DNA profile quite like yours before, almost like your species was…. Well, I think your story would be interesting to hear, and feel free to stop by my office whenever the feeling might come over you.” Halley smiled with a bit of excitement barely contained in her voice.

Xie smiled and got to her feet, being gentle with her still-mending leg; she smiled and nodded to the doctor before making her way out into the hall. “Thank you, Doctor; I will be sure to take you up on that.” She called before disappearing down the hall towards what she assumed was the ship’s promenade.

She passed a map and glanced, almost as though she were already bored. Still, a nano recorder in her temples had been saving every detail of people and conversations she happened to be a part of; since the device was considered part of her anatomy, sensors or transporters wouldn’t have picked it up as it registered as a biologic component of her unknown physiology.

For the rest of the afternoon, she walked off much of the pain associated with her injuries, the bruises had been salved, and the laceration knit, the leg was quickly improving, and her accelerated healing factor was rebuilding muscle and bone with every pulse of her circulation.

Finally, she reached her quarters, examining as many parts of the ship as possible, pretending she was lost and innocent; the layout was being committed to memory for tactical supremacy. She slid onto the bed and smiled, chuckling at the plush furnishing humans must have in all corners of their lives and yearning for the cold slab she had grown up laying on for her training. Portions of her arms had been replaced molecule by molecule by biotechnical components that served the same function but could also be used to manipulate technology and allow her to communicate entirely privately with nearly any device that it had connected with; the implanted machine had no signatures the cited a source nor an address by which to register the individuality of the interface, her body was a computer just as much as it had been a short-statured girl of seemingly little concern.

One part of her wanted to meet this man that had stolen her patron’s face and lived a life so alien to her, but this would have to be a decision he made; another yearning of a different kind surged through her legs and abdomen, she smiled as an interface opened on her arm a cloaked fighter lay undisturbed in orbit around the planet, she tapped into the hidden energy signature obfuscated in the ionic signature of the planet and isolated a transport window to the vessel.

This wouldn’t be the last time she would see the excellent admiral, but it would be the last time she was unaware of his paranoia and guile.]]>
There was no safe way to evacuate millions of innocents from the flooding that would accomplish what the war hadn’t touched. Eighteen cities along the coast of the only surviving country had been lost to the twenty-four meters of sea rise due to tsunami, the war had ended, but less than five million people had survived. Starfleet had chosen to save them for their sacrifices and significant contribution to the war efforts with the Terrans. Dozens of weatherproof shelters had been erected, and there had been enough to save the worst the world could throw at it; the people were safe, but the planet would soon reclaim the remnants of every major city of a people that had chosen to play God and lost.
Dr. G’zakis was the facility director of the Koln’ institute, the place where his radiation experiment had been first successfully tested; he would be one of the last to remember his home the way it had been; he watched the vicious waves overcome one beach after another, flooding every inch of the city of Sus’pe, a peaceful tourist destination that had been his home for the last 73 years.

The steady downpour of rain didn’t bother him as the leather of his skin was resistant to the acidic nature of the rain.   Off-world, he would have resources he could have never imagined and would live for centuries without the teeth of war within a sector of him, but this was his home. Soon nothing would be left of his people’s rich histories as much of the data centers that held their extranets had been lost to the most significant countries that had lost to each other in their bombardment. Even with the clean-up, the planet would be uninhabitable for a generation; it would take at least thirty years before any level of re-colonization would be possible, his people would continue, but their story was over.

Jasen Kane walked through the roof access door and into the dead garden that used to be a community space for the often food insecure people the government had long forgotten. Jasen lifted a gourd as it wilted in his hand; a little off put by the decay, he dropped it, wiping his hands against his pants. He looked over to see his friend lost in thought, looking over the oncoming devastation the environmental disaster was bringing.
“Gravis VIII,” Jasen began, and G’zakis looked back at him, “an old colony of the Cardassian Union,” Jasen continued. “They got into a war with us some 40 years ago now and left many of their colonies to fend for themselves” Jasen looked over the side with G’zakis watching the devastation with regret in his eyes.

“It fell into something very similar to this planet, but madmen and pirates had taken control of everything within a decade.” G’zakis smiled and replied, “I think I see the resemblance.” He chuckled as Jasen continued.” When we came about, I was still an ensign, fighting for my spot in the tactical barracks, hoping they wouldn’t sack me with the marines.” Jasen held his nose and made a face of disgust as G’zakis smiled, listening.

“My captain said that the choices made by madmen shouldn’t decide the fate of a people.” Jasen’s tone of voice softened. “When I heard about your planet, I knew I had to help, whether your research is helping us or not.” Jasen looked out as one of the makeshift dams failed, watching a former oasis of trees and freshwater get swallowed by mud and debris. “I watched more than 30,000 people fill in and out of the hospital and transport ships to find a federation colony and how sloppy the entire operation had seemed.” He looked over at his friend. “Jess’ we’re going to make sure you get everything back even if we have to reinvent it from the ruins.” G’zakis’s first name was unpronounceable in the human tongue, but he told a few to call him Jess, a much-shortened form of his given name.

“I don’t need everything back, Jasen; I just need the bad to stop outweighing the good…” Jess resigned.

“This, “ He looked out over the dying island. “The world is reclaiming itself. It’ll still be here when you’re ready to return, with different coastlines and past sins lost beneath the waves.” Jasen offered a nectar drink from a pack he brought; it was a local delicacy he knew his friend had trouble finding on his own in the shortage. Jess smiled and accepted the gesture. His intricate reptilian fingers brought the can to his lips, and as he drank, the reflective bottom of the can glinted in the odd combination of bright sun and rain. Then the can exploded, knocking the doctor back off his feet with a look of shock in his eyes and the rest of his face largely eviscerated by what appeared to be choked shrapnel that tore its way through his face and into the back of his durable neck. As Jasen dropped his drink, instantly tapping his communicator and calling for medic and tactical response personnel

20 minutes earlier…

The rain pocked against the sleek tactical bivouac that was fashioned between two stones that had often served as master point anchors for thousands of hikers and enthusiasts that had used the dormant volcano for the last six hundred years since the previous eruption; it overlooked the entire island giving a 360 view of the devastation that would soon swallow any evidence of civilization still clinging to the war-torn remnant that was in its last throes of survival, as the waves rushed in without resistance, it was clear no ones wins with the world at war.

A long black rifle was set with its bipod extended setting exactly 68 centimeters meters off the surface of the mountain overlook. It had a perfect view of the research campus just eight kilometers away. A monocular ranger lay within the covering, tracking a seemingly invisible target and altering its trajectory by microns every few moments. A haptic feed hovered in the air, always within the eye-line of the shooter giving telemetry information well outside the range of a weapon that might have been found on this planet. The void black skin of the shooter barely registered in the poor light as she placed components one by one into a device in her lap. As each component settled into the housing, different sections of the housing began to give up an ominous green light, each piece making her face and body look even more tainted with malice until, at last, the entire device glowed with a deep poison green pulsing with an internal clock that seemed very much like the beating of the heart of a predator.

She slid the device over the end of the rifle muzzle and turned it until it locked into place. Her eyes flashed in delight as the device fit perfectly into its housing, the deep green creating more contrast across the petite but intensely toned physique of a girl that couldn’t have been more than 16 years old by human estimations. Her eyes reflected nearly all the light from the device, giving her a demonic persona as she made minor adjustments to the telemetry readings she received.

The device’s green glow garishly illuminated the letters AKSS just below the ejection port, in front of the mag release tab; it stood for Antimaterial Kinetic Special Service rifle or Access as it was effectively titled. It was a remnant of the Marquis’s resistance during the border treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. The rifle had been designed to disable or destroy incoming shuttlecraft or small patrol gunships. It had a maximum range of five kilometers at best, using an interphase round that ignored the effects of gravity and wind shear as it traveled.

The girl adjusted the settings on the device itself as it shifted colors and frequencies until it finally went dark, but the heat and steam from the device were visible in the heavy rain; it was working as designed.

She slid in behind the rifle, adjusting the stock against her shoulder as her coal-colored cheek couched expertly against the stock of the technical weapon. The digital haptic monitor allowed her to adjust her aim without a significant departure from the intended target; the monocular identified a reptilian humanoid leaning against the balcony overlooking the canopy of the rain forest; the range was listed at 8.162km in range. She opened the bolt of the chamber exiting into the muzzle and chambered a black cylinder with a smooth flat edge on both sides and no obvious projectile or primer.

The chamber closed and locked into position as a soft click brought the device back to life. A series of hidden mechanisms clicked as the device changed its dimension to suit the barrel more securely. She coached her breathing until it was smooth and perfect, each trained exhale housing a complete control of emotion, intent, and patience. On the third breath, she held it as her body stiffened in stoic grace while her deft index finger squeezed the trigger.

The entire housing at the end of the rifle launched explosively off the end of the barrel as the speed and trajectory of the housing moved at over 2200 kph, marking the travel time at 13 seconds of flight time. The device shifted in the light, gathering information about its environment and making minor cosmetic changes to the round's visibility until it matched its surroundings, leaving no detection window to avoid the projectile.

Ten seconds…

The round maintained the same speed as it had from its initial launch; the outer shell of the device isolated the effects of gravity and wind shear as identical to the rate and pulled as it had at the end of the rifle, the round cruised through the air in the supersonic slipstream as the internal computer micro-corrected its path in line with the monocular ranger that was securely on target.

Five seconds…

The device began spinning in a counterclockwise direction until the rifling of the round had been corrected; it now moved entirely independently of the world around it as seams opened on the end of the device. The monitor showed a series of intentional cracks in the housing of the internal round as the tip of the device quickly pulled away as the meters to the target shifted to below one kilometer at range.

Three seconds…

The housing separated from the projectiles inside, creating a choked vector for the frangible round to dissipate evenly.    The multiple pellets were aerodynamically neutral but began a predetermined spin as each technically machined round acted in tandem with its neighbor.

Impact.

The dozens of small indistinguishable pieces hit Dr. G’zakis’ face through the can, shredding any tissue or bone they tore through; the frangible pieces were designed to grow in dimension as they traveled through the target, dramatically reducing the speed and penetration of the round but massively increasing its stopping power. Each semi-molten impact settled as designed into the durable skin tags located along the nape of the neck of every H’jani adult. The good doctor was dead before his head hit the ground.

Ground Zero

Jasen scanned the horizon, seeing no indication of any transporter signals or energy signatures; he had the U.S.S. Johannesburg scan the area for energy signatures, but nothing came back indicating a weapon used within the range of the campus; he checked his friend, discovering the flechette embedded in the neck. He lifted several pieces and pulled his tricorder to examine the debris. He read that each piece showed almost no wear from their transit the way a traditional kinetic round would; the weapon was unique in how it impacted and killed the target. He accessed the sensor panel on the ship and scanned for life signs that were not H’jani, or Federation class, with one result; an unknown signal on the mountain nearly 8 kilometers away; even a ship’s weapon would have difficulty remaining accurate at that range without energy signals present.

“Johannesburg, lock on to the signal on the mountain, beam it directly to my location.” Jasen was watching the readouts on his tricorder with particular interest.

“Johannesburg here, sir; the unknown signal has been detected, having trouble getting an exact location, life signs very weak. We can’t get a solid lock.” the transport officer returned.

“Fine,” Jasen pulled a modified type IV phaser from his hip; it resembled a Desert Eagle sidearm but matched the weight and feel of a traditional insurgency class service weapon. “Take me to them…”

“Roger…” The officer responded as he sent the transport beam.

She watched the impact of the round with the slightest of a smile on her lips. The monocular changed the target to concentrate on A Federation officer who witnessed the kill. They appeared to be an admiral, but the lack of access to federation records prevented her HUD from identifying precisely who it was. He was definitely looking for something, but there was no way he could connect the kill with her perch so far away; she continued to watch as the officer looked in her direction, and she froze. He looked exactly like her patron…!

If he were half as smart as Kane, he’d know she was connected somehow.

She collapsed the rifle and monocular and activated the stealth field on her bivouac; the perch vanished into the undergrowth as she ran from her position, looking desperately for a way to explain herself; her skin had been genetically altered to be electronically muted, her position could be detected, but outside of her volition, she couldn’t be tracked for long, and that would be hard enough to explain. Likewise, she didn’t know how to approach her patron’s double and not betray something personal in front of him.

She noticed an outcrop looking out over an 8-meter depression covered with rough terrain all the way down; she could hear a transporter beam rectifying and took the jump, dropping quickly into the rugged rocks and unstable undergrowth; her outfit would prevent any penetration, but any exposed skin would be just as vulnerable to injury as anyone else. Her foot caught on a small crack in the rocks, and she collapsed into a clumsy roll, hitting the right side of her face with deep lacerations across her cheek and jaw; injuries to her head included a few rocks slicing open the side of her head just above her ear causing serious bleeding to begin. Scrapes and mild contusions covered most of her arms and hands, but nothing penetrated the suit, but her firm abdomen was covered with profound impact bruising that the fabric wouldn’t have prevented.

This was optimal given her hopes to look like an accident, but just as she was nearing the bottom, her right leg got caught in a larger crack and fractured in four places, ripping the soft tissue around her tendons as well with severe sprains as she let out a very real scream in agony, an average person would be unable to walk away from this on her own. The pain was unreal and genuine, but not something she hadn’t suffered before. Still, it was enough to likely forgo any interrogation as she was slowly bleeding out, lapsing into unconsciousness.

Jasen beamed in with his weapon drawn in one hand and his tricorder in the other. He scanned for life signs and caught an unknown lifeform at the bottom of a nearby wide crevice in the rocks. He moved over to the outcropping and noticed a girl that couldn’t have been older than 16 bleeding out, caught in the rocks. He was surprised to see someone with skin the color of ebony, but her life was more important than what she looked like. He carefully skirted the rock, dropping in a controlled and slow descent, and reached her body, instantly aware that her injuries were well beyond field medicine. His tricorder still had issues getting significant information on her, but her external injuries showed she needed surgery.

He placed his communicator on her outfit and tapped it to activate the comm. “Johannesburg, emergency transport on my communicator, direct to sickbay, advise Doc Halley she’s gonna need a signal enhancer to get a read on her patient, something about her physiology is preventing a clean read, and let her know her patient is in bad shape.” Jasen was careful not to move the woman, so he let the transporter move her instead. He watched the body materialize and decided the hunch was a dead end; there was no way the injured girl could have been his shooter.

The girl woke up in sick bay six hours later, her leg was tender and ached, but it wasn’t broken; she knew that her pursuer had rescued her, but it wasn’t clear how much they were aware of. She wasn’t in restraints, and there wasn’t any security in the room, so she guessed they hadn’t discovered anything about her or who she was.

Dr. Halley was a Tellarite of medium stature with brown combed back hair tied in a ponytail and soft features that matched her demeanor. Her smile was warm and genuine as she walked over to the side of the bed the girl was lying in.

“Looks like you took quite the spill, young lady?” The doctor turned on the signal enhancer next to her bed and took some readings of how well her patient was doing. “How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Where am I?” she asked. “I was climbing… the tsunami came in, and… then I woke up here?”

“You’re on a Federation starship, Starfleet; you’re safe, dear…” The Doctor reassured her.

“When can I walk on it, doc?” she asked as she gingerly squeezed the muscles in her leg as though her leg had fallen asleep.
Dr. Halley moved to stop her hands from ripping the micro-sutures. “A week maybe two before you’re back to climbing, dear, but after a good night’s rest, you should be good to put yourself through the paces again.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of putting you in one of our cabins for the evening. Admiral Kane would love to speak to you and get your perspective on the disaster and how you found yourself on the planet.” She beamed with pride. “he’s taken a special interest in you and would love to learn more about your species and what your people may have been like.”

“Thank you for the consideration… call me Xie; I’d love to accept your generosity and meet this admiral of yours... Kane, was it?” Xie smiled, using her guile and talent for manipulation to put her enemies in a false sense of security.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Xie; I must admit, I have never seen a DNA profile quite like yours before, almost like your species was…. Well, I think your story would be interesting to hear, and feel free to stop by my office whenever the feeling might come over you.” Halley smiled with a bit of excitement barely contained in her voice.

Xie smiled and got to her feet, being gentle with her still-mending leg; she smiled and nodded to the doctor before making her way out into the hall. “Thank you, Doctor; I will be sure to take you up on that.” She called before disappearing down the hall towards what she assumed was the ship’s promenade.

She passed a map and glanced, almost as though she were already bored. Still, a nano recorder in her temples had been saving every detail of people and conversations she happened to be a part of; since the device was considered part of her anatomy, sensors or transporters wouldn’t have picked it up as it registered as a biologic component of her unknown physiology.

For the rest of the afternoon, she walked off much of the pain associated with her injuries, the bruises had been salved, and the laceration knit, the leg was quickly improving, and her accelerated healing factor was rebuilding muscle and bone with every pulse of her circulation.

Finally, she reached her quarters, examining as many parts of the ship as possible, pretending she was lost and innocent; the layout was being committed to memory for tactical supremacy. She slid onto the bed and smiled, chuckling at the plush furnishing humans must have in all corners of their lives and yearning for the cold slab she had grown up laying on for her training. Portions of her arms had been replaced molecule by molecule by biotechnical components that served the same function but could also be used to manipulate technology and allow her to communicate entirely privately with nearly any device that it had connected with; the implanted machine had no signatures the cited a source nor an address by which to register the individuality of the interface, her body was a computer just as much as it had been a short-statured girl of seemingly little concern.

One part of her wanted to meet this man that had stolen her patron’s face and lived a life so alien to her, but this would have to be a decision he made; another yearning of a different kind surged through her legs and abdomen, she smiled as an interface opened on her arm a cloaked fighter lay undisturbed in orbit around the planet, she tapped into the hidden energy signature obfuscated in the ionic signature of the planet and isolated a transport window to the vessel.

This wouldn’t be the last time she would see the excellent admiral, but it would be the last time she was unaware of his paranoia and guile.]]> <![CDATA[Xie Ye Ying Part 2 (PG-13) (Mature Content)]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7069 Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:53:59 -0400 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7069
The ache of hours in restraints began to weigh on the taut muscling in her secured arms and legs; she was bound to housing in the ceiling in an old engineering bay. Her wrists and ankles were bound separately and secured individually to different pulleys that extended to winches attached somewhere in the poor light.

She had been stripped naked and exposed to the rapid air movement in the vacuous room, probably the environmental control bypass wing, but she had no idea how she had gotten there.

The last thing she could recall was a bar-fight on Juno III Orbital Station, she hadn’t been involved in it, but she remembered the smell of Janis berries, a rare perfume used in the federation, and some independent, unaligned outposts, the fragrance was popular among Betazed and Trill to the mind of a killer it was one of the more potent tranquilizers if taken intravenously used to capture prey.   As her senses returned, she was sure she hadn’t been out long, so she was still on the station by all accounts; Her reflective eyes absorbed far more light than most; the longer they concentrated on something, the more detail they could make out of what was hidden in the distance.

She relaxed her eyes, focusing on the winch secured to her right wrist; the line was made of a high tensile cable able to secure several hundred kilograms to a cargo plate but remain flexible enough to endure the stress of interstellar gravity shifts. Patience and a broad level of experience identified she had been secured by someone who had experience stowing durable goods, so it wasn’t likely she was going anywhere. Her whole body was suspended between the cabling, and each winch was attached to a rig that met in a quick-release coupling 60 centimeters behind her back; whomever was holding her wanted to make sure they could move her quickly if the need arose. After some breathing and relaxation techniques, she made out an automated door eleven meters from her restraints, the light level in the room was nearly pitch, and most would only know there were cords attached to them. Still, she was anything but ordinary, and nothing would hold her indefinitely.

                As each of her arms or legs moved, the opposite arm or leg would relax or tense in equal response; she was used to a certain level of pain, a trait she had come to accept in her profession, as her strong right arms pulled against the quality of the cable she could feel the opposite stretch to pain in her muscled left thigh, but she could hear the coupling shift in space just before she dislocated her hip. She relaxed her arm as her leg shifted back into its socket; the rush of nerves and sensations lit light a match in her brain, telling her that her body couldn’t take much more of that kind of abuse. She lived for this pain; however, near permanent harm gave her arousal no tender moment had ever thought to share. She was getting ridiculously turned on; as her breath quickened, she pulled with her left wrist, pulling her right leg to its limit as she could feel the winch shift again against the cabling. Another rush of pain and exhilaration moved through her like lightning. She instinctively let out a moan of pleasure while her body wracked with the tension in her joints flared with so much primal warning of concern that even minor shifts in her position caused increasing stress levels all over her small frame.

Mews of stifled cries and intentional distress over her lethally intentioned body tasked her mental acuity and limits of endurance while physical symptoms of her private reveling were beginning to show on her thighs and the sweat building on her brow, neck, and her hyper-sensitive ribs as they heaved and firmed about the exertions her attempt to free herself had encouraged.

Over five minutes, her body dripped with sweat, as the pain in her arms and legs made her delirious. The quick-release coupling had been singing concerning each attempt she made to free herself. Finally, after she maintained a rhythm long enough, the collar slipped, and the cable rig unraveled, causing her to collapse hard to the cold deck of the room.

She heaved deeply in her mixed emotion; the pain of her joints was nearly crippling, the stunning cold of the bulkhead floor was shocking, and her arousal was still heavily triggered. She attempted to muffle her pleasured sighs and intense groaning as the shock sent her over the edge, against gritted teeth and tightly pursed lips, enjoying her release as the summation of her efforts met in success in so many ways.

Her arms reached out, still desperately aching and crying out in pain at her freedom; she turned to her back and lay splayed against the dirty and artic temperature of the floor. Every millimeter of her was in agony, but she was free, and her captor would soon feel every tantalizing fraction of her pain. Her black as night skin shimmered with the sweat and grime reflecting the poor light, she was smiling, and her eyes were dancing with the delirium her experience was still riding over her. The flashes of her writhing legs and arms, the rise and fall of her chest, and the scintillation of her eyes and teeth against the blue background of the room made her appear more animal than humanoid. As she wriggled her way free of the restraints, her anger and mental state made her primally aware of only her survival and her need to be satisfied.

The door opened with a hiss as a tall, fiendishly powerful villain stepped into the room; her attentions were already coiled in response; she dropped to a low crouch ignoring her pain, letting her eyes read and evaluate the method she would need to kill this man.
She jumped with intentionally sharpened claws outstretched from her thin but supple fingers.

                The man caught her by the throat mid-air; he glowered and hissed as he threw the poor girl back, allowing her nails to draw superficial injuries along his arms and shoulders.

“That’s enough, Worm!” He yelled as his voice's volume and timbre made the room shake from intimidation.

                She shrank back, preparing to jump at him again, but he startled her out of her animalistic rage. Appearing now as a wounded animal to not encourage his wrath, it took a few moments for her to realize that she wasn’t dealing with a guard or a warden of some kind but her patron himself, Field Commander Jasen Kane.

                He was a total of two meters in height with long blond hair and a grip of steel; he wore his Terran sash and a notch on his abdomen for each man he had killed in personal combat; at over six hundred, the number continued across his arm and began moving down his left leg. Jasen had a plan for everything and a fallback to deal with his allies and enemies should they act out of turn. He had taken his position and defended it dozens of times, each more spectacularly than the last. Jasen was a walking nightmare, and every encounter the girl had seen to test ended the same for his enemy: a brutal and slow death. From poisons to tech diseases, betrayal by family, and even planned obsolescence, he knew your end before you agreed to work with him, and he had rarely been surprised.

“Xie Ye Ying!” He roared, stepping into the room. “You were given a single command… Stop this tech…” He looked down at his genetically perfect assassin. “Was I in some way unclear?” He looked back at one of his guards watching with great interest from the open room behind him, one of his lieutenants tossed him a prison uniform; Jasen dropped it at her feet as he moved to the door and pressed his palm into the reader as it activated the lights and shut off the cold air ventilation.

Ying moved to slide the uniform over her naked body, a bright orange jumpsuit with a Klingon pain garter sewn into the neck lining. The band tightened to contact her skin inactivated, but a word or tap of his wrist computer could change that instantly.

Jasen was a master of manipulation; he treated even those he was proud of like they were disappointments to him, so they never saw him as an ally, only a brilliant despot so far more intelligent than anything they had come across; he was the personification of the earth god Thor. Still, he seemed to have the mindset of his blood brother Loki.

She moved to her feet, much shorter than Jasen, and looked straight ahead as the soldier she was exhaustively trained to be.

“I took my window and got my kill- “She tried to continue, but Jasen cut her off with a backhand that sent her sprawling against the deck.

“You killed one when you could have dealt with both issues simultaneously!” He growled before continuing. “I grew you to be the best hunter the galaxy has ever known, and you do something… human… something… any mortal can do?” He stood over her as she struggled to move to her feet.

“No, commander, I took the shot to frighten the Romulans and the secondary target.” She stood back in stoic attention as she reported.

Jasen had wanted her to destabilize the peace between the Romulans and the federation, and the best way to do that was to reintroduce the Tal’ Shiar and make them think the forty-year-old problem had found root again. She was thinking ahead, but Jasen didn’t want her to think he was proud of her.
“Fortunately for you,” he tapped a comm link on his wrist computer as one of the walls disappeared, and a screen materialized in its place, showing a telemetry read-out of her next target. “The U.S.S. Drummond, a noble class battleship, happens to be nearby, the ship that is going to test his new torpedo.” He looked down at her, standing 17 or so centimeters from her, as his musky smell and her weakened condition made her weak in other areas as well.

“You’ll be taking the place of one of the vessel’s weapons officers, Lieutenant Commander Nina Hurtz” Her image showed up on the wall as Jasen expected Ying to commend it to memory. “You’ll meet her at her home in…” He looked at another padd that appeared over his left wrist while she was overcome with the scent of his battle-hardened sweat and anger towards her. “Yukon City…” He looked back to Ying. “She’s attending a wedding… make sure she attends it, and then take her place on the shuttle back to the Drummond; it’s in orbit around Vulcan for a routine security review.”

He grabbed her by the fabric of the prison suit and lifted her to meet his eyes. “If I find out he’s still alive or the torpedo fires, I’d find a way to ensure you’re not…” He warned. “Not that I wouldn’t consider chasing you to hell for revenge.” His breath was intoxicating, she hated him and everything he stood for, but with the pain coursing through her and the punishment she was used to enduring, his aggression was essentially petting in her eyes. He dropped her 30 cm; she lost her footing and struggled to regain it before returning to her stance.

“Prepare for this, and then Get off my ship…! If I see you before your job is done, it will be to find out exactly how much my creation can withstand in the pressures of cold space.” He turned without another word as the room door opened, dematerializing into an active transporter beam.

This might as well have been flirting; he very rarely took the personal time or physical space to deal with what he called a failure, he was exceptionally proud of his bred assassin, but she knew his bravado was far more important than what he could actually do. A blush of a ‘job well done’ feeling swept over her as she walked out onto the deck and used her rank as commander to order the guards to fetch her clothes, food, and medical supplies. It was time to get to work.]]>
The ache of hours in restraints began to weigh on the taut muscling in her secured arms and legs; she was bound to housing in the ceiling in an old engineering bay. Her wrists and ankles were bound separately and secured individually to different pulleys that extended to winches attached somewhere in the poor light.

She had been stripped naked and exposed to the rapid air movement in the vacuous room, probably the environmental control bypass wing, but she had no idea how she had gotten there.

The last thing she could recall was a bar-fight on Juno III Orbital Station, she hadn’t been involved in it, but she remembered the smell of Janis berries, a rare perfume used in the federation, and some independent, unaligned outposts, the fragrance was popular among Betazed and Trill to the mind of a killer it was one of the more potent tranquilizers if taken intravenously used to capture prey.   As her senses returned, she was sure she hadn’t been out long, so she was still on the station by all accounts; Her reflective eyes absorbed far more light than most; the longer they concentrated on something, the more detail they could make out of what was hidden in the distance.

She relaxed her eyes, focusing on the winch secured to her right wrist; the line was made of a high tensile cable able to secure several hundred kilograms to a cargo plate but remain flexible enough to endure the stress of interstellar gravity shifts. Patience and a broad level of experience identified she had been secured by someone who had experience stowing durable goods, so it wasn’t likely she was going anywhere. Her whole body was suspended between the cabling, and each winch was attached to a rig that met in a quick-release coupling 60 centimeters behind her back; whomever was holding her wanted to make sure they could move her quickly if the need arose. After some breathing and relaxation techniques, she made out an automated door eleven meters from her restraints, the light level in the room was nearly pitch, and most would only know there were cords attached to them. Still, she was anything but ordinary, and nothing would hold her indefinitely.

                As each of her arms or legs moved, the opposite arm or leg would relax or tense in equal response; she was used to a certain level of pain, a trait she had come to accept in her profession, as her strong right arms pulled against the quality of the cable she could feel the opposite stretch to pain in her muscled left thigh, but she could hear the coupling shift in space just before she dislocated her hip. She relaxed her arm as her leg shifted back into its socket; the rush of nerves and sensations lit light a match in her brain, telling her that her body couldn’t take much more of that kind of abuse. She lived for this pain; however, near permanent harm gave her arousal no tender moment had ever thought to share. She was getting ridiculously turned on; as her breath quickened, she pulled with her left wrist, pulling her right leg to its limit as she could feel the winch shift again against the cabling. Another rush of pain and exhilaration moved through her like lightning. She instinctively let out a moan of pleasure while her body wracked with the tension in her joints flared with so much primal warning of concern that even minor shifts in her position caused increasing stress levels all over her small frame.

Mews of stifled cries and intentional distress over her lethally intentioned body tasked her mental acuity and limits of endurance while physical symptoms of her private reveling were beginning to show on her thighs and the sweat building on her brow, neck, and her hyper-sensitive ribs as they heaved and firmed about the exertions her attempt to free herself had encouraged.

Over five minutes, her body dripped with sweat, as the pain in her arms and legs made her delirious. The quick-release coupling had been singing concerning each attempt she made to free herself. Finally, after she maintained a rhythm long enough, the collar slipped, and the cable rig unraveled, causing her to collapse hard to the cold deck of the room.

She heaved deeply in her mixed emotion; the pain of her joints was nearly crippling, the stunning cold of the bulkhead floor was shocking, and her arousal was still heavily triggered. She attempted to muffle her pleasured sighs and intense groaning as the shock sent her over the edge, against gritted teeth and tightly pursed lips, enjoying her release as the summation of her efforts met in success in so many ways.

Her arms reached out, still desperately aching and crying out in pain at her freedom; she turned to her back and lay splayed against the dirty and artic temperature of the floor. Every millimeter of her was in agony, but she was free, and her captor would soon feel every tantalizing fraction of her pain. Her black as night skin shimmered with the sweat and grime reflecting the poor light, she was smiling, and her eyes were dancing with the delirium her experience was still riding over her. The flashes of her writhing legs and arms, the rise and fall of her chest, and the scintillation of her eyes and teeth against the blue background of the room made her appear more animal than humanoid. As she wriggled her way free of the restraints, her anger and mental state made her primally aware of only her survival and her need to be satisfied.

The door opened with a hiss as a tall, fiendishly powerful villain stepped into the room; her attentions were already coiled in response; she dropped to a low crouch ignoring her pain, letting her eyes read and evaluate the method she would need to kill this man.
She jumped with intentionally sharpened claws outstretched from her thin but supple fingers.

                The man caught her by the throat mid-air; he glowered and hissed as he threw the poor girl back, allowing her nails to draw superficial injuries along his arms and shoulders.

“That’s enough, Worm!” He yelled as his voice's volume and timbre made the room shake from intimidation.

                She shrank back, preparing to jump at him again, but he startled her out of her animalistic rage. Appearing now as a wounded animal to not encourage his wrath, it took a few moments for her to realize that she wasn’t dealing with a guard or a warden of some kind but her patron himself, Field Commander Jasen Kane.

                He was a total of two meters in height with long blond hair and a grip of steel; he wore his Terran sash and a notch on his abdomen for each man he had killed in personal combat; at over six hundred, the number continued across his arm and began moving down his left leg. Jasen had a plan for everything and a fallback to deal with his allies and enemies should they act out of turn. He had taken his position and defended it dozens of times, each more spectacularly than the last. Jasen was a walking nightmare, and every encounter the girl had seen to test ended the same for his enemy: a brutal and slow death. From poisons to tech diseases, betrayal by family, and even planned obsolescence, he knew your end before you agreed to work with him, and he had rarely been surprised.

“Xie Ye Ying!” He roared, stepping into the room. “You were given a single command… Stop this tech…” He looked down at his genetically perfect assassin. “Was I in some way unclear?” He looked back at one of his guards watching with great interest from the open room behind him, one of his lieutenants tossed him a prison uniform; Jasen dropped it at her feet as he moved to the door and pressed his palm into the reader as it activated the lights and shut off the cold air ventilation.

Ying moved to slide the uniform over her naked body, a bright orange jumpsuit with a Klingon pain garter sewn into the neck lining. The band tightened to contact her skin inactivated, but a word or tap of his wrist computer could change that instantly.

Jasen was a master of manipulation; he treated even those he was proud of like they were disappointments to him, so they never saw him as an ally, only a brilliant despot so far more intelligent than anything they had come across; he was the personification of the earth god Thor. Still, he seemed to have the mindset of his blood brother Loki.

She moved to her feet, much shorter than Jasen, and looked straight ahead as the soldier she was exhaustively trained to be.

“I took my window and got my kill- “She tried to continue, but Jasen cut her off with a backhand that sent her sprawling against the deck.

“You killed one when you could have dealt with both issues simultaneously!” He growled before continuing. “I grew you to be the best hunter the galaxy has ever known, and you do something… human… something… any mortal can do?” He stood over her as she struggled to move to her feet.

“No, commander, I took the shot to frighten the Romulans and the secondary target.” She stood back in stoic attention as she reported.

Jasen had wanted her to destabilize the peace between the Romulans and the federation, and the best way to do that was to reintroduce the Tal’ Shiar and make them think the forty-year-old problem had found root again. She was thinking ahead, but Jasen didn’t want her to think he was proud of her.
“Fortunately for you,” he tapped a comm link on his wrist computer as one of the walls disappeared, and a screen materialized in its place, showing a telemetry read-out of her next target. “The U.S.S. Drummond, a noble class battleship, happens to be nearby, the ship that is going to test his new torpedo.” He looked down at her, standing 17 or so centimeters from her, as his musky smell and her weakened condition made her weak in other areas as well.

“You’ll be taking the place of one of the vessel’s weapons officers, Lieutenant Commander Nina Hurtz” Her image showed up on the wall as Jasen expected Ying to commend it to memory. “You’ll meet her at her home in…” He looked at another padd that appeared over his left wrist while she was overcome with the scent of his battle-hardened sweat and anger towards her. “Yukon City…” He looked back to Ying. “She’s attending a wedding… make sure she attends it, and then take her place on the shuttle back to the Drummond; it’s in orbit around Vulcan for a routine security review.”

He grabbed her by the fabric of the prison suit and lifted her to meet his eyes. “If I find out he’s still alive or the torpedo fires, I’d find a way to ensure you’re not…” He warned. “Not that I wouldn’t consider chasing you to hell for revenge.” His breath was intoxicating, she hated him and everything he stood for, but with the pain coursing through her and the punishment she was used to enduring, his aggression was essentially petting in her eyes. He dropped her 30 cm; she lost her footing and struggled to regain it before returning to her stance.

“Prepare for this, and then Get off my ship…! If I see you before your job is done, it will be to find out exactly how much my creation can withstand in the pressures of cold space.” He turned without another word as the room door opened, dematerializing into an active transporter beam.

This might as well have been flirting; he very rarely took the personal time or physical space to deal with what he called a failure, he was exceptionally proud of his bred assassin, but she knew his bravado was far more important than what he could actually do. A blush of a ‘job well done’ feeling swept over her as she walked out onto the deck and used her rank as commander to order the guards to fetch her clothes, food, and medical supplies. It was time to get to work.]]> <![CDATA[Sunset Pt. 2]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7054 Tue, 06 Sep 2022 17:22:29 -0400 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=7054
The wizened assassin watched the ground eight meters below as three children passed under her running from something raucously barreling after them; ten years earlier than this moment, she wouldn’t have even looked up as the children lost their bid for survival, the universe didn’t play favorites, and there was always more than one way to see a story.

The olive-green skin of her right palm squeezed around a remote trigger that activated a trap on the other side of the retreating children. The chase was encouraged by a Vaure a 2.5-meter-tall mass of thick fur and razor claws, an apex predator clearly after its next meal. It broke through the undergrowth and roared as it closed quickly on the children. The youngest boy, Hurin, tripped over a root as something he was holding became dislodged and fell to the ground in front of him, a Vaure cub barely four months old. Shavi wouldn’t have hesitated to let the errant boys meet their grisly end, but people change, and with guidance, it is usually for the better.

The artful killer dropped from her perch, descending the full height of the tree to land effortlessly between the gaining predator and the clueless child. A field of force filled a small two-meter square portion of the forest floor and caught the Vaure in the air, halting its advance. Shavi turned to Hurin and gave a disapproving look before lifting the cub and returning it to the trapped mother.

Shavi released the trap but kept the barrier between the predator and the boy; the massive mother gently inspected her cub for injury and let out violent and rage-filled complaints against the field; she was right to be upset, but sometimes the law of nature shouldn’t be so absolute, or its sense of justice, so unforgiving to curiosity. Eventually, the rightfully entitled mother locked eyes with her green-hued opponent and came to an understanding. The lumbering beast pawed at the isolation field, huffing and grunting in protest before giving up and carefully nudging her cub back home, both slowly disappearing into the undergrowth of the ancient forest.

Clicking a switch on her left forearm, the trap disengaged and closed; Shavi Nodama, the anti-hero of Cerim IV, turned toward the boy as he was still shivering in shock, and the other two returned to see the form-fitting black tracking suit with scintillating blue eyes behind a black facemask partially occluded by a white and red splay of long curly hair.

“A Vaure cub can go for sixty thousand credits on the market if… you get away with it.” She whistled in the subvocal range as the recon blade she had used slid from its sheath and hovered ominously over her left shoulder. “I, on the other hand, find poaching… upsetting.” She glowered at the boys as her eyes seemed to shimmer behind vapor escaping through the opening in the mask.

“I just wanted….” Hurin started while all the biometric and demographic data of the three played across a translucent ocular inside the mask. “it’s clear you wanted an early grave,” she interrupted. "I would likely just arrest you for being stupid, but the Vaure, they’d feed on you for an afternoon…” she looked him over and shrugged. “Maybe she’d feed you to her cubs.” She continued. “I’m not normally in the game of saving children, no matter what they’ve been up to.” More vapor escaped her mask as she seemed to smile from behind the plasticized steel of the helmet. “But… your parents are looking for you, and I’ve opted to help… for a price… I think I was drunk when I agreed, but here you are…” She growled as the blade slid back into its sheath along her right scapula. “Go home… and don’t let me catch you in my forest again. The Vaure encounter would have been preferable to what I’ll do to you if I catch you stealing their cubs again.” She clicked as two ranging lasers appeared over her ocular as twin drones camouflaged expertly in the canopy fired six harmless but very real-seeming plasma bolts in quick succession at the feet of the three boys.

The boys ran off in a panic at the impact of the gunfire tripping over one another to get away fastest. Shavi rolled her neck to both sides, popping her spinal column back into alignment, and pressed a tab on the side of the mask as it recessed into a much smaller slot attached to the armor of her shoulder plates.

“I know you’re there, Miy” Shavi smiled as she turned towards the nearby pitch-black forest behind her.

Miyan clicked the safety off her plasma carbine as she walked out of the underbrush with her ranger beacon lighting up, illuminating everything within six meters of her. “Those drones are illegal, Darlin….” She smiled.

Shavi made another subvocal command as the drones set off in different directions.

“Why, officer, whatever do you mean?” she lifted her hands to show she was unarmed as she turned to face the ranger.

“You know the drill, Shay…” She pulled out her wrist restraints and walked toward her suspect.

“Really? We’re doing this?” Shavi asked as the ranger closed the first restraint over Shavi’s left wrist, pulling it behind her to secure the other side. “You know the charge’ll never stick,” she grunted as she was pushed against a nearby tree to close the restraints around the right side. “This is what I hate about you, lot, think you can get away with anything,” Miyan growled as she pressed up against her suspect planting her knee against a pressure point in her suspect’s right leg to cause pain intentionally.

“If you had gear, that… ye’ know... worked, I think I’d get the message more convincingly…” her subvocal talents activated gravity pins in her synthetic arms to disengage the restraints causing them to fall open and drop harmlessly to the ground.

“You, bitch.” Miyan growled and landed an elbow into Shavi’s midfaulds plate of the armor, catching an exploit in the armor’s design and landing the blow under her protective outfit; the satisfying grunt of pain from her suspect encouraged her to tighten her grip, still holding on to Shavi’s back threw her to the ground. “I don’t have time to babysit VIP like you, playing the hero in my woods!” Miy moved to kick her in the same place, but her suspect rolled away and to her feet.

“I’m gonna give you the beating I should have when I first caught you with the boar.” Miyan dropped the carbine as it seated itself automatically in its holster along her rear flank. She raised her arms and threw an expert punch toward Shavi, as her target easily avoided and locked her forearm, allowing Shavi to use the leverage to throw the ranger into a roll three meters away. “I gave up because I didn’t have time to bury your body, mul’gat, but I got plenty of time tonight.” Shavi returned with a smile, using a vulgar term for cave worm in her native tongue. Shavi ran towards the ranger, letting her momentum continue moving forward as she dragged a knee across the ground into the same exposed region of the ranger that Miyan had used earlier. The grunt returned made Shavi smile but only momentarily as she dropped her right elbow trapping Shavi’s knee and landed a solid overhand punch into the left side of Shavi’s head, stunning her for a moment and climbing on top of her with her legs on either side of her waist locking them so Shavi couldn’t push her off. “It’s over, Shay… yet again….” Miyan began, but Shavi’s remarkable athleticism and vastly superior strength brought her right leg up and over the neck and shoulder of Miyan pulling her off and starting to choke her out with her shapely powerful right thigh putting her weight on it so the officer would be out in seconds.

Miyan used her strength to lift the suspect’s weight off her, letting her breathe again as she used the compromising position to get three or four good jabs into Shavi’s already tender right side before rolling away and catching her breath while climbing to her feet.
Shavi got up and winced at her right side, drawing blood onto her hand from her split lip.

“I can see you’ve been paying attention; that’d drop any of you at the station,” Shavi smirked.

Miyan slid her tactical harness off to improve her mobility as the carbine locked automatically and dropped to the ground. Shavi pressed a tab just above her left hip as the armor opened and pulled away, letting Shavi increase her mobility while the state-of-the-art combat gear dropped as well.

“I’ve been prepping for payback Vog’” she returned with a vague insult herself.

Miyan rushed Shavi and dropped her right shoulder to catch her in the stomach, but Shavi saw the move and used her left thigh to redirect Miyan’s momentum, sliding up behind her and locking her powerful arms around the ranger’s throat. Miyan straightened her opposite leg and put all her weight into the grasp of her opponent, using her total body weight to slide herself out of the hold grabbing Shavi’s left forearm and twisting it to move her away from Miyan, dropping her knee into Shavi’s midback indirectly throwing her to the ground. Miyan moved in over the top of her back, locking Shavi’s arm behind her as she fumbled for wrist restraints again. Shavi couched her arms in over her chest and used her added mobility to turn to face Miyan; she used her head to come up underneath Miyan’s open grasp and kissed her attacker passionately, pushing her aggressively against the ground while they fought each other, Miyan feverishly returned the kiss and quickly moved to lock her suspect’s arms above her head as she let her lips linger over every inch of her lover’s face and neck.

Over the next few minutes, they worshipped each other, taking every passionate moment they had shared and reliving it in a way that was just their own. Before long, they lay in a quiet embrace in various states of undress while they gently kissed and adored each other, embraced, and spent. Miyan looked into Shavi’s eyes and shared a gentle kiss that lingered for seconds, lost in each other’s touch yet again.

“You were supposed to meet me at the Starport, darling….” Miyan whispered, their cheeks touching, still exploring each other. ‘’Mmmmm…” Shavi bit Miyan’s lip gently and stole a soft kiss as well. “Local kids were trying to get themselves killed, pet….” Shavi smiled and slid over her gorgeous partner, looking down with incredible pride and adoration. “Your job is much harder than you made it out to be.” Shavi scolded as Miyan searched for her love with doting eyes and a wanting smile. “Keeping them alive is a bit harder than leaving them for the janitor, I’ll admit…” Miyan laughed, and she sat up to press her chest against Shavi’s, kissing her deeply again, sliding slowly away to get dressed again.

Shavi pulled her top on again and reaffixed her armor; Miyan did the same and reset the carbine at her side. “I’ve been thinking,” Miyan moved to help Shavi fasten her armor correctly. “The new station is nearly finished, and they have an opening for a security chief.” She smiled, looking into Shavi’s face. As she spoke, the former assassin moved her fingers through her ranger’s long black tresses. “I imagine you want this on your merit, and I’m to stay out of the way?” Shavi teased, fastening the tactical harness. “I think it’s a great idea, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever be a starship captain if you take it.”

Miyan frowned, having not considered that she knew that a word from her partner could get her the command of any ship in the fleet, but she had proven herself in her mind; her ambitions for justice made any opportunity on the surface out of the question on her own merits.

Shavi had done everything she could other than force the issue with the governor, too many hands were already mixed in with Miyan’s career, and there wouldn’t be less drama if heroes and heroine to the confederacy played their cards to try and bring balance to noteworthy people. Miyan was one of the best, and she had proven that more times than most could. Jada had come to use Shavi’s ranger with insertion and evac missions, Pauc had come to rely on her wisdom when it came to border protections, she had all the right connections to really send her career in any direction she chose, but unavoidably it would be seen as favoritism because her successes were private, and her failures received far more scrutiny than her contemporaries.

Shavi voiced her subvocal command again as the two drones returned. She lifted Miyan’s head to meet her eyes and smiled. “You’re already a better person than anyone they could find to fill that position.” She put her hands on Miyan’s shorter shoulders, looked up to the stars, and then back at her. “Those are still gonna need to be registered, love…” she grinned mischievously at the drones and back to her lover. “The universe doesn’t need those that follow orders to make things better, and no law will make anything or anyone safe in ways they weren’t before,” Shavi noted. Miyan had come to soften Shavi’s gruff demeanor when it came to considering consequences, but Shavi had always shown wisdom hidden behind those killer eyes, a wise mind the darkest of moments had kept from so many others that came out often in the confidence of her partner. “If you want the stars to change, then you must go to the stars to do it.” Shavi continued as she reached for a glove secured in her belt.

“I’m not you, shay…” Miyan protested. “I can’t just abandon the rules because they don’t work for me anymore.” She pleadingly looked into her partner’s eyes. “that’s not the life I know how to live.” She admitted painfully.

Shay smiled and nodded. “Aye, you’re not,” she kissed the Bajoran love of her life tenderly, using her weaponized pheromones so that Miyan could feel the rush of pleasure fill her body all at once. Shavi had used this skill to paralyze her victims in euphoria at one point in time, but it hadn’t worked quite the same when she was equally transfixed as her partner. Both felt the rush, and it was closer than many could ever connect with one another. “My skills came from the darkest hearts of my people, and yours came from the need to protect the world from those who thought they were above the law.”

She smiled and dragged her fingers firmly across Miyan’s scalp as she smiled at the attention. “You’ve lived a life where people matter more than who gets the credit, and I won’t let you think that is somehow less impressive than being a weapon that no longer treasures her gift,” Shavi admitted herself. “If you need the job to define yourself, the future is in that position, not the dreams you had before you said yes.” Shavi scanned the horizon as the artificial lights of satellites and space stations gave a lived-in feel to the nearby cosmos but not every part of it was civilized yet. “I think you’re not done exploring your life yet, and maybe this… position is what you think you should do, even if it isn’t what the rest of you wants to do.” She slid her hands under the tactical harness Miyan had worn for over 20 years. Maybe you’re more than a ranger, and this,” she clicked the release of the harness as it dropped to the ground. “Is what you really want.”

Miyan watched her deep blue eyes shimmer in the artificial light, “I want…” she embraced her killer and smiled “…peace.” She pleaded as she looked up again.

Shavi lifted her chin and nodded. “Someone else can save the stupid, right?” she grinned and looked up at her drones as they orbited; they seemed to have detected something moving through the underbrush towards them. Shavi instinctively spoke a sub-vocal command into a hidden microphone as the helmet materialized around her face, and Shavi held tightly to her ranger as they disappeared into the trees, leaving her illuminated ring on the ground as they left. The light from the ground would have been insufficient to make the drone visible, but Shavi triggered the cloak anyway, her mask showed her everything the drones were seeing, and a monitor on her arm showed Miyan the same thing.

Four men armed with illegal disruptors moved into the clearing to close on the illuminated ring that was, in reality, a series of fourteen nano drones that moved at the motivation of the user, but they lay motionless, still activated on the ground without any indication to who their owner may be, Shavi was hiding in her Gavi tree with an isolation field to disguise any sensors that may be on the hunt for her, Miyan didn’t recognize the men but realized even with the element of surprise she couldn’t take them.

They couldn’t hear the men talking from their range, but Shavi knew mercenaries when she saw them. News of Shavi’s unofficial retirement had spread, the rumors of a green death had grown stale, and if she was done killing, she still knew too many secrets to live a quiet life herself.

One of the men had a tracking drone scanning the area directly around him. It chirped idly, not indicating the target but having collected significant trace evidence to prove she had been there recently.

Miyan lifted her carbine and motioned towards another tree. The monitor on Shavi’s wrist blinked with a message: “Understand your enemy… then, kill them…” she shook her head and spoke, seemingly absent into the wind as the drones moved off in a westerly direction and sank down to a two-meter glide over the terrain they released trace evidence of Shavi and Miyan in the wind and heat signatures moving at a running pace towards the village.
The drone chirped in the affirmative as the mercenary, and his three companions began running in the predicted direction.

After the men had run off into the darkness, Miyan looked up at Shavi. “The two of us could have taken them, Shay.” She checked her weapon. “Probably,” Shavi responded. “But then we wouldn’t know anything else about who comes next, and the ones after that…” She spoke again as the wind carried no sound; her Orion cutpurse fighter had been hovering only a few meters away; it was designed to approach guarded locations silently, so when the doors opened, Miyan seemed startled at the green and red lights simply appearing in the air as the rich interior of the attack craft was open to them. Shavi moved through the air as though gravity had forgotten them and gently touched down on the luxurious carpet lining the deck of the exceptionally well-armed and prepared warfighter.

Shavi got to her feet and moved to the pilot’s seat while a twin console appeared, looking in the opposite direction, the seat materializing from onboard emitters. Miyan took the other seat and knew what Shavi was likely to do.

The craft moved over the mercenaries tracking any communications or latent identities of her pursuers; official records showed no marks of identity but legal common names and occupations. These weren’t amateurs, and it was very likely that the price on her head was well worth being found out, in some cases even worth dying for. Only the syndicate still held that much sway in the sector, and Jada hadn’t rooted out all their locations yet, even if the information she had was credible. They had been there for centuries before the confederacy and knew far more about that space than anyone else; lifetimes of hiding from each other and the law gave them an edge that would be foolish to assume wouldn’t be an issue at some point.

There was clearly a vacuum of power somewhere nearby, and it would take a pretty good kill to force the region's councils to recognize a new Primogen. Shavi had even thought about taking the position by force once or twice while she was running from responsibility and the betterment of the sector around her. “What are we looking for, Shay?” Miyan asked while she tracked tactical and science bays rooted to her console. “Not, what… who…” Shavi said quizzically. “I’ve been quiet for too long, Miy,” she mused as she tracked the likely path the men took through the forest. “Someone’s making sure I don’t come back to challenge…” she concluded.

On the monitor in front of Miyan, the path they took came from a clearing of rocks once thought to be the remains of an igneous protrusion from a long-dormant volcano millennia ago; the disturbance of the brush and the chatter from electronics came from inside the rock. Shavi smiled and tapped a button on her console as the drones returned to either side of the cutpurse. The drone hovered for a moment and then disappeared in the direction of the protrusion as Shavi looked back, “They’re going to hit the town, hoping your forces attack; this isn’t just a hunt for me, Miy, they’re hunting you too, and they’re not going to stop while we’re alive… They’re Warling.”

Miyan was well acquainted with the name; Warling were a group of pirates that rented themselves out to start wars and conflicts with advanced species; they would leave just enough evidence behind to indicate a group had caused or done something that would easily be considered an act of war from some nearby clan and sell to both sides as the conflicts continued and the damage intensified. Miyan had just returned from taking out a haunt in what was thought to be an abandoned asteroid field.

                Sensors picked six other teams moving in on the peaceful village of Cedir a fishing village that bordered Shavi’s favorite lake.
“Miy” Shavi started before she was cut off. “Contacting Cerim command, Havoc pylon inbound ninety seconds.” Shavi seemed shocked for a moment; havoc was a protocol used to temporarily halt riots or assist in evacuations, but Shavi wasn’t sure who else was coming, so it was better to be prepared.

There was a small commotion in the constable’s office as six men sleepily rushed from their barracks, well-armed but unaware of whom they’d be facing, when the image of Miyan appeared on a holograph in the air in front of them, an overlay of the area and telemetry of tactical information actively tracked all six teams, as command information from the orbiting security station was giving tracking information of each of the strike team members from the limited information they could gather.

A black cylinder materialized in the center of town; it was featureless and with no instrumentation on it of any kind; two pulses of blue light launched from the top of the cylinder, and the monolith went dormant.

A team of five was entering the village from the east. They consisted of two Klingon women carrying disruptor cannons and three Lethean men with morphogenic spatial charges that would instantly implicate the dominion and their settlements far away from the gamma quadrant.

“Please lower your weapons and prepare for legal detainment” the image of a human analog hologram appeared in front of the team. They fired as bolts of disruptor fire passed harmlessly through the holographic officer; six more holograms appeared surrounding the team. One of the Lethean's tried to run through the officer and received a mild but sustaining shock that incapacitated the warrior.

“P…pl…plea…please lower your weapons and prepare for legal detainment” The six holograms repeated in concert, the two Klingon women raised their cannons in surrender as the Letheans soon followed suit.

Elsewhere the teams received similar interceptions from the holographic teams; the Havoc pylon created a synthetic field of emitters that allowed a local library of holograms and barriers to choose from designed to be used primarily in scenarios of natural disasters; in this case, the monolith was modified to be well suited for defensive measures versus uncoordinated and small terrorist insurgencies.

As the strike teams opened fire, hoping for sustained resistance, the holograms shifted positions around the battlefield with no issues of line of sight of concealing and cover limitations; very real phaser lances fired from the holograms, quickly stunning and disabling the strike teams.

Miyan was coordinating the counterassault from an undisclosed location as the holograms brought the 19 conscious mercenaries to the security pavilion for processing; the seven disabled attackers were placed in medically induced status fields and transported to secure treatment facilities in one of the sub-levels of the Starport more than three thousand kilometers away.

“I’ll return to headquarters and start a file on the planet's protrusion and clear infiltration of global defenses.” Miyan started working on a recon report when Shavi stopped her. “I hate that I’ve brought you into this, Miy” Shavi moved from her seat to kneel next to her ranger. “This is just the beginning, and they won’t stop until someone is fighting someone, or someone takes them out at the source.”

“I agree, so I am going to spearhead this strike team and deal with the impression before it gets any larger.” Miyan protested as Shavi touched Miy’s soft lips. “Miy, they’re trying to start a war; the easiest way to do that is to kill a hero,” Shavi explained. “Killing me won’t be so easy given my experience with them, but…” She touched her ranger’s shoulder. “If they kill you, I will respond as they expect, and whatever happens next will involve those much larger than us.” Shavi smiled warmly. “Nothing is keeping us here; if we leave the fight, we win the war; if we stay, no one does.”

Miyan thought a moment and nodded, “So, retirement it is?” Miyan smiled. “Somehow, I think a party and a speech are missing…” She chuckled as she watched the tactical readout of other teams appearing on scanners and holograph response teams closing in on them. She knew Shavi was right, but not fighting here seemed so alien to her that it almost felt like a betrayal. “I’ll tell Jada not to try too hard to investigate our disappearance,” Shavi reassured her. Miyan nodded and tried to let the gravity of the situation sink in.

The cutpurse fighter was an Orion marvel of engineering; it was barely the size of a shuttle runabout, but it contained everything needed to sustain the pilot indefinitely; since the Orion were notoriously known as pirates, the attempt to chase them down was rarely off the table, relaxing wasn’t in the pirate’s vocabulary. This particular craft held the personal touches of a remarkably talented engineer and her team of allies; she had unlimited resources and had been working on it for more than twenty years in total. Even the shell of the fighter was modified to absorb and adapt to the type of energy used on it. The advantage of fighting and beating an enemy like the borg was the mountains of novel technologies that could be bought and sold, tech that neither the Federation nor the Klingon empire was actively researching. The Romulans had no such inhibition, and the Cerim confederacy had deep pockets.

Shavi moved the fighter into a known space flight corridor, hiding in the ion debris of the engines of a civilian freighter until they made it into cruising space.

“Any thoughts on where we should go?” Shavi looked dutifully towards the conn panel. “Something quiet outside the main space lanes, maybe Jori IX?” Shavi was familiar with the system and the planet; it was the site of a massive space battle with the Dominion and later the Elachi, with so many scavengers milling about and strangers moving unmolested through the region, sinking into a melting pot of so many cultures would have been better than the best cover Pauc could have come up with. “I couldn’t have come up with a better hideout, Miy… “Shay grinned back mischievously. “We’ll make a criminal out of you yet.” Miyan snorted in reply and was working on faking her disappearance so there wouldn’t be any breadcrumbs to follow while simultaneously making fake credentials for them to give to the authorities in the Jori region.

The Cutpurse had a mark eleven singularity drive, so it could reach the equivalent of warp 9.16 at cruise, making them forty-three hours from the system. Shavi tapped the heading into the panel, and the refined craft adjusted its heading to “naturally drift” away from the ionic trail before heading to warp.]]>
The wizened assassin watched the ground eight meters below as three children passed under her running from something raucously barreling after them; ten years earlier than this moment, she wouldn’t have even looked up as the children lost their bid for survival, the universe didn’t play favorites, and there was always more than one way to see a story.

The olive-green skin of her right palm squeezed around a remote trigger that activated a trap on the other side of the retreating children. The chase was encouraged by a Vaure a 2.5-meter-tall mass of thick fur and razor claws, an apex predator clearly after its next meal. It broke through the undergrowth and roared as it closed quickly on the children. The youngest boy, Hurin, tripped over a root as something he was holding became dislodged and fell to the ground in front of him, a Vaure cub barely four months old. Shavi wouldn’t have hesitated to let the errant boys meet their grisly end, but people change, and with guidance, it is usually for the better.

The artful killer dropped from her perch, descending the full height of the tree to land effortlessly between the gaining predator and the clueless child. A field of force filled a small two-meter square portion of the forest floor and caught the Vaure in the air, halting its advance. Shavi turned to Hurin and gave a disapproving look before lifting the cub and returning it to the trapped mother.

Shavi released the trap but kept the barrier between the predator and the boy; the massive mother gently inspected her cub for injury and let out violent and rage-filled complaints against the field; she was right to be upset, but sometimes the law of nature shouldn’t be so absolute, or its sense of justice, so unforgiving to curiosity. Eventually, the rightfully entitled mother locked eyes with her green-hued opponent and came to an understanding. The lumbering beast pawed at the isolation field, huffing and grunting in protest before giving up and carefully nudging her cub back home, both slowly disappearing into the undergrowth of the ancient forest.

Clicking a switch on her left forearm, the trap disengaged and closed; Shavi Nodama, the anti-hero of Cerim IV, turned toward the boy as he was still shivering in shock, and the other two returned to see the form-fitting black tracking suit with scintillating blue eyes behind a black facemask partially occluded by a white and red splay of long curly hair.

“A Vaure cub can go for sixty thousand credits on the market if… you get away with it.” She whistled in the subvocal range as the recon blade she had used slid from its sheath and hovered ominously over her left shoulder. “I, on the other hand, find poaching… upsetting.” She glowered at the boys as her eyes seemed to shimmer behind vapor escaping through the opening in the mask.

“I just wanted….” Hurin started while all the biometric and demographic data of the three played across a translucent ocular inside the mask. “it’s clear you wanted an early grave,” she interrupted. "I would likely just arrest you for being stupid, but the Vaure, they’d feed on you for an afternoon…” she looked him over and shrugged. “Maybe she’d feed you to her cubs.” She continued. “I’m not normally in the game of saving children, no matter what they’ve been up to.” More vapor escaped her mask as she seemed to smile from behind the plasticized steel of the helmet. “But… your parents are looking for you, and I’ve opted to help… for a price… I think I was drunk when I agreed, but here you are…” She growled as the blade slid back into its sheath along her right scapula. “Go home… and don’t let me catch you in my forest again. The Vaure encounter would have been preferable to what I’ll do to you if I catch you stealing their cubs again.” She clicked as two ranging lasers appeared over her ocular as twin drones camouflaged expertly in the canopy fired six harmless but very real-seeming plasma bolts in quick succession at the feet of the three boys.

The boys ran off in a panic at the impact of the gunfire tripping over one another to get away fastest. Shavi rolled her neck to both sides, popping her spinal column back into alignment, and pressed a tab on the side of the mask as it recessed into a much smaller slot attached to the armor of her shoulder plates.

“I know you’re there, Miy” Shavi smiled as she turned towards the nearby pitch-black forest behind her.

Miyan clicked the safety off her plasma carbine as she walked out of the underbrush with her ranger beacon lighting up, illuminating everything within six meters of her. “Those drones are illegal, Darlin….” She smiled.

Shavi made another subvocal command as the drones set off in different directions.

“Why, officer, whatever do you mean?” she lifted her hands to show she was unarmed as she turned to face the ranger.

“You know the drill, Shay…” She pulled out her wrist restraints and walked toward her suspect.

“Really? We’re doing this?” Shavi asked as the ranger closed the first restraint over Shavi’s left wrist, pulling it behind her to secure the other side. “You know the charge’ll never stick,” she grunted as she was pushed against a nearby tree to close the restraints around the right side. “This is what I hate about you, lot, think you can get away with anything,” Miyan growled as she pressed up against her suspect planting her knee against a pressure point in her suspect’s right leg to cause pain intentionally.

“If you had gear, that… ye’ know... worked, I think I’d get the message more convincingly…” her subvocal talents activated gravity pins in her synthetic arms to disengage the restraints causing them to fall open and drop harmlessly to the ground.

“You, bitch.” Miyan growled and landed an elbow into Shavi’s midfaulds plate of the armor, catching an exploit in the armor’s design and landing the blow under her protective outfit; the satisfying grunt of pain from her suspect encouraged her to tighten her grip, still holding on to Shavi’s back threw her to the ground. “I don’t have time to babysit VIP like you, playing the hero in my woods!” Miy moved to kick her in the same place, but her suspect rolled away and to her feet.

“I’m gonna give you the beating I should have when I first caught you with the boar.” Miyan dropped the carbine as it seated itself automatically in its holster along her rear flank. She raised her arms and threw an expert punch toward Shavi, as her target easily avoided and locked her forearm, allowing Shavi to use the leverage to throw the ranger into a roll three meters away. “I gave up because I didn’t have time to bury your body, mul’gat, but I got plenty of time tonight.” Shavi returned with a smile, using a vulgar term for cave worm in her native tongue. Shavi ran towards the ranger, letting her momentum continue moving forward as she dragged a knee across the ground into the same exposed region of the ranger that Miyan had used earlier. The grunt returned made Shavi smile but only momentarily as she dropped her right elbow trapping Shavi’s knee and landed a solid overhand punch into the left side of Shavi’s head, stunning her for a moment and climbing on top of her with her legs on either side of her waist locking them so Shavi couldn’t push her off. “It’s over, Shay… yet again….” Miyan began, but Shavi’s remarkable athleticism and vastly superior strength brought her right leg up and over the neck and shoulder of Miyan pulling her off and starting to choke her out with her shapely powerful right thigh putting her weight on it so the officer would be out in seconds.

Miyan used her strength to lift the suspect’s weight off her, letting her breathe again as she used the compromising position to get three or four good jabs into Shavi’s already tender right side before rolling away and catching her breath while climbing to her feet.
Shavi got up and winced at her right side, drawing blood onto her hand from her split lip.

“I can see you’ve been paying attention; that’d drop any of you at the station,” Shavi smirked.

Miyan slid her tactical harness off to improve her mobility as the carbine locked automatically and dropped to the ground. Shavi pressed a tab just above her left hip as the armor opened and pulled away, letting Shavi increase her mobility while the state-of-the-art combat gear dropped as well.

“I’ve been prepping for payback Vog’” she returned with a vague insult herself.

Miyan rushed Shavi and dropped her right shoulder to catch her in the stomach, but Shavi saw the move and used her left thigh to redirect Miyan’s momentum, sliding up behind her and locking her powerful arms around the ranger’s throat. Miyan straightened her opposite leg and put all her weight into the grasp of her opponent, using her total body weight to slide herself out of the hold grabbing Shavi’s left forearm and twisting it to move her away from Miyan, dropping her knee into Shavi’s midback indirectly throwing her to the ground. Miyan moved in over the top of her back, locking Shavi’s arm behind her as she fumbled for wrist restraints again. Shavi couched her arms in over her chest and used her added mobility to turn to face Miyan; she used her head to come up underneath Miyan’s open grasp and kissed her attacker passionately, pushing her aggressively against the ground while they fought each other, Miyan feverishly returned the kiss and quickly moved to lock her suspect’s arms above her head as she let her lips linger over every inch of her lover’s face and neck.

Over the next few minutes, they worshipped each other, taking every passionate moment they had shared and reliving it in a way that was just their own. Before long, they lay in a quiet embrace in various states of undress while they gently kissed and adored each other, embraced, and spent. Miyan looked into Shavi’s eyes and shared a gentle kiss that lingered for seconds, lost in each other’s touch yet again.

“You were supposed to meet me at the Starport, darling….” Miyan whispered, their cheeks touching, still exploring each other. ‘’Mmmmm…” Shavi bit Miyan’s lip gently and stole a soft kiss as well. “Local kids were trying to get themselves killed, pet….” Shavi smiled and slid over her gorgeous partner, looking down with incredible pride and adoration. “Your job is much harder than you made it out to be.” Shavi scolded as Miyan searched for her love with doting eyes and a wanting smile. “Keeping them alive is a bit harder than leaving them for the janitor, I’ll admit…” Miyan laughed, and she sat up to press her chest against Shavi’s, kissing her deeply again, sliding slowly away to get dressed again.

Shavi pulled her top on again and reaffixed her armor; Miyan did the same and reset the carbine at her side. “I’ve been thinking,” Miyan moved to help Shavi fasten her armor correctly. “The new station is nearly finished, and they have an opening for a security chief.” She smiled, looking into Shavi’s face. As she spoke, the former assassin moved her fingers through her ranger’s long black tresses. “I imagine you want this on your merit, and I’m to stay out of the way?” Shavi teased, fastening the tactical harness. “I think it’s a great idea, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever be a starship captain if you take it.”

Miyan frowned, having not considered that she knew that a word from her partner could get her the command of any ship in the fleet, but she had proven herself in her mind; her ambitions for justice made any opportunity on the surface out of the question on her own merits.

Shavi had done everything she could other than force the issue with the governor, too many hands were already mixed in with Miyan’s career, and there wouldn’t be less drama if heroes and heroine to the confederacy played their cards to try and bring balance to noteworthy people. Miyan was one of the best, and she had proven that more times than most could. Jada had come to use Shavi’s ranger with insertion and evac missions, Pauc had come to rely on her wisdom when it came to border protections, she had all the right connections to really send her career in any direction she chose, but unavoidably it would be seen as favoritism because her successes were private, and her failures received far more scrutiny than her contemporaries.

Shavi voiced her subvocal command again as the two drones returned. She lifted Miyan’s head to meet her eyes and smiled. “You’re already a better person than anyone they could find to fill that position.” She put her hands on Miyan’s shorter shoulders, looked up to the stars, and then back at her. “Those are still gonna need to be registered, love…” she grinned mischievously at the drones and back to her lover. “The universe doesn’t need those that follow orders to make things better, and no law will make anything or anyone safe in ways they weren’t before,” Shavi noted. Miyan had come to soften Shavi’s gruff demeanor when it came to considering consequences, but Shavi had always shown wisdom hidden behind those killer eyes, a wise mind the darkest of moments had kept from so many others that came out often in the confidence of her partner. “If you want the stars to change, then you must go to the stars to do it.” Shavi continued as she reached for a glove secured in her belt.

“I’m not you, shay…” Miyan protested. “I can’t just abandon the rules because they don’t work for me anymore.” She pleadingly looked into her partner’s eyes. “that’s not the life I know how to live.” She admitted painfully.

Shay smiled and nodded. “Aye, you’re not,” she kissed the Bajoran love of her life tenderly, using her weaponized pheromones so that Miyan could feel the rush of pleasure fill her body all at once. Shavi had used this skill to paralyze her victims in euphoria at one point in time, but it hadn’t worked quite the same when she was equally transfixed as her partner. Both felt the rush, and it was closer than many could ever connect with one another. “My skills came from the darkest hearts of my people, and yours came from the need to protect the world from those who thought they were above the law.”

She smiled and dragged her fingers firmly across Miyan’s scalp as she smiled at the attention. “You’ve lived a life where people matter more than who gets the credit, and I won’t let you think that is somehow less impressive than being a weapon that no longer treasures her gift,” Shavi admitted herself. “If you need the job to define yourself, the future is in that position, not the dreams you had before you said yes.” Shavi scanned the horizon as the artificial lights of satellites and space stations gave a lived-in feel to the nearby cosmos but not every part of it was civilized yet. “I think you’re not done exploring your life yet, and maybe this… position is what you think you should do, even if it isn’t what the rest of you wants to do.” She slid her hands under the tactical harness Miyan had worn for over 20 years. Maybe you’re more than a ranger, and this,” she clicked the release of the harness as it dropped to the ground. “Is what you really want.”

Miyan watched her deep blue eyes shimmer in the artificial light, “I want…” she embraced her killer and smiled “…peace.” She pleaded as she looked up again.

Shavi lifted her chin and nodded. “Someone else can save the stupid, right?” she grinned and looked up at her drones as they orbited; they seemed to have detected something moving through the underbrush towards them. Shavi instinctively spoke a sub-vocal command into a hidden microphone as the helmet materialized around her face, and Shavi held tightly to her ranger as they disappeared into the trees, leaving her illuminated ring on the ground as they left. The light from the ground would have been insufficient to make the drone visible, but Shavi triggered the cloak anyway, her mask showed her everything the drones were seeing, and a monitor on her arm showed Miyan the same thing.

Four men armed with illegal disruptors moved into the clearing to close on the illuminated ring that was, in reality, a series of fourteen nano drones that moved at the motivation of the user, but they lay motionless, still activated on the ground without any indication to who their owner may be, Shavi was hiding in her Gavi tree with an isolation field to disguise any sensors that may be on the hunt for her, Miyan didn’t recognize the men but realized even with the element of surprise she couldn’t take them.

They couldn’t hear the men talking from their range, but Shavi knew mercenaries when she saw them. News of Shavi’s unofficial retirement had spread, the rumors of a green death had grown stale, and if she was done killing, she still knew too many secrets to live a quiet life herself.

One of the men had a tracking drone scanning the area directly around him. It chirped idly, not indicating the target but having collected significant trace evidence to prove she had been there recently.

Miyan lifted her carbine and motioned towards another tree. The monitor on Shavi’s wrist blinked with a message: “Understand your enemy… then, kill them…” she shook her head and spoke, seemingly absent into the wind as the drones moved off in a westerly direction and sank down to a two-meter glide over the terrain they released trace evidence of Shavi and Miyan in the wind and heat signatures moving at a running pace towards the village.
The drone chirped in the affirmative as the mercenary, and his three companions began running in the predicted direction.

After the men had run off into the darkness, Miyan looked up at Shavi. “The two of us could have taken them, Shay.” She checked her weapon. “Probably,” Shavi responded. “But then we wouldn’t know anything else about who comes next, and the ones after that…” She spoke again as the wind carried no sound; her Orion cutpurse fighter had been hovering only a few meters away; it was designed to approach guarded locations silently, so when the doors opened, Miyan seemed startled at the green and red lights simply appearing in the air as the rich interior of the attack craft was open to them. Shavi moved through the air as though gravity had forgotten them and gently touched down on the luxurious carpet lining the deck of the exceptionally well-armed and prepared warfighter.

Shavi got to her feet and moved to the pilot’s seat while a twin console appeared, looking in the opposite direction, the seat materializing from onboard emitters. Miyan took the other seat and knew what Shavi was likely to do.

The craft moved over the mercenaries tracking any communications or latent identities of her pursuers; official records showed no marks of identity but legal common names and occupations. These weren’t amateurs, and it was very likely that the price on her head was well worth being found out, in some cases even worth dying for. Only the syndicate still held that much sway in the sector, and Jada hadn’t rooted out all their locations yet, even if the information she had was credible. They had been there for centuries before the confederacy and knew far more about that space than anyone else; lifetimes of hiding from each other and the law gave them an edge that would be foolish to assume wouldn’t be an issue at some point.

There was clearly a vacuum of power somewhere nearby, and it would take a pretty good kill to force the region's councils to recognize a new Primogen. Shavi had even thought about taking the position by force once or twice while she was running from responsibility and the betterment of the sector around her. “What are we looking for, Shay?” Miyan asked while she tracked tactical and science bays rooted to her console. “Not, what… who…” Shavi said quizzically. “I’ve been quiet for too long, Miy,” she mused as she tracked the likely path the men took through the forest. “Someone’s making sure I don’t come back to challenge…” she concluded.

On the monitor in front of Miyan, the path they took came from a clearing of rocks once thought to be the remains of an igneous protrusion from a long-dormant volcano millennia ago; the disturbance of the brush and the chatter from electronics came from inside the rock. Shavi smiled and tapped a button on her console as the drones returned to either side of the cutpurse. The drone hovered for a moment and then disappeared in the direction of the protrusion as Shavi looked back, “They’re going to hit the town, hoping your forces attack; this isn’t just a hunt for me, Miy, they’re hunting you too, and they’re not going to stop while we’re alive… They’re Warling.”

Miyan was well acquainted with the name; Warling were a group of pirates that rented themselves out to start wars and conflicts with advanced species; they would leave just enough evidence behind to indicate a group had caused or done something that would easily be considered an act of war from some nearby clan and sell to both sides as the conflicts continued and the damage intensified. Miyan had just returned from taking out a haunt in what was thought to be an abandoned asteroid field.

                Sensors picked six other teams moving in on the peaceful village of Cedir a fishing village that bordered Shavi’s favorite lake.
“Miy” Shavi started before she was cut off. “Contacting Cerim command, Havoc pylon inbound ninety seconds.” Shavi seemed shocked for a moment; havoc was a protocol used to temporarily halt riots or assist in evacuations, but Shavi wasn’t sure who else was coming, so it was better to be prepared.

There was a small commotion in the constable’s office as six men sleepily rushed from their barracks, well-armed but unaware of whom they’d be facing, when the image of Miyan appeared on a holograph in the air in front of them, an overlay of the area and telemetry of tactical information actively tracked all six teams, as command information from the orbiting security station was giving tracking information of each of the strike team members from the limited information they could gather.

A black cylinder materialized in the center of town; it was featureless and with no instrumentation on it of any kind; two pulses of blue light launched from the top of the cylinder, and the monolith went dormant.

A team of five was entering the village from the east. They consisted of two Klingon women carrying disruptor cannons and three Lethean men with morphogenic spatial charges that would instantly implicate the dominion and their settlements far away from the gamma quadrant.

“Please lower your weapons and prepare for legal detainment” the image of a human analog hologram appeared in front of the team. They fired as bolts of disruptor fire passed harmlessly through the holographic officer; six more holograms appeared surrounding the team. One of the Lethean's tried to run through the officer and received a mild but sustaining shock that incapacitated the warrior.

“P…pl…plea…please lower your weapons and prepare for legal detainment” The six holograms repeated in concert, the two Klingon women raised their cannons in surrender as the Letheans soon followed suit.

Elsewhere the teams received similar interceptions from the holographic teams; the Havoc pylon created a synthetic field of emitters that allowed a local library of holograms and barriers to choose from designed to be used primarily in scenarios of natural disasters; in this case, the monolith was modified to be well suited for defensive measures versus uncoordinated and small terrorist insurgencies.

As the strike teams opened fire, hoping for sustained resistance, the holograms shifted positions around the battlefield with no issues of line of sight of concealing and cover limitations; very real phaser lances fired from the holograms, quickly stunning and disabling the strike teams.

Miyan was coordinating the counterassault from an undisclosed location as the holograms brought the 19 conscious mercenaries to the security pavilion for processing; the seven disabled attackers were placed in medically induced status fields and transported to secure treatment facilities in one of the sub-levels of the Starport more than three thousand kilometers away.

“I’ll return to headquarters and start a file on the planet's protrusion and clear infiltration of global defenses.” Miyan started working on a recon report when Shavi stopped her. “I hate that I’ve brought you into this, Miy” Shavi moved from her seat to kneel next to her ranger. “This is just the beginning, and they won’t stop until someone is fighting someone, or someone takes them out at the source.”

“I agree, so I am going to spearhead this strike team and deal with the impression before it gets any larger.” Miyan protested as Shavi touched Miy’s soft lips. “Miy, they’re trying to start a war; the easiest way to do that is to kill a hero,” Shavi explained. “Killing me won’t be so easy given my experience with them, but…” She touched her ranger’s shoulder. “If they kill you, I will respond as they expect, and whatever happens next will involve those much larger than us.” Shavi smiled warmly. “Nothing is keeping us here; if we leave the fight, we win the war; if we stay, no one does.”

Miyan thought a moment and nodded, “So, retirement it is?” Miyan smiled. “Somehow, I think a party and a speech are missing…” She chuckled as she watched the tactical readout of other teams appearing on scanners and holograph response teams closing in on them. She knew Shavi was right, but not fighting here seemed so alien to her that it almost felt like a betrayal. “I’ll tell Jada not to try too hard to investigate our disappearance,” Shavi reassured her. Miyan nodded and tried to let the gravity of the situation sink in.

The cutpurse fighter was an Orion marvel of engineering; it was barely the size of a shuttle runabout, but it contained everything needed to sustain the pilot indefinitely; since the Orion were notoriously known as pirates, the attempt to chase them down was rarely off the table, relaxing wasn’t in the pirate’s vocabulary. This particular craft held the personal touches of a remarkably talented engineer and her team of allies; she had unlimited resources and had been working on it for more than twenty years in total. Even the shell of the fighter was modified to absorb and adapt to the type of energy used on it. The advantage of fighting and beating an enemy like the borg was the mountains of novel technologies that could be bought and sold, tech that neither the Federation nor the Klingon empire was actively researching. The Romulans had no such inhibition, and the Cerim confederacy had deep pockets.

Shavi moved the fighter into a known space flight corridor, hiding in the ion debris of the engines of a civilian freighter until they made it into cruising space.

“Any thoughts on where we should go?” Shavi looked dutifully towards the conn panel. “Something quiet outside the main space lanes, maybe Jori IX?” Shavi was familiar with the system and the planet; it was the site of a massive space battle with the Dominion and later the Elachi, with so many scavengers milling about and strangers moving unmolested through the region, sinking into a melting pot of so many cultures would have been better than the best cover Pauc could have come up with. “I couldn’t have come up with a better hideout, Miy… “Shay grinned back mischievously. “We’ll make a criminal out of you yet.” Miyan snorted in reply and was working on faking her disappearance so there wouldn’t be any breadcrumbs to follow while simultaneously making fake credentials for them to give to the authorities in the Jori region.

The Cutpurse had a mark eleven singularity drive, so it could reach the equivalent of warp 9.16 at cruise, making them forty-three hours from the system. Shavi tapped the heading into the panel, and the refined craft adjusted its heading to “naturally drift” away from the ionic trail before heading to warp.]]> <![CDATA[Maya Pt. 3]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6958 Fri, 01 Apr 2022 19:22:32 -0400 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6958
“Computer… what time is it?” The deep green sensuality of her species was evident even in her voice as the last syllable of her question lingered.

“Stardate 8 3 2 9 0.8” The computer chimed back almost musically. The holograph of the stardate floated silently in the kinetic field of the security barrier.

“Morakos?” a shrewd Romulan lieutenant named Vikos entered the security holding area of the U.S.S. ALMEIDA spoke out loud as he read from the PADD in front of him. “I’m trying to learn about the cultures of other worlds, but I don’t think I’ve heard the name before…” he questioned, taking a seat and looking into the cell.

A smile touched the corners of her lips as she let out a short huff of humor. She was lying still facing away from her interrogator as the view highlighted her loose, exposed clothing leaving little to the imagination of the appeal visible over her shapely frame.

“Pi Oranis three…” she responded without moving. “It’s a large cat-like predator; it was said to be impossible to find without technologies….” She sat up in a fluid and muscled display, her hair moved around her neck and shoulders in a controlled, almost intentional rise and fall, knowing exactly how to highlight her already tantalizing features.

Dancer’s feet were small but precise as each muscled part of her heel could easily support her large but adaptable frame. She turned on her toes to face the lieutenant as her hair fell across her shoulders and arms, making her face stand out from the shadows of the dim room.

“Even then… more than a few hunters have fallen to her charms.” Her eyes danced in the shifting security field separating them, but her delicious intentions were as evident as the field sparkling in response to the weaponized pheromones that reacted with the barrier.

He shifted in his chair, trying not to watch her display. “Clearly… So, I am Lieutenant Faun Vikos of Starfleet Security, and this interview will determine exactly how long you will be our guest.” he cleared his throat. “It says here, a Klingon, a Captain Kav’ei Mvok’Mug, accused you of insulting his honor…” he continued, a little confused by the plausibility of what he was reading next. “…by throwing him and the rest of his command crew into the airlock of their own ship.” he scrolled to the next page. “…and threatening to open it if they didn’t give you the command codes?” He finished, looking up at the disarmingly tender-looking woman.

“It’s unusual to find a pirate with so little background information on them as successful as you seem to have been….” He cleared his throat again, being somewhat disarmed by physical charms even if her chemical advantages had been neutered.
“Bio-scans mark an exposure to high theta-band radiation, something typical of those from the Mirror Universe, but there is no record of your transition,” He continued. “Which is statistically impossible, given your lack of decay markers” He stood and came close to the security field.

“You’re making me blush….” She intentionally forced amber blood into her cheeks as the contrast brought out her high cheekbones and hypnotic eyes.

While she spoke, a switch internal to her brain activated, and a hyper processor intentionally disguised until this moment started cataloging everything within her sightline. She picked up com ports and antennae relay discovering access points and proximity servers, her ability to transfix her prey made the apparent minor alterations to the tech in the room significantly less attractive.

“Under normal circumstances, the Klingons would have been within the rights of the treaty to execute you….” His word choice was intentionally triggering, as though he were trying to gain a sense of control over her. “but… Your bio-scans identify you as a Federation Diplomat…” he looked up at her.

“It’s a pleasure to be recognized, but I prefer “Effective Host.” She smiled as the amber in her cheeks moved in slow rhythmic patterns along her jawline and lips. Internally she was accessing the security console in his PADD to tap into the field controls while the internal circuitry of her implant was sending data bursts to an autonomous interceptor cloaked just outside the deflector shields of the intrepid class cruiser.

“Which you clearly are not…” he seemed confident in his ability over her now. “But no one thought to mark the alteration in federation records, so naturally… here I am….” His smug attitude was growing.

“This may come as a shock to only you at this point, lieutenant.” she crouched down until they were at eye level as she gained access to the control he thought had been locked. “You aren’t the only one with intelligence bureaus,” She smiled as her eyes got more stern and penetrating. “You’re not even close to the best.”

She clicked her tongue as the field powered down around her. “If only you had been paying attention…” she brought her forehead into solid connection with his, stunning him and knocking him away from the security dais. She dropped off the platform and brought a knee up into his solar plexus, crashing him into the evidence table behind him as he fumbled for his phaser.

D’ena lifted a chair, preparing to finish him as a Cardassian transporter beam surrounded her body. Vikos pulled his phaser and fired it three times at nothing but air, he called out for help, but his prisoner was gone.

The Interceptor remained cloaked as it went to warp within seconds of D’ena materializing in the equipment bay. She brought the chair still in her hands down on the reinforced aluminum bulkhead of the carpeted floor.

“Mistress,” a familiar voice called out over the intercom. “It is good to have you with us once more.” Her autonomous tactical officer named himself Oh’bot. “If you would care to freshen up, I have taken the liberty of drawing you a bath.” he finished.

“Two more seconds, Oh… just two more seconds….” D’ena grimaced as she grumbled, walking to the bar for her typical shot of Klingon blood rot she used to toast every successful mission.

“Apologies, Mistress, the tactical computer of the Almeida had detected your circumvention of the security protocol and was about to activate a transport inhibitor, two more seconds, and you would still be on their ship,” Oh’bot responded matter of factly.

20 hours later…

“Mistress…” The intercom crackled to life.

“We’re not hitting freehold on the way back. Oh… you can see your Holo in the suites like everyone else….” D’ena called out from her bed, clearly not wanting to be disturbed.

“Comforting…” Her friend and holographic confidant returned, somewhat confused for a moment. “The, I.K.S. Khellian is decloaking 300 million kilometers to our port side,” Oh’bot continued as D’ena rolled out of bed, scrambling for her PADD. “Similarly, The U.S.S. McKenna is making its way into this system. Both seem to be sending out tachyon pulse beacons, eleven to be precise, none of which can scan us at this range….” The E.H.T. in him continued expertly said as he materialized in D’ena’s quarters. “It’s pretty obvious they don’t want the other hiding,” He finished.

“Start scanning frequencies and see if you can track the harmonics of the tachyon pulses and adjust shields to match,” D’ena called out as she turned on the sonic shower with her panic faded.
“Mistress… they are emitting a general hail,” Oh’bot replied
“Main comm…” D’ena noted.

“To any Cerim Confederation vessels patrolling the border of confederacy space, we request an audience to discuss the respected sovereignty of our mutual borders. Please respond on frequency 279.441 megahertz.” The message was repeated every 120 seconds.

“Mistress, we are 1.7 hours cruising speed from the Cerim border; it is likely information shared between attachés, and the pursuing alliance will implicate our involvement before we cross into Cerim space. He confirmed. “The proximity defense marker in the Dilithium interchange relay will make any attempts to hide from the Cerim Reactionary Force futile.
“Well, the honeymoon phase couldn’t last forever, right? Punch it up to warp eight and get us to Cerim D2 Perimeter station.” D’ena resigned as the ship went into warp. “We can’t fight the Feds on our own….” D’ena put her hair back in a ponytail and sighed with disappointment. She walked back to her quarters, starting the sonic shower and disrobing before the door shut. “Time to face the music….” Her voice trailed as she tried to fake a smile.

“E.T.A. 35 minutes.” Oh’bot returned over the intercom.

…
Jada was busy with more than two dozen trading disputes in different levels of arbitration all over her desk as one of her Gorn valets entered with a gentle knock on the door. His name was Vu’lag. He was pushing 2.8 meters, and he was aware his secondary responsibility besides taking calls for the senator was to be the one that would stand in the way of a sniper’s shot. The expectation was the same for anyone in his position, but it was what he expected and looked forward to.

“Madam Senator” His deep, graveled voice resonated clearly through the large office. “You have a priority three call from a Captain Meekis…” he was cut off.

“He’s not getting a dreadnought, how ma—” she was cut off in return.

“They’re hunting Morakos.” His voice hung as she didn’t have any kind of a response to that.

She straightened her tunic and cleared her throat. “Bring it up in here….”

A shorter than average yellow and blue Andorian materialized as a holograph in front of her with a Federation and Klingon ambassador standing behind him. The Andorian was clearly showing signs of his age, nearly 158 by human standards, Jada would have guessed.

He was a good officer, one of Jasen’s command crew on his first ship, the Dauntless. Now, however, he was getting pushy, claiming he needed a dreadnought as a show of force to hold off the pirate raids in his patrol route. What he really wanted was the experience on the behemoth so he could make a push for praetor.

“Madam President,” He started using her official title as president of the senate. “I’m afraid I do not come on pleasant tidings from the border….” He continued.
“Grumen,” she interrupted her officer and spoke directly to the Klingon Ambassador that she had known for years. “I am up to my spots in arbitration with your colonies. What in Sto’vak’or is going on?” She seemed considerably less than agreeable.

“If this could be avoided, I wouldn’t have even taken the call from this pa’taq fed dog that couldn’t hold on to a simple girl we handed to them on a silver plate.” Grumen was a good man; he was the first to stand up and approve of the Cerim’s independence from Klingon space.

“If you have scanned her and checked for implants, she wouldn’t—” Counselor Braddock protested before Jada cut him off.

“You both went through considerable time and effort to reach me; if you would rather have a conversation by yourself, I’ll happily leave your choice, but you called me, so keep your tunics on and tell me what’s going on.” She directed both men. “Meekis, thanks for the arbitration; I have a feeling what this is about; I’ll talk to you in a moment.” He nodded, and his holograph vanished.

“Jada, as you probably have guessed, Morakos took the Ha’qut, a relay science ship in the Nukara sector,” He continued. “She beamed Perizine into the ventilation system and knocked out 90% of the crew. They woke up bound in the cargo bay.”
Jada, in all her experience, knew how to hide a visible smile when she agreed with what someone had done, even if it were underhanded if they did it to even the odds, but Grumen was just as impressed and wouldn’t have come this far if she hadn’t been caught. “She then took the command crew and put them into the airlock demanding the access codes for the main relay.” He probed.

“The suspect’d get the death sentence in minutes on Romulus or Qo’nos, and once we were aware that the breach happened, we used an ionic pulse to incapacitate everyone on board, we got er,’ but we don’t know exactly how much she got before we closed the port.” He looked over to the federation ambassador.

“She’d already been dead, but a bio-scan marked her as a diplomat, so the feds were on the line for it.” He grumbled as the federation diplomat began speaking.

“I appreciate the Klingon’s show of restraint as per the treaty, but when were received the Orion pirate.” He replied vainly, “She was quite disarmed; several scans showed no weapons or devices; we needed to know what she had access to and obviously shared the breach of information with our colleagues.”

“This isn’t the first time I’d had to deal with an idiotic federation officer.” She glared at the ambassador and intimidated him to resist the urge to interrupt. “But it is the first time I’ve heard the federation admit they were open to spying on an ally.” She smiled at the brash Klingon.

“They just don’t make ambassadors as smart as they used to, do they?” Grumen laughed in response as she turned her attention back to Braddock.

“I have the report… and as I see it, if you had waited for a Klingon security team as was your responsibility, she would likely still be in your custody….” She cut him off before he could speak. “I’ll be filing a complaint against Federation command, placing a 2% tariff on all imports from federation space, and requesting your disbarment from the diplomatic corps.” She smiled openly. “I don’t mind that you’re incompetent, Braddock; I mind that you thought it would get you sympathy….” Jada growled. “If you’d like to take this up with your superiors, I would, but understand if they don’t do everything, I just said this convo’s going to flood subspace that the federation was caught… spying.” She finished.

Ambassador Braddock stood at attention as he was being railed, and his mouth went agape when he heard the consequence, just before Jada cut off his side of the call.

“Brother… I don’t envy the convo you will have with High Command, but I would ask you don’t go to war over the federation getting nothing for their efforts.” She pressed against the bridge of her nose. “We have an idea where she is; I’ll retrieve the info on the breach and mark it with a diplomatic cipher per your biometrics….” Jada looked up at her old combat ally. “Why can’t “peaceful” people just leave well enough alone?” They chuckled as Grumen joined in, having watched the young Trill devastate his counterpart without so much as a threat to his family.

“I don’t expect the alliance will last too much longer, too much blood and resentment on both sides, sister….” Grumen remarked, checking a device on his table. I’m sure you have much to do, as do I… Qa’Pla!” He beat his chest and dematerialized, leaving her office empty again save for her Gorn valet.

“Why can’t I just have one day without someone threatening to declare war on the other Vu’?” she smiled and sank back into her chair. “Get Meekis back up, would you, hon?”
The Andorian appeared again alone this time.

“Madam president…” he returned respectfully.

“Meek, get the fourth legion on alert and run an audit on the patrol relay system.” She authorized the actions while they spoke. “When Morakos surfaces, we need to talk to her, and I check P2; her double is still there, so I imagine she won’t be far behind.” She smiled and nodded to the captain. “Thanks for roping me in on this one… Jada out…” The Trill senator closed the call and shook her head, eventually turning to her valet.

“Pauc might want to be there when Mora arrives, make sure he is… and send him my love….” She grinned, thinking of her husband, the most effective spy she knew.
“Senator…” he smiled and left her office…

…

The Interceptor approached the border and dropped its cloak.
“Incoming hail from border patrol,” Oh’bot called out.
“On screen…” D’ena shrugged and took a seat.
The image of a mildly annoyed Klingon in a star fleet uniform signaled a series of commands in his console. The Interceptor reacted as though he were accessing the controls from there.

“I have been asked to escort you personally to the hospital wing of the P2 commander.” The Klingon asked nonchalantly.

“No offense, Lieutenant, I don’t think it’s realistic for you to take command of my ship for the next 22 light-years. I know the way; I’ll be fine on my own,” D’ena responded as she noticed a dreadnought command ship drop out of warp six kilometers off the port bow.
“Oh, this comes directly from Cerim Command; it’s no trouble….” The lieutenant responded.

D’ena watched as The Command Warbird C.V.C. Saemna came out of warp twenty kilometers off the starboard side of the Interceptor. The vessel’s entire length was shrouded behind bright pulses of white and blue light from six orbiting nacelles that made up the housing of a massive singularity warp bubble between the four equally spaced heavy wings of the dreadnought vessel. Oh’Bot seemed concerned as the monolithic wall separated from the surrounding hull to reveal a massive bay door and gargantuan cargo bay internal to the ship.

“Sub-commander Morakos, this is P2 Trans warp tunnel; please prepare for the jump.” A different voice came in over the comm, presumably from a Heavy Waystation 22 light-years, an entire sector away. D’ena watched in shock as the Interceptor was led into a kilometer-wide tunnel internal to the ship’s superstructure.

D’ena barely had a moment to react before the internal cabin of the small bridge filled with a blue-white light. The tunnel in front of her vanished into a void of negative energy extending around the small vessel, causing the entire frame of the small combat dropship to dematerialize and disappear into a brief flash of light. The nacelles released a coherent beam of energy in the station’s direction and then returned to the placid blue of typical star fleet arrays.

The next moment D’ena could recall, she saw the station that housed the entire surface of one of the smaller moons orbiting the Gas Giant Y’herim three, a significant Dilithium mine that gave the Cerim confederacy their considerable influence over the quadrant.

From trading vessels to military escorts, more than one thousand ships teemed in and out of the light coming from behind her ship. The waystation was designed as a defensive structure, but over time it had become something of a nexus to the development of the confederacy, making it one of the most critical strongholds of the region.

A tall Bajoran materialized on the bridge as D’ena was still coming out of her shock. “Welcome to P2 Commander; my name is Vice-Praetor Abbott. I am the captain of the command carrier Foundation on behalf of the Cerim Confederacy. Welcome to P2.” He smiled genuinely though his intentions were not amicable in nature. D’ena stood and saluted as soon as she was able. He nodded and saluted in return before continuing.

“I hear there is a bit of a situation that needs intent discretion. High Moon Pauc has requested you join him at berthing in the shuttle bay A-981.” Abbott smiled and nodded as he looked to someone obviously not within the direct line of the broadcasting and vanished without a second thought.

She nodded as Oh’bot tentatively nodded in agreement as the Interceptor left the berthing area of the command ship and moved at quarter impulse the one hundred kilometers to the exterior of the closest habitat ring.

D’ena wasn’t aware of any technology that could cross so much distance instantaneously, and Transwarp, while an excellent concept, never seemed to work as advertised.

An authentication request came through over the central command console. As Oh’bot activated the credentials of the ship and its crew, a green pulse of approval shimmered and vanished as sensors indicated a previously undetected barrier of energy only a few meters in front of the ship...

The Interceptor moved to a port on the lee side of the central trading hub on autopilot. The ship passed through the barrier and transported the entire vessel into a very different part of P2. The planet’s interior resembled a floating city over a sea a thousand kilometers in diameter.

The ship dropped into a submersible bay well below the lake’s surface. Coral reefs beautifully detailed the delicate architecture of the subterranean ecosystem; as the Interceptor reached a particular depth, the reef expanded quickly to surround the vessel. D’ena and Oh’bot watched as the reef solidified and then pulled back from the ship’s exterior, forming walls of warm silicate and protein until it resembled a well-apportioned shuttle bay.

The water was displaced by air pressure and left a dry, durable caste of a manufactured coral cave.

The doors of the Interceptor dematerialized, and four armed soldiers were transported into the silicate bay. D’ena shook her head as Oh’bot pulled his phase repeater from the holster that materialized over his thigh. She stepped out of the ship as the four soldiers rose their weapons to meet her and her photonic ally. They must have had some internal communication as they paused for a moment and finally lowered their weapons. D’ena rose her hands in surrender.

“Welcome, Morakos…” A voice echoes in from hidden speakers assumptively built into the walls. “Please forgive the theatrics… we aren’t the only people watching, and they are not all allies.” The familiar voice of the Spymaster “High Moon” Pauc Besin, a Romulan telepath and one of the most dangerous allies of the Cerim resistance, now the Cerim confederacy.

“I was expecting something like this Pauc, but P2 is not nearly as predictable as I first thought, and I think that is by design,” D’ena replied, lowering her arms, moving with the escort to a larger room just off the bay’s entrance.

“We’ve detected a rather sizable concentration of Terran insurgents, they’re a lot smarter than the federation gave them credit for, so we’re not taking chances,” Pauc responded. “You know this better than most, but we’ll talk about that when you’ve had a chance to freshen up.”

In the interior, the four soldiers came to a halt just on the other side of the door as the coral walls grew and hardened over the entrance to the shuttle bay.
The four seemed to be conversing, but there was no sound outside of their helmets as they saluted and dematerialized in a flash of light, leaving D’ena and Oh’ Bot alone in a large room absent of anything resembling furnishings or comfort.

D’ena pulled a tricorder from her belt and ensured they were alone before she finally let out a long sigh.

“I assume this is about as secure as we’re gonna find until they decide what they’re going to do with me.” She was sure some kind of example would be required for the ailing Klingon empire, or the federation would be satisfied, but that didn’t mean that the Cerim government would let a successful asset simply endure whatever punishment was next.

“Computer…” Oh’bot called out. “Please furnish the room in the style of Griumkar estate, care of file Morakos beta-6,” Oh’bot finished.

A sound of acknowledgment came from the computer as the walls and floors of the room changed rather dramatically to match that of D’ena’s home on Almiga, a lifetime and a universe away.

The suite was equipped with jamming sensors and system interference buffers that made unauthorized entry or internal detection impossible from outside the knowledge and authorization of the suite’s owner. Here, they wouldn’t be able to leave, but they wouldn’t have anyone else listening in either.

D’ena smiled at her digital companion as she moved to sit on one of the lounging sofas that had appeared throughout the room. Almiga was a very wealthy planet in the Terran Empire. Its dignitaries had specific tastes and needs more modest planets didn’t have, so the room was covered in rich fabrics known as conflict fabrics due to the people being in extreme poverty or subjugation.

Flowing fountains gave the room the consistent smell of Ji’ana Spice, a rich aphrodisiac that no longer existed in the prime universe. The scents were derived from Maya’s private collection and provided quite a market among the Ferengi and Cardassian merchant collectives. Even the federation had come to appreciate this unique scent as the invasive species was perhaps one of the rarest naturally occurring flowers in existence.

The room was a holographic suite/safe house explicitly designed for the needs of whoever would use it from patron to patron; this was a prime showroom to some or a heavenly vacation for others; holosuites had improved in every way since they first came into popularity in the 2370s. Forty years later, suites could mimic any person, sensation, or experience the patron wanted, and specific aspects of those suites could travel away from the suites enhancing the immersion of so many.

“Computer… Activate Carbon to Photonic Avatar series Mark III - Morakos-Delta-38.” A perfect replica of a D’ena appeared in the room as the living D’ena’s optical sensors flashed and went to sleep on the sofa without another word leaving the avatar entirely in control of D’ena’s sense, it would all still register in the live version’s mind, but the digital avatar would be the one experiencing it.

“Time to do what we came here to do,” she winked at Oh’ Bot as they both vanished from the room, appearing in the medical wing of the exterior habitat ring located more than 1100 kilometers from where they were only a moment before.

D’ena walked through the promenade outside the main hospital, security trackers internal to the waystation would be able to tell that she was a digital avatar, but external detection systems would not. She and Oh’Bot walked into the main foyer of the waiting room. D’ena placed her hand on the biometric scanner as the system acknowledged her identity and transported them to a spacious medical room located somewhere else on the station, deep in a security wing of the defense sector.

In the bed on the far side of the room, Maya lay in a deep coma with her body and mind in stasis. The machines keeping her alive had to reduce her mental stress, so an approximate holograph wouldn’t be possible for her in this state. D’ena touched the side of the isolation bed. Maya’s vitals hadn’t improved since that day two years ago.

Doctor Huri, the original Ferengi that treated her on the Vetyl, walked into the room silently, watching the two from a private distance. Oh’bot was standing next to the door nodding to the doctor with a smile.

D’ena could hear the interruption and turned to see her friend; she turned and walked to embrace him warmly a few paces away from the bed.

“How is she, Doc?” D’ena asked timidly.

“The nightmares have stopped, and the phasing in her legs has been circumvented, but so far, no improvement…” his high pitch was harder to hear in the large room. “But…” he walked to the bed. “Her body is determined not to let her die, and outside of her electrospinal cord malfunctions, there is nothing wrong with her.” He continued. “Then again, that has been the problem all along, hasn’t it?” he was speaking out loud, not blaming her but frustrated; all the same, he couldn’t fix it.

“Without understanding the tech in the implant, we can’t turn it off without killing her, D’” He was the only one she had told her real name to, and as far as she knew, no one else in the prime universe had any idea.

“I got the name and location of the designer, doc…” she said hopefully. “As soon as the blowback…” she stopped short.

“I know, kid… leave it with the nurse; I’ll make sure no one knows you got it to me….” He said reassuringly.

“Thanks, doc…” A tear slipped down her green cheek as she held back outright sobbing as the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in.

“Oh, gods…” she mumbled as Oh’ Bot moved to embrace her, and she lost all composure.

The intercom interrupted them:

“At your convenience Doctor Huri, Morakos is needed in the council hall.” A passionless computer interface chirped and then went silent again.

D’ena nodded and hugged Huri again before Oh’bot sent a file to the nurse’s station, and they both blinked away in a flash of light from the transporters.]]>
“Computer… what time is it?” The deep green sensuality of her species was evident even in her voice as the last syllable of her question lingered.

“Stardate 8 3 2 9 0.8” The computer chimed back almost musically. The holograph of the stardate floated silently in the kinetic field of the security barrier.

“Morakos?” a shrewd Romulan lieutenant named Vikos entered the security holding area of the U.S.S. ALMEIDA spoke out loud as he read from the PADD in front of him. “I’m trying to learn about the cultures of other worlds, but I don’t think I’ve heard the name before…” he questioned, taking a seat and looking into the cell.

A smile touched the corners of her lips as she let out a short huff of humor. She was lying still facing away from her interrogator as the view highlighted her loose, exposed clothing leaving little to the imagination of the appeal visible over her shapely frame.

“Pi Oranis three…” she responded without moving. “It’s a large cat-like predator; it was said to be impossible to find without technologies….” She sat up in a fluid and muscled display, her hair moved around her neck and shoulders in a controlled, almost intentional rise and fall, knowing exactly how to highlight her already tantalizing features.

Dancer’s feet were small but precise as each muscled part of her heel could easily support her large but adaptable frame. She turned on her toes to face the lieutenant as her hair fell across her shoulders and arms, making her face stand out from the shadows of the dim room.

“Even then… more than a few hunters have fallen to her charms.” Her eyes danced in the shifting security field separating them, but her delicious intentions were as evident as the field sparkling in response to the weaponized pheromones that reacted with the barrier.

He shifted in his chair, trying not to watch her display. “Clearly… So, I am Lieutenant Faun Vikos of Starfleet Security, and this interview will determine exactly how long you will be our guest.” he cleared his throat. “It says here, a Klingon, a Captain Kav’ei Mvok’Mug, accused you of insulting his honor…” he continued, a little confused by the plausibility of what he was reading next. “…by throwing him and the rest of his command crew into the airlock of their own ship.” he scrolled to the next page. “…and threatening to open it if they didn’t give you the command codes?” He finished, looking up at the disarmingly tender-looking woman.

“It’s unusual to find a pirate with so little background information on them as successful as you seem to have been….” He cleared his throat again, being somewhat disarmed by physical charms even if her chemical advantages had been neutered.
“Bio-scans mark an exposure to high theta-band radiation, something typical of those from the Mirror Universe, but there is no record of your transition,” He continued. “Which is statistically impossible, given your lack of decay markers” He stood and came close to the security field.

“You’re making me blush….” She intentionally forced amber blood into her cheeks as the contrast brought out her high cheekbones and hypnotic eyes.

While she spoke, a switch internal to her brain activated, and a hyper processor intentionally disguised until this moment started cataloging everything within her sightline. She picked up com ports and antennae relay discovering access points and proximity servers, her ability to transfix her prey made the apparent minor alterations to the tech in the room significantly less attractive.

“Under normal circumstances, the Klingons would have been within the rights of the treaty to execute you….” His word choice was intentionally triggering, as though he were trying to gain a sense of control over her. “but… Your bio-scans identify you as a Federation Diplomat…” he looked up at her.

“It’s a pleasure to be recognized, but I prefer “Effective Host.” She smiled as the amber in her cheeks moved in slow rhythmic patterns along her jawline and lips. Internally she was accessing the security console in his PADD to tap into the field controls while the internal circuitry of her implant was sending data bursts to an autonomous interceptor cloaked just outside the deflector shields of the intrepid class cruiser.

“Which you clearly are not…” he seemed confident in his ability over her now. “But no one thought to mark the alteration in federation records, so naturally… here I am….” His smug attitude was growing.

“This may come as a shock to only you at this point, lieutenant.” she crouched down until they were at eye level as she gained access to the control he thought had been locked. “You aren’t the only one with intelligence bureaus,” She smiled as her eyes got more stern and penetrating. “You’re not even close to the best.”

She clicked her tongue as the field powered down around her. “If only you had been paying attention…” she brought her forehead into solid connection with his, stunning him and knocking him away from the security dais. She dropped off the platform and brought a knee up into his solar plexus, crashing him into the evidence table behind him as he fumbled for his phaser.

D’ena lifted a chair, preparing to finish him as a Cardassian transporter beam surrounded her body. Vikos pulled his phaser and fired it three times at nothing but air, he called out for help, but his prisoner was gone.

The Interceptor remained cloaked as it went to warp within seconds of D’ena materializing in the equipment bay. She brought the chair still in her hands down on the reinforced aluminum bulkhead of the carpeted floor.

“Mistress,” a familiar voice called out over the intercom. “It is good to have you with us once more.” Her autonomous tactical officer named himself Oh’bot. “If you would care to freshen up, I have taken the liberty of drawing you a bath.” he finished.

“Two more seconds, Oh… just two more seconds….” D’ena grimaced as she grumbled, walking to the bar for her typical shot of Klingon blood rot she used to toast every successful mission.

“Apologies, Mistress, the tactical computer of the Almeida had detected your circumvention of the security protocol and was about to activate a transport inhibitor, two more seconds, and you would still be on their ship,” Oh’bot responded matter of factly.

20 hours later…

“Mistress…” The intercom crackled to life.

“We’re not hitting freehold on the way back. Oh… you can see your Holo in the suites like everyone else….” D’ena called out from her bed, clearly not wanting to be disturbed.

“Comforting…” Her friend and holographic confidant returned, somewhat confused for a moment. “The, I.K.S. Khellian is decloaking 300 million kilometers to our port side,” Oh’bot continued as D’ena rolled out of bed, scrambling for her PADD. “Similarly, The U.S.S. McKenna is making its way into this system. Both seem to be sending out tachyon pulse beacons, eleven to be precise, none of which can scan us at this range….” The E.H.T. in him continued expertly said as he materialized in D’ena’s quarters. “It’s pretty obvious they don’t want the other hiding,” He finished.

“Start scanning frequencies and see if you can track the harmonics of the tachyon pulses and adjust shields to match,” D’ena called out as she turned on the sonic shower with her panic faded.
“Mistress… they are emitting a general hail,” Oh’bot replied
“Main comm…” D’ena noted.

“To any Cerim Confederation vessels patrolling the border of confederacy space, we request an audience to discuss the respected sovereignty of our mutual borders. Please respond on frequency 279.441 megahertz.” The message was repeated every 120 seconds.

“Mistress, we are 1.7 hours cruising speed from the Cerim border; it is likely information shared between attachés, and the pursuing alliance will implicate our involvement before we cross into Cerim space. He confirmed. “The proximity defense marker in the Dilithium interchange relay will make any attempts to hide from the Cerim Reactionary Force futile.
“Well, the honeymoon phase couldn’t last forever, right? Punch it up to warp eight and get us to Cerim D2 Perimeter station.” D’ena resigned as the ship went into warp. “We can’t fight the Feds on our own….” D’ena put her hair back in a ponytail and sighed with disappointment. She walked back to her quarters, starting the sonic shower and disrobing before the door shut. “Time to face the music….” Her voice trailed as she tried to fake a smile.

“E.T.A. 35 minutes.” Oh’bot returned over the intercom.

…
Jada was busy with more than two dozen trading disputes in different levels of arbitration all over her desk as one of her Gorn valets entered with a gentle knock on the door. His name was Vu’lag. He was pushing 2.8 meters, and he was aware his secondary responsibility besides taking calls for the senator was to be the one that would stand in the way of a sniper’s shot. The expectation was the same for anyone in his position, but it was what he expected and looked forward to.

“Madam Senator” His deep, graveled voice resonated clearly through the large office. “You have a priority three call from a Captain Meekis…” he was cut off.

“He’s not getting a dreadnought, how ma—” she was cut off in return.

“They’re hunting Morakos.” His voice hung as she didn’t have any kind of a response to that.

She straightened her tunic and cleared her throat. “Bring it up in here….”

A shorter than average yellow and blue Andorian materialized as a holograph in front of her with a Federation and Klingon ambassador standing behind him. The Andorian was clearly showing signs of his age, nearly 158 by human standards, Jada would have guessed.

He was a good officer, one of Jasen’s command crew on his first ship, the Dauntless. Now, however, he was getting pushy, claiming he needed a dreadnought as a show of force to hold off the pirate raids in his patrol route. What he really wanted was the experience on the behemoth so he could make a push for praetor.

“Madam President,” He started using her official title as president of the senate. “I’m afraid I do not come on pleasant tidings from the border….” He continued.
“Grumen,” she interrupted her officer and spoke directly to the Klingon Ambassador that she had known for years. “I am up to my spots in arbitration with your colonies. What in Sto’vak’or is going on?” She seemed considerably less than agreeable.

“If this could be avoided, I wouldn’t have even taken the call from this pa’taq fed dog that couldn’t hold on to a simple girl we handed to them on a silver plate.” Grumen was a good man; he was the first to stand up and approve of the Cerim’s independence from Klingon space.

“If you have scanned her and checked for implants, she wouldn’t—” Counselor Braddock protested before Jada cut him off.

“You both went through considerable time and effort to reach me; if you would rather have a conversation by yourself, I’ll happily leave your choice, but you called me, so keep your tunics on and tell me what’s going on.” She directed both men. “Meekis, thanks for the arbitration; I have a feeling what this is about; I’ll talk to you in a moment.” He nodded, and his holograph vanished.

“Jada, as you probably have guessed, Morakos took the Ha’qut, a relay science ship in the Nukara sector,” He continued. “She beamed Perizine into the ventilation system and knocked out 90% of the crew. They woke up bound in the cargo bay.”
Jada, in all her experience, knew how to hide a visible smile when she agreed with what someone had done, even if it were underhanded if they did it to even the odds, but Grumen was just as impressed and wouldn’t have come this far if she hadn’t been caught. “She then took the command crew and put them into the airlock demanding the access codes for the main relay.” He probed.

“The suspect’d get the death sentence in minutes on Romulus or Qo’nos, and once we were aware that the breach happened, we used an ionic pulse to incapacitate everyone on board, we got er,’ but we don’t know exactly how much she got before we closed the port.” He looked over to the federation ambassador.

“She’d already been dead, but a bio-scan marked her as a diplomat, so the feds were on the line for it.” He grumbled as the federation diplomat began speaking.

“I appreciate the Klingon’s show of restraint as per the treaty, but when were received the Orion pirate.” He replied vainly, “She was quite disarmed; several scans showed no weapons or devices; we needed to know what she had access to and obviously shared the breach of information with our colleagues.”

“This isn’t the first time I’d had to deal with an idiotic federation officer.” She glared at the ambassador and intimidated him to resist the urge to interrupt. “But it is the first time I’ve heard the federation admit they were open to spying on an ally.” She smiled at the brash Klingon.

“They just don’t make ambassadors as smart as they used to, do they?” Grumen laughed in response as she turned her attention back to Braddock.

“I have the report… and as I see it, if you had waited for a Klingon security team as was your responsibility, she would likely still be in your custody….” She cut him off before he could speak. “I’ll be filing a complaint against Federation command, placing a 2% tariff on all imports from federation space, and requesting your disbarment from the diplomatic corps.” She smiled openly. “I don’t mind that you’re incompetent, Braddock; I mind that you thought it would get you sympathy….” Jada growled. “If you’d like to take this up with your superiors, I would, but understand if they don’t do everything, I just said this convo’s going to flood subspace that the federation was caught… spying.” She finished.

Ambassador Braddock stood at attention as he was being railed, and his mouth went agape when he heard the consequence, just before Jada cut off his side of the call.

“Brother… I don’t envy the convo you will have with High Command, but I would ask you don’t go to war over the federation getting nothing for their efforts.” She pressed against the bridge of her nose. “We have an idea where she is; I’ll retrieve the info on the breach and mark it with a diplomatic cipher per your biometrics….” Jada looked up at her old combat ally. “Why can’t “peaceful” people just leave well enough alone?” They chuckled as Grumen joined in, having watched the young Trill devastate his counterpart without so much as a threat to his family.

“I don’t expect the alliance will last too much longer, too much blood and resentment on both sides, sister….” Grumen remarked, checking a device on his table. I’m sure you have much to do, as do I… Qa’Pla!” He beat his chest and dematerialized, leaving her office empty again save for her Gorn valet.

“Why can’t I just have one day without someone threatening to declare war on the other Vu’?” she smiled and sank back into her chair. “Get Meekis back up, would you, hon?”
The Andorian appeared again alone this time.

“Madam president…” he returned respectfully.

“Meek, get the fourth legion on alert and run an audit on the patrol relay system.” She authorized the actions while they spoke. “When Morakos surfaces, we need to talk to her, and I check P2; her double is still there, so I imagine she won’t be far behind.” She smiled and nodded to the captain. “Thanks for roping me in on this one… Jada out…” The Trill senator closed the call and shook her head, eventually turning to her valet.

“Pauc might want to be there when Mora arrives, make sure he is… and send him my love….” She grinned, thinking of her husband, the most effective spy she knew.
“Senator…” he smiled and left her office…

…

The Interceptor approached the border and dropped its cloak.
“Incoming hail from border patrol,” Oh’bot called out.
“On screen…” D’ena shrugged and took a seat.
The image of a mildly annoyed Klingon in a star fleet uniform signaled a series of commands in his console. The Interceptor reacted as though he were accessing the controls from there.

“I have been asked to escort you personally to the hospital wing of the P2 commander.” The Klingon asked nonchalantly.

“No offense, Lieutenant, I don’t think it’s realistic for you to take command of my ship for the next 22 light-years. I know the way; I’ll be fine on my own,” D’ena responded as she noticed a dreadnought command ship drop out of warp six kilometers off the port bow.
“Oh, this comes directly from Cerim Command; it’s no trouble….” The lieutenant responded.

D’ena watched as The Command Warbird C.V.C. Saemna came out of warp twenty kilometers off the starboard side of the Interceptor. The vessel’s entire length was shrouded behind bright pulses of white and blue light from six orbiting nacelles that made up the housing of a massive singularity warp bubble between the four equally spaced heavy wings of the dreadnought vessel. Oh’Bot seemed concerned as the monolithic wall separated from the surrounding hull to reveal a massive bay door and gargantuan cargo bay internal to the ship.

“Sub-commander Morakos, this is P2 Trans warp tunnel; please prepare for the jump.” A different voice came in over the comm, presumably from a Heavy Waystation 22 light-years, an entire sector away. D’ena watched in shock as the Interceptor was led into a kilometer-wide tunnel internal to the ship’s superstructure.

D’ena barely had a moment to react before the internal cabin of the small bridge filled with a blue-white light. The tunnel in front of her vanished into a void of negative energy extending around the small vessel, causing the entire frame of the small combat dropship to dematerialize and disappear into a brief flash of light. The nacelles released a coherent beam of energy in the station’s direction and then returned to the placid blue of typical star fleet arrays.

The next moment D’ena could recall, she saw the station that housed the entire surface of one of the smaller moons orbiting the Gas Giant Y’herim three, a significant Dilithium mine that gave the Cerim confederacy their considerable influence over the quadrant.

From trading vessels to military escorts, more than one thousand ships teemed in and out of the light coming from behind her ship. The waystation was designed as a defensive structure, but over time it had become something of a nexus to the development of the confederacy, making it one of the most critical strongholds of the region.

A tall Bajoran materialized on the bridge as D’ena was still coming out of her shock. “Welcome to P2 Commander; my name is Vice-Praetor Abbott. I am the captain of the command carrier Foundation on behalf of the Cerim Confederacy. Welcome to P2.” He smiled genuinely though his intentions were not amicable in nature. D’ena stood and saluted as soon as she was able. He nodded and saluted in return before continuing.

“I hear there is a bit of a situation that needs intent discretion. High Moon Pauc has requested you join him at berthing in the shuttle bay A-981.” Abbott smiled and nodded as he looked to someone obviously not within the direct line of the broadcasting and vanished without a second thought.

She nodded as Oh’bot tentatively nodded in agreement as the Interceptor left the berthing area of the command ship and moved at quarter impulse the one hundred kilometers to the exterior of the closest habitat ring.

D’ena wasn’t aware of any technology that could cross so much distance instantaneously, and Transwarp, while an excellent concept, never seemed to work as advertised.

An authentication request came through over the central command console. As Oh’bot activated the credentials of the ship and its crew, a green pulse of approval shimmered and vanished as sensors indicated a previously undetected barrier of energy only a few meters in front of the ship...

The Interceptor moved to a port on the lee side of the central trading hub on autopilot. The ship passed through the barrier and transported the entire vessel into a very different part of P2. The planet’s interior resembled a floating city over a sea a thousand kilometers in diameter.

The ship dropped into a submersible bay well below the lake’s surface. Coral reefs beautifully detailed the delicate architecture of the subterranean ecosystem; as the Interceptor reached a particular depth, the reef expanded quickly to surround the vessel. D’ena and Oh’bot watched as the reef solidified and then pulled back from the ship’s exterior, forming walls of warm silicate and protein until it resembled a well-apportioned shuttle bay.

The water was displaced by air pressure and left a dry, durable caste of a manufactured coral cave.

The doors of the Interceptor dematerialized, and four armed soldiers were transported into the silicate bay. D’ena shook her head as Oh’bot pulled his phase repeater from the holster that materialized over his thigh. She stepped out of the ship as the four soldiers rose their weapons to meet her and her photonic ally. They must have had some internal communication as they paused for a moment and finally lowered their weapons. D’ena rose her hands in surrender.

“Welcome, Morakos…” A voice echoes in from hidden speakers assumptively built into the walls. “Please forgive the theatrics… we aren’t the only people watching, and they are not all allies.” The familiar voice of the Spymaster “High Moon” Pauc Besin, a Romulan telepath and one of the most dangerous allies of the Cerim resistance, now the Cerim confederacy.

“I was expecting something like this Pauc, but P2 is not nearly as predictable as I first thought, and I think that is by design,” D’ena replied, lowering her arms, moving with the escort to a larger room just off the bay’s entrance.

“We’ve detected a rather sizable concentration of Terran insurgents, they’re a lot smarter than the federation gave them credit for, so we’re not taking chances,” Pauc responded. “You know this better than most, but we’ll talk about that when you’ve had a chance to freshen up.”

In the interior, the four soldiers came to a halt just on the other side of the door as the coral walls grew and hardened over the entrance to the shuttle bay.
The four seemed to be conversing, but there was no sound outside of their helmets as they saluted and dematerialized in a flash of light, leaving D’ena and Oh’ Bot alone in a large room absent of anything resembling furnishings or comfort.

D’ena pulled a tricorder from her belt and ensured they were alone before she finally let out a long sigh.

“I assume this is about as secure as we’re gonna find until they decide what they’re going to do with me.” She was sure some kind of example would be required for the ailing Klingon empire, or the federation would be satisfied, but that didn’t mean that the Cerim government would let a successful asset simply endure whatever punishment was next.

“Computer…” Oh’bot called out. “Please furnish the room in the style of Griumkar estate, care of file Morakos beta-6,” Oh’bot finished.

A sound of acknowledgment came from the computer as the walls and floors of the room changed rather dramatically to match that of D’ena’s home on Almiga, a lifetime and a universe away.

The suite was equipped with jamming sensors and system interference buffers that made unauthorized entry or internal detection impossible from outside the knowledge and authorization of the suite’s owner. Here, they wouldn’t be able to leave, but they wouldn’t have anyone else listening in either.

D’ena smiled at her digital companion as she moved to sit on one of the lounging sofas that had appeared throughout the room. Almiga was a very wealthy planet in the Terran Empire. Its dignitaries had specific tastes and needs more modest planets didn’t have, so the room was covered in rich fabrics known as conflict fabrics due to the people being in extreme poverty or subjugation.

Flowing fountains gave the room the consistent smell of Ji’ana Spice, a rich aphrodisiac that no longer existed in the prime universe. The scents were derived from Maya’s private collection and provided quite a market among the Ferengi and Cardassian merchant collectives. Even the federation had come to appreciate this unique scent as the invasive species was perhaps one of the rarest naturally occurring flowers in existence.

The room was a holographic suite/safe house explicitly designed for the needs of whoever would use it from patron to patron; this was a prime showroom to some or a heavenly vacation for others; holosuites had improved in every way since they first came into popularity in the 2370s. Forty years later, suites could mimic any person, sensation, or experience the patron wanted, and specific aspects of those suites could travel away from the suites enhancing the immersion of so many.

“Computer… Activate Carbon to Photonic Avatar series Mark III - Morakos-Delta-38.” A perfect replica of a D’ena appeared in the room as the living D’ena’s optical sensors flashed and went to sleep on the sofa without another word leaving the avatar entirely in control of D’ena’s sense, it would all still register in the live version’s mind, but the digital avatar would be the one experiencing it.

“Time to do what we came here to do,” she winked at Oh’ Bot as they both vanished from the room, appearing in the medical wing of the exterior habitat ring located more than 1100 kilometers from where they were only a moment before.

D’ena walked through the promenade outside the main hospital, security trackers internal to the waystation would be able to tell that she was a digital avatar, but external detection systems would not. She and Oh’Bot walked into the main foyer of the waiting room. D’ena placed her hand on the biometric scanner as the system acknowledged her identity and transported them to a spacious medical room located somewhere else on the station, deep in a security wing of the defense sector.

In the bed on the far side of the room, Maya lay in a deep coma with her body and mind in stasis. The machines keeping her alive had to reduce her mental stress, so an approximate holograph wouldn’t be possible for her in this state. D’ena touched the side of the isolation bed. Maya’s vitals hadn’t improved since that day two years ago.

Doctor Huri, the original Ferengi that treated her on the Vetyl, walked into the room silently, watching the two from a private distance. Oh’bot was standing next to the door nodding to the doctor with a smile.

D’ena could hear the interruption and turned to see her friend; she turned and walked to embrace him warmly a few paces away from the bed.

“How is she, Doc?” D’ena asked timidly.

“The nightmares have stopped, and the phasing in her legs has been circumvented, but so far, no improvement…” his high pitch was harder to hear in the large room. “But…” he walked to the bed. “Her body is determined not to let her die, and outside of her electrospinal cord malfunctions, there is nothing wrong with her.” He continued. “Then again, that has been the problem all along, hasn’t it?” he was speaking out loud, not blaming her but frustrated; all the same, he couldn’t fix it.

“Without understanding the tech in the implant, we can’t turn it off without killing her, D’” He was the only one she had told her real name to, and as far as she knew, no one else in the prime universe had any idea.

“I got the name and location of the designer, doc…” she said hopefully. “As soon as the blowback…” she stopped short.

“I know, kid… leave it with the nurse; I’ll make sure no one knows you got it to me….” He said reassuringly.

“Thanks, doc…” A tear slipped down her green cheek as she held back outright sobbing as the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in.

“Oh, gods…” she mumbled as Oh’ Bot moved to embrace her, and she lost all composure.

The intercom interrupted them:

“At your convenience Doctor Huri, Morakos is needed in the council hall.” A passionless computer interface chirped and then went silent again.

D’ena nodded and hugged Huri again before Oh’bot sent a file to the nurse’s station, and they both blinked away in a flash of light from the transporters.]]> <![CDATA[Maya Pt. 2]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6944 Sun, 13 Mar 2022 12:16:40 -0400 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6944 75568.3 blinked on the wall outside the central shuttle bay of Waring Collective Station, a relay and hub to most non-aligned trading collectives wanting to use the wormhole.

Maya indicated via padd the shuttle was coming in on schedule. D’ena, her first officer, growled, looking at the time and the shipping manifest of the last series of intercepts they would miss because of this unscheduled trip.
The k-class shuttle came out of warp 20 kilometers from the station’s port side. The Bor’lea, a Walker Class blockade cruiser, was fueled and ready to head to Terok Nor.

They were eleven standard days behind the Tasker fleet, and the Andorian auction house wouldn’t be considerate enough to hold the bidding until all contractors arrived.

Maya’s shuttle passed through the kinetic barrier and moved to pad three. The moment Maya stepped off the vessel, D’ena was already fuming with a murderous look in her eyes.

“Fourteen days!” she yelled. “You said 30 standard hours Mora!” D’ena growled. “Just because Nausicans can’t count or eat with silverware doesn’t mean your crew can’t!” her forehead was fielding a sizable vein moving up into her hairline. “36 minutes until we have to be at warp if we want any chance of making the auction….”

Three years at her side was filled with harrowing experiences and more than a bit of trouble, but they’d grown close to the point they were finishing each other’s sentences and making plans that always seemed to be what the other was thinking until this impromptu trip she ‘had’ to take.

“Tell Kendall he can extend liberty for two more days….” She started.

“Have you lost your mind!” Her first officer interrupted her.

“No, but if you let your captain finish, she would have told you that she already secured 6 of the 22 contracts at a 3 percent commission.”

“The Walix Cartel?” D’ena asked apprehensively.

“All five with non-competes, care of Inquisitor Barras” She smugly crossed her arms over her impressively disarming chest. “No need to go to the auction after all, not until the signing at least, that’s in what, 28 days?” She was grinning from ear to ear.

“Is that what this was about?” D’ena questioned.

“I just wanted to attend the ascension of Minister Jaurus, as a good Su’Kar should….” She tried to look innocent.

“You hate parties, Mora….” Her commander was dubious.

“Not when Terran High Command was in attendance….” She smiled.

“Ah… so leaving your crew in the dark was a ruse to get the Korgasanti on your side?” D’ena jabbed.

“I don’t think we should use that word in public, Princess….” Maya warned as they moved to a turbo lift.

“Your word, pirate….” Her commander teased.

D’ena was right; of course, they met as a matter of pure circumstance, and neither figured their relationship would become what it was today.
The biting but affectionate push and pull between them stemmed from a series of successes that made the ‘Morakos’ name synonymous with both of them.

Like most political alliances, the reality was less important than the effect. In this case, Maya and D’ena carried out operations under the same pseudonym.

They had their specific penchant for the dramatic, but they were aware of their distinction and were careful to insert the habits of each other into operations to spread their anonymity and maximize their opportunities with the powers that be.

Princess, Pirate, or Mora(kos) were the only titles they allowed in public; the ones closest to them didn’t even know their real names outside of inferences of where they had come from or what experiences they may have had together.

“I suggest we head to Terok Nor even if we’re not going to participate in the auction itself; this is a good chance for us to show the competition that we don’t see them as a threat,” D’ena mused out loud.

“Agreed, tell Mackes to get the crew ready to go to warp; ten days at warp 6 is better than 50 hours at warp nine and a very agitated crew,” Maya admitted. “All of this fuss over 15 light-years,” she sighed.

Maya made her way to the dockmaster’s office to pay mooring and fuel for the Bor’lea. Inquisitor Barras would likely be at Terok Nor already; military vessels housed slipstream engines able to cross entire sectors in a matter of minutes.

This was the basis of their dominance and her reliance on the delicate attentions of the empire. She could still smell the sweat of the portly pig of a Terran on her; the sonic shower did little to erase the still vivid memory of his lust.

People were mindlessly reliant on the empire, the price of “freedom” in the quadrant. The most powerful warlords in the quadrant were still subservient to the emperor; the empire's logistical and tactical advantage over everything was mind-bogglingly superior compared to non-allied interplanetary travel.

The Bor’lea, a walker class cruiser, was designed to act as a light battlecruiser or a chase capital ship. Due to personal alterations to the main warp drive, it had become one of the fastest ship classes in the Orion armada respective to its size, topping out at 1,516 times the speed of light or warp 9.

The Tasker fleet trade consortium was far slower, maxing out at 384 times the speed of light or nearly warp 6; they were their biggest competitor.
Grud’ Pasan Tasker was the captain of the consortium, and Pa’Kar as the Vulga province delegation directed. This rank allowed him to trade without direct authorization for each trade and species. Maya’s distinction as Su’Kar was similar to the Tasker Captain, but her influence did not pass to multiple vessels.

Grud’ Pasan hated Terrans and refused to work with Terran vendors outside the empire. His species didn’t have a sense of smell so pheromones wouldn’t sway him. He felt that Terrans and Terran adjacent were too stupid to reasonably be trusted at their word, so he made special attention to show their inferiority any chance he got. He ruled his traders with an iron fist, and even the Terran Empire themselves asked permission before moving through his territory on non-emergent missions, a territory that expanded or changed dimension depending on who he wanted to intimidate.
D’ena knew the non-compete contracts Maya secured would put a price on her ship and her head, but no matter what they did, Tasker would want them dead long before they got much more affluent than they were.

Aboard the ship, D’ena commanded the crew to set course to Terok Nor; Maya beamed directly to her quarters to take another shower.
“Bor’lea to Tower: requesting permission to depart…” an eager young Andorian called out to the station’s departure command.

“Tower to the Bor’lea: Tolls and Advent paid and authorized, permission granted, perimeter defense network indicating your status as green. You are cleared to depart.” An emotionless Bajoran slave responded absently.

“Take us out half impulse until we clear the grid. Then engage at warp 6 for Bajor.” D’ena ordered before moving to the ready room, hardly paying attention herself.

One hundred sixty defense satellites and six heavy carriers, each with more than 240 interceptors, orbited the station at eight kilometers. A dreadnought drydock housing had been retrofitted as a capital decommissioning station nicknamed “the mothball.” It was said to have a series of ships in different stages of decomm and detention, but several defense vessels operated inside; the exact number was classified. But if it were full, more than 36 cruiser-sized vessels could be waiting just inside the dock. They belonged entirely to the Terran Empire, as a waystation during wartime, it mirrored as a casino, shipyard, and command center to hide its true purpose.

The defenses and the sheer presence made it far more of a threat to opponents of the empire and served as the military reserve for Terok’ Nor. The Wayland Collective had 300 defensive and tactical batteries stationed in and around habitat rings and entertainment zones. The port was one of the most secure locations publicly accessible in the alpha quadrant. The station stuck out in stark contrast to the rest of the space around it as a black scar in front of the massive sector-wide badlands nebula.

Most considered it safe, but anyone with internal knowledge of the empire saw it for what it was, a posh-looking prison and a stranglehold against the development of assets by the Cardassian-Klingon empire headquartered only thirteen light-years away.
As the ship cleared the defense grid, a series of trade vessels were coming out of warp upon detecting the gravity well of the station, presumably coming from the wormhole.

Mackes the Bor’lea’s second in command was plotting a route through the congested trade lanes when his tactical station indicated a ‘stealth ship’ come out of warp directly into their path at impulse speeds. Mackes looked at the proximity detection of the defense field and knew he couldn’t put up shields without instantly triggering a response from the Terran Defense network; they wouldn’t be able to avoid it in time.

“Brace for impact!” Mackes yelled over the intercom as the Red Alert klaxon began going off with an ominous regularity.

Several moments passed with no reaction; Mackes checked the ship’s status as D’ena and Maya emerged from different turbolifts. “Report!” Maya and D’ena called out at the same time.

Diagnostics information came in over multiple sensors, all saying the same thing: an object resembling a torpedo or small shuttle impacted with the deflector shields in the port lower quarter of the exterior hull between deck 6 and 7. “No damage, captain….” Mackes responded. “It appears it may have been flotsam or some undetermined remains of debris in the exit aperture in the trade lane.” Mackes relayed.

D'ena picked up a diagnostic padd scanning for damage to the hull; the deflectors prevented the device or debris from connecting to the ship.
“Move to the Kilmer-5 trade lane and go to warp as planned.” D’ena responded “Computer… cancel red alert…” She nodded in appreciation to Mackes and went back to the ready room. Maya was still in her robe as she followed D’ena with a perplexed expression on her face.

As the light lines of warp began to trail behind the ship Maya opened the reserve closet in the ready room removing a clean uniform from the hanger. D’ena was facing the observation window staring out into space as though something was on her mind.

“We’re getting too jumpy Mora” D’ena spoke without turning as Maya finished slipping the uniform over her intentionally distracting curves. “We’re gonna have to be at least until we find a way to deal with Tasker.” Maya cleared her throat as she zipped up the top of her form fitting top and took a lounging seat in the captain’s chair.

“I’m not worried about the auction, sib, Tasker doesn’t have the stones to make a move there.” D’ena mocked. “But he might have something on Walix already and this could all be for nothing…” She resigned and felt suddenly less confident about their recent successes.
“Mackes, punch it to warp 9 get us to that station…” Maya spoke into the communicator layered into her uniform agree with her commander this may be too good to be true.

The light lines took a deep red shift now that the ship was moving fast enough in its warp bubble that the stars no longer registered completely disappearing from the artificial horizon. This was indicative of a more harrowing shift in desperation that marked the concern the two Morakos had been dreading.

20 hours later…

“Engineering, report?” Sub-Commander Fourth Mate Arthis Kendell was in command at 0330 local time. “BPIC Boseman here Sir, Mix Ratio’s still operating at 94% port nacelle operating within tolerance, 30 hours of fuel remaining at max.” The third engineer or Bunkering Person in Charge, he was the single most capable engineer when it came to pushing the envelope of what a ship was capable of. “There is a slight buildup of transphasic residue in the Bussard Collectors, we’ll need to purge them at TK, and run an L3P.” His eye roll was almost audible dreading a “9-hour Linear Provisioning Diagnostic” over the comm. “Levels are still far below tolerance but we’re eleven months overdue for a retrofit, so that could explain it.” Boseman mused.

“Mora will play springball with our heads if we can’t leave because you took the engine apart.” Kendell smirked. “Get it done Bose… Kendell out.” He turned off the communicator and sipped spice laced with cordafin, a powerful stimulant.

He looked at the navigational console and noted that they were 2.8 light years from the station it would take them just over 16 hours at current speed. Mora would be taking over in just under 3 hours, and everything was green across the board, one could almost forget that the universe was a cold and brutal place where nearly every nicety was met with betrayal in the vacuum of space.

12 hours later.

Entering the Bajor sector was not an unremarkable feat, the sector had been fought over so often during the last decade that it was remarkable any civilian outposts remained, but one by one trade convoys and slave ships sent requests into any frequency that was listening.

Maya was lying silently in her quarters studying a map her recent rendezvous had earned her, the trade was a gift for services rendered she convinced herself that she would have gotten the contracts anyway, there was no way the Terran empire was going to give the navigational data to locals, or operatives they’d never worked with before, the Bajoran sector was filled with hundreds if not thousands of artifact sites hidden in caches just waiting to be found. They would all be Terran if command had any say.

The recent discovery of the wormholes gave considerable evidence that the prophets as they had been known where from other places in the region besides the inside of a tunnel to nowhere. Scans taken from enterprising but suicidal merchants in the past gave Terran engineers evidence that there was similar energy coming from different sectors and planet bodies long thought to be devoid of life, the universe was opening its doors again to discovery, this time with technology from a long dead lifeform that may be able to help the future in ways not even the emperor could have thought of.

Maya stood naked in front of the digital display on her deck window, she thought more clearly when clothing wasn’t pulling at her heightened senses. Born Try’n Baan a red orion from Gyran colony a mining world, it was quiet and clean in some areas, but she was from an inferior family, and she was used to working in the mines.

Her body was made for it, the overlords said, but ruddies got sick, passively weaker over time, reds would rarely last into their seventies whereas green orion seemed to be ageless some aging well into the third century of life. Maya looked down at her hand as the skin shifted in color from red, to green, the sickly peach Terran hue her job so often demanded of her.

While she thought of her past her mind was on dozens of other thoughts simultaneously a vastly superior mind pulsed silently in her head smarter than twenty of the children she had known growing up.

Gyran colony had been destroyed in a trade dispute it was assumed all were lost in the mine collapse Maya stole the credentials of a dead guard and waited for the orion to save at least their own.

Either the orion were far too distracted to realize that she wasn’t the former mine guard or they were impressed with the dogged tireless tenacity the girl they had rescued showed in training, with wars and disputes commanding much of the armadas attention the naysayers to her ascension through the ranks were soon replaced, and as the armadas fell one by one to the Terran empire Maya had discovered how to play the game and get out before there was nothing left.

Maya smiled absently as her eyes tracked multiple articles and reports streaming too fast for a Terran mind to read, she was enhanced in every way that mattered but her dutiful ‘ruddy’ compassion always made her stop just short of everything she could want in the universe.

She cared when so many of her green sisters and brothers had not, the world ending around them was a sign of business to so many but that was why Maya pushed so hard, to save the ones the universe forgot about, they would be the ones who changed the galaxy.

D’ena was proof that her impression of her life was not folly, hopefully her choices wouldn’t get them both killed.

Gryan colony was long ago a dead world, Maya had lived 230 years and not a single wrinkle found its way onto her porcelain face. Her powerful broad shoulders flexed with the elasticity of a gymnast in her prime, her smooth unblemished skin was warm to the touch but blooms of color would blush and cool with each breath, in public of course she could choose her species and scale patterns but in private she allowed her chimerism to run free.

Not even D’ena knew of her unique and entirely artificial abilities. She had been impregnated with so much experimental tech there was scarcely a name for what she had become, eventually she would die a mortal, simply an organic, but stolen tech from so many worlds, so many cultures always seemed to find their way to her.

“Morakos, we’re closing on the edge of Terran space.” A deep Klingon voice came over the comm “Defense command wants our itinerary, and authorization.”

Maya smiled and nodded as the display turned off, she turned towards her mirror to show her perfect body rippling into a seductive human body and enhance her features even more by shifting her hair from it’s deep blue to a mix of blonde and red highlights. Time to put on the charm she thought as she tapped the communicator on her side table her smartest Terran uniform materialized over her body leaving just enough to keep her audience guessing.

As she made her way to the door of her cabin she responded, “We shouldn’t keep them waiting then, shall we?” Maya smirked as she stepped into the main hall of deck three “Take us out of warp and prepare to get in sensor range of the first command frigate” She knew they would only give her a hassle if she didn’t speak to the person in charge.

In this case, that would have been Captain, Ashe Gurena a pasty homeworlder with no taste of the finer things in the galaxy but like most Terrans from Terra itself she was as predictable as she was stupid, but it kept the people above her and below her from having to do their jobs to the letter.

She was in it because of family and that was always the best reason Maya hoped to hear through her intelligence, nepotism always meant manipulatable and Maya has chosen this look just for the vapid eyes of a bored captain, and it was probably the only thing she would need to get past this blockade with minimal time lost.

The ship came out of warp just outside of the Bajor system, but something seemed very wrong. Maya could tell long before alerts even started going off all over the ship, Metaphasic radiation was building in the intermix relay of the main drive, the sound resembled that was flying like a bat out of hell, but it only put more and more into the failed valve. Maya’s synthetic mind flashed with potential solutions, the only possible solution would be to drop the core and hope the shields survives the blast.

She tapped her uniform and transported to the beacon she had placed on D’ena so long ago materializing next to her sleeping friend’s body just as the first safety system activated and failed moments later, the shock rocked the ship violently tossing D’ena to the floor as the status of the ship blared over klaxons and screens, they had less than three minutes.

“Evac now!” Maya screamed into her comm, she heard no response from the bridge, the sudden jolt had thrown D’ena into a bulkhead knocking her out cold.

“D’ena, I don’t have time… oh drell!” she noticed her friend’s head bleeding, and immediately tore at her pants creating an emergency bandage. She applied the compress and lifted her commander into her arms as a device in her head activated the transporter without a word as they appeared on a modified shuttle that had been cloaked in the shuttle bay, just in case.

Maya was relieved that so many of the escape pods on the vessel were ejecting, a few moments later she saw the ships warp core floating to starboard, the ship would survive… she breathed a sigh of relief as the worst seemed to start and end so quickly.

She took the small fighter out of the bay silently to get to range just in case they had hidden guests that had caused this sabotage.

The interceptor had a class 3 drive allowing it to hit warp 4, which is what Maya had done clearing nearly 200 thousand kilometers in a fraction of a second then the warp core exploded a blast of metaphasic energy changed the typical behavior of the core into an implosion pulling the ship closer to it.

More than 30 escape pods had already been drawn into the implosion, the emotionless demeanor of Maya's perfect face didn’t shift for even a moment as she had lost dozens of those, she would have considered friends. She paused knowing if she left now, she could rebuild, life a simple life.

Even before her emotions had registered this the rest of her was moving the ship at high impulse, she could save some of them.

She came within 1200 kilometers and began searching for life signs. Hundreds were alive and likely going to survive the blast but so many more were blinking off the tracker one by one as they dropped into the deep implosion of the warp core.

The implosion had triggered a burst of the building metaphasic energy and moments before the beam hit the shuttle Maya had analyzed it, it was an interphasic band of radiation, she had seen it before, but only in the-

The Jetyl was moving through the bajoran sector with a trade delegation meant to begin peaceful negotiations with some of the colonies that had sprung up over the last ten years.

Jada was the lead delegate, representing the Cerim Confederacy, and peaceful independent territory just outside the Romulan empire.

Her sister Shavi was feeding her newborn as Jada’s eldest 12-year-old daughter Jetyl’a was crooning at the profound difficulty Shavi was having at soothing her first child. Shavi’s wife Miyan had been trying not to laugh as she watched her fearless assassin of a wife crumble into the utter insensibility of caring for an infant.

“Senator?” Pauc was at navigation looking out over the long-range sensors, Jada turned to her Husband and smiled. “We have unusual reports of radiation spikes off our starboard side, 2000 kilometers” Pauc seemed worried.

Jada got up from her chair and moved to the console touching his hand gently as she looked on. He smiled and looked back but a sense of worry was in his eyes. Terran signatures radiation was showing up on the console, but it wasn’t large enough to be more than a few dozen shuttles in size.

“Red Alert!” Jada called out. She technically wasn’t the captain, but she held the rank of Legatus of the Cerim Defense Force long before she took the role of a politician. The captain was a Gorn named Gu’kashi an engineer Jada had come to know from her former first officer Thraak. He was extremely capable, but he knew better than to get in the way of the Senator.

“Sorry Gu” Jada winced and nodded to him, he just smiled and nodded to the bridge crew as the klaxons went off and the hue of the bridge shifted that deep familiar red.

“17 intact vessels coming through a broken rift in the radiation band captain, I don’t think this is an incursion captain, this was an accident.” Hashiua, a bubbly imminently qualified Orion girl reported as she worked her fingers like magic over the tactical command console.

Gu’kashi looked at Jada and they both nodded together, and Shavi had gingerly given the infant to her capable wife moving to take an engineering station.

“Clear the deck lieutenant, get as many people as you can into a safe zone.” Gu looked back at his Tactical Chief. “Keep your eyes out for anything that doesn’t look like it’s in trouble and call our Romulan friends in on this one…” He paused before speaking again. “You might as well let the federation know about the crisis happening on their front door too…” He remarked dismissively before pulling an image of the radiation band popping escape pods into the prime universe on the main viewer.

One by one they were transported into waiting shuttle bays.

“Captain!” Hashiua called out as arrays began charging. “An interceptor class escort just appeared behind the pods; it looks like it’s pursuing them!” She called out as reticles appeared on the forward viewscreen.

The interceptor seemed to correct and change course, but what first appeared to be intent was an explosion that rocked the ship off course.

“Life signs?” Gu called back as Hashiua was tracking nearly 30 ships or debris of differing sizes.

“Two… One very weak” Shavi called back.

The image of the interceptor came into view, and entire side to the hull was missing as though it was sheered off by a weapon, they could see the emergency forcefields beginning to fail but a humanoid seemed to be creating one of her own around her body and another on the floor in front of her, they wouldn’t last more than a minute that much was obvious no matter how unusual this person had been.

“Beam them both to the infirmary and get a security team to meet us there.” Gu’kashi looked to Commander Faise a talented Andorian science officer as he got up and left the bridge immediately with Shavi, Jada, and Pauc in tow.

The commander continued the rescue of the rest of the pods without hesitation, Miyan a supremely gifted ranger in her own right simply held her infant daughter to her chest as the chaos of the situation continued to unfold.

The infirmary was well equipped as the Jetyl had been used as a hospital ship during the Cerim Liberation War. A tall orion woman materialized on a bed, and it was obvious from her bandages that she had suffered a head wound, a Ferengi doctor began working on her right away.

But the woman who appeared next defied description, she was tall and chiseled in appearance but color of her skin as well as scaling and spots forming over her exterior shifted randomly as her hair and skin rapidly changed density and muscle tone, elements of borg technology in her spine was evident when some of the skin had turned transparent. The monitors above the bed showed she was very much alive, but she was unresponsive in any meaningful way.

Jada ran into the infirmary just to see the artifact of a woman beam into the bed, she tapped a console on her wrist as she tapped into the medical computers.

“Captain...” The Commander Faise chirped in. “out of the 17 pods detected, we were able to pull 31 life signs into the cargo bay, three in critical condition but most look like they’re gonna make it. Three warbirds are at full warp, ETA 39 minutes” He finished.

“Thank you, Mr. Faise, keep us informed if anything changes” Gu responded as he walked in next to Jada.

Jada touched the captain’s arm affectionately and smiled as Pauc and her sister came in just after.

The Orion girl was already showing signs of responding…

Jada, and The Gorn Captain watched on as the cunning former saboteur and the lethal former assassin stepped into the hospital behind looking on to decide exactly what kind of trouble, they’re new guests were escaping, or perhaps what kind of trouble had they caused to get here…]]> 75568.3 blinked on the wall outside the central shuttle bay of Waring Collective Station, a relay and hub to most non-aligned trading collectives wanting to use the wormhole.

Maya indicated via padd the shuttle was coming in on schedule. D’ena, her first officer, growled, looking at the time and the shipping manifest of the last series of intercepts they would miss because of this unscheduled trip.
The k-class shuttle came out of warp 20 kilometers from the station’s port side. The Bor’lea, a Walker Class blockade cruiser, was fueled and ready to head to Terok Nor.

They were eleven standard days behind the Tasker fleet, and the Andorian auction house wouldn’t be considerate enough to hold the bidding until all contractors arrived.

Maya’s shuttle passed through the kinetic barrier and moved to pad three. The moment Maya stepped off the vessel, D’ena was already fuming with a murderous look in her eyes.

“Fourteen days!” she yelled. “You said 30 standard hours Mora!” D’ena growled. “Just because Nausicans can’t count or eat with silverware doesn’t mean your crew can’t!” her forehead was fielding a sizable vein moving up into her hairline. “36 minutes until we have to be at warp if we want any chance of making the auction….”

Three years at her side was filled with harrowing experiences and more than a bit of trouble, but they’d grown close to the point they were finishing each other’s sentences and making plans that always seemed to be what the other was thinking until this impromptu trip she ‘had’ to take.

“Tell Kendall he can extend liberty for two more days….” She started.

“Have you lost your mind!” Her first officer interrupted her.

“No, but if you let your captain finish, she would have told you that she already secured 6 of the 22 contracts at a 3 percent commission.”

“The Walix Cartel?” D’ena asked apprehensively.

“All five with non-competes, care of Inquisitor Barras” She smugly crossed her arms over her impressively disarming chest. “No need to go to the auction after all, not until the signing at least, that’s in what, 28 days?” She was grinning from ear to ear.

“Is that what this was about?” D’ena questioned.

“I just wanted to attend the ascension of Minister Jaurus, as a good Su’Kar should….” She tried to look innocent.

“You hate parties, Mora….” Her commander was dubious.

“Not when Terran High Command was in attendance….” She smiled.

“Ah… so leaving your crew in the dark was a ruse to get the Korgasanti on your side?” D’ena jabbed.

“I don’t think we should use that word in public, Princess….” Maya warned as they moved to a turbo lift.

“Your word, pirate….” Her commander teased.

D’ena was right; of course, they met as a matter of pure circumstance, and neither figured their relationship would become what it was today.
The biting but affectionate push and pull between them stemmed from a series of successes that made the ‘Morakos’ name synonymous with both of them.

Like most political alliances, the reality was less important than the effect. In this case, Maya and D’ena carried out operations under the same pseudonym.

They had their specific penchant for the dramatic, but they were aware of their distinction and were careful to insert the habits of each other into operations to spread their anonymity and maximize their opportunities with the powers that be.

Princess, Pirate, or Mora(kos) were the only titles they allowed in public; the ones closest to them didn’t even know their real names outside of inferences of where they had come from or what experiences they may have had together.

“I suggest we head to Terok Nor even if we’re not going to participate in the auction itself; this is a good chance for us to show the competition that we don’t see them as a threat,” D’ena mused out loud.

“Agreed, tell Mackes to get the crew ready to go to warp; ten days at warp 6 is better than 50 hours at warp nine and a very agitated crew,” Maya admitted. “All of this fuss over 15 light-years,” she sighed.

Maya made her way to the dockmaster’s office to pay mooring and fuel for the Bor’lea. Inquisitor Barras would likely be at Terok Nor already; military vessels housed slipstream engines able to cross entire sectors in a matter of minutes.

This was the basis of their dominance and her reliance on the delicate attentions of the empire. She could still smell the sweat of the portly pig of a Terran on her; the sonic shower did little to erase the still vivid memory of his lust.

People were mindlessly reliant on the empire, the price of “freedom” in the quadrant. The most powerful warlords in the quadrant were still subservient to the emperor; the empire's logistical and tactical advantage over everything was mind-bogglingly superior compared to non-allied interplanetary travel.

The Bor’lea, a walker class cruiser, was designed to act as a light battlecruiser or a chase capital ship. Due to personal alterations to the main warp drive, it had become one of the fastest ship classes in the Orion armada respective to its size, topping out at 1,516 times the speed of light or warp 9.

The Tasker fleet trade consortium was far slower, maxing out at 384 times the speed of light or nearly warp 6; they were their biggest competitor.
Grud’ Pasan Tasker was the captain of the consortium, and Pa’Kar as the Vulga province delegation directed. This rank allowed him to trade without direct authorization for each trade and species. Maya’s distinction as Su’Kar was similar to the Tasker Captain, but her influence did not pass to multiple vessels.

Grud’ Pasan hated Terrans and refused to work with Terran vendors outside the empire. His species didn’t have a sense of smell so pheromones wouldn’t sway him. He felt that Terrans and Terran adjacent were too stupid to reasonably be trusted at their word, so he made special attention to show their inferiority any chance he got. He ruled his traders with an iron fist, and even the Terran Empire themselves asked permission before moving through his territory on non-emergent missions, a territory that expanded or changed dimension depending on who he wanted to intimidate.
D’ena knew the non-compete contracts Maya secured would put a price on her ship and her head, but no matter what they did, Tasker would want them dead long before they got much more affluent than they were.

Aboard the ship, D’ena commanded the crew to set course to Terok Nor; Maya beamed directly to her quarters to take another shower.
“Bor’lea to Tower: requesting permission to depart…” an eager young Andorian called out to the station’s departure command.

“Tower to the Bor’lea: Tolls and Advent paid and authorized, permission granted, perimeter defense network indicating your status as green. You are cleared to depart.” An emotionless Bajoran slave responded absently.

“Take us out half impulse until we clear the grid. Then engage at warp 6 for Bajor.” D’ena ordered before moving to the ready room, hardly paying attention herself.

One hundred sixty defense satellites and six heavy carriers, each with more than 240 interceptors, orbited the station at eight kilometers. A dreadnought drydock housing had been retrofitted as a capital decommissioning station nicknamed “the mothball.” It was said to have a series of ships in different stages of decomm and detention, but several defense vessels operated inside; the exact number was classified. But if it were full, more than 36 cruiser-sized vessels could be waiting just inside the dock. They belonged entirely to the Terran Empire, as a waystation during wartime, it mirrored as a casino, shipyard, and command center to hide its true purpose.

The defenses and the sheer presence made it far more of a threat to opponents of the empire and served as the military reserve for Terok’ Nor. The Wayland Collective had 300 defensive and tactical batteries stationed in and around habitat rings and entertainment zones. The port was one of the most secure locations publicly accessible in the alpha quadrant. The station stuck out in stark contrast to the rest of the space around it as a black scar in front of the massive sector-wide badlands nebula.

Most considered it safe, but anyone with internal knowledge of the empire saw it for what it was, a posh-looking prison and a stranglehold against the development of assets by the Cardassian-Klingon empire headquartered only thirteen light-years away.
As the ship cleared the defense grid, a series of trade vessels were coming out of warp upon detecting the gravity well of the station, presumably coming from the wormhole.

Mackes the Bor’lea’s second in command was plotting a route through the congested trade lanes when his tactical station indicated a ‘stealth ship’ come out of warp directly into their path at impulse speeds. Mackes looked at the proximity detection of the defense field and knew he couldn’t put up shields without instantly triggering a response from the Terran Defense network; they wouldn’t be able to avoid it in time.

“Brace for impact!” Mackes yelled over the intercom as the Red Alert klaxon began going off with an ominous regularity.

Several moments passed with no reaction; Mackes checked the ship’s status as D’ena and Maya emerged from different turbolifts. “Report!” Maya and D’ena called out at the same time.

Diagnostics information came in over multiple sensors, all saying the same thing: an object resembling a torpedo or small shuttle impacted with the deflector shields in the port lower quarter of the exterior hull between deck 6 and 7. “No damage, captain….” Mackes responded. “It appears it may have been flotsam or some undetermined remains of debris in the exit aperture in the trade lane.” Mackes relayed.

D'ena picked up a diagnostic padd scanning for damage to the hull; the deflectors prevented the device or debris from connecting to the ship.
“Move to the Kilmer-5 trade lane and go to warp as planned.” D’ena responded “Computer… cancel red alert…” She nodded in appreciation to Mackes and went back to the ready room. Maya was still in her robe as she followed D’ena with a perplexed expression on her face.

As the light lines of warp began to trail behind the ship Maya opened the reserve closet in the ready room removing a clean uniform from the hanger. D’ena was facing the observation window staring out into space as though something was on her mind.

“We’re getting too jumpy Mora” D’ena spoke without turning as Maya finished slipping the uniform over her intentionally distracting curves. “We’re gonna have to be at least until we find a way to deal with Tasker.” Maya cleared her throat as she zipped up the top of her form fitting top and took a lounging seat in the captain’s chair.

“I’m not worried about the auction, sib, Tasker doesn’t have the stones to make a move there.” D’ena mocked. “But he might have something on Walix already and this could all be for nothing…” She resigned and felt suddenly less confident about their recent successes.
“Mackes, punch it to warp 9 get us to that station…” Maya spoke into the communicator layered into her uniform agree with her commander this may be too good to be true.

The light lines took a deep red shift now that the ship was moving fast enough in its warp bubble that the stars no longer registered completely disappearing from the artificial horizon. This was indicative of a more harrowing shift in desperation that marked the concern the two Morakos had been dreading.

20 hours later…

“Engineering, report?” Sub-Commander Fourth Mate Arthis Kendell was in command at 0330 local time. “BPIC Boseman here Sir, Mix Ratio’s still operating at 94% port nacelle operating within tolerance, 30 hours of fuel remaining at max.” The third engineer or Bunkering Person in Charge, he was the single most capable engineer when it came to pushing the envelope of what a ship was capable of. “There is a slight buildup of transphasic residue in the Bussard Collectors, we’ll need to purge them at TK, and run an L3P.” His eye roll was almost audible dreading a “9-hour Linear Provisioning Diagnostic” over the comm. “Levels are still far below tolerance but we’re eleven months overdue for a retrofit, so that could explain it.” Boseman mused.

“Mora will play springball with our heads if we can’t leave because you took the engine apart.” Kendell smirked. “Get it done Bose… Kendell out.” He turned off the communicator and sipped spice laced with cordafin, a powerful stimulant.

He looked at the navigational console and noted that they were 2.8 light years from the station it would take them just over 16 hours at current speed. Mora would be taking over in just under 3 hours, and everything was green across the board, one could almost forget that the universe was a cold and brutal place where nearly every nicety was met with betrayal in the vacuum of space.

12 hours later.

Entering the Bajor sector was not an unremarkable feat, the sector had been fought over so often during the last decade that it was remarkable any civilian outposts remained, but one by one trade convoys and slave ships sent requests into any frequency that was listening.

Maya was lying silently in her quarters studying a map her recent rendezvous had earned her, the trade was a gift for services rendered she convinced herself that she would have gotten the contracts anyway, there was no way the Terran empire was going to give the navigational data to locals, or operatives they’d never worked with before, the Bajoran sector was filled with hundreds if not thousands of artifact sites hidden in caches just waiting to be found. They would all be Terran if command had any say.

The recent discovery of the wormholes gave considerable evidence that the prophets as they had been known where from other places in the region besides the inside of a tunnel to nowhere. Scans taken from enterprising but suicidal merchants in the past gave Terran engineers evidence that there was similar energy coming from different sectors and planet bodies long thought to be devoid of life, the universe was opening its doors again to discovery, this time with technology from a long dead lifeform that may be able to help the future in ways not even the emperor could have thought of.

Maya stood naked in front of the digital display on her deck window, she thought more clearly when clothing wasn’t pulling at her heightened senses. Born Try’n Baan a red orion from Gyran colony a mining world, it was quiet and clean in some areas, but she was from an inferior family, and she was used to working in the mines.

Her body was made for it, the overlords said, but ruddies got sick, passively weaker over time, reds would rarely last into their seventies whereas green orion seemed to be ageless some aging well into the third century of life. Maya looked down at her hand as the skin shifted in color from red, to green, the sickly peach Terran hue her job so often demanded of her.

While she thought of her past her mind was on dozens of other thoughts simultaneously a vastly superior mind pulsed silently in her head smarter than twenty of the children she had known growing up.

Gyran colony had been destroyed in a trade dispute it was assumed all were lost in the mine collapse Maya stole the credentials of a dead guard and waited for the orion to save at least their own.

Either the orion were far too distracted to realize that she wasn’t the former mine guard or they were impressed with the dogged tireless tenacity the girl they had rescued showed in training, with wars and disputes commanding much of the armadas attention the naysayers to her ascension through the ranks were soon replaced, and as the armadas fell one by one to the Terran empire Maya had discovered how to play the game and get out before there was nothing left.

Maya smiled absently as her eyes tracked multiple articles and reports streaming too fast for a Terran mind to read, she was enhanced in every way that mattered but her dutiful ‘ruddy’ compassion always made her stop just short of everything she could want in the universe.

She cared when so many of her green sisters and brothers had not, the world ending around them was a sign of business to so many but that was why Maya pushed so hard, to save the ones the universe forgot about, they would be the ones who changed the galaxy.

D’ena was proof that her impression of her life was not folly, hopefully her choices wouldn’t get them both killed.

Gryan colony was long ago a dead world, Maya had lived 230 years and not a single wrinkle found its way onto her porcelain face. Her powerful broad shoulders flexed with the elasticity of a gymnast in her prime, her smooth unblemished skin was warm to the touch but blooms of color would blush and cool with each breath, in public of course she could choose her species and scale patterns but in private she allowed her chimerism to run free.

Not even D’ena knew of her unique and entirely artificial abilities. She had been impregnated with so much experimental tech there was scarcely a name for what she had become, eventually she would die a mortal, simply an organic, but stolen tech from so many worlds, so many cultures always seemed to find their way to her.

“Morakos, we’re closing on the edge of Terran space.” A deep Klingon voice came over the comm “Defense command wants our itinerary, and authorization.”

Maya smiled and nodded as the display turned off, she turned towards her mirror to show her perfect body rippling into a seductive human body and enhance her features even more by shifting her hair from it’s deep blue to a mix of blonde and red highlights. Time to put on the charm she thought as she tapped the communicator on her side table her smartest Terran uniform materialized over her body leaving just enough to keep her audience guessing.

As she made her way to the door of her cabin she responded, “We shouldn’t keep them waiting then, shall we?” Maya smirked as she stepped into the main hall of deck three “Take us out of warp and prepare to get in sensor range of the first command frigate” She knew they would only give her a hassle if she didn’t speak to the person in charge.

In this case, that would have been Captain, Ashe Gurena a pasty homeworlder with no taste of the finer things in the galaxy but like most Terrans from Terra itself she was as predictable as she was stupid, but it kept the people above her and below her from having to do their jobs to the letter.

She was in it because of family and that was always the best reason Maya hoped to hear through her intelligence, nepotism always meant manipulatable and Maya has chosen this look just for the vapid eyes of a bored captain, and it was probably the only thing she would need to get past this blockade with minimal time lost.

The ship came out of warp just outside of the Bajor system, but something seemed very wrong. Maya could tell long before alerts even started going off all over the ship, Metaphasic radiation was building in the intermix relay of the main drive, the sound resembled that was flying like a bat out of hell, but it only put more and more into the failed valve. Maya’s synthetic mind flashed with potential solutions, the only possible solution would be to drop the core and hope the shields survives the blast.

She tapped her uniform and transported to the beacon she had placed on D’ena so long ago materializing next to her sleeping friend’s body just as the first safety system activated and failed moments later, the shock rocked the ship violently tossing D’ena to the floor as the status of the ship blared over klaxons and screens, they had less than three minutes.

“Evac now!” Maya screamed into her comm, she heard no response from the bridge, the sudden jolt had thrown D’ena into a bulkhead knocking her out cold.

“D’ena, I don’t have time… oh drell!” she noticed her friend’s head bleeding, and immediately tore at her pants creating an emergency bandage. She applied the compress and lifted her commander into her arms as a device in her head activated the transporter without a word as they appeared on a modified shuttle that had been cloaked in the shuttle bay, just in case.

Maya was relieved that so many of the escape pods on the vessel were ejecting, a few moments later she saw the ships warp core floating to starboard, the ship would survive… she breathed a sigh of relief as the worst seemed to start and end so quickly.

She took the small fighter out of the bay silently to get to range just in case they had hidden guests that had caused this sabotage.

The interceptor had a class 3 drive allowing it to hit warp 4, which is what Maya had done clearing nearly 200 thousand kilometers in a fraction of a second then the warp core exploded a blast of metaphasic energy changed the typical behavior of the core into an implosion pulling the ship closer to it.

More than 30 escape pods had already been drawn into the implosion, the emotionless demeanor of Maya's perfect face didn’t shift for even a moment as she had lost dozens of those, she would have considered friends. She paused knowing if she left now, she could rebuild, life a simple life.

Even before her emotions had registered this the rest of her was moving the ship at high impulse, she could save some of them.

She came within 1200 kilometers and began searching for life signs. Hundreds were alive and likely going to survive the blast but so many more were blinking off the tracker one by one as they dropped into the deep implosion of the warp core.

The implosion had triggered a burst of the building metaphasic energy and moments before the beam hit the shuttle Maya had analyzed it, it was an interphasic band of radiation, she had seen it before, but only in the-

The Jetyl was moving through the bajoran sector with a trade delegation meant to begin peaceful negotiations with some of the colonies that had sprung up over the last ten years.

Jada was the lead delegate, representing the Cerim Confederacy, and peaceful independent territory just outside the Romulan empire.

Her sister Shavi was feeding her newborn as Jada’s eldest 12-year-old daughter Jetyl’a was crooning at the profound difficulty Shavi was having at soothing her first child. Shavi’s wife Miyan had been trying not to laugh as she watched her fearless assassin of a wife crumble into the utter insensibility of caring for an infant.

“Senator?” Pauc was at navigation looking out over the long-range sensors, Jada turned to her Husband and smiled. “We have unusual reports of radiation spikes off our starboard side, 2000 kilometers” Pauc seemed worried.

Jada got up from her chair and moved to the console touching his hand gently as she looked on. He smiled and looked back but a sense of worry was in his eyes. Terran signatures radiation was showing up on the console, but it wasn’t large enough to be more than a few dozen shuttles in size.

“Red Alert!” Jada called out. She technically wasn’t the captain, but she held the rank of Legatus of the Cerim Defense Force long before she took the role of a politician. The captain was a Gorn named Gu’kashi an engineer Jada had come to know from her former first officer Thraak. He was extremely capable, but he knew better than to get in the way of the Senator.

“Sorry Gu” Jada winced and nodded to him, he just smiled and nodded to the bridge crew as the klaxons went off and the hue of the bridge shifted that deep familiar red.

“17 intact vessels coming through a broken rift in the radiation band captain, I don’t think this is an incursion captain, this was an accident.” Hashiua, a bubbly imminently qualified Orion girl reported as she worked her fingers like magic over the tactical command console.

Gu’kashi looked at Jada and they both nodded together, and Shavi had gingerly given the infant to her capable wife moving to take an engineering station.

“Clear the deck lieutenant, get as many people as you can into a safe zone.” Gu looked back at his Tactical Chief. “Keep your eyes out for anything that doesn’t look like it’s in trouble and call our Romulan friends in on this one…” He paused before speaking again. “You might as well let the federation know about the crisis happening on their front door too…” He remarked dismissively before pulling an image of the radiation band popping escape pods into the prime universe on the main viewer.

One by one they were transported into waiting shuttle bays.

“Captain!” Hashiua called out as arrays began charging. “An interceptor class escort just appeared behind the pods; it looks like it’s pursuing them!” She called out as reticles appeared on the forward viewscreen.

The interceptor seemed to correct and change course, but what first appeared to be intent was an explosion that rocked the ship off course.

“Life signs?” Gu called back as Hashiua was tracking nearly 30 ships or debris of differing sizes.

“Two… One very weak” Shavi called back.

The image of the interceptor came into view, and entire side to the hull was missing as though it was sheered off by a weapon, they could see the emergency forcefields beginning to fail but a humanoid seemed to be creating one of her own around her body and another on the floor in front of her, they wouldn’t last more than a minute that much was obvious no matter how unusual this person had been.

“Beam them both to the infirmary and get a security team to meet us there.” Gu’kashi looked to Commander Faise a talented Andorian science officer as he got up and left the bridge immediately with Shavi, Jada, and Pauc in tow.

The commander continued the rescue of the rest of the pods without hesitation, Miyan a supremely gifted ranger in her own right simply held her infant daughter to her chest as the chaos of the situation continued to unfold.

The infirmary was well equipped as the Jetyl had been used as a hospital ship during the Cerim Liberation War. A tall orion woman materialized on a bed, and it was obvious from her bandages that she had suffered a head wound, a Ferengi doctor began working on her right away.

But the woman who appeared next defied description, she was tall and chiseled in appearance but color of her skin as well as scaling and spots forming over her exterior shifted randomly as her hair and skin rapidly changed density and muscle tone, elements of borg technology in her spine was evident when some of the skin had turned transparent. The monitors above the bed showed she was very much alive, but she was unresponsive in any meaningful way.

Jada ran into the infirmary just to see the artifact of a woman beam into the bed, she tapped a console on her wrist as she tapped into the medical computers.

“Captain...” The Commander Faise chirped in. “out of the 17 pods detected, we were able to pull 31 life signs into the cargo bay, three in critical condition but most look like they’re gonna make it. Three warbirds are at full warp, ETA 39 minutes” He finished.

“Thank you, Mr. Faise, keep us informed if anything changes” Gu responded as he walked in next to Jada.

Jada touched the captain’s arm affectionately and smiled as Pauc and her sister came in just after.

The Orion girl was already showing signs of responding…

Jada, and The Gorn Captain watched on as the cunning former saboteur and the lethal former assassin stepped into the hospital behind looking on to decide exactly what kind of trouble, they’re new guests were escaping, or perhaps what kind of trouble had they caused to get here…]]> <![CDATA[Maya Origins Pt.1]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6932 Sat, 26 Feb 2022 22:51:37 -0500 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6932
A warped sense of pride always left bodies when the Terran empire called.

Putting up no fight enraged combat thirsty imperials even more; the scant survivors were lucky to still have an atmosphere to breathe. One by one, the lights of a weak and inadequate defense winked out of the burning amber of the lingering firefight until all that remained was smoke.

Each falling husk of a ship left nothing to build a resistance, nothing to form an underground, the planet was finished, and the people would be enslaved, or worse.

Apart from the fighting was the ruin below; it would take decades for the Terrans to suck the planet dry, even with the collector’s technology.    It would take time to decide what to do with the spoils, both organic and not.

Tears wouldn’t provide respite or respect for station, reputation and ego meant nothing… survive, or be chattel, there was no in-between.    Terrans were efficient in their cruelty, but there were gaps; there were always holes in their armor; survive… then fight.

Looking up from behind a stage prop that had fallen in the initial assault of a stage meant to entertain a grand event at what was only a few hours ago the ‘Gruimkar’ of ‘House of Gruim.’ In the trading capital of Almiga. D’ena My’ren, a dancing girl, was bathed in the guard's blood who collapsed on top of her.    It appeared she was the only one left of her troupe still breathing.

They were there to entertain the Terran delegation, and drinks were being toasted all around.    Before the fine singing of Tholian crystal stopped resonating, the Terrans were gone.

The lances of plasma and death began to fall on the home in the last summer rain it would ever witness.
The Orion syndicate had some pull in the regime, but it didn’t come soon enough, and green skin smelled like rotting meat in the collecting rain.

She pushed the body of a guard off her.    He had absorbed most of the initial impact absorbing the shards of crystal and silicon glass that had peppered his body and left hers largely unscathed.    D’ena’s right arm had been exposed, however.    Blue-violet blood collected up and down her once innocent arms, inspired a sense of urgency creeping over her usually calm expression, she had to leave.    Ground forces would be coming to finish the job.

The Orion species were much stronger than Terrans could ever hope to be; even young girls could forcibly move Terran contemporaries quickly.    Evidence of such strength was intensely private among the Orion people.

Though not a trait held by all Kolari or Orion subspecies, their power was unmatched by the space-faring species of the empire.    Even Andorians winced at the unmastered grip of a child.    The mystique and control over their emotions made them formidable in more than just words and lingering pheromones. Control was mastered even before speaking; an opportunity to show your true abilities was always a last resort or the last thing a victim saw.

  She lifted the broken man and discarded him like another piece of debris.   She was pulling his tunic from his body when she noticed Na’ema, her ‘lobdubyal ot’ or executive and head of the troupe. She was a shrewd but fair woman who wore expensive, functional clothing.

She wouldn’t need it anymore as her head was occupying the same space as a fallen column.    D’ena stripped the woman who was once her mentor bare and dressed for the potential fight that was coming.    She stood affixing executive’s tunic with just enough skin showing to keep her enemies off-center.

The sound of disruptor fire was coming closer; D’ena needed to get to her transport, her tech was her only real shot of surviving the next few hours. She passed the school that gave her special instruction in robotics and holography; it was a burning husk of metal and thermocrete with bodies, resources, and dreams strewn across the campus.

Each city block was a new dimension of the invasion, a largely uncontested one, but cruelty invents reasons for suffering.    Firefights broke out within the ruins, students were rebelling as they were so likely to do, but orbital precision strikes quickly convinced even the most dedicated rebel of how pointless resistance was.

She passed her family’s home; she hadn’t spoken to her mother in eleven years, ever since she chose to join the dancer’s guild.    They were a house of administrators and trainers.

  Performance was for commoners and naïve children, not the nobles of a proud house.    It still stood largely intact, but two charred bodies and some burning to the arbor gave D’ena a sense of regret that her mother's disappointment was something that would never be resolved.

The transport was parked outside the central government complex, a sturdy repulsorwave skiff large enough to transport up to 15 comfortably, leaving more than enough room for gear and environmental protection.

  The keys were underneath the rubble and probably under boots of Terran foot soldiers, but that wasn’t the last option for a dancer.

Dancers (regionally known as Lodubyaln) were information collectors first. Certain houses concentrated on manipulation, others focused on camouflage, but D’ena had been trained in survival and unconventional warfare. Her talents were a messy combination of the two and mastery of neither, but in that was its unique benefit. Information was worth vastly more than the pleasures of the evening, and the Orion were masters of more than just people.

The skiff was a standard design, used avidly in spaceports and long-haul convoys. They were designed to run in poor conditions, even allowing for short transport through the vacuum of space. D’ena opened the starting computer, a series of micropulse generator arrays that fed the repulsor engine.    The sequence was attached to a series of crystalline prisms, called gatewave processing matrix. These kinds of electronics have been around for centuries.    They were easy to exploit, but the narrative over these electronics was that they were secure.    It couldn’t be tampered with; often, the most effective security is the barriers we think exists, not the obstacles themselves.

Delicate Orion fingers deftly separated the housing on the primary emitter and slid a holograph spanner into the gap.    The spanner took a visual rendering of the architecture of a bolt or fastener and articulated its surface to move that type of mechanism.    The designers of such a tool did not consider what would happen if it were isolated over the primary emitter outlet, a simple flashlight passing through the articulated lens could mimic the device creating a master key to the entire assembly, and the skiff came to life.

More than a few Terran fighters streaked the skies armed with pulse bombs and kinetic charges during the firefight.    They were targeting infrastructure and low flying aircraft, the skiff would have never survived even a temporary assault directly, but D’ena was a student of holography and more than skilled enough to evade blood-thirsty marauders.

The Terran empire may have been the shining jewel in the quadrant, but they were thieves and brigands, exhibiting the same weakness and foibles. She attached a series of holographic emitters to the skin of the skiff as it made passing scans of its surroundings.    The skiff itself blended into the background.    It would be hard to miss if you were looking for it, but from above or at a distance, it would simply look like a heat mirage or muddied reflection off the water.    It couldn’t hold a candle to an actual cloaking device, but its unusual appearance would lend to its success.

D'ena wouldn’t make it far; eventually, her disappearance would be discovered. The only thing she could do was get off-planet, away from the invasion. She made her way into a nearby Fesin. Ignorant Terrans would never assume the hidden jewels right under their noses; it would give her the time to make a plan.    She would make her way into the ‘Pounla,’ the now abandoned underground cities for the old mining complexes that made the region prosper before the invention of repulsors and interplanetary travel, ruins wouldn’t be tracked, and sensors from above likely wouldn’t penetrate the crystalline fractures in the rock that made it so valuable once upon a time.

D’ena had experience as a tactical officer for nearly a year in the Orion armada.    She almost left the life of the dancers for the appeal of piracy, but even cutthroats and brigands had some allegiances, and Na’ema still held her contract.

With Na’ema no longer able to collect, what would her future be?

***

Maya Deidra was a site team leader a privateer captain in the Terran marine regiment. She oversaw flushing out resistances when the baronies of the sector decided another planet needed to be harvested.

The Terran Empire was bleeding money; baseless claims of ownership and petty wars for control caused loose ownership of everything and anything. The tighter the Terrans tried to hold their shares, the more they lost. It left so much unguarded or overlooked it gave a new boon to space piracy.    Strip mining became their answer for the ailing treasury.    Raw trade of resources would give them the taxes they needed to satisfy the emperor’s greed, and Maya was in on the scheme. She was a sadist of the first order and a pirate in a uniform.    She thought like a rebel, which made her consistently more helpful alive than dead.

Maya was so elusive because of her anonymity among the command crews of most vessels.    She was known to her inner circle and two captains in the imperial navy.    It gave her the coverage she needed to dig into rebellions and break them apart from the inside.    Her name wasn’t the one she was born with either, but it was her identifier in the empire.    Her name struck more fear than her face ever did. These jobs gave her the chance to impress the brass, even if they would never see her as an equal. She got paid, and the legend of the name ‘Morakos’: the shadow-killer would grow.
Maya was short and inconspicuous. she was pale with a cream-colored pallor that blended well in the shadows; she had dark green eyes and dark blue and red lips with a broken scar of note from her chin up the left side of her cheek ending just below her temple.    Even in an Orion colony, pale skin was not all too uncommon, but attention was close, never more so than today.

“Give me a sitrep on the Almiga resistance!” her voice chirped to life in the science ship ‘Vanguard,’ the command vessel that provided analytical and overwatch support.

Acot’rei was the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the ground deployment communication relay.    His office intercepted and relayed communications and logistical information across the planet with its nine linked interceptors patrolling the Low Planetary Orbit (LPO) perimeter.

                The holographic image of a tall Amazonian warrior queen appeared on the holographic emitter next to the main Combat Operations Center display.    Acot got up from his desk and pinged for a second authentication.
“Call sign and authorization code subject 7741-Beta-3.” He responded professionally, giving no personal acknowledgment of her significance.
“Magren… Shodar, Ganzu-kar of the Korgasanti Vag,” the voice responded in a language the Andorian officer wasn’t familiar with.    Small shifts changed in the holograph, altering its physical dimension, indicating a slight disruption in the feed.

The secondary authorization came back: A privateer legion ranking, a mercenary group of ‘Etadubran’ slave hunters, fugitive captors, but this designation had the accent ‘Elt’ added to it, meaning it had been earned in battle and gave them the authority to speak to and for the Terran empire in matters of combat and the right to kill aboard a Terran vessel.

                Acot thought there was no reason to be considerate to a mercenary it was safe to have an attitude.    “Standard reports are released every six standard hours, meet with the scene commander of your deployment zone, the direct information to those that need it.” He paused.    “Stay off this channel!    It’s secure and for command use only.” Once those words left his lips, he realized they probably weren't average mercenaries if they could hack his secure channel.

“Acot’rei, an Andorian analyst… I’ll be sure to put those exact words in your mate's forehead as I butcher your two children, Vei and Guani, in front of her.” The voice responded as his mate’s name and current location appeared in the holograph with an overhead scan of his neighborhood.

“Approximately eleven sorties per hour over your current position, tracking twenty-eight targets within fighting age and six with mil-tac (military training).    Sending tracking telemetry now….” Acot blurted out and sent the live feed before thinking.

“You’re not actually going to kill them, are you?” he asked pleadingly.

                “If there are seven mil-tac, or I find out one of the twenty-two has a club, I’ll transport a box with her head in it to your quarters.” The holograph dematerialized as Acot collapsed into his chair, panic riddling through his conscious mind.

                Maya turned off the holo emitter and activated a Heads-Up Display (HUD) to track targets.    Her lieutenant was a Gorn named Mekach; he spoke as mouth as they began moving again.

“I’ve seen that happen a hundred times, Mora, but I still don’t have a clue how you do it?” He growled in his rich deep baritone.
Maya smiled without turning to him.    “Sometimes a silver tongue gets the information fast, but I find abject terror always gets me there a little bit faster.” A beacon identified one of the mil-tac eighty meters off, trying to ready a shot. She clicked a secondary trigger on her disruptor, and a red tracing beam marked the entire barricade the resistance fighter was hiding behind.

“If you think you’re safe, you tend to play the odds, but when your opponent knows just how vulnerable you really are, then it’s just foreplay, and the fight is over before it began.”

She pressed the trigger again as a glaring ball of light erupted from behind cloud cover as a pulse mortar released a charge six times more than necessary to take down the entire house the fighter was hiding in.    A catastrophic ball of heat and pressure turned the structure into an absent cinder; not even enough debris remained to continue smoking.

                “And I don’t like waiting….” She smirked as she noticed a shape-changing object at the end of the street; it was a little too out of place to be just debris.


“Hello, I think we found something that makes this planet not entirely boring….” Maya motioned with her as the team of nine took tactical positions, preparing to find an ambush at the end of the street.    They closed on the distortion; it appeared as though the environment had been smudged out in just one area of the road.    Maya sent out ranging lasers from her HUD and activated infrared sensors from implants next to her eyes.    The skiff had no heat signatures, no direct targets, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t rigged; she took a DNA marker from the person who left this gift so she could return the favor.

“Mekach, do we need a skiff?” Her visor switched filters looking for emissions outside of the holography.    “With a little work, this could be useful….” She leveled her disruptor at the door and vaporized the hinges so the doors would fall off.    Nothing happened… perhaps it may be safe after all.
                                “I doubt it’s actually in working order; if we’re talking mil-tac, it’s probably trapped or sabotaged, but it’s worth a look.” The Gorn leveled his weapon at the horizon, looking for snipers or opportunists, finding none; he looked back to Maya as she motioned him towards the vehicle.

The Gorn moved closer to the sled and lifted one of the doors to get inside; after a few moments of moving objects around in the vehicle, he looked back at Maya and shrugged.    She heard a click, and for the briefest of moments, she looked concerned as the entire vehicle exploded in a blast of red and orange light, silently disintegrating most of the Gorn save a few fingers clinging still to the remains of the door.

“So, this j’hordak has teeth…” she mused with some intrigue in her voice.

Seeing her lieutenant murdered in front of her gave her pause but hardly emotional. He was good at what he did and how he served her cause, but the longer anyone worked with her, the closer they got... This was the Terran empire we were talking about; if someone didn’t make an attempt on your life, you weren’t really respected.

Her visor shifted between x-ray and infrared, looking for pockets in the rock. Even the most advanced civilizations often ignored the benefit of simply paying attention instead of the dogged reliance on the hyper-technical tools available to a space-faring empire; the little things were overlooked, often to their peril.

Fissures in the rockface of the stone outcropping that gave the city its name identified hardly perceptible entrances into something underneath.
She moved to the corpse of her lieutenant and grabbed the blast shielded equipment that survived the explosion. A pulse bomb designed to destabilize the organic compounds in a target, one of the reasons the Terrans used them.

The surviving scanning equipment indicated several holographic emitters were active before the blast. So it was clear they were dealing with someone trained in unconventional warfare, a saboteur, and spy for the ‘Heloskar Fesin’ dancers taught to do far more than entertain.

“Acot, come in,” Maya chirped to the orbiting COC.

“Vanguard reading, chief,” Acot responded moments later.

“Target all known Fesin and fire a mark five ionizing particle lance set to 30 meters below the surface.” She gave orders as though she were his direct superior, and she might as well have been.

“What is a Fesin?    Chief.” He responded curiously

“I don’t know what I was thinking, korgasanti; you guys are fine.    You don’t need me; it’s not like they might actually know something about spycraft Acot’” she sighed disappointedly.

“Open your trading manifest and identify all known Fesin or dancers’ halls, overlay that on your tactical COC, and fire on those locations.” She rolled her eyes as she gave digital commands for her remaining team to stay clear of any walls that might collapse.

“Thirty-three targets identified chief, commencing an orbital strike.” Acot returned

The deflector dish concentrated a Mark Five particle lance and fired targeting six locations with each charge.
Maya watched as six heavy lightning bolts leveled buildings around the city.

After a few moments, another volley ripped through the clouds decimating beautiful evening houses appropriate for even the most discerning palettes into 30-meter holes, revealing openings to the alcoves typical under most Orion colonies.

Maya rallied her team and found the closest Fesin, and walked casually past hundreds of bodies of slaves and masters strewn like so much chaff before the fire.    Her team worked their way through a series of basements and into the expanses of the underground; the real hunt had begun.

***

               D’ena finished the barricade in what used to be city hall. It resembled an office of the early 21st century on Terra; their people were not so different once upon a time.

She was treating the silica particulates in her arm and stopping the bleeding. The sensors on her instruments weren’t penetrating the world on the surface, so it was likely they wouldn’t be able to detect her either, or so she hoped.

                Several proximity sensors and traps littered the limited access to where she was hiding. She was safe, or at least as safe as she could realistically expect.

                It would be ignorant to believe that her identity was still anonymous. The only advantage she had was they had no idea what data they needed to look at to discover her identity. Every inch of the exterior surface of the planet had been mapped. Too much information, however, can be more problematic than too little.

                An unearthly roar and shudder of the earth being drilled into from multiple locations simultaneously took D’ena off her feet. The walls struggled to hold as the cave violently resisted the impact of some supernatural force.

                Her sisters, just meters above, would slow any advance down to the lower levels. D’ena just had to wait for the Terrans to think they had won.

  Hours passed, the sensors she had placed indicated movement and conversation, but no sign where she was hiding. She could tell almost immediately they weren't Terran officers. Her experience on a ship taught D'ena that Terran marines moved as a unit, and they scarcely communicated until the enemy was confirmed dead.

Fear and indoctrination gave an almost instinctive adoption of protocol and apathy to the opponent they were after. Death was often the consequence of failure, and promotions came at the death of a superior, like most "honor" based cultures.

                D’ena accessed one of the industrial replicators that had been installed in time past to fabricate a headset granting her a HUD and linking tech to monitor her sensors. She also created a plasma repeater to respond when the unavoidable happened. D’ena was ready, at least in theory; she could now move and prepare in real-time and watch her pursuers simultaneously.

                Maya moved through the narrow halls of the caverns, aware she was being watched; her experience with alien tech was limited and often not an issue with overwhelming firepower at her beck and call. So, she moved from room to room under the impression she was fighting an idealist student or a revolutionary who was unaware there was no one to join them in their war.

                The remainder of Maya’s tactical team were pirates, without any true allegiance to each other or anything other than money; it made them easy to replace and simple to predict. She directed them to watch the halls to prevent anyone from getting behind them. She, on the other hand, would be hunting.

                D’ena was not a leader, but others were hiding in the Pounla, panicking sisters and students, civilians and merchants used the region as cheap housing and optimal storage space, but none of them were combat-ready, and her pursuers wouldn’t know the difference of an organized rebellion or a collection of innocents.

                She did the best she could to keep everyone quiet and away from the main thoroughfares, but at some point, they would have to face a well-trained opposition. Her gut told her there would be more coming, and there was no way to save these people, but there was no sense in making their ends any less comfortable.

                Night had fallen on the city, and nearly all the combat above the ground was over. Maya was beginning to see gaps in communication with the COC, and her piece in this occupation would soon be over. She lost her lieutenant over this; she wasn’t going to let the person who killed him walk away without a scratch.

                Maya left ranging markers in the rooms she passed through and created a map to move from room to room. The map kept her from doubling back, and more importantly, it kept her from getting ambushed by whoever might stupidly be looking for a fight. Her infrared and x-ray visor identified targets through their footprints and stone walls. The few times she detected opponents, her shots rang out before they were even aware of her.
                The DNA marker she took earlier was pinging, telling her the owner of the skiff was nearby. Orion had a very telling signature to the pheromones they gave off. It would nearly be impossible for a prepared force to be surprised if they knew who their opponent was and had the insight to prepare.

45m…

20m…

10…

                Shots rang out long before Maya expected this time; she took a plasma bolt to the shoulder as her tracker highlighted a target behind cover.
                She ducked behind a wall and dodged the rest of the volley.

                “You’re not what I was expecting… I’ll give you that princess, but you’re still gonna die like everyone else on this backwater!” Maya responded as she applied a burn salve to the shot.

                                “We’re all gonna die sometime, pirate. That doesn’t mean I have to leave myself open for an invitation, bright eyes.” D’ena quipped as she moved to more stable cover.

                Maya peaked her head around the corner to see who she was aiming at, ducking back just as quickly to avoid a volley of four bolts impacting the wall adjacent to her.

                “I’ll admit, you’re pretty good in a fight for a non-com (non-combatant) good thing too. I was afraid this trip was going to be tedious.” Maya smiled as she tapped a comm unit on her wrist, calling her team to her location.

                D’ena couldn’t see a simple exit from the room, and Maya would be calling reinforcements any moment; she had to do something to get out of this situation.

“Gunner’s Mate First Kar and Forward Marine Breaching mull. Orion Third Navy, and I will drop any head I see!” she warned.

                Maya’s smile grew as she pulled two pulse grenades from a pouch setting them to proximity detonation. D’ena set a holograph trap in the breach and moved to a more direct shot occluded by the same emitters she used on the skiff. While they were talking, she readied two grenades and heard footsteps quickly moving down the hall in her general direction.

                “Even better…” she cleared her throat. “Listen, princess, there is no way you’re walking out of here as my enemy, but your sabotage on the surface left a spot open as my lieutenant.” She was pretty serious, composure under pressure, a significant threat even against unassailable odds… these weren’t courses taught in any academy. “I’m putting my gun away and telling my men to stand down. Even if you kill me, there are about six thousand marines on the surface there and no way off the planet.” She nodded to her men as they put their weapons away. “I’m coming out; if you’re open to the idea, don’t shoot me….”

Maya looked around the corner quickly and wasn’t answering a bolt to the head. As soon as she entered the room entirely, D’ena pressed the muzzle of her repeater into the side of Maya’s head. “I didn’t see you, princess… Ingenuity beats tech every time I say…” she put her hands up as D’ena disarmed her.

    “How does this work then?” D’ena asked defensively. “What’s the keep you from aerating my skull the first chance you get?” she seemed desperate.

                “First we start with names… then we work together….” Maya still had her hands up, shaking her head as her team moved for their weapons. “I know we got off on the wrong foot but doesn’t matter if it’s now, or ten years down the road, we’re gonna wanna kill each other, but we’ll have a good reason at that point, right?” she laughed as she turned to face D’ena. “This is just a job, Princess, I get paid whether you’re part of the pile or not, might as well take competent spoils where I can, right?” Maya put her hands down but left her demeanor open.

                                “D’ena,” she replied.

                “Maya…” she nodded. “Wish it were under better circumstances, but they’re leveling the city in about two standard hours; we don’t wanna be here when that happens.” Maya smiled and offered her a communicator. “My first thought, truth be told, was to kill you the second you board the ship, but something tells me you’re worth more alive than dead, and I’m usually right,” she bragged. “That’s all any of us have going for us, right?” Maya mused as she reached out to her communicator.

                “Let’s have some fun, yeah?” she tapped her comm. “Nine to come aboard Kent, open line for one more, no restrictions….” D’ena nodded her head. “okay… ten to board… and make sure Mekach’s stuff is tossed into the hall, he has a replacement.” ]]>
A warped sense of pride always left bodies when the Terran empire called.

Putting up no fight enraged combat thirsty imperials even more; the scant survivors were lucky to still have an atmosphere to breathe. One by one, the lights of a weak and inadequate defense winked out of the burning amber of the lingering firefight until all that remained was smoke.

Each falling husk of a ship left nothing to build a resistance, nothing to form an underground, the planet was finished, and the people would be enslaved, or worse.

Apart from the fighting was the ruin below; it would take decades for the Terrans to suck the planet dry, even with the collector’s technology.    It would take time to decide what to do with the spoils, both organic and not.

Tears wouldn’t provide respite or respect for station, reputation and ego meant nothing… survive, or be chattel, there was no in-between.    Terrans were efficient in their cruelty, but there were gaps; there were always holes in their armor; survive… then fight.

Looking up from behind a stage prop that had fallen in the initial assault of a stage meant to entertain a grand event at what was only a few hours ago the ‘Gruimkar’ of ‘House of Gruim.’ In the trading capital of Almiga. D’ena My’ren, a dancing girl, was bathed in the guard's blood who collapsed on top of her.    It appeared she was the only one left of her troupe still breathing.

They were there to entertain the Terran delegation, and drinks were being toasted all around.    Before the fine singing of Tholian crystal stopped resonating, the Terrans were gone.

The lances of plasma and death began to fall on the home in the last summer rain it would ever witness.
The Orion syndicate had some pull in the regime, but it didn’t come soon enough, and green skin smelled like rotting meat in the collecting rain.

She pushed the body of a guard off her.    He had absorbed most of the initial impact absorbing the shards of crystal and silicon glass that had peppered his body and left hers largely unscathed.    D’ena’s right arm had been exposed, however.    Blue-violet blood collected up and down her once innocent arms, inspired a sense of urgency creeping over her usually calm expression, she had to leave.    Ground forces would be coming to finish the job.

The Orion species were much stronger than Terrans could ever hope to be; even young girls could forcibly move Terran contemporaries quickly.    Evidence of such strength was intensely private among the Orion people.

Though not a trait held by all Kolari or Orion subspecies, their power was unmatched by the space-faring species of the empire.    Even Andorians winced at the unmastered grip of a child.    The mystique and control over their emotions made them formidable in more than just words and lingering pheromones. Control was mastered even before speaking; an opportunity to show your true abilities was always a last resort or the last thing a victim saw.

  She lifted the broken man and discarded him like another piece of debris.   She was pulling his tunic from his body when she noticed Na’ema, her ‘lobdubyal ot’ or executive and head of the troupe. She was a shrewd but fair woman who wore expensive, functional clothing.

She wouldn’t need it anymore as her head was occupying the same space as a fallen column.    D’ena stripped the woman who was once her mentor bare and dressed for the potential fight that was coming.    She stood affixing executive’s tunic with just enough skin showing to keep her enemies off-center.

The sound of disruptor fire was coming closer; D’ena needed to get to her transport, her tech was her only real shot of surviving the next few hours. She passed the school that gave her special instruction in robotics and holography; it was a burning husk of metal and thermocrete with bodies, resources, and dreams strewn across the campus.

Each city block was a new dimension of the invasion, a largely uncontested one, but cruelty invents reasons for suffering.    Firefights broke out within the ruins, students were rebelling as they were so likely to do, but orbital precision strikes quickly convinced even the most dedicated rebel of how pointless resistance was.

She passed her family’s home; she hadn’t spoken to her mother in eleven years, ever since she chose to join the dancer’s guild.    They were a house of administrators and trainers.

  Performance was for commoners and naïve children, not the nobles of a proud house.    It still stood largely intact, but two charred bodies and some burning to the arbor gave D’ena a sense of regret that her mother's disappointment was something that would never be resolved.

The transport was parked outside the central government complex, a sturdy repulsorwave skiff large enough to transport up to 15 comfortably, leaving more than enough room for gear and environmental protection.

  The keys were underneath the rubble and probably under boots of Terran foot soldiers, but that wasn’t the last option for a dancer.

Dancers (regionally known as Lodubyaln) were information collectors first. Certain houses concentrated on manipulation, others focused on camouflage, but D’ena had been trained in survival and unconventional warfare. Her talents were a messy combination of the two and mastery of neither, but in that was its unique benefit. Information was worth vastly more than the pleasures of the evening, and the Orion were masters of more than just people.

The skiff was a standard design, used avidly in spaceports and long-haul convoys. They were designed to run in poor conditions, even allowing for short transport through the vacuum of space. D’ena opened the starting computer, a series of micropulse generator arrays that fed the repulsor engine.    The sequence was attached to a series of crystalline prisms, called gatewave processing matrix. These kinds of electronics have been around for centuries.    They were easy to exploit, but the narrative over these electronics was that they were secure.    It couldn’t be tampered with; often, the most effective security is the barriers we think exists, not the obstacles themselves.

Delicate Orion fingers deftly separated the housing on the primary emitter and slid a holograph spanner into the gap.    The spanner took a visual rendering of the architecture of a bolt or fastener and articulated its surface to move that type of mechanism.    The designers of such a tool did not consider what would happen if it were isolated over the primary emitter outlet, a simple flashlight passing through the articulated lens could mimic the device creating a master key to the entire assembly, and the skiff came to life.

More than a few Terran fighters streaked the skies armed with pulse bombs and kinetic charges during the firefight.    They were targeting infrastructure and low flying aircraft, the skiff would have never survived even a temporary assault directly, but D’ena was a student of holography and more than skilled enough to evade blood-thirsty marauders.

The Terran empire may have been the shining jewel in the quadrant, but they were thieves and brigands, exhibiting the same weakness and foibles. She attached a series of holographic emitters to the skin of the skiff as it made passing scans of its surroundings.    The skiff itself blended into the background.    It would be hard to miss if you were looking for it, but from above or at a distance, it would simply look like a heat mirage or muddied reflection off the water.    It couldn’t hold a candle to an actual cloaking device, but its unusual appearance would lend to its success.

D'ena wouldn’t make it far; eventually, her disappearance would be discovered. The only thing she could do was get off-planet, away from the invasion. She made her way into a nearby Fesin. Ignorant Terrans would never assume the hidden jewels right under their noses; it would give her the time to make a plan.    She would make her way into the ‘Pounla,’ the now abandoned underground cities for the old mining complexes that made the region prosper before the invention of repulsors and interplanetary travel, ruins wouldn’t be tracked, and sensors from above likely wouldn’t penetrate the crystalline fractures in the rock that made it so valuable once upon a time.

D’ena had experience as a tactical officer for nearly a year in the Orion armada.    She almost left the life of the dancers for the appeal of piracy, but even cutthroats and brigands had some allegiances, and Na’ema still held her contract.

With Na’ema no longer able to collect, what would her future be?

***

Maya Deidra was a site team leader a privateer captain in the Terran marine regiment. She oversaw flushing out resistances when the baronies of the sector decided another planet needed to be harvested.

The Terran Empire was bleeding money; baseless claims of ownership and petty wars for control caused loose ownership of everything and anything. The tighter the Terrans tried to hold their shares, the more they lost. It left so much unguarded or overlooked it gave a new boon to space piracy.    Strip mining became their answer for the ailing treasury.    Raw trade of resources would give them the taxes they needed to satisfy the emperor’s greed, and Maya was in on the scheme. She was a sadist of the first order and a pirate in a uniform.    She thought like a rebel, which made her consistently more helpful alive than dead.

Maya was so elusive because of her anonymity among the command crews of most vessels.    She was known to her inner circle and two captains in the imperial navy.    It gave her the coverage she needed to dig into rebellions and break them apart from the inside.    Her name wasn’t the one she was born with either, but it was her identifier in the empire.    Her name struck more fear than her face ever did. These jobs gave her the chance to impress the brass, even if they would never see her as an equal. She got paid, and the legend of the name ‘Morakos’: the shadow-killer would grow.
Maya was short and inconspicuous. she was pale with a cream-colored pallor that blended well in the shadows; she had dark green eyes and dark blue and red lips with a broken scar of note from her chin up the left side of her cheek ending just below her temple.    Even in an Orion colony, pale skin was not all too uncommon, but attention was close, never more so than today.

“Give me a sitrep on the Almiga resistance!” her voice chirped to life in the science ship ‘Vanguard,’ the command vessel that provided analytical and overwatch support.

Acot’rei was the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the ground deployment communication relay.    His office intercepted and relayed communications and logistical information across the planet with its nine linked interceptors patrolling the Low Planetary Orbit (LPO) perimeter.

                The holographic image of a tall Amazonian warrior queen appeared on the holographic emitter next to the main Combat Operations Center display.    Acot got up from his desk and pinged for a second authentication.
“Call sign and authorization code subject 7741-Beta-3.” He responded professionally, giving no personal acknowledgment of her significance.
“Magren… Shodar, Ganzu-kar of the Korgasanti Vag,” the voice responded in a language the Andorian officer wasn’t familiar with.    Small shifts changed in the holograph, altering its physical dimension, indicating a slight disruption in the feed.

The secondary authorization came back: A privateer legion ranking, a mercenary group of ‘Etadubran’ slave hunters, fugitive captors, but this designation had the accent ‘Elt’ added to it, meaning it had been earned in battle and gave them the authority to speak to and for the Terran empire in matters of combat and the right to kill aboard a Terran vessel.

                Acot thought there was no reason to be considerate to a mercenary it was safe to have an attitude.    “Standard reports are released every six standard hours, meet with the scene commander of your deployment zone, the direct information to those that need it.” He paused.    “Stay off this channel!    It’s secure and for command use only.” Once those words left his lips, he realized they probably weren't average mercenaries if they could hack his secure channel.

“Acot’rei, an Andorian analyst… I’ll be sure to put those exact words in your mate's forehead as I butcher your two children, Vei and Guani, in front of her.” The voice responded as his mate’s name and current location appeared in the holograph with an overhead scan of his neighborhood.

“Approximately eleven sorties per hour over your current position, tracking twenty-eight targets within fighting age and six with mil-tac (military training).    Sending tracking telemetry now….” Acot blurted out and sent the live feed before thinking.

“You’re not actually going to kill them, are you?” he asked pleadingly.

                “If there are seven mil-tac, or I find out one of the twenty-two has a club, I’ll transport a box with her head in it to your quarters.” The holograph dematerialized as Acot collapsed into his chair, panic riddling through his conscious mind.

                Maya turned off the holo emitter and activated a Heads-Up Display (HUD) to track targets.    Her lieutenant was a Gorn named Mekach; he spoke as mouth as they began moving again.

“I’ve seen that happen a hundred times, Mora, but I still don’t have a clue how you do it?” He growled in his rich deep baritone.
Maya smiled without turning to him.    “Sometimes a silver tongue gets the information fast, but I find abject terror always gets me there a little bit faster.” A beacon identified one of the mil-tac eighty meters off, trying to ready a shot. She clicked a secondary trigger on her disruptor, and a red tracing beam marked the entire barricade the resistance fighter was hiding behind.

“If you think you’re safe, you tend to play the odds, but when your opponent knows just how vulnerable you really are, then it’s just foreplay, and the fight is over before it began.”

She pressed the trigger again as a glaring ball of light erupted from behind cloud cover as a pulse mortar released a charge six times more than necessary to take down the entire house the fighter was hiding in.    A catastrophic ball of heat and pressure turned the structure into an absent cinder; not even enough debris remained to continue smoking.

                “And I don’t like waiting….” She smirked as she noticed a shape-changing object at the end of the street; it was a little too out of place to be just debris.


“Hello, I think we found something that makes this planet not entirely boring….” Maya motioned with her as the team of nine took tactical positions, preparing to find an ambush at the end of the street.    They closed on the distortion; it appeared as though the environment had been smudged out in just one area of the road.    Maya sent out ranging lasers from her HUD and activated infrared sensors from implants next to her eyes.    The skiff had no heat signatures, no direct targets, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t rigged; she took a DNA marker from the person who left this gift so she could return the favor.

“Mekach, do we need a skiff?” Her visor switched filters looking for emissions outside of the holography.    “With a little work, this could be useful….” She leveled her disruptor at the door and vaporized the hinges so the doors would fall off.    Nothing happened… perhaps it may be safe after all.
                                “I doubt it’s actually in working order; if we’re talking mil-tac, it’s probably trapped or sabotaged, but it’s worth a look.” The Gorn leveled his weapon at the horizon, looking for snipers or opportunists, finding none; he looked back to Maya as she motioned him towards the vehicle.

The Gorn moved closer to the sled and lifted one of the doors to get inside; after a few moments of moving objects around in the vehicle, he looked back at Maya and shrugged.    She heard a click, and for the briefest of moments, she looked concerned as the entire vehicle exploded in a blast of red and orange light, silently disintegrating most of the Gorn save a few fingers clinging still to the remains of the door.

“So, this j’hordak has teeth…” she mused with some intrigue in her voice.

Seeing her lieutenant murdered in front of her gave her pause but hardly emotional. He was good at what he did and how he served her cause, but the longer anyone worked with her, the closer they got... This was the Terran empire we were talking about; if someone didn’t make an attempt on your life, you weren’t really respected.

Her visor shifted between x-ray and infrared, looking for pockets in the rock. Even the most advanced civilizations often ignored the benefit of simply paying attention instead of the dogged reliance on the hyper-technical tools available to a space-faring empire; the little things were overlooked, often to their peril.

Fissures in the rockface of the stone outcropping that gave the city its name identified hardly perceptible entrances into something underneath.
She moved to the corpse of her lieutenant and grabbed the blast shielded equipment that survived the explosion. A pulse bomb designed to destabilize the organic compounds in a target, one of the reasons the Terrans used them.

The surviving scanning equipment indicated several holographic emitters were active before the blast. So it was clear they were dealing with someone trained in unconventional warfare, a saboteur, and spy for the ‘Heloskar Fesin’ dancers taught to do far more than entertain.

“Acot, come in,” Maya chirped to the orbiting COC.

“Vanguard reading, chief,” Acot responded moments later.

“Target all known Fesin and fire a mark five ionizing particle lance set to 30 meters below the surface.” She gave orders as though she were his direct superior, and she might as well have been.

“What is a Fesin?    Chief.” He responded curiously

“I don’t know what I was thinking, korgasanti; you guys are fine.    You don’t need me; it’s not like they might actually know something about spycraft Acot’” she sighed disappointedly.

“Open your trading manifest and identify all known Fesin or dancers’ halls, overlay that on your tactical COC, and fire on those locations.” She rolled her eyes as she gave digital commands for her remaining team to stay clear of any walls that might collapse.

“Thirty-three targets identified chief, commencing an orbital strike.” Acot returned

The deflector dish concentrated a Mark Five particle lance and fired targeting six locations with each charge.
Maya watched as six heavy lightning bolts leveled buildings around the city.

After a few moments, another volley ripped through the clouds decimating beautiful evening houses appropriate for even the most discerning palettes into 30-meter holes, revealing openings to the alcoves typical under most Orion colonies.

Maya rallied her team and found the closest Fesin, and walked casually past hundreds of bodies of slaves and masters strewn like so much chaff before the fire.    Her team worked their way through a series of basements and into the expanses of the underground; the real hunt had begun.

***

               D’ena finished the barricade in what used to be city hall. It resembled an office of the early 21st century on Terra; their people were not so different once upon a time.

She was treating the silica particulates in her arm and stopping the bleeding. The sensors on her instruments weren’t penetrating the world on the surface, so it was likely they wouldn’t be able to detect her either, or so she hoped.

                Several proximity sensors and traps littered the limited access to where she was hiding. She was safe, or at least as safe as she could realistically expect.

                It would be ignorant to believe that her identity was still anonymous. The only advantage she had was they had no idea what data they needed to look at to discover her identity. Every inch of the exterior surface of the planet had been mapped. Too much information, however, can be more problematic than too little.

                An unearthly roar and shudder of the earth being drilled into from multiple locations simultaneously took D’ena off her feet. The walls struggled to hold as the cave violently resisted the impact of some supernatural force.

                Her sisters, just meters above, would slow any advance down to the lower levels. D’ena just had to wait for the Terrans to think they had won.

  Hours passed, the sensors she had placed indicated movement and conversation, but no sign where she was hiding. She could tell almost immediately they weren't Terran officers. Her experience on a ship taught D'ena that Terran marines moved as a unit, and they scarcely communicated until the enemy was confirmed dead.

Fear and indoctrination gave an almost instinctive adoption of protocol and apathy to the opponent they were after. Death was often the consequence of failure, and promotions came at the death of a superior, like most "honor" based cultures.

                D’ena accessed one of the industrial replicators that had been installed in time past to fabricate a headset granting her a HUD and linking tech to monitor her sensors. She also created a plasma repeater to respond when the unavoidable happened. D’ena was ready, at least in theory; she could now move and prepare in real-time and watch her pursuers simultaneously.

                Maya moved through the narrow halls of the caverns, aware she was being watched; her experience with alien tech was limited and often not an issue with overwhelming firepower at her beck and call. So, she moved from room to room under the impression she was fighting an idealist student or a revolutionary who was unaware there was no one to join them in their war.

                The remainder of Maya’s tactical team were pirates, without any true allegiance to each other or anything other than money; it made them easy to replace and simple to predict. She directed them to watch the halls to prevent anyone from getting behind them. She, on the other hand, would be hunting.

                D’ena was not a leader, but others were hiding in the Pounla, panicking sisters and students, civilians and merchants used the region as cheap housing and optimal storage space, but none of them were combat-ready, and her pursuers wouldn’t know the difference of an organized rebellion or a collection of innocents.

                She did the best she could to keep everyone quiet and away from the main thoroughfares, but at some point, they would have to face a well-trained opposition. Her gut told her there would be more coming, and there was no way to save these people, but there was no sense in making their ends any less comfortable.

                Night had fallen on the city, and nearly all the combat above the ground was over. Maya was beginning to see gaps in communication with the COC, and her piece in this occupation would soon be over. She lost her lieutenant over this; she wasn’t going to let the person who killed him walk away without a scratch.

                Maya left ranging markers in the rooms she passed through and created a map to move from room to room. The map kept her from doubling back, and more importantly, it kept her from getting ambushed by whoever might stupidly be looking for a fight. Her infrared and x-ray visor identified targets through their footprints and stone walls. The few times she detected opponents, her shots rang out before they were even aware of her.
                The DNA marker she took earlier was pinging, telling her the owner of the skiff was nearby. Orion had a very telling signature to the pheromones they gave off. It would nearly be impossible for a prepared force to be surprised if they knew who their opponent was and had the insight to prepare.

45m…

20m…

10…

                Shots rang out long before Maya expected this time; she took a plasma bolt to the shoulder as her tracker highlighted a target behind cover.
                She ducked behind a wall and dodged the rest of the volley.

                “You’re not what I was expecting… I’ll give you that princess, but you’re still gonna die like everyone else on this backwater!” Maya responded as she applied a burn salve to the shot.

                                “We’re all gonna die sometime, pirate. That doesn’t mean I have to leave myself open for an invitation, bright eyes.” D’ena quipped as she moved to more stable cover.

                Maya peaked her head around the corner to see who she was aiming at, ducking back just as quickly to avoid a volley of four bolts impacting the wall adjacent to her.

                “I’ll admit, you’re pretty good in a fight for a non-com (non-combatant) good thing too. I was afraid this trip was going to be tedious.” Maya smiled as she tapped a comm unit on her wrist, calling her team to her location.

                D’ena couldn’t see a simple exit from the room, and Maya would be calling reinforcements any moment; she had to do something to get out of this situation.

“Gunner’s Mate First Kar and Forward Marine Breaching mull. Orion Third Navy, and I will drop any head I see!” she warned.

                Maya’s smile grew as she pulled two pulse grenades from a pouch setting them to proximity detonation. D’ena set a holograph trap in the breach and moved to a more direct shot occluded by the same emitters she used on the skiff. While they were talking, she readied two grenades and heard footsteps quickly moving down the hall in her general direction.

                “Even better…” she cleared her throat. “Listen, princess, there is no way you’re walking out of here as my enemy, but your sabotage on the surface left a spot open as my lieutenant.” She was pretty serious, composure under pressure, a significant threat even against unassailable odds… these weren’t courses taught in any academy. “I’m putting my gun away and telling my men to stand down. Even if you kill me, there are about six thousand marines on the surface there and no way off the planet.” She nodded to her men as they put their weapons away. “I’m coming out; if you’re open to the idea, don’t shoot me….”

Maya looked around the corner quickly and wasn’t answering a bolt to the head. As soon as she entered the room entirely, D’ena pressed the muzzle of her repeater into the side of Maya’s head. “I didn’t see you, princess… Ingenuity beats tech every time I say…” she put her hands up as D’ena disarmed her.

    “How does this work then?” D’ena asked defensively. “What’s the keep you from aerating my skull the first chance you get?” she seemed desperate.

                “First we start with names… then we work together….” Maya still had her hands up, shaking her head as her team moved for their weapons. “I know we got off on the wrong foot but doesn’t matter if it’s now, or ten years down the road, we’re gonna wanna kill each other, but we’ll have a good reason at that point, right?” she laughed as she turned to face D’ena. “This is just a job, Princess, I get paid whether you’re part of the pile or not, might as well take competent spoils where I can, right?” Maya put her hands down but left her demeanor open.

                                “D’ena,” she replied.

                “Maya…” she nodded. “Wish it were under better circumstances, but they’re leveling the city in about two standard hours; we don’t wanna be here when that happens.” Maya smiled and offered her a communicator. “My first thought, truth be told, was to kill you the second you board the ship, but something tells me you’re worth more alive than dead, and I’m usually right,” she bragged. “That’s all any of us have going for us, right?” Maya mused as she reached out to her communicator.

                “Let’s have some fun, yeah?” she tapped her comm. “Nine to come aboard Kent, open line for one more, no restrictions….” D’ena nodded her head. “okay… ten to board… and make sure Mekach’s stuff is tossed into the hall, he has a replacement.” ]]> <![CDATA[Providence]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6887 Wed, 15 Dec 2021 23:01:49 -0500 bu'hert]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6887 1

“Father, who’s that man over there?” The boy asked quizzically while looking at an older man, with an empty mug in front of his head that rests on the table in the corner of Cafe Whisper on Starbase Deep Space 12.
“Oh him? That fellas name is...” the boy's father stops and thinks “well, I’m not too sure I remember anymore...Luna, I think. “
The man and his son finish their drinks as the father continues “He’s been around the station forever, but I’ll be dam-, just you never mind him.  He’s a drunk.  Finish up, and steer clear of him, let him sleep it off”.
As the two left the boy peers over his shoulder at the man in the corner, and the eyes of youth locked with the eyes of the aged and they both felt sadness. The boy felt the sadness of despair in the old man’s crusty gaze.  The old man, who’d heard the entire conversation felt a sadness all his own.  There was a time when everyone on this station, in the whole quadrant for that matter knew his name.
As he watched the two walk down the corridor and out of sight, he noticed a new pair of eyes.  Among the passersby, a man stepped through the door into the rotunda, fresh off the docking bay.  Wearing all black and carrying a black traveling bag. The man looked left and then right, before setting his eyes straight at the old man in the cafe.  The man then smiled.  Still smiling the man in black walked on into the crowd of men and women shuffling about their business.

It’s just another day of a busy starport.  The man’s name is Tomas Luna.  And the boy's father was right on both accounts, he has been on DS12 forever, and he is a drunk. Traveling a lonely road of empty mugs and bottles.  Tomas Luna, a man who would give an arm, a leg or maybe even a bit of his own soul to have another chance at life, to be able to rise up and shake the dirt off his body, so to speak.  To be someone again

2

Getting up to leave, Tomas wobbled a bit and caught himself.
The man's begun his dying early, he thought.  He rubs a hand across the stubble across his cheek, as he looks at his reflection off the console screen outside the cafe.  His cheek engraved with lines of fear. With agony and with-
“bad dreams” he muttered
“If I could just shake off the bad dreams fer once”
“Excuse me” a small Ferengi said to him, “Are you finished?”
Tomas stumbles aside and thought ‘are there any others but small Ferengi’
He sits back down as the Ferengi taps the console screen.  Just before he drops his head back to the table, Tomas notices the little man in black once again.  He’s sort of a rather fancy-looking little man he realizes now that he’s looking at him up so closely.  From his wife brimmed hat, to his small black boots.  And out of the little black coat he wears.  Luna’s eyes widen as he watches him reach into his pocket.  As he does Tomas feels and hears something bump his foot.  He looks down to his boot to see a small phaser pistol lying there.  The pistol that he knew so well, and one that may be just the thing to give Tomas the chance he was just thinking of.  Looking up from the phaser Tomas was about to speak when he realized he was alone.  The man was gone, if he’d ever been there.  He looked around and scooped up the pistol into his pocket and got up, so fast that he fell back into his and then off of his chair, and onto the hard unforgiving steel floor.
Hands began to help him up as he hears Flossie, the lass that runs this cafe say
“Alright, that’s enough for today, Tomas, it’s time for you to get.  Back to your quarters or wherever you go when you’re not here”.

He’s shuffled out into the corridor, embarrassed, tire and a little thirsty as he steps forward to...to where exactly?  The stations chapel will of course lend him a bed as they always do, but not this early in the day.  If he’s not careful, station security will start to pay attention to him, and they have such hard and cold beds in the jailhouse. So, he keeps his head down and walks slowly, steadily, practicing the art of invisibility as he used to joke about when he was a younger man.  When he felt alive, and happy.  Before he had reason to not be happy.

3

The door of Leptons whooshes open as Luna comes tumbling out amid a slew of cheers, roars and laughter into the corridor and once again Tomas feels his weary knees crash against the hard steel.  He just wanted one drink, he thought as he rolls over on his back and lies there, eyes closed as the pulse of pain begins to leave his knees.  Laughter erupts again as he feels cold liquid poured onto his face and begin to sting of his eyes and fill his nostrils.  Romulan Ale.
Various cuts come alive as he’s soaked and when he finally looks up, he sees the bottle in the hands of F’lass.
“Get up!” F’Lass yells through a mouthful of pointed teeth.  “You come in a respectable bar like Leptons with no latinum, or credits, well here’s your drink, now you’ll pay for it my way”

A small crowd gathers around the two.  F’lass, empty bottle in his hand, standing over Luna, on his back lying in a puddle of booze.
“Get up and let’s see you pay for your drink, with a little dance. C’mon Luna.  You can dance, huh?”
Laughter continues as Luna makes his way to his feet, drunk and tired, he knows F’lass will let him come into the bar an get a glass of ale, all he has to do is pay for it, in his own unique fashion.

“Sterling, can’t you break that up?”  T’Li, the Caitian Dabo girl said to the head barkeep and owner of Lepton’s, as the two watch that poor man dance, or try to while the bullies bullied and had their fun.
“I don’t like it any more than you do, the misery they give that guy out there”
She shoots him a cold look and bares her teeth and says “I’m going on my break”

Outside, Luna slips and falls to the floor, the crowd roars with delight as F’lass throws him the empty bottle and yells “c’mon boys, back to the tables, Sterling another round!”

T’Li pushes through the crowd and watches Tomas suckle every last drop from the bottle, he looks at her and she looks away from him, in disgust.

4

He watches her walk off and see the face of the little man in black again and remembers what he found in the cafe, the phaser pistol.  His second chance.
Getting to his feet, pistol in hand, he checked the charge and felt the weight in his hand.  T’Li returns, eyeing him she says

“How are you, Tomas? You packing a gun now?”

“Hello Miss T’Li” he says never taking his eyes off the gun in his hand, “this isn’t mine.  I found it at Flossie’s.  Someone must have dropped it”

She glances from his face to the gun and back,
“You used to be pretty good with those back in the day, right?”
To this he replied, “that was a long time ago Miss T’Li”.

“Tomas, tell me.  Why do you have to drink so much?  You didn’t always”.
Tomas looked up into her eyes, and felt a hand on his shoulder, spin him around.

It was F’Lass again, “He’s on his feet boys.  Let’s see if he knows the Andorian waltz, how about Luna.  Dancy wancy for a drinky winky?” his wide grin beamed proudly on his face.

T’Li turns Tomas to face her
“don’t do it Tom”
“But he’ll give me a drink Miss T’Li”
“To hell with him, I can give you one too and you won’t have to be his monkey”
He looks to her and then to F’Lass and begins to shuffle side to side, turning on his heels as he dips, the worst rendition of any dance and nowhere near close to the Andorian waltz.

T’Li turns away, and the men watch on as F’Lass tells him to go inside and get his drink, he’s been a good lusher.
Walking into the bar, F’Lass sees the pistol in his hands and says “hey, wait there, gunslinger. “ and when he didn’t stop walking, he yelled “You Luna. Where did you get that?”
“I found it in the street”
“You did? Been a while since you used one, say why don’t you use it now?”
“No, I don’t want any-“
“Maybe you can outdraw me”

T’Li steps in “stop, F’Lass this isn’t funny anymore, Sterling, get out here!”
“Shut it, Dabo girl, and get back to the bar, Sterling! Me and the lush here are gonna have a little show down.

5

The gathering crowd gets larger, as the man in black leaning against the wall watching the disturbance outside the bar.
“Tell you what Lush, I’ll even make it fair.  I’ll draw left-handed.” He pulls his own phaser out with his left hand, while Tomas backs away pleading with T’Li, “Miss T’Li tell him, I don’t even know how to use this any-“
The man in black watches intently as Luna fires the pistol accidentally, shooting the pistol out of F’Lass’s left hand.  Luna wasn’t even looking at him.
The man in black smiled.

Looking at F’Lass nursing his wounded hand, Luna says
“Mr. F’Lass, it was an accident, Miss T’Li, tell him”

“Nice shooting, Tomas” Sterling says coming out of the bar, “hey get in here, I’ll get you a drink and don’t worry about security if they come, I’ll call them off, c’mon everyone back inside, drinks on me!”

Tomas and the crowd go inside as F’Lass stands there with a ruined pistol at his feet and burns on his hand. He walks back inside and yells at Tomas to face him.  He draws his other pistol, in his right hand.
Inside the bar the crowd clears between the two men, phasers in hand.  The man in black steps inside to watch as Tomas pleads with F’Lass that it was just an accident, that he didn’t even mean to.  Just then his gun went off once again, this time striking the Dabo wheel, which blew apart and one of the pieces lodged into F’Lass’s right hand, disarming him yet again.

Everyone in the bar was stunned silent, except for the man in black who once again smiled and left.
“Mr. Luna, one of the men finally said, let me buy you a drink”
Tomas said, “no thanks, I’ve had enough”
He turns to leave and stares down  F’Lass.  He pistol whips him and yells, “and don’t call me lush again!”

6

Tomas left, went to the barber.  Clean and freshly shaven, he sees T’Li, who was looking for him.

“Sterling says you’ve got your eye back, and word around the station is you’re as good with that gun as you ever were”

“Oh, is that so? Yeah, I was good.  So good that every damned day someone would come through those doors looking to face me.  And I’d leave them face down on the floor dead.  Every day I knew I’d have to prove I was the best, so every morning I’d start drinking just a little bit earlier. I guess it’ll start all over again now”
A young man approached the pair
“You Luna?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“Word is you’re top gun around here.  I have a message for you. Pete Blakk will dock here tomorrow night, and he will meet you in the holosuites inside Lepton’s.  Safeties off. Understood?”
“Look you tell Mr. Blakk that there’s no need to-“
The look on the man’s face told Luna that his words were useless.  As long as he’s thought of as the best, someone will always be gunning for him. Never mind that he got off two lousy lucky shots with F’Lass and that he’s not any steadier that he was yesterday...no these guys will just keep coming.
“You tell Mr. Blakk, that I’ll be there”

7

It was midnight, Luna packed his bag with what little he had, and headed out to see what kind of transport he could get on, when he ran into a familiar face.

The man in black stood before him “Mr. Luna, I’d like to talk with you in private” he motioned him over to a table near the Klingon's cafe and they sat down.
“Mr. Luna, my name is-
“I don’t need anything.  You’re a peddler, right?
“Peddler? Oh, I like to think of myself as a Dealer in everything.  Utensils, herbs, medicine, weapons, liniments, fine gifts, tools and tonics, puzzles and potions. “he saw a spark in Tomas’ eye” oh yes, potions my good man.  The name is Fate.  Providence J. Fate- procurer of all things fine to divine.  And you are Tomas Luna, and you’re running away.
“You heard? Of course, the whole stations heard by now, haven’t they?”
“yep, but you shouldn’t, run that is”
“Oh, no? I should stay? And get shot to death?
“No Mr. Luna, you won’t get shot to death, here, not with this.”

He pulls out a silver bottle

“This is one of my potions, or you can call it an elixir.  whatever you call it, it will solve your problem”
“What is it?”
“Liquid Luck, Mr. Luna.  You drink this and for ten seconds and only ten seconds, you will be the fast draw there is.  No one can beat you. But just for those ten seconds, after that, it’s all on you. You drink that when you and Mr. Blakk enter your holosuite showdown. And there’s no charge for this. “
the little man in black got up
“there’s no charge, it’s a service.  Just remember this night well, Mr. Luna-the night Fate stepped in.”

8

“Luna!” The man in the doorway of Lepton’s, tall lanky and young yelled out. “you Luna?”
Tomas put his mug of Root beer down and slowly turned and nodded.
“You, Blakk?”
The boy nodded in return.  The patrons of the bar clearing the way, pretending to mind their own business and failing miserably at it watched the men walk to the holosuite assigned to the event, safeties off as requested.  The stations medical examiner who had heard about this meeting picked an ideal time to come enjoy a mug of his own and a game of darts. He followed the two upstairs to witness the event and be of service if needed.

Inside the holosuite the two stood twenty feet apart, with the doctor off to the side.  Luna with his back to Blakk pulled the silver bottle from his pocket and drank all of the potion.  He felt his eyes sharpen, his resolve hardens and his senses come alive, he spun around quickly to face the young man.  The boy wiped his mouth with his left hand that clutched an opened silver bottle just like the one in Luna’s hand.  Looking at the others bottle then into each other’s eyes they realized what has taken place, simultaneously.  In an instance they both dropped their bottles, went for their guns and fired. The phaser pistols exploded in each of the men’s hands as they both aimed and hit their marks.

The doctor examined each man’s hands, declared the match a draw and said they never be able to aim straight with that hand again.

Epilogue

Blakk left the bar, hand burned and useless, glaring at Fate as the docking bay doors closed, moments later Tomas Luna, looking sore but pleased, seen the little man in black as he stood on the transporter pad, but did not look at Fate in anger.  He nodded to him in thanks.

Providence J. Fate-procurer of all things fine to divine, everything from Utensils, to herbs, tools to tonics, and of course potions- stepped in and helped an old man climb out of a pit of death.  He also helped a young man from falling into one. ]]> 1

“Father, who’s that man over there?” The boy asked quizzically while looking at an older man, with an empty mug in front of his head that rests on the table in the corner of Cafe Whisper on Starbase Deep Space 12.
“Oh him? That fellas name is...” the boy's father stops and thinks “well, I’m not too sure I remember anymore...Luna, I think. “
The man and his son finish their drinks as the father continues “He’s been around the station forever, but I’ll be dam-, just you never mind him.  He’s a drunk.  Finish up, and steer clear of him, let him sleep it off”.
As the two left the boy peers over his shoulder at the man in the corner, and the eyes of youth locked with the eyes of the aged and they both felt sadness. The boy felt the sadness of despair in the old man’s crusty gaze.  The old man, who’d heard the entire conversation felt a sadness all his own.  There was a time when everyone on this station, in the whole quadrant for that matter knew his name.
As he watched the two walk down the corridor and out of sight, he noticed a new pair of eyes.  Among the passersby, a man stepped through the door into the rotunda, fresh off the docking bay.  Wearing all black and carrying a black traveling bag. The man looked left and then right, before setting his eyes straight at the old man in the cafe.  The man then smiled.  Still smiling the man in black walked on into the crowd of men and women shuffling about their business.

It’s just another day of a busy starport.  The man’s name is Tomas Luna.  And the boy's father was right on both accounts, he has been on DS12 forever, and he is a drunk. Traveling a lonely road of empty mugs and bottles.  Tomas Luna, a man who would give an arm, a leg or maybe even a bit of his own soul to have another chance at life, to be able to rise up and shake the dirt off his body, so to speak.  To be someone again

2

Getting up to leave, Tomas wobbled a bit and caught himself.
The man's begun his dying early, he thought.  He rubs a hand across the stubble across his cheek, as he looks at his reflection off the console screen outside the cafe.  His cheek engraved with lines of fear. With agony and with-
“bad dreams” he muttered
“If I could just shake off the bad dreams fer once”
“Excuse me” a small Ferengi said to him, “Are you finished?”
Tomas stumbles aside and thought ‘are there any others but small Ferengi’
He sits back down as the Ferengi taps the console screen.  Just before he drops his head back to the table, Tomas notices the little man in black once again.  He’s sort of a rather fancy-looking little man he realizes now that he’s looking at him up so closely.  From his wife brimmed hat, to his small black boots.  And out of the little black coat he wears.  Luna’s eyes widen as he watches him reach into his pocket.  As he does Tomas feels and hears something bump his foot.  He looks down to his boot to see a small phaser pistol lying there.  The pistol that he knew so well, and one that may be just the thing to give Tomas the chance he was just thinking of.  Looking up from the phaser Tomas was about to speak when he realized he was alone.  The man was gone, if he’d ever been there.  He looked around and scooped up the pistol into his pocket and got up, so fast that he fell back into his and then off of his chair, and onto the hard unforgiving steel floor.
Hands began to help him up as he hears Flossie, the lass that runs this cafe say
“Alright, that’s enough for today, Tomas, it’s time for you to get.  Back to your quarters or wherever you go when you’re not here”.

He’s shuffled out into the corridor, embarrassed, tire and a little thirsty as he steps forward to...to where exactly?  The stations chapel will of course lend him a bed as they always do, but not this early in the day.  If he’s not careful, station security will start to pay attention to him, and they have such hard and cold beds in the jailhouse. So, he keeps his head down and walks slowly, steadily, practicing the art of invisibility as he used to joke about when he was a younger man.  When he felt alive, and happy.  Before he had reason to not be happy.

3

The door of Leptons whooshes open as Luna comes tumbling out amid a slew of cheers, roars and laughter into the corridor and once again Tomas feels his weary knees crash against the hard steel.  He just wanted one drink, he thought as he rolls over on his back and lies there, eyes closed as the pulse of pain begins to leave his knees.  Laughter erupts again as he feels cold liquid poured onto his face and begin to sting of his eyes and fill his nostrils.  Romulan Ale.
Various cuts come alive as he’s soaked and when he finally looks up, he sees the bottle in the hands of F’lass.
“Get up!” F’Lass yells through a mouthful of pointed teeth.  “You come in a respectable bar like Leptons with no latinum, or credits, well here’s your drink, now you’ll pay for it my way”

A small crowd gathers around the two.  F’lass, empty bottle in his hand, standing over Luna, on his back lying in a puddle of booze.
“Get up and let’s see you pay for your drink, with a little dance. C’mon Luna.  You can dance, huh?”
Laughter continues as Luna makes his way to his feet, drunk and tired, he knows F’lass will let him come into the bar an get a glass of ale, all he has to do is pay for it, in his own unique fashion.

“Sterling, can’t you break that up?”  T’Li, the Caitian Dabo girl said to the head barkeep and owner of Lepton’s, as the two watch that poor man dance, or try to while the bullies bullied and had their fun.
“I don’t like it any more than you do, the misery they give that guy out there”
She shoots him a cold look and bares her teeth and says “I’m going on my break”

Outside, Luna slips and falls to the floor, the crowd roars with delight as F’lass throws him the empty bottle and yells “c’mon boys, back to the tables, Sterling another round!”

T’Li pushes through the crowd and watches Tomas suckle every last drop from the bottle, he looks at her and she looks away from him, in disgust.

4

He watches her walk off and see the face of the little man in black again and remembers what he found in the cafe, the phaser pistol.  His second chance.
Getting to his feet, pistol in hand, he checked the charge and felt the weight in his hand.  T’Li returns, eyeing him she says

“How are you, Tomas? You packing a gun now?”

“Hello Miss T’Li” he says never taking his eyes off the gun in his hand, “this isn’t mine.  I found it at Flossie’s.  Someone must have dropped it”

She glances from his face to the gun and back,
“You used to be pretty good with those back in the day, right?”
To this he replied, “that was a long time ago Miss T’Li”.

“Tomas, tell me.  Why do you have to drink so much?  You didn’t always”.
Tomas looked up into her eyes, and felt a hand on his shoulder, spin him around.

It was F’Lass again, “He’s on his feet boys.  Let’s see if he knows the Andorian waltz, how about Luna.  Dancy wancy for a drinky winky?” his wide grin beamed proudly on his face.

T’Li turns Tomas to face her
“don’t do it Tom”
“But he’ll give me a drink Miss T’Li”
“To hell with him, I can give you one too and you won’t have to be his monkey”
He looks to her and then to F’Lass and begins to shuffle side to side, turning on his heels as he dips, the worst rendition of any dance and nowhere near close to the Andorian waltz.

T’Li turns away, and the men watch on as F’Lass tells him to go inside and get his drink, he’s been a good lusher.
Walking into the bar, F’Lass sees the pistol in his hands and says “hey, wait there, gunslinger. “ and when he didn’t stop walking, he yelled “You Luna. Where did you get that?”
“I found it in the street”
“You did? Been a while since you used one, say why don’t you use it now?”
“No, I don’t want any-“
“Maybe you can outdraw me”

T’Li steps in “stop, F’Lass this isn’t funny anymore, Sterling, get out here!”
“Shut it, Dabo girl, and get back to the bar, Sterling! Me and the lush here are gonna have a little show down.

5

The gathering crowd gets larger, as the man in black leaning against the wall watching the disturbance outside the bar.
“Tell you what Lush, I’ll even make it fair.  I’ll draw left-handed.” He pulls his own phaser out with his left hand, while Tomas backs away pleading with T’Li, “Miss T’Li tell him, I don’t even know how to use this any-“
The man in black watches intently as Luna fires the pistol accidentally, shooting the pistol out of F’Lass’s left hand.  Luna wasn’t even looking at him.
The man in black smiled.

Looking at F’Lass nursing his wounded hand, Luna says
“Mr. F’Lass, it was an accident, Miss T’Li, tell him”

“Nice shooting, Tomas” Sterling says coming out of the bar, “hey get in here, I’ll get you a drink and don’t worry about security if they come, I’ll call them off, c’mon everyone back inside, drinks on me!”

Tomas and the crowd go inside as F’Lass stands there with a ruined pistol at his feet and burns on his hand. He walks back inside and yells at Tomas to face him.  He draws his other pistol, in his right hand.
Inside the bar the crowd clears between the two men, phasers in hand.  The man in black steps inside to watch as Tomas pleads with F’Lass that it was just an accident, that he didn’t even mean to.  Just then his gun went off once again, this time striking the Dabo wheel, which blew apart and one of the pieces lodged into F’Lass’s right hand, disarming him yet again.

Everyone in the bar was stunned silent, except for the man in black who once again smiled and left.
“Mr. Luna, one of the men finally said, let me buy you a drink”
Tomas said, “no thanks, I’ve had enough”
He turns to leave and stares down  F’Lass.  He pistol whips him and yells, “and don’t call me lush again!”

6

Tomas left, went to the barber.  Clean and freshly shaven, he sees T’Li, who was looking for him.

“Sterling says you’ve got your eye back, and word around the station is you’re as good with that gun as you ever were”

“Oh, is that so? Yeah, I was good.  So good that every damned day someone would come through those doors looking to face me.  And I’d leave them face down on the floor dead.  Every day I knew I’d have to prove I was the best, so every morning I’d start drinking just a little bit earlier. I guess it’ll start all over again now”
A young man approached the pair
“You Luna?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“Word is you’re top gun around here.  I have a message for you. Pete Blakk will dock here tomorrow night, and he will meet you in the holosuites inside Lepton’s.  Safeties off. Understood?”
“Look you tell Mr. Blakk that there’s no need to-“
The look on the man’s face told Luna that his words were useless.  As long as he’s thought of as the best, someone will always be gunning for him. Never mind that he got off two lousy lucky shots with F’Lass and that he’s not any steadier that he was yesterday...no these guys will just keep coming.
“You tell Mr. Blakk, that I’ll be there”

7

It was midnight, Luna packed his bag with what little he had, and headed out to see what kind of transport he could get on, when he ran into a familiar face.

The man in black stood before him “Mr. Luna, I’d like to talk with you in private” he motioned him over to a table near the Klingon's cafe and they sat down.
“Mr. Luna, my name is-
“I don’t need anything.  You’re a peddler, right?
“Peddler? Oh, I like to think of myself as a Dealer in everything.  Utensils, herbs, medicine, weapons, liniments, fine gifts, tools and tonics, puzzles and potions. “he saw a spark in Tomas’ eye” oh yes, potions my good man.  The name is Fate.  Providence J. Fate- procurer of all things fine to divine.  And you are Tomas Luna, and you’re running away.
“You heard? Of course, the whole stations heard by now, haven’t they?”
“yep, but you shouldn’t, run that is”
“Oh, no? I should stay? And get shot to death?
“No Mr. Luna, you won’t get shot to death, here, not with this.”

He pulls out a silver bottle

“This is one of my potions, or you can call it an elixir.  whatever you call it, it will solve your problem”
“What is it?”
“Liquid Luck, Mr. Luna.  You drink this and for ten seconds and only ten seconds, you will be the fast draw there is.  No one can beat you. But just for those ten seconds, after that, it’s all on you. You drink that when you and Mr. Blakk enter your holosuite showdown. And there’s no charge for this. “
the little man in black got up
“there’s no charge, it’s a service.  Just remember this night well, Mr. Luna-the night Fate stepped in.”

8

“Luna!” The man in the doorway of Lepton’s, tall lanky and young yelled out. “you Luna?”
Tomas put his mug of Root beer down and slowly turned and nodded.
“You, Blakk?”
The boy nodded in return.  The patrons of the bar clearing the way, pretending to mind their own business and failing miserably at it watched the men walk to the holosuite assigned to the event, safeties off as requested.  The stations medical examiner who had heard about this meeting picked an ideal time to come enjoy a mug of his own and a game of darts. He followed the two upstairs to witness the event and be of service if needed.

Inside the holosuite the two stood twenty feet apart, with the doctor off to the side.  Luna with his back to Blakk pulled the silver bottle from his pocket and drank all of the potion.  He felt his eyes sharpen, his resolve hardens and his senses come alive, he spun around quickly to face the young man.  The boy wiped his mouth with his left hand that clutched an opened silver bottle just like the one in Luna’s hand.  Looking at the others bottle then into each other’s eyes they realized what has taken place, simultaneously.  In an instance they both dropped their bottles, went for their guns and fired. The phaser pistols exploded in each of the men’s hands as they both aimed and hit their marks.

The doctor examined each man’s hands, declared the match a draw and said they never be able to aim straight with that hand again.

Epilogue

Blakk left the bar, hand burned and useless, glaring at Fate as the docking bay doors closed, moments later Tomas Luna, looking sore but pleased, seen the little man in black as he stood on the transporter pad, but did not look at Fate in anger.  He nodded to him in thanks.

Providence J. Fate-procurer of all things fine to divine, everything from Utensils, to herbs, tools to tonics, and of course potions- stepped in and helped an old man climb out of a pit of death.  He also helped a young man from falling into one. ]]> <![CDATA[Tamam Shud]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6751 Thu, 20 May 2021 13:01:49 -0400 bu'hert]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6751 “It's as easy as one, two..”

(1)

Lambert Field, St. Louis, Mo.

He’s groggy, dressed in coveralls of some sort, and slowly walking into the East Terminal doors.

The automatic doors whoosh open as he walks forward, towards a giant wall, with drawings and faces, some he’s seen before. It’s like out of a dream or something, the faces are what he’s thinking about. It’s men and women and while they are painted images on a wall, he feels he knows some them just the same. Are they family? Friends? Surely not, he seems to be in public and so these people must be of some importance to this building. The owners perhaps? He doesn’t know, then again he’s not sure who he is. Or who his-

“Family is-“

he hears a voice and it startles him. He’s alone, in a busy airport, (he doesn’t know where he is either or what an airport is yet) and although it’s crowded he’s not near anyone so the voice made him jump.

Looking around he realizes, the voice is his own. He was looking at a man and a woman, wondering who they were, wondering about himself too and he must have begun to speak his thoughts, a normal occurrence and one that’s gotten many people in trouble.

The wall, (he keeps hearing a voice in his head say Muriel-but that’s not quite right there.) Mur-Muriel? Am I Muriel? Or one of these people on the wall?

“These people”

he mutters as he starts to expand his vision along the wall, surrounded by a metal walkway. There’s the woman, young, smiling in a field, in front of an airplane with a young woman of similar appearance sitting on top. Same girl perhaps.

“Wait- Airplane?”

He steps onto the metal walkway, to look closer at this,

“How do I know that?”

But yes that is the front of an airplane, and there are more of them, each with either a face or person next to the plane. Two men wearing animal fur and skin, stand along side two men in dark coats and beards. All four of them are looking at an enormous structure that looks like the letter M cut in half, ‘I can tell is huge because the “half M” has small drawings that appear to be people walking around and under this archway.’ he thinks

Above that appears to be another craft that looks to be made of cheap metal and cloth, flying next a more sturdy looking craft shaped like a great big-

“Cochran” he says, yeah that’s a ship he knows.  “Zefram Cochran’s Phoenix”

He’s a little more at ease, at that, hoping that’s just the beginning of who and where he is, the how’s and why’s hopefully will come too.  Men with scarfs, and helmets, all colors and sizes, various planes, men in suits and ties standing and there are words above all these images related to flight. He must be at a central station, for flying or maybe a museum.  He’s standing too close now to really see and try to read these word,

“WELCOME TO ST (pronouncing it as Etsy) LOUIS INTERSTEL- whoa!”

The sloped walkway he’s on begins to move.  As he falls onto his back, riding along the metal flooring and around a sharp corner he sees a ramp coming out of the ground.  Riding up this ramp are cases, boxes and baggages of all shapes and sizes, each with a bright coded ID hovering above them.

He sits up, mentally wakes up and realizes that he’s being watch by the small crowd approaching this area. They are holding hand held devices with similar glowing ID numbers and he hears the voice in his head say ‘Airport Baggage Claim’

As he’s trying to hopefully get off this ride he hears laughing and murmurs from the growing crowd and then sees a hand extended to him and kind looking man attached to the hand.

“ Looks like you to went hind over teakettle, eh ma’am?”

He takes his hand, gets to his feet and he's about to answer 'yes, I did' when he looks at the smiling man and watches his face morph from genuine concern, to blank stare, and then to scared.  The man then opens his mouth as if he was going to make a statement but more than likely he was going to ask ‘are you alright?’ He knew this was going to be the man’s question, but because he fell.

While the man’s expressions changed and his mouth began to open, time seemed to stand still, as our coverall clad man who may or may not be Muriel looked to his left at a mirrored wall next to the baggage ramp.  Looking back at him was a beautiful woman in her twenties, with blonde disheveled hair staring with growing concern.  She said just one word, it was the word that brought him to a stand still as he was being helped up. He said it along with her as he turned to look at his new friend who was now backing away.

At the instance of utterance, his surroundings vanished, all but a small popping sound. He thought he heard men faintly yelling, then the questioning tone of that single word echoed.

“Ma’am????”

“I don’t want to get lost.”

“Lost???”

(2)

8:30pm
“That’s right, he’s in the tank.” {The voice on the phone buzzed on} “I chained him up in fact.” {buzzz} “It took everything I had to get him here alone and three of us to lock him up, so yeah, he’s on the chain.”
{buzzz}
“well what was I supposed to do, enraged man rattling on about planes, & blondes, then started yelling on about Lizbia, where the hell that is I haven’t the foggiest”
{buzz}
“Yes of course we wore our PPE, gloves and hoods all the other crap the bureaucrats dumped on us ever since the chemical wars began.
{buzzz}
“no you know what, I’m going on 15 hours and he can sleep it off in the tank till morning, your bloody paperwork will keep”

The officer slammed the phone to the cradle, it always feels satisfying to slam a phone down.
Tonés sighed and looked at the clock.  Knowing he wasn’t waiting on the paperwork until morning, he never does.

7:05pm
PC request call came in about a theft and possible D&D in Derbyshire, and Officer Tonés took the call and found a black male in his 30’s slim and lanky.  He was caught stealing a loaf of bread, by the looks of him he must really have been starving.  He fought with the shop keep a bit then yelled on about Lizbia. Scared and confused, the shop keep called in the police.  Tonés tried to reason with the man, then fought with the man and then took him into custody, not before first paying for the bread this man so desperately clutched onto like its his newborn.

8:45pm
“Evening Parkes” Tonés said to the guard of the watch, Nigel Parkes is on duty tonight.  Tonés then walked down the dark uneven stairs to ‘the dungeon’ as it’s called.

There’s only two cells in this wing, the older wing, we use for the drunks and vagues and as he got further downstairs he began to hear Mr. D&D’s voice.  Tonés watched the man pace and mutter, then fly into a panicked rage when he saw the officer approach.
“Lizbia?” he screamed at the officer. Tonés replies calmly “you tell me, mate, is that where you’re from? Did you take a plane in from there? And who’s this blonde you were carrying on about back at the shop?”

“Lizbia” is all he’d say, no matter what was asked “Lizbia”
“Are you speaking english?” Well, do you know your name? Do you need a translator?” The man just yells, as if he doesn’t know what anything means.  And the only word he says is Lizbia.

After a few tries of this same line of verbal, Tonés goes back upstairs to his desk. He rifles through the atlas, nowhere in the is there a Lizbia...“Lisbon? Maybe” he mumbles.
After sending a message to his wife to tell her he’ll be late again, and grabbing a bite and an ale, Tonés went back down to the cell to try the man again.

Tonés nods to Parkes again, and the guard stops him.
“Sir, I wanted you to know that I brought him food”
“yeah? And how did it go?”
“Well, he looked at the tray, and gobbled a bit of the apple while I poured him some water. When I placed the cup on the tray, he stopped and looked at the cup.  Then looked at his legs and hands and knocked over the cup and went back to that damn awful howling.  Sir, this is gonna be the longest night of my life”
“ I hear ya, Parkes.  Think how he feels” Tonés, raises his eyebrows and turned away to walk the stairs down to the cells.

Well, maybe not quite as pie, but he was pleased to hear that their guest was being quiet at least.  Watching the man sitting on his bed, still manacled to the wall by the wrist, he could see the tray, and the metal cup on the floor out of his reach.  The man was breathing rapidly he could tell even from this distance, in fact other than that he appeared to be asleep.  As he gets closer, Tonés starts to see the wall behind the man.  Not just that but he’s seeing the wall while looking through the man. That fleeting moment of pleasure screeched to dead stop, Tonés could hear men yelling outside somewhere ...fluctuations, sir... while he sprinted to the cell door.  He heard a faint pop of a gunshot somewhere as he looked at the empty cell in front of him.  Both cells were empty. But this one had a single wrist manacle, floating in front of him for half a second.  ..ctuations in the...it’s the bio filter...
When it fell to the cement floor, Tonés screamed.

(3)

“Do you know how many molecules you're made up of?”

“Yes,But how many?”

-“Tons”

He hears that popping sound again, and hears the sound of metal falling to the floor, as well.  Then silence.  He doesn’t want to open his eyes. Not just yet. He is cold. Freezing even. Exhausted as well.

Just laying here, wherever here is, at least he can think.
Think of what’s been happening to him,
“This is wrong” he thinks or maybe mumbles, not paying any attention to the finger that just poked his cheek.
But he’s no longer clueless, he thinks. He is remembering things.
‘Fluctuations!’
Seen recognizable faces.  There was Bessie, and the airships...Cochran.  Seeing the Phoenix Flight.
“Mister”
He’s knows he read about that in school, in in flight school.  He feels his body shake, then convulse and start to shiver, and he somehow feels even colder.  What’s colder than freezing? Flight school, that’s right, he’s a pilot.
“Hey Mister?”
And he’s a HE. But why did I look like a woman at that airport? And then a black man in the brig?
‘Lizbia’. The name rang so loud in his head it hurt.  But who or what is that? He knows he needs it.
“Why do your eyes look like that, Mister?”

His trancelike internalization was broken by the child’s voice, he’s been hearing voices in his mind, but this one was in his ears as well.  He sits up and opens his eyes, only to find they already are.  As he sits there, blinking his wide clouded eyes, all he sees is blackness.
“Are you blind, mister? Your eyes look like they don’t work no more”
He gulps, preparing to speak and hears his dry raspy voice answer
“Yeah, I think your right. Can you tell me where we are?  Maybe help me up?
“No” was all the boy said
“No, you can’t tell me where we are?”
“No” the boy said in the matter of fact, no filter, honesty that only children have. “You can’t get up, mister. Yours legs are gone”

He actually did get up, and after a touch and go ordeal between man and boy about fetching a wagon or pull cart for him to ride in and a sturdy enough stick, with the right type of V shape on the end to fashion the older of the two a crutch, the pair walked/rode to a nearby cabin that was the boys home.

The smell hit his senses when he stepped through the door. He smells coffee, sweat and tubers or potatoes roasting, there is a musty wet cloth odor too, not rancid, yet not appealing either.  But the most welcome sensation of them all was the warmth.  He didn’t need to hear the crackling of the fire to know that it’s there.
He heard voices, an older concerned, on the verge of angry man, and a more quizative woman talking but he cannot understand what they are saying. He hears his new young friend talking back to them with desperation in his voice.
“He was lying in the East field...once I realized he was alive I knew he was...but Papa, I...no I knew he was safe and kind, but he’s lost...I just know that’s how!”

Soon he feels strong hands helping him in and setting him down onto a chair.
“Who are ya?” the man asked
“He’s a pilot! His name is-“
“ Hush boy! The man can answer to his own! Mind yer place”
Before he could answer the man, not that he knew the answers to any of his questions he hears the woman say something. But again it was in the language as before and he didn’t understand any of what she said.
“Yes, Mother’s right, it was good of you to help this man, and we too will help him...now I need you to go check on the hens and take the basket with you.  Mother can make up some nice eggs if you come back with the prize” The voice was no longer gruff but kind, if not a little weary, this was a good man and loving father talking to his son.
“But Papa-“
“Go”

The boy made a Tsk noise and the man hears movement and a door open and slam, knowing the boy left, not because he felt the cold from outside as the door opened and closed but he knew vague notions that the boy knew, not specifically where or who he was, but he knew the boy was concerned and now mad, mad because he always gets sent away when the grown ups talk.
“That boy, Cyrus, I tell you”
“Your boy’s name is Cyrus?”
Confused the man said “no, the boys name is William.”  Then he added “Your name is Cyrus.  You just said so”

“Cyrus?” he asked the old man then nodded. “Yeah, I AM Cyrus.” He had forgotten, but it’s coming back to him, just upon hearing the name.  “But I didn’t tell you my name, I didn’t remember it until you said it”
The man, who had been leaning forwards now leaned back in his chair and said “Mother. Could we get some coffee here to warm Cyrus up a bit? I’ll take some too.”
She replied in her native language and he heard the man quietly now speaking  to him.  “you are welcome here, Cyrus and we will help you however we can. But I’ll not tolerate being lied to.  Why lie about knowing your own name? But that’s no nevermind to me, just speak your truth here on out”
“Sir, I am not lying. I honestly did not say my name.  Did you hear me say it?”
“ aye, I- well that is to say that I heard.” The confusion sets in his voice, “I know your name, I heard your voice in my head say your name, but now I cannot be sure that I heard the words come from your lips”
The woman he called mother, brought two steaming mugs of coffee, along with bowls of stew speaking her gibberish as she did and set one set in front of her husband, turned towards Cyrus, steadied herself some and set the second set down in front of him, with a motherly pat on his shoulder.
“-likes it, but when he gets back with the eggs. Maybe we can milk old Bessie out there to splash in your coffee, if it do ya, Mr. Ramsey.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said ‘We’re out of salt, and mind the coffee, ‘tis strong like Mr. Bunting likes it. But when William...the boy, gets back with the eggs maybe we can get ye some milk for your drink’”

The confusion spread amongst evenly to everyone in the room.  The kindly old couple, sharing fellowship with a blind, legless stranger their boy found in the field.  He speaks French so he must be from these parts.  Many here in Nova Scotia speak English, save for the old timers.  William is learning English in school, but Jabez and Mrs. Bunting have no time or need for such learning.  The stranger, Cyrus Ramsey he’s called, Not that he has confessed this, or claims to have know this until it was told to him by the Buntings, is telling them everything he can think of.

“So, did the floor of the jailhouse move as well or was that only in the Arrow Port?”
“No it didn’t. It was stone. The airport floor was meant to move, for the baggage to be delivered.  I was not supposed to be standing on it” He was also not to be a woman standing on it but left that part of the story to himself.

The laughter from the kitchen caused both men to stop talking and Mr. Bunting to look as Mrs. Bunting made her way to the table with her bowl of stew and added in an amusing tone “ ‘I was supposed to stand here, not there’ It’s all rubbish, Mr. Bunting,” looking towards her husband then over to her guest, “Mr. Ramsey. You cannot stand in the wrong place with no ruddy legs. I’m sorry to tell ya”
Mother was not wrong.

Jabez stoked the fire, as his wife  served the cake and more coffee. This time not black thanks to William who brought in half a pail of milk.
“We can ride into town for supplies, in the morning and also talk to the deacon. He’ll know what to do.”

Cyrus made no reply, he’s remembering more now than he had at dinner.
“The stream!! The stream, Lieutenant!”
He knows that this deacon will likely commit him or chain him if he keeps talking.  He knows who he is, and where he’s from, and this place is not it. And judging by the dialect, clothing and looks of this family he’s not only in the wrong country, he’s possibly in the wrong century.

“Thank you, Mr. Bunting you have been most kind.”

“If you can stand the wagon ride ull gander. Say, Mr. Ramsey, before we turn in I have one question and then a request.  I’ll have you square me in the eye for your answers too.  My question to you is Will you kill us in our sleep?”
Their eyes locked
“of course not sir.  You have my word.”
“Very good, I thought not but” he shrugged and tilted head to the side ever so slightly “and the request. William has asked if you would sleep in his room.  Mother will set up a pallet wherever you would like”
Grinning “of course sir. I’d be delighted”

The lone candle lit the room as the man and child lay on their backs watching the dance of the shadows.  The child in his bed, the man, as tall as the child due his missing lower extremities lay on a mat along the wall.

The boy asked about his legs, and Cyrus began to wonder. In the airport, he remembers looking at his own body, yet his reflection showed that of a woman.  He saw his white hands grasp the cup, yet his reflection in that cup was that of a black man. He has no idea what his reflection will show here in this existence, but here when he looks at his feet, they are not there.  So who cares what the reflection shows.  Gone is gone.

He avoided the boy’s question by reciting him a poem that he knew, but really he has no clue how he knew it.

The boy put his little hands behind his little head resting on the pillow, and watched the ceiling as he listened to Mr. Ramsey’s poem.

“Tamam Shud.” he began “Which means ‘this is the end’

This is the end,

Beautiful friend,

This is the end,

My only friend, the end,

Can you picture what will be?
limitless and free

Desperately in need

In a desperate, What will be.

Of all our plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes again”

The boy listened for more. Faintly he heard voices, in the distance yelling. ...the stream's too unstable....The words were in English but he didn’t understand, William then heard a popping sound. Like a fart in the bath. He smiled and rolled over to look at Mr. Ramsey, but the pallet was empty. His smile faded as he stared.
He was alone.

“The stream's too unstable....Lieutenant!”

...Come on, Cy, come on...

“Your molecules get pulled apart.”

“Then they get put back together again...Safe and sound...

You can do it, Cy!! you can do it! One..Two...

(4)

“ Oy! - Look at this chum here”

“Hey, bullyboy! Wake up, ya scrub”

The two men laughed at the old man in the three piece suit as they jogged by and yelled back over their shoulders at him “sleep it off, ya drunk”
They continued on with their morning routine, a morning run they will do until they are well into their forties. Until the older of the two dies of congestive heart failure and his partner goes ‘to be with him’ (by his own hand) 6 months later.

We see the old man lying on the beach leaning again a rock, one hand rests on his heart, the other by his side. One leg outstretched, the other bend straight up at the knee.  His eyes are closed, mouth firmly shut, brain function erratic, heart and lungs working at a bare minimum.  Behind those cold dead eyes, Cyrus Ramsey screamed for help.

But the joggers continued to jog, soon all Cyrus could do was think and try not to go insane.  He could feel the ocean breeze, hear the crash of the tide and call of the Terns that frequented these shores.

‘The hell is a Tern??’ Cyrus thought as he tried violently to thrash his limbs into some sort of movement.  Nothing. Then a voice in his head said ‘Terns and Gannets are like flies on shit at these beaches, have been since I was a boy, you betcha’
‘Who said that?’ Cyrus asked
‘You said it, well I said it, or thunk it- no matter, you and I are renting out close quarters it would seem, your name is Cyrus, I’m Alfie.’

The old man continued to think to Cyrus as the body they shared lay dying motionless on a lonely beach of Australia, in the summer of 1948.

‘And at this point I should come clean, since you and I are both dead.  I having consumed poison rather-forcibly I might add-and you, well I don’t really know how you died, but you’re here now.  I’d say my body is shutting down and my brain will be the last to go, but at least it’s conjured up a companion for me to keep me company, ya?’
‘Listen. No, I’m not dead, but I am Cyrus. Cyrus Ramsey.  Lt. Ramsey in fact.  Truax Field, 115th Starfleet (laughter) Space Force division. We were testing long (laughter) range transporters and my molecules became(uncontrollable laughter) encased in the pattern buff-I’m not getting the joke here. We were testing our equipment, and I have been seeing and feeling some of the most random, outlandish things.  And you sit there laughing.  What is so funny?”
“You Cyrus.” Alfie said as the laughter turned to fury, and then cold fright. “You are what funny. You see, I’m dead. A corpse (when he said this word corpse it sound as if he said cawps) a bag of rotting fucking bones. With a brain spiraling down the loo of life, and you Lefttenant are clinging to the zaps and pops of what’s left of that brain.”
“Contact Captain Lizbia, he’ll know what to d-“ Cyrus bleated
“Will you get out before my brain dies too?”
“ shut up, and help me. I need to-“

“Tick tock Cyrus”

“Don't tell me you don't know about poor Cyrus, Hoshi.”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Tick tock-Hahahahahaha”

“You can't go on a survival overnight without hearing a story about someone seeing Ramsey”

“Tick Tock Lefttenant”

“seeing Ramsey’s molecules rematerialize on a foggy night”

“Tic-“

(5)

Report!

“Captain, we’re Losing him sir. There was a fault it the pattern buffer on the receiving end, sir.”
“Who’s in charge over there?”
“It’s Roth, sir, and there fluctuations in the bio scanner stream. It’s too unstable”
“Lieutenant!...Ens. Roth! This is Captain Lizbia -Report! Do you have Ramsey?”

“no sir.  Well, not exactly sir.
He fades in and out.  Sometimes it’s him, sometimes it’s other, it’s other people, sir.  Men and women, all ages.  Then he’s back. Screaming or yelling for you and someone else. Someone named ‘Hoshi’
Half of him was here for a while Sir, from the waist up.  What do we do sir?”

(6)

Cyrus.
Cyrus!
Wake up Lieutenant!
His eyes snapped open.
Standing on the giant transporter platform overlooking Truax Field, in Madison, Wisconsin.  His field of vision is hazy, transparent,  he can see Captain Lizbia and Lt. Heisenberg in front of him, at the consoles and off at the other end he sees Roth and Murdock.  This is the test, I’m back where I need to be but stuck in the-
Cyrus!
He looks below him on the platform at the young brunette.

“You want to pay attention here?”

“I know that voice, you’re...Hoshi, right? I don’t know how I-“ The woman in the blue coveralls and black pony tail nodded and smiled,
“yes, and you know..I was where you are. Maybe, I will be where you are now, but know this...You are in an energy stream.  And the amount of energy your brain is emitting to produce your fear and worry over this test, its affecting the inadequate equipment here, preventing the conversion process of this test.  You know what they say about the power of the mind after...”
“What do they say?”
“Cyrus, I need you to take my hand.”
“Excuse me?”
“My hand, Lieutenant. Close your eyes.”
Hoshi puts three fingers on Cyrus’ palm
“Think of yourself on a turbulent ocean. You have the power to control the waves.”
Cyrus fidgeted and said “What the-you’re not helping it’s-“
Hoshi adjusts the pressure of her fingers
“Focus. The waves are subsiding, the water is calming down and growing docile. You are in control.”
Cyrus began to relax his anxiety and said “That was amazing, H-“

With that she was gone, his field of vision restored and he looked down at Ensigns Roth and Murdock who hollered and high fived each other.

Epilogue

“So, doc you're saying all of that happened in 25 minutes?
“Twenty Five minutes and 3 seconds. Your physical body will have not have aged that much but your mentality, it has taken several longer trips.” Dr. Pipp, examining Ramsey in sickbay went on
“Each time you would molecularly detach, your pattern would attach itself to the nearest mind it could find, probably instantly.
We will be studying this for a very long time before we fully understand.“

“I was myself, yet not by myself, and I was also in those people, I was them...we knew things about each other.  But I couldn’t remember much at first, even though they could access my mind, I could not.

“I’d guess it was your mind coping with the ordeal it was going through.“

“Okay, but what about the woman  that talked me down? Hoshi was her name. She was trapped in a pattern buffer too she said.
“Yes, I read your report, that is most fascinating of all.  It would appear your subconscious created another life form in your mind, one that had a cure for the phobia you were experiencing. Again, this is just a theory but I believe this ‘Hoshi’ was a coping mechanism in your mind”
“She seemed so real. So did her crewmen...I heard voices talking to her, about me as if I was a legend.  Campfire stories about me. All of that was just-“ he taps his temple and sheepishly attempted a smile
“Up there?, yes Lieutenant I believe Hoshi and her crewmen reside solely-“ tapping the young man’s forehead lightly. “up there, but you know what they say about the mind...”]]> “It's as easy as one, two..”

(1)

Lambert Field, St. Louis, Mo.

He’s groggy, dressed in coveralls of some sort, and slowly walking into the East Terminal doors.

“Family is-“

The wall, (he keeps hearing a voice in his head say Muriel-but that’s not quite right there.) Mur-Muriel? Am I Muriel? Or one of these people on the wall?

“These people”

“Wait- Airplane?”

He steps onto the metal walkway, to look closer at this,

“How do I know that?”

Above that appears to be another craft that looks to be made of cheap metal and cloth, flying next a more sturdy looking craft shaped like a great big-

As he’s trying to hopefully get off this ride he hears laughing and murmurs from the growing crowd and then sees a hand extended to him and kind looking man attached to the hand.

“I don’t want to get lost.”

“Lost???”

(2)

(3)

“Do you know how many molecules you're made up of?”

“Yes,But how many?”

-“Tons”

“Tamam Shud.” he began “Which means ‘this is the end’

This is the end,

Beautiful friend,

This is the end,

My only friend, the end,

Can you picture what will be?
limitless and free

Desperately in need

In a desperate, What will be.

Of all our plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes again”

“The stream's too unstable....Lieutenant!”

...Come on, Cy, come on...

“Your molecules get pulled apart.”

“Then they get put back together again...Safe and sound...

You can do it, Cy!! you can do it! One..Two...

(4)

“Tick tock Cyrus”

“Don't tell me you don't know about poor Cyrus, Hoshi.”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Tick tock-Hahahahahaha”

“You can't go on a survival overnight without hearing a story about someone seeing Ramsey”

“Tick Tock Lefttenant”

“seeing Ramsey’s molecules rematerialize on a foggy night”

“Tic-“

(5)

(6)

Epilogue

"She must have been so relieved to finally have been believed" Counselor Troi commented. She sat with Captain Picard and Saigon Drake in a secluded area of Ten Forward enjoying their after dinner refreshments and discussing Leira Zaid.

"Yes, I believe she was. There is no question that there is a certain "air" about her that breathes, shall we say royalty. You can feel it emit from her at times, other times you sense that she is just like any other child." Drake continues, "Imagine looking into a child's eyes and seeing more. Eyes of fear, pain, and regret. Knowing eyes"

"Eyes knowing too much" Jean Luc added with a sigh and hint of a smile, "Leira, so it seems was not offered the naivety of a normal childhood"

Counselor Troi asked Saigon to recount his first meeting with her. She was asked by the Captain to join them, and to note Mr. Drake's emotions and intentions and to tell him of anything that resembles deception to which she thought amusingly 'wasn't that what she always did?' The Captain often used her empathic abilities to his advantage with friend and foe alike.

"Well, Counselor, as you can imagine the city was ecstatic and Leira was the talk of the town, although, he added, not all of it was good. When I heard of her story I was skeptical and knew that I must see for myself this wonderous child, if she would allow it."

Saigon held young Leira in his arms as she recounted her tale to him. Whether it was his healthy quiet demeanor, the aura of nobility or his fame it is uncertain, what is certain was that Leira warmed up to no one as quickly as she did Saigon Drake. He was small, bald with round glasses. He always wore a grandfatherly smile on his kind face. It was as if Leira just knew he could be trusted.   While Drake was saying this last part of the story to his small audience he managed to direct a thoughtful, yet 'smiling' mental message to Troi saying

'...as such a powerful empath as yourself can appreciate...'

Counselor Troi smiled brightly at this and she had to stifle a small vocal laugh that confounded her Captain for a brief second as he listened to the man, looking to both of them feeling somehow left out.

"When she had told me all she had to tell, I spoke with her parents and told them that they must not prevent the girl from fulfilling her destiny. The laws of karma must be obeyed. Karma is life."

"It was settled. Shortly before her 9th birthday there would be an investigation," Saigon looked to Picard and said, "After discussions with several colleagues, Dr. Kingsley included it was clear to me that I needed an outside, unaffiliated witness and that is where we now are. YOU will be that. The unaffiliated voice to Leira and to Samara's claims as well." To which Jean-Luc Picard vowed to do his best to be as professional and dutiful as he would with any official task.

"The plan is to journey to Garnia, join Leira and her family, observe and record the areas specific to Samara's life as she visited them. We will share and bear witness to the event. Her parents have asked their family friend, Samag Nigeb to join us. They will be waiting for us when we arrive. We will visit her childhood home, the home of Kedar Sym, the temple and we will note her interactions and reactions with those who knew Samara when she lived. The girl's spontaneous reactions to these people she has never met would be crucial in determining once and for all whether the child speaks true or spins tales"

Materializing on the surface of Unax III, in the town of Garnia, Captain Picard and Saigon Drake stepped off the transporter pad observing what lay before them. The village of Garnia bursting with men, women and children of all shapes and sizes, cattle and beasts of burden were rustled and among them many shops, merchant tents and vendors lined the dirt and sand paths that made up the street. This street was one of many that spread on, each one resembling the next. Mixed with homes of various sizes, apartment complexes, and Jean-Luc noticed a cathedral off into the distance up a small hill. He wondered if this was the temple from the report.

Farmers sold their wares, women bartered over vegetables, cuts of meats and yards of cloth alongside men who were trading goods and services. Couples dressed elegantly strolled along wooden walkways browsing various stores and cafes while young children ran and played. Among this contained and yet vibrant hustle and bustle of this village stood a group of men and ladies looking the the men before the transporter station. This must be the family they were there to meet.

Introductions were given, hands shook, nods and courtesies exchanged, hugs and kisses on the cheeks given as was common on this world. Saigon asked Diaz about their journey from Vilno City and he shared the wonderous sights along the way. None of them had ever been to this part of their planet before, and yet...was that a factual statement? They spoke of the excitement to finally arrive in Garnia, the excitement was mixed with some fear, Ariel added to which Saigon assured them that there is nothing to fear.

"We are all here to share this glorious occasion" Semag added as young girl, dressed in a bright red obi stepped out from behind her father slowly. Her brown eyes wide with wonder, she look upon the smiling man in the uniform as red as her obi quizzically as if sizing him up and her gaze relaxed before nodding and giving him a slight bow. She drifted her gaze towards Saigon, let go of her father's hand as he scooped her up into his arms and laughed as he did.

The feeling of joy shared by all on the streets of Garnia was evident to all who passed and the best was yet to come.

Semag, Saigon and the Captain spoke among each other as Leira and her parents were looking at and petting small lambs penned nearby. "We must three agree to be observant of not only Leira's actions and utterances but be wary of her parents as well, Saigon said. "If they were somehow feeding her information it would not do well to their claims."

After mild protests at this line of talk by Semag they all three agreed to be skeptical, mindful and observant. Saigon then said "Captain? Is there anything else you would like to add?" Jean-Luc collected his thoughts, thought briefly that he wished he had Data and his encyclopedic brain by his side and said "Gentlemen, on Earth, there is a saying. 'Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; the soul that rises with us, our life star, hath had elsewhere it's setting. And came from afar' Or something of that nature. Whether that little girl over there did or did not forget...we shall see.

The six of them said goodbye to the lambs and began their day, looking at the shops and vendors briefly, in the direction of Samara's childhood home. As they walked, the Krynshaw temple came into view and Leira spoke saying how excited she was, but worried that they were close to the temple's daily closing time. As they made their way a crowd was approaching them. News of the girl from Vilno had traveled and as the small crowd approached the entourage, Leira picked out a man in the crowd, ran up to him and embraced him tightly, yelling his name "N'Tere"

N'Tere was Samara's Jinli, which is to say he was Samara's brother-in-law. N'Tere called out in surprise after they hugged when little Leira asked him about the Sharnaka plant she had left him. He laughed and explain the others that when Samara neared her due date she entrusted him with her Sharnaka plant, which requires much love and care. N'Tere joined them on the rest of their journey, becoming a believer in Leira's story almost immediately.

Pressing on, Picard and Saigon thought it best to try and isolate her from the ever growing crowds of on lookers that continued to arrive as news traveled of her arrival. The seven of them, surrounded by teams of strangers, made there, more slowly now towards Samara's childhood home. Passing a bazaar Leira looked at the vendor there and walked up to him and looked into his face and said "I know you. And I love you." She hugged him and told her mother who was standing next to her that this was her Jinti or her Father-in-Law. She did not give his name, nor did he but he did concur that he was Kedar's father. "Leira then thanked him for all he had done for her and Kedar after their marriage. Here she did not go into great detail on what she was referring to and must not have felt the need to do so, because she bowed to the man, turned and left.

Jean-Luc watched the girl and her family as they walked, it was clear to him that the parent truly had no idea where they were going, or what to expect. They were, as we all were, being led by the nearly 9 year old girl, that too has technically never been to this town. She spoke out loud about how excited she was because around this corner is where the yellow house in which she grew up in was. Which it was here that they came across a snag in Leira's recollection. The house they were now standing in front of was a white house. Some members of the crowd overheard this as the crowd whispered and there where groans and snickers heard, evidence that not all of the audience were there to support her, but to satisfy their own skepticism, or perhaps to see her fail..

Saigon, Semag and Picard side stepped the family to talk privately and decided to speak with the current resident. Leira paid no attention to them as she looked at the familiar house frowning. Had she been watching them she would have seen the joy in Saigon and Semag's face as the owner of the house's assurances that the house was indeed yellow when he purchased it and has only recently been painted white. After hearing the jeers from the crowds, Saigon decided that a small informal announcement was in order, reminding them that they are to mind their manners and keep their distance. Semag then added that this was indeed the childhood home of Samara Devi and was in fact a yellow house until two seasons ago. There was a small roar of applause at this from the crowd and another apparent mark in favor of Leira's claims.

As they walked further through town, Leira led them to the house Samara had shared with Kedar Sym, who was standing on his front stoop await her arrival with his new wife and his son, Laul. Leira ran to the house and jumped into Kedar's arms, clearly over joyed to be there. While his wife stood by uncomfortably, Kedar followed Leira from room to room as she reminisced and explored the only other house Samara had ever know. As she looked though it became evident that her joyful expression was beginning to fade. Room after room Leira began to see that Samara's jewelry and her wardrobe were gone. As was her favorite anklets, and even her image of Pumani was not there. Leira's memories were simply lost to time, another person's time to be exact. Kedar tried to console the girl, but it was no use.

Leira told her mother and father that she had see enough and wished to leave the house. The crowd outside the house made that idea unlikely at this time, so they ventured out into the back yard. She was not angry, just uneasy as she expected everything to be just she has seen in it in her mind. They all mingled outside as Ariel tried to cheer her daughter up, with Saigon reminding the girl of all that they have witnessed proves that she in being genuine. Leira told him matter of factly that there was never any doubt about her honesty, why would I lie and put myself through such strife.

After the crowds began to thin and it was apparent they can safely move on they asked Leira if there was anything else, just one more thing she can point out that can prove herself to them. The look on her face was one of exasperation, Picard didn't have to be an empath to read that emotion, he thought as he watch her walk directly to a bare corner of the yard and say one word.

"Well"

Everyone looked at the girl confused and then puzzlingly at Kedar who began laughing and joined the child at the spot where she stood. Then he told them what was so funny, "You see, this was where the well was. the water became contaminated years ago and had to be sealed off but when Samara was still a- he almost said alive and glanced at Leira as he said- here. When she lived here, this was the well. After a few moments of digging the team discovered a hatch, and under the hatch was indeed a well. All three members of the commission had seen and heard enough and to them Leira was the "real deal".

After almost a full day of exploring they had to make their was back to the stations, Leira and her family were set to travel back to Vilno City, Leira was emotionally disheveled. Pleased and still excited about her day, yet disappointed that closing time at the temple came and went. She had missed her chance. While walking, the crowds mostly gone as the excitement died off or they had just seen enough, there was one woman that accompanied them that finally caught Leira's eye and when the two locked eyes she froze. She was Samara's mother.

Leira ran to the woman with tears running down her cheeks, both women were crying for that matter. Ariel stood by Devi unable to move as she watched her daughter talking to yet another stranger, seeing them embraced and seeing the realization on the stranger's face that this girl is who she claims to be. Except this stranger is Samara's own mother.

Would Leira want to stay and live in Garnia now? More importantly could they stop her if she did? Everyone keeps telling them to "Seek the truth" or that they need to "pay their debt to karma". Even Saigon Drake told them they were "slaves to Karma" so what choice do they really have? After a few scary moments, Leira went back to her true parents and told them that she would be returning to Vilno City.

Someone ran up to the group and called Saigon over to him, who then made his way over to Leira beam, there was one more place to see. He told her and her parents the good news, the Krynshaw temple has closed to the public, but has remained open for a private viewing for Leira and the team.

The child was once again elated and the team could not get to the temple fast enough. Once there, they climbed the steps to the Krynshaw temple, as Samara Devi had since she was a little girl. Leira entered the temple, her temple. Once inside, the team took in the magnificent sight before them. The temple was bright and vibrant, with flowers lining the walls and the mighty altar in front of them. In front of the altar was the tall statue of Pumani. This was where Leira went, and fell to her knees before it. She spoke out loud and told Pumani that she was Samara Devi reincarnated and that she was begging him for counsel and guidance.

The team stood in the doorway soaking in the sight of the beautiful temple, with the kneeling little girl, kneeling before the glowing statue of Pumani. Her Pumani, reverberating in the late afternoon light of the suns.

On her way back to Vilno City, Leira swore to her parents that one day she would return and live in Garnia.

Chief Medical Officers personal log

Stardate 79661.3

We have entered the Unax system. When I read that the USS Lindt were scheduled to catalog anomalies in this system I immediately thought about Leira Zaid. When I discovered her fabulous story at Starfleet Medical I found myself studying and reading about her as much as my assignments.

I messaged her and am beside myself that she replied so quickly and has agreed to see me. She has even agreed to my request. To speak with her is one thing, but for her to agree to a session of hypno-therapeutic exploration of the possibly only living reincarnated mind, I just cannot wait....

Transporter Room 3

"Energize"

The small, woman in a red robe appeared on the transporter pad. Dr. Lindor held out her hand and welcomed her aboard the USS Lindt. Beaming with joy, the woman smiled and hugged the young her tightly.

"The pleasure is mine, Doctor. It isn't everyday I get to float above my world. Thank you for inviting me."
"Mother Zaid, I have read so much about you over the years, I have so much I would love to ask you, but I am afraid our time is limited. If you are still willing, I would love explore your mind hypnotically."
She looked at the young woman told her that she has meditated and explored her mind for 40 years and during this time she feels she has fully reconciled the divide between herself and Samara Devi. "If your methods can offer us both insight on how Samara may have came to be with me, I would love to know. And if it were not for a Starfleet captain's decades ago, I'm not sure where I would be today. So I do not mind aligning once again with an officer of Starfleet."

"Well, I'm no Jean-Luc Picard, but I will do my best."

Holodeck 2

Sitting cross legged on the mats in the program created to Dr. Lindor's specifications, Dr. Lindor faced Leira Zaid and began

"I’ll guide you with some suggestions, but remember you are in control at every step of the way. I’m just a guide. If I make a suggestion which you believe is not right for you, you may adjust it in any way which seems appropriate. The process of relaxing another stage of the souls journey is safe, smooth, and easy. All you have to do is to allow your imagination to do its best job to get you started. Take a deep breath; exhale slowly. That’s good...make yourself comfortable...rest your hands on your thighs and allow your eyes to close...at this moment in time nothing matters...there is only the sound of my voice...and as you breathe normally, just become more aware of the rhythm of your breathing."

Dr. Lindor brought the woman to a state of hypnotic trance with very little effort. This is the sign of a disciplined mind.

"Now Mother Zaid, I want you to travel back, to the time when Samara was alive and nearing death...when you are then I want you to tell me what you see"

Leira sat calmly and emotionless with her eyes closed and spoke

"A bed. Big and warm, the finest silk. A nightstand bearing fresh cut flowers. They are Tredaisials."

Leira smiles at this and Lindor asked "Are Tredaisials special flowers to you?

Still smiling she said "No, they are Samara's favorite, their scent pleases her" The smile fades.

"Mother, where is this bed?"

"This is Samara's bed. She sleeps, no she is dead. I hear crying. She has just given birth. There is a woman coming to the bed, and she lays the baby, her son on her chest. Samara's softly clutch the child and she says 'My Laul'. The woman yells to someone in the next room but I hear nothing. Another woman, older woman comes in a takes Laul away but everything is getting smaller. I am floating backwards away and rising"

An uncomfortable look on Leira's face appears, the Dr. says "You are doing well. Now continue to move beyond that time."

She shakes her head slowly and her voice changes from the trace-like monotone woman she had been speaking as to that of an instructor or superior of some kind, with a different accent and dialect. This enitiy says "As Laul was born, Samara could feel an 'an enormous weight lift from her body, this then laid to rest in her Heart chakra'. The act of holding her son was the very last thing she did with her last breath, you see."

"Am I still speaking to Mother Leira Zaid?" Lindor asked

"When the child was removed from her arms she slipped in the KashaVee, which is to say the first death," Leira continued in her scholarly tone as if teaching a class at the academy, "She was heard repeating the name Pumani over and over, until she passed away. Upon doing this Samara filled her consciousness with the mantra of Pumani."

Mother Leira inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly and when doing so her facial expression relaxed and changed, appearing calm and relaxed again. Lindor was about the ask her next question when Leira spoke. Once again she sounded like Mother Zaid, and yet slightly different somehow, she sounded under trance once again.

"Death starts at the bottom, and the cold creeps upward. As Laul was removed from my arms, I felt my heart stop. And my life rose to my brain and filtered into my third eye. The slowly, very very slowly I heard the name of Pumani. Repeat again and again. I stood over my body looked at myself. i did not move, or breathe, I was left alone and yet I heard my voice say 'Pumani Pumani Pumani'. It came soft at first like from a trickle, then louder as from a waterfall. My voice spoke in unison with another voice and repeated the name over and over until there was black."

Black from the black

"Kedar Sym then was walking on the shore looking at the water. He was dressed so very handsome, walking with his head held high, yet tears fall from his eyes. He mourns. I see my body floating on the pallet, in the water, dressed in fine silken red obi, my closed eyes and lips painted, my hair was clean and brushed and fashioned in the the style of Braleem nobility. Around my body are the most beautiful flowers, of all colors and' Leira stops for a second, her lips quiver slightly before she says, 'in my folded hands Kedar places a single tredaisial."

Leira's closed eyes stream tears from them as she stops speaking. Her breathing waivers some and soon begins to breathe normally again. "As with tradition, Kedar set Samara's body on fire and drifted the pallet out to sea and the priests spoke in prayer. "

Dr. Lindor then says "Mother, You are doing very good. Tell me, do you see all this this or do you just know it?"

The 'instructor' returned to answer this question "Samara's consciousness looked on from above. This is what Mother Zaid is seeing and feeling. And now then as the body of Samara is burned away, her consciousness too went away."

Mother Leira's voice and demeanor returned and said "Samara had no other perceptions other than eternal brightness. She entered another form of awareness. There was no light, there was no dark. There was no day, there was no light. There was no space, there was no time.' Mother Leira now seeming to have the instructor persona speaking in tandem with her in this hypnotic state - 'yes, so it seems this is when Samara then entered the second stage of death. Samara was in a realm of slow moving fluidness. All the while conscious and aware of her surroundings, she began to feel movement and soon she heard a heart beating, then could feel her own heart beating."

Remarkable, Lindor thought, checking her time, it has been an hour so she began the process of bringing Leira back to consciousness. "Mother, do you wish to remember everything that you have seen and felt?" Leira nodded slowly and said that she did. Lindor continued "Very well then in a moment, with a count from ten to one, you may reorient yourself completely to the present time and to the present day. Counting down from ten, you will be refreshed and feel great. Counting slowly, 10 - You are stepping firmly into the present 9 - You begin to feel total normalization 8 - feeling the life energies returning to your extremities 7 - you may wish to move your hands, neck, or feet 6 - you remember now what you have seen and felt, 5 - realize that you have done well 4 - coming up to full strength now 3 - you are re-energized 2 - re-vitalized and 1 - Slowly, open your eyes. You are wide-awake, alert, feeling refreshed, and feeling great.

Mother Zaid opened her eyes, smiled at Dr. Lindor lovingly and said "So. How did we do?"

Epilogue

Chief Medical Officers log supplemental

After successfully regressing the time in between Samara's death and Leira Zaid's birth it seems that by using an old trick recommended by yogis for thousands of years may actually work. The Egyptian Book of the Dead states that numbers of ancient, spiritually advanced cultures carefully trained people so they would know how to go through the process of death consciously. The point in all these traditions is that if you don't want to lose yourself, if you want to attain the type of immortality that comes from the ability to hang on to your present identity from life to life, then during the process of death you must keep your presence of mind!

It is my new found belief that possible your next incarnation, or your last incarnation for that matter, may be happening right now. Your next life may actually occur in the past! This is because your innermost spirit exists outside of time and space, and can travel to wherever and to whenever it wants. So be kind.

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.” – Amelia Earhart

]]> 1

Chief Medical Officers personal log

Stardate 79661.3

Transporter Room 3

Holodeck 2

"A bed. Big and warm, the finest silk. A nightstand bearing fresh cut flowers. They are Tredaisials."

Leira smiles at this and Lindor asked "Are Tredaisials special flowers to you?

Still smiling she said "No, they are Samara's favorite, their scent pleases her" The smile fades.

"Mother, where is this bed?"

An uncomfortable look on Leira's face appears, the Dr. says "You are doing well. Now continue to move beyond that time."

"Am I still speaking to Mother Leira Zaid?" Lindor asked

Black from the black

Dr. Lindor then says "Mother, You are doing very good. Tell me, do you see all this this or do you just know it?"

Mother Zaid opened her eyes, smiled at Dr. Lindor lovingly and said "So. How did we do?"

Epilogue

Chief Medical Officers log supplemental

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.” – Amelia Earhart

]]> <![CDATA[Iterum Nata: Act One]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6693 Tue, 09 Feb 2021 22:02:47 -0500 bu'hert]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6693 Captain's log stardate 42744.3

I have been asked to take part in a special commission to investigate a citizen of Unax III. There have been some rather extraordinary claims by a young woman there, claims that have reached famed peace advocate and activist Saigon Drake, who is forming and a member of the commission. I look forward to meeting him and hearing what he has to say

"Energize, Mr. O'Brien"

The small, elderly man clad in formal robes and ceremonial beads materialized on the transporter pad. Beaming with joy, the man smiled and softly spoke.

"Captain Jean Luc Picard. It is a pleasure to know you. I bless you."

"Mr. Drake, the pleasure is all mine and it is an honor to make your acquaintance. Your campaigns for peace and sometimes resistance when it is necessary are legendary and of course they were and still are required reading at the academy. Walk with me. I shall escort you to your quarters" Turning to the transporter chief he adds "thank you, chief"

"aye sir"

Looking down at his sandals as he strolled, the small bald man said the taller one, "As you know, Captain, I have come across a miracle in many terms and have taken upon myself to for a commission to investigate it."

"A miracle? Yes, well your initial message stated that a woman from Unax III has claimed what was thought the impossible. Forgive me, Mr. Dra-"

"Please Captain, please call me Saigon, or even Drake if you prefer. I've never felt much like a "Meester"

"Yes, eh well forgive me, Saigon, there's not much to go on here. While the idea of the impossible being possible, is intriguing. The very definition of impossible can vary so. I must insist on more information. I've been given orders to accommodate you and permission to join you, at my choosing. I'm afraid, Saigon with all due respect, I am not just going to blindly go along.. without knowing more."

"The woman I speak of is Leira Zaid. Everything you will need to know is right here in this data padd and you can read all of it while we make our way to Unax III.

Captain Picard took the padd from his guest and gave the smaller man a quizzical look.

"On our way?" He smiled slightly at the grinning, knowing old man shuffling along side him, "Mr. - I mean, Saigon as I just stated I will need some time to evaluate this information before joining your commission. I've agreed to nothing"

Drake's smile widened as he squinted his eyes and said "yes yes Captain, read away. I am well aware of your need for knowledge. It's why I have sought you out for my investigation. You see, a colleague of mine and acquaintance of yours, Dr. Sara Kingsley spoke rather highly of you. Her assessment of you is why I am here before you now."

"Dr. Kingsley, yes of course. Ah, here we are, sir. Your quarters. I trust you will find everything to your liking. And with that, I must return to my duties" Looking down at data padd as he spoke he continued "I will review these and, well, I will...Saigon, there must be some kind of an error. The woman you are investigating you said was named Leira Zaid. This padd is called 'The Life of Samara Devi"

"no Captain, there is no mistake. The information on the padd will tell you want you need to know about Leira Zaid. Leira was born in Vilno City on the planet Unax III. Born 8 standard years ago. Samara Devi is the deceased woman Leira has claimed to be ever since she has been 4 years old."

Space....the final frontier these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before....

Iterum Nata

Sitting with a steaming cup of tea, glancing at Livingston who pecks away at the slowly sinking flakes of protein, Captain Picard wondered about the fish and where he thinks his food fell from, if at all. Am I the deity that provides it of it's manna? Smiling, he opened the file on The Life of Samara Devi and began to read.

The Life of Samara Devi

as reported by Saigon Drake 1st council of the Destine

Samara Devi would climb the steps of the Krynshaw temple, as she had since she was a little girl. She loved the temple, her temple. She loved her god and she loved Kedar, her husband. Samara was devoted to him, to her marriage and her new role as a young wife at the age of 22. Her husband Kedar, was already a successful merchant in Vilno City, he was also a Braleem, who are the wealthiest and highest caste of citizens on the planet. Samara wanted nothing more than a simple and happy life, it was her father that made certain she was married into an elite lifestyle. Kedar Nash was able to provide everything she could ever need or want. There was one thing still that was missing, the very reason she climbed those hallowed stairs every morning. Her morning routine to visit the temple, to worship and pray to her god was for the one thing she needed most of all. A child. [Captain: This was also the one thing that ended up taking her young life. As you will read.-SD]

Kedar and Samara were married during the festival of Navar [to celebrate the close of the 2nd revolution of the Triple Suns] in the village of Garnia on Unax III, and soon after became pregnant. Her pregnancy was a difficult one and she endured much pain during the period of gestation. After giving birth to a son, who the couple named Laul. Samara was bed ridden and under the care of a nursing staff provided for by her husband. They cared for her, monitored her and the baby as well as tended to her daily needs and the personal grooming requirements of a noble Braleem wife. There were complication to the pregnancy and after nine days, Samara Devi died.

Leira Zaid, born in the beginning of the 3rd revolution of the Triple Sun [this would be around 2356, Captain] in Vilno City. also on Unax III. Living in an overcrowded district of one of the largest cities, life for Leira and her family was tense, yet exciting. Surrounded by all types of people they were friendly to all, devout and simple members of their community. Leira did not speak until she reached the age of 4, which is not uncommon when one has older siblings. Leira was always a quiet and observant baby and toddler, content as well. Her parents noticed that their daughter was very watchful of the world outside their home. Children usually are oblivious to the chaotic life in a city, but to Leira she seemed interested and as if she knew more the others around her did. She often played alone in her room and outside in their courtyard and was distant at times, even to her siblings. It was her oldest sister who first noticed how often Leira spoke to herself, using words that even she didn't know. When she told her mother, Ariel of this she was waved off and told "What small child doesn't use nonsense words?" to which the daughter replied that she not only used strange words, but she says them strange too. [It should be noted here that she is referring to the child's dialect, perhaps]

Leira asked her mother one day in a quiet voice where her image of Pumani was. This confused Ariel on many levels, because Pumani is the god of the waters or something, which is a story in the Book of Mand, the center book of the Memnaha religion. A religion that Ariel knew was not practiced anywhere around here or anywhere else east of the Barrier Sea. No one that she knew or knew of in town were Memnahans or worshipped Pumani. She thought 'How in the bliss did my little girl hear of such things let alone ask where her image of the god is? When Ariel told her that she had no idea what she is talking about and that she has no such image the 4 year old began to cry. She insisted that it hung above her bed and that she prayed to it every morning and every night.

Weeks went by with much of the same type of discussions occurring, with Leira becoming more insistent and firm in her now demands of the return of HER Pumani as she now began calling the image of the deity that she doesn't have and never did. Ariel did everything she could to keep this subject from her husband and Leira's father, Diaz but this was getting harder to do. Finally one morning the girl walked up to her mother standing tall and said "You are NOT my real mother. I am a Braleem wife from Garnya. I will live here no more. These are not my clothes, this is not my house. You have nothing to do with me!" Stunned at such a display, Ariel realized that this is what her little girl really thought, unable to believe it even though she felt it to be true. Scared, she knew she had to tell her husband. Before she could Leira then said that she wanted her red Obi, the traditional dress of a Braleem in the Memnaha religion. Like the image of Pumani, she never had a red Obi and she her mother told her so she ran to her room and soaked her pillow with her tears. Ariel promptly went to purchase a red obi for her and presented it to her. It was Ariel's hope that maybe this would appease her daughter. It did not. Leira said that not only was this not her red obi, this obi was not even made of the right material. The she said that only her husband, a skilled cloth merchant and trader would know the correct fabric to buy. Ariel was shocked to her very core. It was time to talk to Diaz.

When Diaz came home from his law office, Ariel talked to him outside in the courtyard and told him everything that has been occurring. Since Leira's birthday up to what she said and how she acted today. Not only was their 4 year old girl apparently from a village Ariel has never even heard of, she was also married. Diaz listened thoughtfully and fully. Knowing his wife so well, he was certain that there is no way she was lying or mistaken about what she was saying. He also knew of no place called Garnya, but there was a village called Garnia. That village was over 2000 wheels [about 200 km] west of Vilno City. Diaz told his wife that Garnia is the center of the Memnaha religion and they believe the birthplace of Pumani.

"Captain on the bridge" Riker stated
"Mr. Data, set a course for the Unax system, warp one"
"Aye sir"

Sitting in the captain's chair, after discussing the report he's read so far, his Number One stated the obvious

"So you're going to take him up on his offer."

"Will, I feel I must. The report I am reading is fascinating and to be part of the determining factor of the validity of reincarnation, as this child claims to be" he trailed off thinking of a 4 year old standing before an adult as a proud and noble wife and nodded in silence.

"Number One, inform Saigon Drake of my decision and invite him to supper tonight"

"Aye Captain"

Standing and with a tug of his tunic, Picard said "Ill be in my ready room" and went back to continue his briefing.

As weeks went into months, Leira's insistence that she was the wife of a merchant from someplace called Garnya continued, she also claimed during this time to be with child. Diaz had heard quite enough of this, but at the calming of his wife and allowed such discussions to continue. She also began insisting on only eating foods that are prepared in the traditions of the Braleem ways, which consists of mainly vegetables and limited spices. None of this made sense, Leira at this food all her life and could not know of the diet and cultures from so far away. She talked about her favorite ankle amulet, her red obi, and the yellow house where she and husband live day after day. So much so her stories became something of background noise to the family until one day Leira told her mother that the voice inside of her told her what her name is. Ariel stopped everything, listening intently as the hairs on her arms stood at attention. The woman resting inside the mind of her 4 year old daughter is named Samara Devi.

Diaz told Ariel they are to speak of this to no one, lest they be outcasts, and thought to be mad. Leira was to be walked to the local school and straight home after her lessons. She also was to be monitored by her siblings. During school one day, Leira commented on the immaturity of some of her classmates and accidentally mentioned her noble husband. This made her fodder for teasing, whispers, bullying and ridicule. Diaz hoped that whatever this was, it would simple be outgrown with patience and silence. And as the years went by, Leira spoke less about Samara and her so called past life, or whatever this really was, but she continued to eat her special meals, and also began preparing them herself to her taste.

After years of being "the quiet one", to being the freak that thought she was married and better than everyone else AND a mother on top of that, 8 year old Leira Zaid had had enough of the teasing and ridicule and suppressing what her mind was telling her and demanding of her. She had decided that she was going to run away.

Leira decided that she would travel to Garnya herself, even if she had to walk there. As she walked through town, a family friend and colleague of Diaz's, noticed her as she walked and asked her where she was going. She matter of factly told him she was going home to Garnya. The could feel the seriousness in her voice and see the determination on her face. He then did something no one else had ever don't, he listened to her. He asked her why she was running away and was amazed to hear the rest of her story.

Semag Nigeb, a prominent lawyer in town would later tell Leira's biographer the he didn't see "a child before him, that he didn't hear the words of a child, but an adult woman, and a woman of means at that." He would also be quoted regarding this part of her story as saying "dealing with and detecting liars is part of my job as a lawyer. And she is no liar." He walked her home and on the way explained to her that while he never heard of a Garnya, if she meant the village of Garnia, that is was impossible for even the strongest man to walk that. In front of the gate to their courtyard Semag stood before her, knelt down to her eye level and told her that he believed her. And one day she will find the answers she seeks.

Sometime after this, Leira and her siblings were at a local park when Leira wandered off on her own. She was bullied and then pushed down by some boys that were there. A woman yelled out at the boys who ran away. When the woman helped Leira up and asked if she was alright. The woman, a highly regard local mystic, looked into the girls eyes she saw another mind "far away". She helped Leira find her family, then spoke with Diaz and Ariel. Diaz immediately apologized saying that she's not the first to be burdened with collecting their wandering child. She told him to hush now with that talk, then told them what happened to her. They thanked her for her help and she looked Diaz in the eyes and told him "I know what's been happening with the girl." Not able to compose himself, and hearing an adult outside of the family talking about their secret so openly his voice quivered as he replied "We are cursed, aren't we?" She replied "No, you and your family are blessed, she is innocent and truthful. But your girl has a karmic debt to pay." The woman told them what she sees in Leira and they vowed to listen to her, ask her what is happening and not dismiss her a just a child, or mad. She is scared and who can she turn to if not her parents? Diaz and Ariel both agreed to do just that.

During the festival of the harvest Leira begged her father to take her to the parade, she loved to see the horses and other animals. While watching the parade, she watched with eyes wide and was overwhelmed by what she had see. Tugging on her father's sleeve she told him how the horses reminded her of her wedding day. Her mother and then her father rode on white horses followed by her and her husband-to-be who rode side by side. Once married she and her new husband, whose name is Kedar Sym mounted one horse together and rode off as was tradition. Leira's father caught his outburst in his throat and smiled at the beaming girl. To her it was a joyful recollection, the sights of the parade brought back memories, even the name of her husband. Yet to her father it felt like a good day spoiled with more nonsense. After they arrived home, they were met at the gate by two unexpected visitors. Leira's teacher and the headmaster were there, waiting to speak with Diaz.

Leira's parents were reminded that the rumors about her were well known and the teacher were there to let them know that they would like to know more. They could sense the apprehension in them and assured them that they are not there to seek gossip or to pry. They have witnessed changes in Leira over the years, they have experienced her mannerisms and think of her as a smart and polite "old soul", they love having her as a student and would like to help her in anyway they could. Listening in from upstairs, Leira over heard them and came down to join them. She told her teachers, in front of her tearful parents everything that have been occurring. They left the family vowing to see what they could find out about the village of Garnia, and see if there is someone named Kedar Sym and get back to them when they have news.

After weeks of no news, there was a knock at the door. They were greeted by a middle aged man named Pepe Chupney, and he wowed everyone when he said he was a cousin of Kedar Sym's. He had news that not only had he heard of their daughter and her tale, no doubt thanks to her teachers. He also wanted to tell them that Kedar Sym is alive, and living in Garnia, but Samara Devi was a painful part of his life. Pepe said he wanted to make sure that no one needlessly upset his widower cousin. He then asked to meet Leira and enjoyed tea and conversation while they waited for her and her siblings to come home from school.

The children arrived, walked through the courtyard, and were introduced to a friend of theirs. When Leira looked upon Pepe she dropped her knapsack, ran and leaped into Pepe's arms. Squeezing her little arms tightly around his neck. Pepe was shocked and Leira went into memory after memory. Speaking so much and so fast she had to be reminded to take a breath. No one could help but smile at the sight of this girl and her excitement. When she she got to the news that Pepe had once has a crush on Samara, before she was married to his cousin, the man holding the 8 year old blushed and handed her to mother. Embarrassed, amazed and intrigued he told her parents that everything she was saying was true.

After staying for dinner, he left promising to send Kedar for a visit very soon. They were pleased and excited for the first time in a very long time. Leira was smiling as she watch him walk through the gate and out of sight with tears streaming down her cheeks. She told her mother she was happy but sad. For if the life of Samara Devi really is true, then so is her death. Leira told her parents that Samara went to temple to pray for a child everyday, became pregnant and bore a son. She fell ill for weeks after giving birth to her son, Laul never really knowing him, because she was so sick. Diaz and Ariel had absolutely no idea how to console their daughter, she had no business knowing such trauma and heartache.

Yet she had no choice.

The next week, another stranger knocked on the door. The man apologized to call unannounced and introduced himself to Diaz as Kedar Sym's brother and that Kedar sends his apologies but he simply could not find the time to travel. The man wore a thick coat, furry hat and glasses. When Leira came down the stairs, she froze when she saw the man in the doorway. The man looked at the little girl and smiled. She walked up to the man, looked up at him and said,

"Kedar Sym. My husband."

He stood face to face, looking at another man's child. Yet he could no deny what he was feeling, he would later recount and he fell to his knees saying "My Samara". Just then, the front door, creaked open slightly as a young boy poked his head through and stepped into the house. Barely a year older than Leira stood Laul. Samara's son. Leira approached him and began to cry.

Leira and Laul played together in the adjacent room, playing with cards, reciting rhymes to each other and singing songs they both knew. Diaz, Ariel and Kedar sat in wonder and silence watching something strange and yet amazing.

As Laul began to become tired of play, Leira joined the adults in the kitchen and approached Kedar and said "Samara has questions for you" She sat down and began. "First, did you do as instructed with the money that was hidden under her bed?" She could tell by the look on his face that he had not. Samara had saved money from a very young age and had told her husband should anything happen to her that he was to give it to the temple. Kedar explained to the girl that he used the money to pay for her funeral expenses. Leira looked disappointed, she paused as if listening to her thoughts, which she most likely was and asked, "Did you keep your promise to not remarry?" Kedar answered this question, but did not look at the girl when he did. "No. I am sorry" he said with shame. "I have remarried."

Laul was being raised by another woman. Leira was quiet for several minutes, processing this new information. Kedar, Diaz and Ariel sat uncomfortably in the silence not sure what to do, what to say or what to expect next. Finally, Leira said matter of factly that she knew he was not perfect. That she knew, for example that while she was ill and bed ridden that had been intimate with one of her nurses. Everyone shifted uncomfortably but dared not to interrupt as she said "There was a night that I woke and managed myself out of bed. The house was still and dark, yet sounds from the guest room caught my attention. When I looked inside, I saw you and her making love.

All color from Kedar's face vanished.

He took the child's hand into his own, and while Diaz stiffened and Ariel put a calming hand on his shoulder, Kedar Sym wept. She was absolutely right. He spent her money instead, he remarried after promising not to and worst of all cheated on her. As he wept he stated that he was young at the time, too young. Speaking to the child as if he was speaking to his wife he continued, "I didn't understand the importance and commitment true marriage required." Then he begged for her forgiveness. Kedar had no doubt in h is mind that this was Samara Devi in front of him.

As news spread of this confirmation, Leira became somewhat of a celebrity and the town was a buzz with talk. Her teachers, family and friends and the community were overwhelmed by the idea of it all. While there were just as many naysayers and skeptics, there seemed to be a miracle in their city. Living as a young girl.

]]> Captain's log stardate 42744.3

"Energize, Mr. O'Brien"

The small, elderly man clad in formal robes and ceremonial beads materialized on the transporter pad. Beaming with joy, the man smiled and softly spoke.

"Captain Jean Luc Picard. It is a pleasure to know you. I bless you."

"aye sir"

"A miracle? Yes, well your initial message stated that a woman from Unax III has claimed what was thought the impossible. Forgive me, Mr. Dra-"

"Please Captain, please call me Saigon, or even Drake if you prefer. I've never felt much like a "Meester"

"The woman I speak of is Leira Zaid. Everything you will need to know is right here in this data padd and you can read all of it while we make our way to Unax III.

Captain Picard took the padd from his guest and gave the smaller man a quizzical look.

Iterum Nata

The Life of Samara Devi

as reported by Saigon Drake 1st council of the Destine

Yet she had no choice.

All color from Kedar's face vanished.

  ]]> <![CDATA[Call Me Mike - Chapter Three]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6663 Thu, 21 Jan 2021 18:50:44 -0500 brawndo_mom]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6663
She laughed softly. “Furry and soft… I like that,” she decided.

“Minx, you minx,” he countered, “not mink.”

“Minx?” she repeated.

“Minx,” he confirmed. “A saucy, impudent, young lady,” he informed her, then drew closer, kissing her soundly before, reluctantly, disengaging their entangled bodies and rolling onto the damp sand beside her.
“Impudent? Who talked who into sneaking into this cave, when we were supposed to be patrolling the beach?” she teased him lightly, rolling to face him.

He smiled at her, reaching out to draw a finger down the length of her muzzle before ending his touch at the tip of her nose. “As though the beach needed a patrol team,” he reminded her. “The only worry they have here is the pickpockets and petty thieves who were annoying the tourists. No tourists now,” he added quietly – then smiled again. “But with everything in hand – at least at the moment – T’Pij is trying to give every team some light duty missions in lieu of R&R. I think she’ll look the other way if we’re MIA for a few minutes.”

“A few minutes,” M’Lasa echoed with a laugh. “That was more than ‘a few minutes’,” she continued, adding, “not that I’m complaining.” She pushed herself up, looking around the cave before looking back to her lover. “I’m guessing we weren’t the first ones to find this place,” she murmured.

“Unlikely; this was probably a favorite of the tourists – before the tsunami,” he agreed. “Out of the sun, away from the crowds…”

“Smelling like dead fish…” she added.

“I though you liked dead fish!” he protested.

“I do,” she agreed, “but I would think that most couples wouldn’t.”

“Unless they’re Caitians,” he pointed out, running a finger down her muzzle again.

“Or Ferasans,” she added.

He chuckled. “Bring a few Ferasans here, and there wouldn’t be an issue with pickpockets or thieves,” Brekath reminded her. “Of course, without the tourists, there still isn’t an issue with them; no one to rob,” he pointed out.

She sighed. “You would think that the people here wouldn’t need to resort to that,” M’Lasa said. “Kylara isn’t allied with the Federation, but they have access to all our resources; education, employment, decent wages, food, lodging – no one needs to steal from anyone else.”

“True – providing the people know about the resources, of course. Ignorance can be devastating,” he added quietly, then fell silent.

Seeing an expression of pain and emptiness cross his face, M’Lasa pulled herself closer to him, then wrapped her arm around his bare back.
“Brek?” she said softly. “What is it?”

He was quiet for a moment, then spoke, his voice quiet. “There was a House - a governing family,” he clarified, “that held a coastal estate near one of my father’s. Good fishing grounds that brought in a huge amount of revenue for the House – and, away from the ocean, good farming land so even more revenue.

“It should have been enough to ensure that everyone there was well fed, well-housed, well-educated – but those things cost money – and money is power on my world. So they lived a minimal life; just enough to eat, shelters that were little more than tree fronds over woven mats, no schools, no education, just what they needed to farm and to fish… When the earthquake hit, the houses collapsed, the farmers rushed back from the fields to check their families, the fishermen hurried back to the shore from their boats… No one knew that they needed to run for the highlands. They all stayed on the flatlands, waiting, trying to figure out what to do next. When the tsunami reached the beach a few hours later. it killed all but a few. A hundred thousand? Two? The House never knew how many had lived there – or how many died - and cared even less.

“I never knew,” he added. “I never even knew it happened until my father announced that he had acquired the estate; the tsunami had ruined the land for a decade to come, and the loss of revenue put the House on the verge of ruin. Even then, I didn’t know about the destruction and the deaths, only that there had been a change in the Houses. My father forced them into a sale at a terrible discount, knowing he could use their misfortune to benefit himself and the status of our House. Then, when the land had regained a measure of viability, moved a hundred thousand of our people onto the new estate. They had to rebuild from nothing, never knowing what had happened – or that they would be at equal risk if it happened again.”

“But seismic stabilizers could have prevented another earthquake – or he could have put in warning systems!” M’Lasa protested. “The Federation would have provided them at no cost…”

“Except the cost of pride,” Brekath countered. “The Great Houses don’t ask for help; to do so is to show weakness. Better a million die than to lose your reputation. Life on my world is cheap, Lasa,” he said softly. “Unless you’re one of the Great Leaders, your life has no value and no meaning.” He thought for another moment. “Maybe that’s why I joined Starfleet,” he mused, then managed a smile. “At least on some level, maybe I was thinking that my life could have some meaning… though I don’t think I was thinking that then.” The smile became a chuckle. “I don’t think I even realized it – or much of anything – then. I didn’t know what I had – or didn’t have – and certainly not what I was missing.” The smile grew genuine – and passionate - as he met her gaze. “Definitely not what I was missing,” he added.

M’Lasa laughed, moving her hand to the middle of his chest, pressing him back. “You’re going to have to put that thought on hold, handsome. Lt. T’Pij may have given us this assignment knowing it was a cakewalk, but she’s still expecting us to do our work.” She smiled at him. “Tonight? My quarters this time? You’re roommate’s a slob,” she added with a noisy sniff.

Brekath frowned, nodding. “I keep hoping he gets that promotion he keeps going on about,” he muttered. “Lieutenants get their own private quarters,” he said, then brightened. “You could, you know, move in. Once he gets that promotion. I mean… if you wanted to…”

A look of sorrow crossed her face. Seeing the expression, he felt every trace of hope fall to the ground. “Las?” he asked worriedly. “I didn’t mean… am I going to fast? I’ve never done this before – I mean, had a relationship. If I’m moving too fast… I mean, we talked about it… I mean…”

She silenced him with a touch, a smile on her face, but the sadness still in her eyes. “No, it’s not too fast, Brek, but…”

“But what?”

“But…” she started, then drew a deep breath. “But Breske isn’t the only one who’s going to get a promotion soon,” she said. “I know you haven’t said anything – but everyone knows you’ve been had how many meeting with T’Pij lately? You’re being considered for promotion, aren’t you? The only reason they’ve waited this long to promote you is because no one gets promoted from ensign to lieutenant right out of the Academy,” she reminded him. “And I’m happy for you – but ensigns and lieutenants can’t fraternize. Not officially – and I don’t think either of us wants to ruin our careers over a little sex. Good as it is,” she added.

He smiled, gave a soft bark of a laugh, then shook his head. “It is good – not that I have a basis of comparison,” he admitted, “but… No. They aren’t going to promote me,” he replied.

She pursed her lips dismissively. “Right,” she said. “Of course they aren’t. They simply opted to have you as their primary security lead on almost every away team to the mycellial islands because you have a nice butt. Seriously Brek, I don’t know how you managed to ingratiate your way into those teams, but…”

“Ingratiate?” he replied, pulling back with mock offense. “I did not _ingratiate_ myself into that team. Sending me down there was Rees' way of testing me after Culkins was hurt – seeing if my moment of not being his doormat was going to last, or if it was just fatigue and exhaustion.” He relented, dropping the feigned indignation, and moved closer to her and drawing her into his arms. “Seriously, Las, I think it was his way of giving me one final test before he kicked my sorry butt – nice as it may be – off the ship and stranded me on the moons of Andor. I surprised him – and myself – but mostly the away team. It turns out that they liked me. Maybe because I was willing to do all that grunt work – soil samples, spore samples, water samples, tissue samples from the tardigrades…”

“The tardigrades,” she sighed. “You and those tardigrades.”

“They’re cute!” he protested.
“They kill people!”

“Only when they’re threatened,” he countered. “And I like them, so they don’t feel threatened by me, and everyone is happy.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “Just don’t bring one back to my quarters. It’s bad enough that you track in dirt and water and spores…”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he replied.

She smiled – then her expression fell. “Then you are going to take the promotion,” she managed, sorrow coloring her voice.

“No,” he replied gently. “First, because T’pij hasn’t offered it, and second… because I’m leaving the Hoffman,” he explained.

She stared at him in shock. “Leaving… Brek,” she managed in a strained whisper, “if it’s something I said… or did…”

He reached to her, shaking his head. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Las – or maybe, it has everything to do with you. Ever since that day with you and the team, I’ve started to feel… alive. Really alive. For the last three months, it's as though I’m starting to see the bigger picture – a world outside myself.

“Working on the island with the away team, I began to see that I thought my horizons were limited to security because it was the only thing I was capable of doing – but I’m realizing it’s not!” he said, the amazement in his voice as real as it had been the first time it had occurred to him.
“I’m enjoying my work on the island. I like the team – but I love the biology, the ecology, the chemistry, the research… It’s my chance to work on something that’s unknown, and I’m finding I really like it!

“And,” he added, “I’m not the only one who’s seen that,” he added a little shyly.

M’Lasa looked at him, perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Cmdr. Tranforth reviewed the away team reports – and asked if I’d be interested in changing career paths from Security to Science. He asked if I’d be interesting in returning to the Academy - and the captain agress with him," he added, his voice still hushed from the surprise of hearing the captian's support of hiw efforts. "I’d be enrolling in the accelerated program in researching the mycelial network. I’d be at the Academy for six months, then the next six in the field, then back at the Academy for a while, and so. It would take three years – maybe a bit less as there is so much that we don’t know about the network – but I’d graduate a full lieutenant,” he said – then shook his head. “Me, Las, going back to school voluntarily for three years? I barely made it through security training! And now…” He shook his head again, then stopped, looking at her devastated expression – and smiled.

“Tranforth said I don’t have to go alone. Don’t worry,” he added hastily, “I didn’t talk out of turn, nothing about you in specific, but… but he wants me to go – and he and the captain aggreed that they he could work out sending two people back – if the other person wanted to do advanced coursework, or maybe a career change of her own,” he said quietly. “We’d both be full lieutenants at the same time – no issue with fraternization or anything like that.”

She studied him for a long time, then shook her head. “I don’t know, Brek. I don’t want to say ‘no’, but I sort of feel like I just got my own feet on the ground, and the thought of going back…” She shook her head again, then met his gaze. “But I’m not going to just say ‘no’. Let’s talk about it at dinner – maybe meet with a counselor and Cmdr. Tranforth to see what options there are for me… Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a tardigrade wrangler,” she added lightly, then drew closer to him. “I’m not promising anything,” she cautioned him, “but I’m willing to consider it,” she admitted, then drew herself closer and began to kiss him.

The kiss deepened, growing in intensity – then he broke away abruptly. “Well, there won’t be any opportunities for either of us if we don’t report in soon. This may be the easy patrol, but T’Pij will bust us both to cadet if we muck it up. Let’s get dressed and finish this up.” He looked around the cave, smiling at the thought that this might well be his last day as a security officer and this his last patrol.

It was not, he decided as his gaze turned to his lover, a bad way to end things.

Still smiling, he moved toward the opening of the cave where they had hastily thrown their clothes, disrobing as they made their way to the back of the cave, away from the noise of the construction teams rebuilding the ruined city and the chance of any stray eyes catching them in mid-tryst – the stopped.

Where their clothes should have been, however, there was nothing but sand – and the depressions of small feet.

Someone, he thought, probably the very pickpockets and thieves they had been watching for, must have been watching them. Or more likely, watching the cave. Surely it had been a common site for tourists seeking out a deserted spot for the same reasons he and M’Lasa had used it – and lost in the same distractions that they had been, the thieves would have crept in and stolen whatever they could: money, jewelry, devices…

Or, in their case, clothes.

“Damn it! Damn it!” Brekath growled angrily even as M’Lasa broke down, laughing as she realized the situation – then he sighed, laughing as well. “Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted. There’s no way I’m going to be offered a return to the Academy now – not after letting our clothes be stolen!”

M’Lasa kept laughing, tears beginning to run from her eyes, then shook her head. “There is a certain irony about it,” she agreed, then straightened, moving back to where they had lain in the sand. Fishing about in the sand, she pulled up one of their commbadges. “At least we learned never to let these get too far away,” she said, brandishing the badge, then tabbed it. “M’Lasa to Fesplar.”

A moment later a feminine voice returned. “Lass! What’s up? Don’t worry about me walking in on you and hot stuff tonight; I’m bunking with Kirbs. The place is all yours!”

“Thanks – but I need a favor,” the Caitian countered. “We had a bit of an accident… can you send down a couple of uniforms for me and Brek?” she asked, then added, “You can send them to these coordinates.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then a bright laugh followed. “Wow! Just… wow. Well, it’s gonna cost you!” the other voice said after a moment. “I want details, Las! All of them!”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

“Deal. Give me a few minutes, though.”

“Thanks, Samha. I owe you one,” M’Lasa said.

“You sure do! Fesplar out.”

Tabbing the badge to cut the communication, M’Lasa turned to Brekath. “Problem solved… and we have a few minutes to ourselves,” she added.

“Got any ideas of how we could fill the time?” she asked with a purr.

“A few,” he admitted, then sighed. “Those were my lucky pants,” he muttered. “Every time I wore them, I got lucky.”

She moved into his arms, smiling. “Brekkie, I promise: you're still going to get lucky."]]>
She laughed softly. “Furry and soft… I like that,” she decided.

“Minx, you minx,” he countered, “not mink.”

“Minx?” she repeated.

“Minx,” he confirmed. “A saucy, impudent, young lady,” he informed her, then drew closer, kissing her soundly before, reluctantly, disengaging their entangled bodies and rolling onto the damp sand beside her.
“Impudent? Who talked who into sneaking into this cave, when we were supposed to be patrolling the beach?” she teased him lightly, rolling to face him.

He smiled at her, reaching out to draw a finger down the length of her muzzle before ending his touch at the tip of her nose. “As though the beach needed a patrol team,” he reminded her. “The only worry they have here is the pickpockets and petty thieves who were annoying the tourists. No tourists now,” he added quietly – then smiled again. “But with everything in hand – at least at the moment – T’Pij is trying to give every team some light duty missions in lieu of R&R. I think she’ll look the other way if we’re MIA for a few minutes.”

“A few minutes,” M’Lasa echoed with a laugh. “That was more than ‘a few minutes’,” she continued, adding, “not that I’m complaining.” She pushed herself up, looking around the cave before looking back to her lover. “I’m guessing we weren’t the first ones to find this place,” she murmured.

“Unlikely; this was probably a favorite of the tourists – before the tsunami,” he agreed. “Out of the sun, away from the crowds…”

“Smelling like dead fish…” she added.

“I though you liked dead fish!” he protested.

“I do,” she agreed, “but I would think that most couples wouldn’t.”

“Unless they’re Caitians,” he pointed out, running a finger down her muzzle again.

“Or Ferasans,” she added.

He chuckled. “Bring a few Ferasans here, and there wouldn’t be an issue with pickpockets or thieves,” Brekath reminded her. “Of course, without the tourists, there still isn’t an issue with them; no one to rob,” he pointed out.

She sighed. “You would think that the people here wouldn’t need to resort to that,” M’Lasa said. “Kylara isn’t allied with the Federation, but they have access to all our resources; education, employment, decent wages, food, lodging – no one needs to steal from anyone else.”

“True – providing the people know about the resources, of course. Ignorance can be devastating,” he added quietly, then fell silent.

Seeing an expression of pain and emptiness cross his face, M’Lasa pulled herself closer to him, then wrapped her arm around his bare back.
“Brek?” she said softly. “What is it?”

He was quiet for a moment, then spoke, his voice quiet. “There was a House - a governing family,” he clarified, “that held a coastal estate near one of my father’s. Good fishing grounds that brought in a huge amount of revenue for the House – and, away from the ocean, good farming land so even more revenue.

“It should have been enough to ensure that everyone there was well fed, well-housed, well-educated – but those things cost money – and money is power on my world. So they lived a minimal life; just enough to eat, shelters that were little more than tree fronds over woven mats, no schools, no education, just what they needed to farm and to fish… When the earthquake hit, the houses collapsed, the farmers rushed back from the fields to check their families, the fishermen hurried back to the shore from their boats… No one knew that they needed to run for the highlands. They all stayed on the flatlands, waiting, trying to figure out what to do next. When the tsunami reached the beach a few hours later. it killed all but a few. A hundred thousand? Two? The House never knew how many had lived there – or how many died - and cared even less.

“I never knew,” he added. “I never even knew it happened until my father announced that he had acquired the estate; the tsunami had ruined the land for a decade to come, and the loss of revenue put the House on the verge of ruin. Even then, I didn’t know about the destruction and the deaths, only that there had been a change in the Houses. My father forced them into a sale at a terrible discount, knowing he could use their misfortune to benefit himself and the status of our House. Then, when the land had regained a measure of viability, moved a hundred thousand of our people onto the new estate. They had to rebuild from nothing, never knowing what had happened – or that they would be at equal risk if it happened again.”

“But seismic stabilizers could have prevented another earthquake – or he could have put in warning systems!” M’Lasa protested. “The Federation would have provided them at no cost…”

“Except the cost of pride,” Brekath countered. “The Great Houses don’t ask for help; to do so is to show weakness. Better a million die than to lose your reputation. Life on my world is cheap, Lasa,” he said softly. “Unless you’re one of the Great Leaders, your life has no value and no meaning.” He thought for another moment. “Maybe that’s why I joined Starfleet,” he mused, then managed a smile. “At least on some level, maybe I was thinking that my life could have some meaning… though I don’t think I was thinking that then.” The smile became a chuckle. “I don’t think I even realized it – or much of anything – then. I didn’t know what I had – or didn’t have – and certainly not what I was missing.” The smile grew genuine – and passionate - as he met her gaze. “Definitely not what I was missing,” he added.

M’Lasa laughed, moving her hand to the middle of his chest, pressing him back. “You’re going to have to put that thought on hold, handsome. Lt. T’Pij may have given us this assignment knowing it was a cakewalk, but she’s still expecting us to do our work.” She smiled at him. “Tonight? My quarters this time? You’re roommate’s a slob,” she added with a noisy sniff.

Brekath frowned, nodding. “I keep hoping he gets that promotion he keeps going on about,” he muttered. “Lieutenants get their own private quarters,” he said, then brightened. “You could, you know, move in. Once he gets that promotion. I mean… if you wanted to…”

A look of sorrow crossed her face. Seeing the expression, he felt every trace of hope fall to the ground. “Las?” he asked worriedly. “I didn’t mean… am I going to fast? I’ve never done this before – I mean, had a relationship. If I’m moving too fast… I mean, we talked about it… I mean…”

She silenced him with a touch, a smile on her face, but the sadness still in her eyes. “No, it’s not too fast, Brek, but…”

“But what?”

“But…” she started, then drew a deep breath. “But Breske isn’t the only one who’s going to get a promotion soon,” she said. “I know you haven’t said anything – but everyone knows you’ve been had how many meeting with T’Pij lately? You’re being considered for promotion, aren’t you? The only reason they’ve waited this long to promote you is because no one gets promoted from ensign to lieutenant right out of the Academy,” she reminded him. “And I’m happy for you – but ensigns and lieutenants can’t fraternize. Not officially – and I don’t think either of us wants to ruin our careers over a little sex. Good as it is,” she added.

He smiled, gave a soft bark of a laugh, then shook his head. “It is good – not that I have a basis of comparison,” he admitted, “but… No. They aren’t going to promote me,” he replied.

She pursed her lips dismissively. “Right,” she said. “Of course they aren’t. They simply opted to have you as their primary security lead on almost every away team to the mycellial islands because you have a nice butt. Seriously Brek, I don’t know how you managed to ingratiate your way into those teams, but…”

“Ingratiate?” he replied, pulling back with mock offense. “I did not _ingratiate_ myself into that team. Sending me down there was Rees' way of testing me after Culkins was hurt – seeing if my moment of not being his doormat was going to last, or if it was just fatigue and exhaustion.” He relented, dropping the feigned indignation, and moved closer to her and drawing her into his arms. “Seriously, Las, I think it was his way of giving me one final test before he kicked my sorry butt – nice as it may be – off the ship and stranded me on the moons of Andor. I surprised him – and myself – but mostly the away team. It turns out that they liked me. Maybe because I was willing to do all that grunt work – soil samples, spore samples, water samples, tissue samples from the tardigrades…”

“The tardigrades,” she sighed. “You and those tardigrades.”

“They’re cute!” he protested.
“They kill people!”

“Only when they’re threatened,” he countered. “And I like them, so they don’t feel threatened by me, and everyone is happy.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “Just don’t bring one back to my quarters. It’s bad enough that you track in dirt and water and spores…”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he replied.

She smiled – then her expression fell. “Then you are going to take the promotion,” she managed, sorrow coloring her voice.

“No,” he replied gently. “First, because T’pij hasn’t offered it, and second… because I’m leaving the Hoffman,” he explained.

She stared at him in shock. “Leaving… Brek,” she managed in a strained whisper, “if it’s something I said… or did…”

He reached to her, shaking his head. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Las – or maybe, it has everything to do with you. Ever since that day with you and the team, I’ve started to feel… alive. Really alive. For the last three months, it's as though I’m starting to see the bigger picture – a world outside myself.

“Working on the island with the away team, I began to see that I thought my horizons were limited to security because it was the only thing I was capable of doing – but I’m realizing it’s not!” he said, the amazement in his voice as real as it had been the first time it had occurred to him.
“I’m enjoying my work on the island. I like the team – but I love the biology, the ecology, the chemistry, the research… It’s my chance to work on something that’s unknown, and I’m finding I really like it!

“And,” he added, “I’m not the only one who’s seen that,” he added a little shyly.

M’Lasa looked at him, perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Cmdr. Tranforth reviewed the away team reports – and asked if I’d be interested in changing career paths from Security to Science. He asked if I’d be interesting in returning to the Academy - and the captain agress with him," he added, his voice still hushed from the surprise of hearing the captian's support of hiw efforts. "I’d be enrolling in the accelerated program in researching the mycelial network. I’d be at the Academy for six months, then the next six in the field, then back at the Academy for a while, and so. It would take three years – maybe a bit less as there is so much that we don’t know about the network – but I’d graduate a full lieutenant,” he said – then shook his head. “Me, Las, going back to school voluntarily for three years? I barely made it through security training! And now…” He shook his head again, then stopped, looking at her devastated expression – and smiled.

“Tranforth said I don’t have to go alone. Don’t worry,” he added hastily, “I didn’t talk out of turn, nothing about you in specific, but… but he wants me to go – and he and the captain aggreed that they he could work out sending two people back – if the other person wanted to do advanced coursework, or maybe a career change of her own,” he said quietly. “We’d both be full lieutenants at the same time – no issue with fraternization or anything like that.”

She studied him for a long time, then shook her head. “I don’t know, Brek. I don’t want to say ‘no’, but I sort of feel like I just got my own feet on the ground, and the thought of going back…” She shook her head again, then met his gaze. “But I’m not going to just say ‘no’. Let’s talk about it at dinner – maybe meet with a counselor and Cmdr. Tranforth to see what options there are for me… Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a tardigrade wrangler,” she added lightly, then drew closer to him. “I’m not promising anything,” she cautioned him, “but I’m willing to consider it,” she admitted, then drew herself closer and began to kiss him.

The kiss deepened, growing in intensity – then he broke away abruptly. “Well, there won’t be any opportunities for either of us if we don’t report in soon. This may be the easy patrol, but T’Pij will bust us both to cadet if we muck it up. Let’s get dressed and finish this up.” He looked around the cave, smiling at the thought that this might well be his last day as a security officer and this his last patrol.

It was not, he decided as his gaze turned to his lover, a bad way to end things.

Still smiling, he moved toward the opening of the cave where they had hastily thrown their clothes, disrobing as they made their way to the back of the cave, away from the noise of the construction teams rebuilding the ruined city and the chance of any stray eyes catching them in mid-tryst – the stopped.

Where their clothes should have been, however, there was nothing but sand – and the depressions of small feet.

Someone, he thought, probably the very pickpockets and thieves they had been watching for, must have been watching them. Or more likely, watching the cave. Surely it had been a common site for tourists seeking out a deserted spot for the same reasons he and M’Lasa had used it – and lost in the same distractions that they had been, the thieves would have crept in and stolen whatever they could: money, jewelry, devices…

Or, in their case, clothes.

“Damn it! Damn it!” Brekath growled angrily even as M’Lasa broke down, laughing as she realized the situation – then he sighed, laughing as well. “Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted. There’s no way I’m going to be offered a return to the Academy now – not after letting our clothes be stolen!”

M’Lasa kept laughing, tears beginning to run from her eyes, then shook her head. “There is a certain irony about it,” she agreed, then straightened, moving back to where they had lain in the sand. Fishing about in the sand, she pulled up one of their commbadges. “At least we learned never to let these get too far away,” she said, brandishing the badge, then tabbed it. “M’Lasa to Fesplar.”

A moment later a feminine voice returned. “Lass! What’s up? Don’t worry about me walking in on you and hot stuff tonight; I’m bunking with Kirbs. The place is all yours!”

“Thanks – but I need a favor,” the Caitian countered. “We had a bit of an accident… can you send down a couple of uniforms for me and Brek?” she asked, then added, “You can send them to these coordinates.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then a bright laugh followed. “Wow! Just… wow. Well, it’s gonna cost you!” the other voice said after a moment. “I want details, Las! All of them!”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

“Deal. Give me a few minutes, though.”

“Thanks, Samha. I owe you one,” M’Lasa said.

“You sure do! Fesplar out.”

Tabbing the badge to cut the communication, M’Lasa turned to Brekath. “Problem solved… and we have a few minutes to ourselves,” she added.

“Got any ideas of how we could fill the time?” she asked with a purr.

“A few,” he admitted, then sighed. “Those were my lucky pants,” he muttered. “Every time I wore them, I got lucky.”

She moved into his arms, smiling. “Brekkie, I promise: you're still going to get lucky."]]> <![CDATA[Call Me Mike - Chapter Two]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6649 Tue, 29 Dec 2020 18:39:58 -0500 brawndo_mom]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6649
He woke with a start, the sharp chirp of the ship’s communicator breaking through his deep and dreamless sleep. Reflexively, Brekath slapped at his chest, trying to hit his commbadge – but his hand found only his undershirt.

It took a moment for the absence of the metal badge to register in his sleep-addled mind, and a moment longer to recognize the true source of the sound.

Still fighting his exhaustion, he slapped at the communicator switch by his bed. “Brekath here,” he announced as clearly as he could.

“Ensign Brekath, report to Engineering at once,” came the voice of Lt Rees, the officer in charge of the current team of Security trainees.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied groggily, “I mean, no, sir. I mean I’m not on duty…”

“Security doesn’t get the luxury of waiting for shift assignments!” Rees snapped. “Report to Engineering, now!” he repeated – then softened his tone slightly. “Culkins was injured on a training exercise. She’s in Sickbay and I need a replacement to complete the exercise. Your scores on yesterday’s assessment showed me that you need the extra drill time, so report. Now! On the double!” he added, his voice growing harsh once again.

Brekath hesitated; he glanced at the chronometer, calculating that less than four hours had elapsed since Breske had left their quarters – and, realized, with a sinking feeling, that as bad as his performance had been the day before, today’s would be worse. If he was lucky – if! He thought grimly – they would shuttle him down to Andor at the end of this rotation to await the next shuttle back to Earth for a summary dismissal from Starfleet. If he was lucky, it would probably just be a one-way trip to Andor via the air lock.

And maybe, he added, resignedly, that would be for the best.

“Get to it,” Rees said sharply. “Ensign,” he added.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied.

Tabbing the comm switch off, he pushed his way up from the bed, calling out to the replicator for a cup of coffee as he crossed the room – one of the few pleasures he had found since leaving Kerbal – then went to his closet in search of a clean uniform.

Except, he remembered as the door opened, there wasn’t one. Breske had taken his last pair of trousers that morning, leaving behind the wet and soiled ones from his away mission.

Four hours would not have been enough to dry them completely, Brekath thought to himself, but if the gods were favoring him today, they would be at least reasonably dry – but as he pulled them from the back of the chair, he knew the gods were no more favorably disposed to him today than they had ever been. The pants were still quite damp.

With a grimace, he pulled the cold, wet trousers over his bare legs, the fabric clinging persistently to his flesh, knowing the material would be rubbing and chafing his skin for the rests of the day.

He sighed; it was bad enough knowing how poorly he had done the day before, and how badly he was going to do today; having to wear wet clothes was simply adding insult to injury.

Or perhaps not, he amended a moment later. Perhaps it was just the effect of the clean tunic, warm and fresh against his skin, or maybe it was the remains of the mycellial fluid tingling against his legs, or perhaps it was just the coffee, but as he set his empty cup back in the replicator, a faint glimmer of… not resignation, not submission to his fate, but something else, something new, something unfamiliar tickled at the back of his mind.

A moment later he found himself jogging down the hall toward the lift, then out and toward his assignment, arriving in Engineering with a mild – if unfamiliar - sense of exhilaration.

Lt. Rees looked up from his desk as Brekath entered his office, looked at his chronometer and frowned. “You made good time, Ensign,” he grunted.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath agreed.

“Same drill today. Take the same role as last shift – and Brekath?” he added, almost desperately.

“Sir?”

“Don’t mess up… again,” he said wearily. “Security doesn’t require a high IQ, but you have to use what brains you have. Think, man; think!”

Brekath studied the human, but the usual resignation he flet and the continuing, but well-earned, criticism was strangely missing. He gave a short nod. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“Do better,” Rees countered. “Your best isn’t cutting it.”

Brekath nodded. “Yes, sir.”

As grueling as the previous day had been, the alpha shift team’s training seemed to be even worse. Four hours into the shift, they had barely covered the first hour of the material, Brekath thought – then realized why.

Culkins’ injury had been a complete accident – a missed step on the ladder, a short fall that normally would have only generated a few minutes of first aid – but she had landed on the deck in just the wrong way, breaking her leg in the process. The resultant chaos had left the newly christened ensigns in complete disarray as they struggled to first address her injury.

Rees had stepped in at last, calling Sickbay, getting Culkins transported directly to the medical facility, reassigning the team’s duties then finally pulling Brekath from his much-needed sleep – but the end result was that they were now hopelessly behind schedule.

Which was, he realized, why he had been pulled into the rotation. Alpha shift was the prize assignment, and Rees’ best candidates were given the honor of serving there, where they could be most visible for review, and, with luck, assignment to the best new postings in Starfleet – all of which would reflect well on Rees and his career. Today’s results, however, would be anything but glowing – but with Brekath aboard, he could easily write off the disaster by blaming it on the Kerbali and not on his star ensigns.

There was nothing Brekath could do about that, however – so he simply turned his attention back to his work. Having run the drill only hours before, he knew his responsibilities. To his surprise, however, he realized he also knew the other team member’s responsibilities as well. Not that he had been trained in those tasks, of course – his role was always the lowest level of support and grunt work – but seeing them perform their assignments only a few hours before must have left a trace of the memory in his mind.

As he saw his teammates falter, he would call out the corrections as they needed them., gently correcting them as they made mistakes.

Still…

Still, there was something wrong about the whole situation, he mused.

The suggestion of a problem nagged at him, taunting him from the back of his mind as he persevered through the drill, but it never bothered him enough to interfere with what he was doing. Indeed, he found himself calling up the muscle memory of his previous say’s actions, letting his body respond automatically, rendering the tasks easier and easier as the day progressed.

It was, therefore, more than a bit of a surprise when Rees finally called an end to the training session – and Brekath realized that not only had they completed the assignment, but had done so with more than fifteen minutes to spare. Given the original delay, it was little short of a miracle.
Perhaps, he mused as he completed his assignments entry in his padd, the gods were smiling on him at long last.

A pleasant, if unfamiliar, sensation of satisfaction welled up in Brekath as glanced at the chronometer, and realized he had a full hour until his shift was to begin – time enough to eat, and perhaps change his clothes – providing, of course, that Breske had put in a repair request.

Which he hadn’t, Brekath decided, knowing that the minor task would never have occurred to his roommate. Pulling out his padd, he made the request, sent it to maintenance, then turned, aiming for the mess hall.

After securing a meal from the replicator, he canned the room, searching for his usual secluded table – only to see some of the others from the alpha shift beckoning to him.

M’Lasa, the Caitian who had worked near him throughout the drill, patted the empty chair next to her, encouraging him to join the group.

Brekath hesitated – the nodded.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a place beside her.

“Thank you,” A’Shani, the Andorian on the team, repeated empathically. “You really helped us out. I thought we screwed when Katrinka took that fall. We were already behind time.”

“Yeah, you really saved our butts,” Terrence Melchior agreed.

“Guess having to run it twice really helps,” Saranth added. There was more than a hint of derision in his voice, which A’Shani quickly silenced.

“Hey! If Brekath hadn’t stepped in when he did, we’d be running it twice as well," she reminded him.

“Yeah – but not because we messed up,” Saranth countered.

“You don’t know that,” M’Lasa interjected. “You were one step away from going after that civilian target before Brekath stopped you,” she reminded him, then turned to Brekath “And you kept me from red-flagging that vehicle,” she added. “Thanks.”

Brekath shrugged, turning back to his food. He was used to hearing people comment about his lack of skills – and equally used to them being nice to him, at least until they knew there was nothing he had or could do to help them in return.

“Yeah, but if Culkins had been there…” Saranth began.

“But she wasn’t,” Melchior interrupted. “She was our team lead,” he added to Brekath by way of explanation. “She was supposed to guide us through the drill – but then she got hurt,” he added with a frown.

“You should have had a second,” Brekath said quietly.

A’Shani looked at him, perplexed, then shook her head. “Rees didn’t assign a second,” she explained. “I mean, it was a drill, after all; it wasn’t real.”

“But if it had been?” Brekath replied, raising his eyes to meet hers.

“Well, then, Lt. Rees would have…” she began.

“Practice like it is real,” Brekath interrupted quietly, realization slowly dawning on him. “If you always assume there is someone to follow, that someone else will always know more, always have the answer, you won’t prepare. You never know when something like Culkins getting hurt will happen – so study, prepare, hold yourself responsible, while you can. So when you have to act, you’re ready,” he said.

“Yeah, but we weren’t assigned…” Melchior began to protest.

“That’s his point, Cupcake,” M’Lasa replied. “Heck, maybe that’s how we get promoted up! Study up, step up, be ready to take the lead when we need to,” he declared.

“Rees doesn’t like it when we step out of bounds,” Saranth reminded him. “He’s told us time and again that he’s testing us on what we’ve been trained to do”

Brekath looked at the Rigellian. “Maybe that’s not the only thing he’s testing,” he suggested, then began to rise from the table, his meal done – then stopped.

“Thank you,” he said to the four.

“Any time, Brek,” M’Lasa purred cheerfully.

Brekath nodded, then turned away again, his full stomach now reminding him that the rest of his body was in need of attention, and that he had worked for almost twenty four of the last twenty eight hours.

Weary, he started toward the turbolift, knowing he could catch a short nap – but as he entered it, he called for a different deck than the one where he was quartered.

As he left the lift a moment later, his stride was a blend of fatigue and confidence; without a moment's hesitation, he strode in Engineering, then to Lt. Rees’ office.

Seeing a shadow in the doorway, the human looked up, clearly annoyed. “What is it, Brekath?”

“Ensign Brekath,” the Kerbali corrected.

“Ensign Brekath,” Rees repeated somewhat mockingly, and still glaring at him for the interruption. “What do you want?”

‘I need to know what my next duty period is,” Brekath answered mildly.

Rees froewnd. “You’re delta shift,” he answered. “You know that. It hasn’t changed. “ He glanced at the chronometer. “You’re on in… thirty minutes.”

“No, sir.”

Rees looked up, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Brekath repeated. “Starfleet regulations require a rest period of eight hours in every 24, or in accordance with the normal biorhythms of the species in question. I’ve had less than four hours rest in the last forty-eight hours. I’m due…”

Rees interrupted him with a short, “Regulations are not inviolate! Security details must be able and ready to accommodate any changes as needed!” he snapped.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied quietly.

Rees nodded, satisfied – then looked up a moment later when he realized the man had not left his office. “Was there something else, Brekath?” he sighed wearily.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

Brekath met the glare. “My next shift, sir. When is it?"

“Brekath…”

“Current circumstances do not merit violations Starfleet regulations,” he said mildly. “We’re in orbit around a peaceful ally. We are not at red or yellow alert. Shields are down. We have away teams on routine research assignments with no security officers present,” he detailed.

“So?”

“So those are the requirements for a breach of core regulations regarding the care and well-being of officers on a Federation starship, sir, and therefore, I am entitled to my break period,” Brekath continued without a trace of animosity or anger in his words. “When is my next duty shift?”

Rees groaned, pulled up the duty roster on his computer, then snapped, “Alpha shift tomorrow, oh eight hundred. That should give you enough time for your beauty sleep,” he added roughly.

Brekath met his gaze – then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Rees glared at him, then snapped, “Dismissed!”

Brekath nodded again, then turned and left the room, leaving Rees to glare after him.

After the Kerbali had been gone for a few minutes, Rees pursed his lips, thinking – then began to make a note on the roster, nodding slowly.]]>
He woke with a start, the sharp chirp of the ship’s communicator breaking through his deep and dreamless sleep. Reflexively, Brekath slapped at his chest, trying to hit his commbadge – but his hand found only his undershirt.

It took a moment for the absence of the metal badge to register in his sleep-addled mind, and a moment longer to recognize the true source of the sound.

Still fighting his exhaustion, he slapped at the communicator switch by his bed. “Brekath here,” he announced as clearly as he could.

“Ensign Brekath, report to Engineering at once,” came the voice of Lt Rees, the officer in charge of the current team of Security trainees.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied groggily, “I mean, no, sir. I mean I’m not on duty…”

“Security doesn’t get the luxury of waiting for shift assignments!” Rees snapped. “Report to Engineering, now!” he repeated – then softened his tone slightly. “Culkins was injured on a training exercise. She’s in Sickbay and I need a replacement to complete the exercise. Your scores on yesterday’s assessment showed me that you need the extra drill time, so report. Now! On the double!” he added, his voice growing harsh once again.

Brekath hesitated; he glanced at the chronometer, calculating that less than four hours had elapsed since Breske had left their quarters – and, realized, with a sinking feeling, that as bad as his performance had been the day before, today’s would be worse. If he was lucky – if! He thought grimly – they would shuttle him down to Andor at the end of this rotation to await the next shuttle back to Earth for a summary dismissal from Starfleet. If he was lucky, it would probably just be a one-way trip to Andor via the air lock.

And maybe, he added, resignedly, that would be for the best.

“Get to it,” Rees said sharply. “Ensign,” he added.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied.

Tabbing the comm switch off, he pushed his way up from the bed, calling out to the replicator for a cup of coffee as he crossed the room – one of the few pleasures he had found since leaving Kerbal – then went to his closet in search of a clean uniform.

Except, he remembered as the door opened, there wasn’t one. Breske had taken his last pair of trousers that morning, leaving behind the wet and soiled ones from his away mission.

Four hours would not have been enough to dry them completely, Brekath thought to himself, but if the gods were favoring him today, they would be at least reasonably dry – but as he pulled them from the back of the chair, he knew the gods were no more favorably disposed to him today than they had ever been. The pants were still quite damp.

With a grimace, he pulled the cold, wet trousers over his bare legs, the fabric clinging persistently to his flesh, knowing the material would be rubbing and chafing his skin for the rests of the day.

He sighed; it was bad enough knowing how poorly he had done the day before, and how badly he was going to do today; having to wear wet clothes was simply adding insult to injury.

Or perhaps not, he amended a moment later. Perhaps it was just the effect of the clean tunic, warm and fresh against his skin, or maybe it was the remains of the mycellial fluid tingling against his legs, or perhaps it was just the coffee, but as he set his empty cup back in the replicator, a faint glimmer of… not resignation, not submission to his fate, but something else, something new, something unfamiliar tickled at the back of his mind.

A moment later he found himself jogging down the hall toward the lift, then out and toward his assignment, arriving in Engineering with a mild – if unfamiliar - sense of exhilaration.

Lt. Rees looked up from his desk as Brekath entered his office, looked at his chronometer and frowned. “You made good time, Ensign,” he grunted.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath agreed.

“Same drill today. Take the same role as last shift – and Brekath?” he added, almost desperately.

“Sir?”

“Don’t mess up… again,” he said wearily. “Security doesn’t require a high IQ, but you have to use what brains you have. Think, man; think!”

Brekath studied the human, but the usual resignation he flet and the continuing, but well-earned, criticism was strangely missing. He gave a short nod. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“Do better,” Rees countered. “Your best isn’t cutting it.”

Brekath nodded. “Yes, sir.”

As grueling as the previous day had been, the alpha shift team’s training seemed to be even worse. Four hours into the shift, they had barely covered the first hour of the material, Brekath thought – then realized why.

Culkins’ injury had been a complete accident – a missed step on the ladder, a short fall that normally would have only generated a few minutes of first aid – but she had landed on the deck in just the wrong way, breaking her leg in the process. The resultant chaos had left the newly christened ensigns in complete disarray as they struggled to first address her injury.

Rees had stepped in at last, calling Sickbay, getting Culkins transported directly to the medical facility, reassigning the team’s duties then finally pulling Brekath from his much-needed sleep – but the end result was that they were now hopelessly behind schedule.

Which was, he realized, why he had been pulled into the rotation. Alpha shift was the prize assignment, and Rees’ best candidates were given the honor of serving there, where they could be most visible for review, and, with luck, assignment to the best new postings in Starfleet – all of which would reflect well on Rees and his career. Today’s results, however, would be anything but glowing – but with Brekath aboard, he could easily write off the disaster by blaming it on the Kerbali and not on his star ensigns.

There was nothing Brekath could do about that, however – so he simply turned his attention back to his work. Having run the drill only hours before, he knew his responsibilities. To his surprise, however, he realized he also knew the other team member’s responsibilities as well. Not that he had been trained in those tasks, of course – his role was always the lowest level of support and grunt work – but seeing them perform their assignments only a few hours before must have left a trace of the memory in his mind.

As he saw his teammates falter, he would call out the corrections as they needed them., gently correcting them as they made mistakes.

Still…

Still, there was something wrong about the whole situation, he mused.

The suggestion of a problem nagged at him, taunting him from the back of his mind as he persevered through the drill, but it never bothered him enough to interfere with what he was doing. Indeed, he found himself calling up the muscle memory of his previous say’s actions, letting his body respond automatically, rendering the tasks easier and easier as the day progressed.

It was, therefore, more than a bit of a surprise when Rees finally called an end to the training session – and Brekath realized that not only had they completed the assignment, but had done so with more than fifteen minutes to spare. Given the original delay, it was little short of a miracle.
Perhaps, he mused as he completed his assignments entry in his padd, the gods were smiling on him at long last.

A pleasant, if unfamiliar, sensation of satisfaction welled up in Brekath as glanced at the chronometer, and realized he had a full hour until his shift was to begin – time enough to eat, and perhaps change his clothes – providing, of course, that Breske had put in a repair request.

Which he hadn’t, Brekath decided, knowing that the minor task would never have occurred to his roommate. Pulling out his padd, he made the request, sent it to maintenance, then turned, aiming for the mess hall.

After securing a meal from the replicator, he canned the room, searching for his usual secluded table – only to see some of the others from the alpha shift beckoning to him.

M’Lasa, the Caitian who had worked near him throughout the drill, patted the empty chair next to her, encouraging him to join the group.

Brekath hesitated – the nodded.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a place beside her.

“Thank you,” A’Shani, the Andorian on the team, repeated empathically. “You really helped us out. I thought we screwed when Katrinka took that fall. We were already behind time.”

“Yeah, you really saved our butts,” Terrence Melchior agreed.

“Guess having to run it twice really helps,” Saranth added. There was more than a hint of derision in his voice, which A’Shani quickly silenced.

“Hey! If Brekath hadn’t stepped in when he did, we’d be running it twice as well," she reminded him.

“Yeah – but not because we messed up,” Saranth countered.

“You don’t know that,” M’Lasa interjected. “You were one step away from going after that civilian target before Brekath stopped you,” she reminded him, then turned to Brekath “And you kept me from red-flagging that vehicle,” she added. “Thanks.”

Brekath shrugged, turning back to his food. He was used to hearing people comment about his lack of skills – and equally used to them being nice to him, at least until they knew there was nothing he had or could do to help them in return.

“Yeah, but if Culkins had been there…” Saranth began.

“But she wasn’t,” Melchior interrupted. “She was our team lead,” he added to Brekath by way of explanation. “She was supposed to guide us through the drill – but then she got hurt,” he added with a frown.

“You should have had a second,” Brekath said quietly.

A’Shani looked at him, perplexed, then shook her head. “Rees didn’t assign a second,” she explained. “I mean, it was a drill, after all; it wasn’t real.”

“But if it had been?” Brekath replied, raising his eyes to meet hers.

“Well, then, Lt. Rees would have…” she began.

“Practice like it is real,” Brekath interrupted quietly, realization slowly dawning on him. “If you always assume there is someone to follow, that someone else will always know more, always have the answer, you won’t prepare. You never know when something like Culkins getting hurt will happen – so study, prepare, hold yourself responsible, while you can. So when you have to act, you’re ready,” he said.

“Yeah, but we weren’t assigned…” Melchior began to protest.

“That’s his point, Cupcake,” M’Lasa replied. “Heck, maybe that’s how we get promoted up! Study up, step up, be ready to take the lead when we need to,” he declared.

“Rees doesn’t like it when we step out of bounds,” Saranth reminded him. “He’s told us time and again that he’s testing us on what we’ve been trained to do”

Brekath looked at the Rigellian. “Maybe that’s not the only thing he’s testing,” he suggested, then began to rise from the table, his meal done – then stopped.

“Thank you,” he said to the four.

“Any time, Brek,” M’Lasa purred cheerfully.

Brekath nodded, then turned away again, his full stomach now reminding him that the rest of his body was in need of attention, and that he had worked for almost twenty four of the last twenty eight hours.

Weary, he started toward the turbolift, knowing he could catch a short nap – but as he entered it, he called for a different deck than the one where he was quartered.

As he left the lift a moment later, his stride was a blend of fatigue and confidence; without a moment's hesitation, he strode in Engineering, then to Lt. Rees’ office.

Seeing a shadow in the doorway, the human looked up, clearly annoyed. “What is it, Brekath?”

“Ensign Brekath,” the Kerbali corrected.

“Ensign Brekath,” Rees repeated somewhat mockingly, and still glaring at him for the interruption. “What do you want?”

‘I need to know what my next duty period is,” Brekath answered mildly.

Rees froewnd. “You’re delta shift,” he answered. “You know that. It hasn’t changed. “ He glanced at the chronometer. “You’re on in… thirty minutes.”

“No, sir.”

Rees looked up, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Brekath repeated. “Starfleet regulations require a rest period of eight hours in every 24, or in accordance with the normal biorhythms of the species in question. I’ve had less than four hours rest in the last forty-eight hours. I’m due…”

Rees interrupted him with a short, “Regulations are not inviolate! Security details must be able and ready to accommodate any changes as needed!” he snapped.

“Yes, sir,” Brekath replied quietly.

Rees nodded, satisfied – then looked up a moment later when he realized the man had not left his office. “Was there something else, Brekath?” he sighed wearily.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

Brekath met the glare. “My next shift, sir. When is it?"

“Brekath…”

“Current circumstances do not merit violations Starfleet regulations,” he said mildly. “We’re in orbit around a peaceful ally. We are not at red or yellow alert. Shields are down. We have away teams on routine research assignments with no security officers present,” he detailed.

“So?”

“So those are the requirements for a breach of core regulations regarding the care and well-being of officers on a Federation starship, sir, and therefore, I am entitled to my break period,” Brekath continued without a trace of animosity or anger in his words. “When is my next duty shift?”

Rees groaned, pulled up the duty roster on his computer, then snapped, “Alpha shift tomorrow, oh eight hundred. That should give you enough time for your beauty sleep,” he added roughly.

Brekath met his gaze – then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Rees glared at him, then snapped, “Dismissed!”

Brekath nodded again, then turned and left the room, leaving Rees to glare after him.

After the Kerbali had been gone for a few minutes, Rees pursed his lips, thinking – then began to make a note on the roster, nodding slowly.]]> <![CDATA[(23-32ASP-2424-2433) Sunset (PG 13) (Part 1)]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6644 Mon, 21 Dec 2020 01:50:56 -0500 greaterfrost]]> http://strikegroup.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=6644
Her green skin didn’t seem to absorb the light like she thought it might. A pale orange washed over her face and exposed neck, arms, and shoulders; night was coming for more than just the day.

She smiled as the wind tousled her blue and red highlighted hair. The style had been so synonymous with her for decades that being without it seemed more alien than she was on Cerim IV.

Her last combat mission was fourteen years ago. She fell in love, had children, and fought every civil fight that had come her way much the same as her dancer’s knives had once upon a time. She remembered Gen fondly. It was fitting that a member of her own world should be the reason she gave up her desire to run.

Fremen returned the knife she left in his old master’s forehead. Jada and Pauc hired him in the defense force after their errant sister killed his employer in the most spectacular way an assassin could think of. She flipped the razor-sharp blade between her fingers. Amber blood still burned the edge and saturated the cotton wrapping that covered the hilt. Shavi liked the memory of it all, the memory of leaving the pain behind.

The golden disk of the sun had fallen behind the mountains; dusk was setting in. She remembered hunting those hills; it was where she met Miyan.

(nine years earlier)

Hunting was forbidden on Cerim IV; Miyan was a Bajoran veteran who had taken a ranger position overlooking one of the many preserves in the province of Heia. She caught Shavi stalking a boar with a simple knife; a herculean feat even with a spear but with a dagger only slightly larger than her hand Miyan could scarcely imagine any success. When she stunned the boar and the green-skinned trespasser, she had the knife less than two millimeters from the boar’s carotid artery.

Miyan realized who her prisoner was, of course, she did; Shavi was famous, second only in significance to her sister, and Vax, and Jasen. She hefted the unconscious Orion over her shoulder and transported her to the brig. She was determined to bring charges on Shavi no matter what her title or history had been. Justice didn’t discriminate.

The ranger kept her locked up for a week; when the Cerim Council President heard Shavi had been put in jail, he demanded her immediate release, an order Miyan blatantly ignored for more than six days. It would have taken Shavi no more than an hour to disengage the security fields and walk out a free woman. Something about how determined Miyan held Shavi accountable fascinated her, and she stayed willingly after that.

The penned prisoner of her own making saw a woman of striking beauty that was doggedly married to her job; a sense of duty was part of her cardinal makeup. Shavi learned the ranger’s mother was in the Cardassian occupation, and the die-hard attitude came from there. No one was above reproach, a concept that never really applied to the Orion temptress, no matter who was giving her the order. At that moment, behind the security field, Shavi saw something heroic in her guard: a ‘lawman’ with a hardened steel resolve, armed, watching only her. Even when she attempted to use her pheromones to influence the good ranger, the atmo-exchangers dispelled her attempts before they ever landed.

Shavi watched the Bajoran’s mouth as she talked. Her captor was brilliant, brutal, and honest. If she ran into bounty hunters even close to as capable as this ranger so many years ago, there was little chance she would be the woman she was today. The defiant ranger went on about how depraved and stupid a person could be hunting a boar with merely a knife, but over days of confinement, Shavi seemed most content to watch her speak. The sense of appeal building as the pretty lips of her warden made her respect the visuals as much as the words leaving the ranger’s mouth. She was trying to live up to her mother’s memory; as an Orion, that was the purest form of honor one could grant another. More so, Miyan was trying to earn the perception that she would have fought as hard as her mother and father did if it was ever needed of her.

In confinement, she told her guard about the torture she was subjected to at the hands of Alhena Station, how her parents were killed in an accident that turned out to be negligence on the hand of lazy federation engineers. It took her years before telling even Jada what she was escaping when they first met. Paranoia, fear, and the unknown make even family often the last to know when something is consuming your mind.

Each day, she learned more about the ranger’s passion and the yearning for a purpose; Miyan seemed to be a younger version of herself. Even twenty years ago, the Bajoran lawman could have easily won against an untitled and unknown Orion just trying to make her way through the universe. Every word reminded her of what she was looking for, and the green-skinned master manipulator was smitten, bordering on infatuation with the sheer courage in her captor's eyes and heart.

Miyan knew she couldn’t hold her prisoner indefinitely; she was a fleet commander of the battle of the Beta Dorados system; she literally saved the world. When the ranger was eventually forced to release Shavi, she expected to find herself exactly where her prisoner had been only moments before.

The look on the Bajoran’s face as the security field was deactivated and restraints were placed on her instead was more impactful in Shavi’s eyes than any of the last moments her memories captured of her victims. Shavi intervened and dropped all potential charges against the ranger and said they couldn’t punish someone for doing their job and no title or past makes you above the law.

No charges made it before a Magistrate, and Shavi was free to go. Miyan was released as well to return to her duties. Over the next eight weeks, Shavi found a reason to accidentally stumble upon or intentionally involve Miyan’s office in something she was working on. At first, Miyan assumed Shavi was lording her untouchability to the office or her authority at large. Over time, however, she saw Shavi was interested in her, not because of her position, not because of her background, but Shavi, one of the most influential people in the sector, wanted to get to know her better.   Eventually, Miyan gave up the idea that Shavi intended to recidivate her habits again and grew to enjoy her visits.

- - -

  Groundbreaking had begun at the starport: Shavi unnecessarily involved herself in building a new high security and defense force headquarters. She wasn’t an administrator the same way Jada was, and she wasn’t a foreman, but she was Shavi, and if she chose to be, she was the legitimacy everyone wanted in making this project a success. A heavy cruiser and a capital shipyard were being built to make Cerim IV a sector power.

  The people and equipment would soon be in place to legitimize the colony as a sovereign world. Miyan, like any other person not in the know, watched the slow but steady progression of its construction with avid interest. Soon she wouldn’t be a colonist anymore, but a citizen of Cerim IV, a first for the ranger.

She watched an antigravity pylon being installed to ferry semi-completed ships into assisted orbit. The project would have been the first significant defense platform built in the region since its independence. While its central beacon was aligning itself with the defense platform already in space, a light show of unimaginable brilliance bathed the countryside in an unnatural noon-day light. With every significant event, this prompted an atypical celebration that had consumed the entire province in its atmosphere. They called it the rave of the first pylon, a month-long festival celebrating the event, and they vowed it wouldn’t be the last time a party this spectacular was thrown again in its memory.

The ‘Ta Aeher’ tavern had been a favorite of Miyan's even when Gen was in charge. She had been on the planet for less than a month when the pirate mysteriously met his end. The prevailing theory was that he died at the hand of a Klingon assassin. He was supposedly working for the Klingon High-Command; Jada and Shavi were quick to ensure the people that the Klingon Council was making no advances to annex the planet or any other part of the sector. Still, five years later, the rumor mill always ran on unproven whispers from the shadows and salacious details of encroachment by a spy organization without a name. Miyan grew to enjoy hearing the stories but couldn’t for a moment believe them for even the briefest of considerations. Gen was a pirate; a rival had to have killed him, which was as complicated as she ever thought it could be.

Miyan absently drank rak’tajino and stared out the window towards the spaceport construction with her blue-green eyes the color of the sea before a storm smiled as her soft pink lips had creased into comfortable contentment at how peaceful things were. The warm, lively music in the background became dismissable noise as she daydreamed about being a starship captain someday. She had been so lost to her imagination she didn’t hear the uproar of a call for drinks and considerably more people entering the tavern, the clink of eights filling the tavern’s coffers.

Shavi walked in wearing a gambler hat with blue patterned cutoff top, exposing her green-skinned midriff flecks of amber speckled her skin as micro lacerations from the laser welder’s spray had bitten in her. A skin-tight pair of black leather leggings still covered in the soot from the day gave little imagination to how firm she still was even if she wasn’t operating any longer.

She shared in the festivities with so many of the lower-tiered workers she hardly gave the actual administrators the time of day when they discussed significant aspects to the dozen projects, she was token in charge of at any one point and time. She was famous for all the right reasons, but Shavi never seemed to take to the running of a sector the way her more renowned sister did. A brilliant smile that could have disarmed a charging targ seemed to radiate off of her face like a spotlight improving the lives of anyone it fell on. As her eyes caught Miyan, it took little convincing and pheromone control to get her body of followers to enjoy the night elsewhere while she excused herself.

The bold Orion watched her in silence for a moment; she liked that Miyan was average for a Bajoran. Nearly one point eight meters, broad-shouldered, and looked like she could hold herself in a fight. She had pinked skin; it gave the normally tawny peach-colored skin of her ancestors a more vibrant and alive tone. The warm glow of sun-kissed attention gave each shadow of her face the attention of anyone she committed her gaze on, or in this case, someone who had their eye on her.

The attentive Orion noticed a gentle scar marked a line along her jaw on the right side of her chin, ending just below the “D’ja pagh,” the earring on her right side so familiar to her people. She wore it on her right ear, something normally reserved for men, she guessed it was worn in memory to him; a symbol of his D’jarra; the Ke’Lora caste, the responsibility, and community given to lawmen and laborers. It made her distinguished to some, and it set her apart in the eyes of her admirer.

Shavi loved her long black hair, it was gathered in a loose ponytail. As she stared out the window, locks of pure night hung down her back and over her neck, highlighting the significance of her silhouette. She wore a long leather jacket that came down to her mid-thigh; it had an old charm to it, the scent and history only long nights on conflict could earn. It belonged to her mother, she wore it often, so it still smelled like her to Miyan’s imaginative mind, whether it was the truth or not it never seemed more than an arm’s length from her.

A gray button-down shirt peeked out from underneath; her badge and communicator still on, she hadn’t been home from work yet. The look of her hands were soft and well-groomed, she liked the way she looked, and it was clear; family meant more than fashion, and she wore both well. Shavi moved to take a seat at her table, breaking her out of her daydream.

“I’ve been looking for you, Miy!” Shavi said with her best smile from ear to ear.

   Miyan jumped just a little as Shavi took up so much of the room it was seemingly impossible for her to sneak up on anyone. She looked entirely lost in thought, and it took her a moment to recognize the green-skinned criminal she had been introduced to two months earlier.

“Sorry, I…” Her face visibly calmed, and a smile formed over her sculpted bow-shaped lips, revealing her teeth and creases in her cheek lines and crinkles around her eyes. Her smile was genuine, even if some part of her would always see Shavi as a criminal; she loved seeing the girl who always knew how to light up the room. “…I was just thinking of family, Shay…” She said with a sense of loss in her eyes and memory of something she was happy not to relive. “Good to see you.” Her smile returned as her posture relaxed a bit more.

Shavi smiled warmly in return; she had respect for those moments. Once upon a time, the nightmares of Alhena Station still woke her even while she were conscious. “Aye Miy, I remember daia berries in my mam’s cakes, da’s was always working on the planters, the sound of shuttles back and forth right next to the port, takes me back…” she remembered too, the fondness of those first few years were what made Alhena Station bearable.

Her smile grew listening to Shavi talk about such a good memory. “…For me, it was Pana leaves, Morning tea mom would always make us drink.” She let out a soft chuckle. “My sister ships me leaves every month; replicators just don’t do it justice…”

“I’ve never had it; next time I come by, I’m not leaving til’ you give up your family recipe…” she smiled warmly again and folded her hands over one another on the table, her left above her right. “things okay down at the preserve?” Shavi, the assassin of dozens of targets, killers of men and women who killed innocents for sport, tyrants, and autocrats, Shavi hardly blinked as she ran them through. In front of a girl she liked more than a little, she was as nervous as a teenager around her first crush.

Miyan nodded and took another sip of her Klingon coffee. “Even on Bajor, I never really felt like I was ye’ know… welcome… after the occupation and the provi government, nothing on Bajor seemed real anymore.” she would have never shared anything personal with anyone… but Shavi was impressively disarming. “I’ve lived on eight worlds; none of them felt like home.” Her smile seemed hopeful. “I fit in here… I have plants!” she giggled. “The spaceport… it's making me think this is where I should be…” Miyan said as though if she said it too much louder, it would vanish.

Shavi couldn’t get enough of her face; after eight weeks, she could dream of the sound of “Her Ranger” interrogating her. The first six days were burned into Shavi’s subconscious. Every emotion was real; Miyan was the first person she had ever met that always meant exactly what she said. “I’ve been planet-side for almost six years now. The first moment I stepped off the transporter pad, I felt the same way right now… this is home.” She tried to say it encouragingly, as though it would take more than a few acts of god to change the stars.

Miyan looked into Shavi’s large, seemingly iridescent blue eyes. “I’ve been trying to remember the Romulan phrase Sujor keeps saying…” she nodded her head to the wizened old man tending bar as he smiled and waved in return. “en ekiaid, ormiin… something,” she stammered, trying to remember.

“En ekiaid ormiin; mnean ejhoi en ei’krih i faedhe h’rau,” Shavi returned perfectly. “The universe lays out the best option for us; we decide the home to be ourselves in,” She translated. “He said that to me when I first came through here too. I think the old man knows the future.” She laughed warmly and looked into Miyan’s eyes.

Miyan nearly choked on her coffee as she nodded and laughed in return. “I swear I should open a file on em’” she jested, her eyes linked intently with Shavi’s. “Thanks, Shay…” she took another sip of coffee and then returned her smile. “For the attention, and the spaceport.” She motioned her head towards the window and the construction in the distance.

Shavi just nodded. “I wish I could take the credit; it’s been on the agenda for years… I just decided where it would go, and people started making plans.” She smiled and bragged as little as she knew how.

“You made this sleepy city very important,” Miyan responded appreciatively.

“I wanted to give something back…” she paused with a smile, looking down at the table. “Sujor told me something else that I think ultimately made the choice easy: “Ve aei'es eiihu mnea khira? Daehp vikra en a'rhea lagga.” she smiled; her eyes lost in Miyan’s. “If it’s only a matter of where? Create where the heart blooms.” She translated, getting very quiet.

Miyan blushed hotly, and her pupils grew larger, thinking about what Shavi said. “Psychic!” she shouted and laughed, pointing at Sujor. He seemed to be laughing as though he could hear her perfectly over the low thunder that was the noise in the tavern. “It was good seeing you… ye know… here, and not in my preserve…” She teased. “I need to get some sleep, and the jino isn’t doing anything to keep me up.” Miyan moved to get up.

“Not today anyway…” Shavi laughed in return. As Miyan moved to get up, Shavi reached out to touch her hand and gripped it gently. “I have to go back to the mob if you go.” She joked. “Can I walk you home, just for a little more quiet?” She smiled.

Miyan’s blush did not go away as her hot hand remained under Shavi’s. She nodded and tossed a few pieces of eight on the table with her free hand.

Shavi managed to follow Miyan out of the bar without making too much noise or recognition. As she passed Sujor, she dropped a slip of Latinum into his tip jar and smiled warmly at her first friendly face on Cerim IV.

Outside it was marginally quieter; the festival was just getting started, and there were many very excited people buzzing to and from the spaceport. Miyan moved at Shavi’s side as they passed down the wide and well-lit streets. For a while, neither said anything; they walked, appreciating the more anonymous air that was the main thoroughfare.

“So much better out here in the air, right?” Miyan spoke first.

“I don’t know which I like more: the noise that makes me feel normal, or the people not recognizing me that does,” Shavi replied, treasuring her privacy.

   “It must be crazy not having a moment to yourself,” Miyan spoke absently as if searching for the right words.

Shavi smiled and nodded without a reply.

Miyan smiled and walked with her another twenty or so meters before turning down a darker road with a few small houses along the sides and ending in a cul-de-sac.

She reached the third house on the right and turned to face Shavi, as their eyes met, and Miyan was about to speak when Shavi slid her hand along the nape of her neck and pressed up against her crushing her lips deeply against Miyan’s kissing her passionately against the wall of her house. Miyan feverishly returned the attention and grabbed both sides of Shavi’s face pulling her urgently into another. Miyan fumbled with the lock to her door as the door slid open, both falling to the carpeted interior of the living room. They both laughed into the kissing and slid away from the door enjoying each other’s attention far more in private.

(end of Part 1)]]>
Her green skin didn’t seem to absorb the light like she thought it might. A pale orange washed over her face and exposed neck, arms, and shoulders; night was coming for more than just the day.

She smiled as the wind tousled her blue and red highlighted hair. The style had been so synonymous with her for decades that being without it seemed more alien than she was on Cerim IV.

Her last combat mission was fourteen years ago. She fell in love, had children, and fought every civil fight that had come her way much the same as her dancer’s knives had once upon a time. She remembered Gen fondly. It was fitting that a member of her own world should be the reason she gave up her desire to run.

Fremen returned the knife she left in his old master’s forehead. Jada and Pauc hired him in the defense force after their errant sister killed his employer in the most spectacular way an assassin could think of. She flipped the razor-sharp blade between her fingers. Amber blood still burned the edge and saturated the cotton wrapping that covered the hilt. Shavi liked the memory of it all, the memory of leaving the pain behind.

The golden disk of the sun had fallen behind the mountains; dusk was setting in. She remembered hunting those hills; it was where she met Miyan.

(nine years earlier)

Hunting was forbidden on Cerim IV; Miyan was a Bajoran veteran who had taken a ranger position overlooking one of the many preserves in the province of Heia. She caught Shavi stalking a boar with a simple knife; a herculean feat even with a spear but with a dagger only slightly larger than her hand Miyan could scarcely imagine any success. When she stunned the boar and the green-skinned trespasser, she had the knife less than two millimeters from the boar’s carotid artery.

Miyan realized who her prisoner was, of course, she did; Shavi was famous, second only in significance to her sister, and Vax, and Jasen. She hefted the unconscious Orion over her shoulder and transported her to the brig. She was determined to bring charges on Shavi no matter what her title or history had been. Justice didn’t discriminate.

The ranger kept her locked up for a week; when the Cerim Council President heard Shavi had been put in jail, he demanded her immediate release, an order Miyan blatantly ignored for more than six days. It would have taken Shavi no more than an hour to disengage the security fields and walk out a free woman. Something about how determined Miyan held Shavi accountable fascinated her, and she stayed willingly after that.

The penned prisoner of her own making saw a woman of striking beauty that was doggedly married to her job; a sense of duty was part of her cardinal makeup. Shavi learned the ranger’s mother was in the Cardassian occupation, and the die-hard attitude came from there. No one was above reproach, a concept that never really applied to the Orion temptress, no matter who was giving her the order. At that moment, behind the security field, Shavi saw something heroic in her guard: a ‘lawman’ with a hardened steel resolve, armed, watching only her. Even when she attempted to use her pheromones to influence the good ranger, the atmo-exchangers dispelled her attempts before they ever landed.

Shavi watched the Bajoran’s mouth as she talked. Her captor was brilliant, brutal, and honest. If she ran into bounty hunters even close to as capable as this ranger so many years ago, there was little chance she would be the woman she was today. The defiant ranger went on about how depraved and stupid a person could be hunting a boar with merely a knife, but over days of confinement, Shavi seemed most content to watch her speak. The sense of appeal building as the pretty lips of her warden made her respect the visuals as much as the words leaving the ranger’s mouth. She was trying to live up to her mother’s memory; as an Orion, that was the purest form of honor one could grant another. More so, Miyan was trying to earn the perception that she would have fought as hard as her mother and father did if it was ever needed of her.

In confinement, she told her guard about the torture she was subjected to at the hands of Alhena Station, how her parents were killed in an accident that turned out to be negligence on the hand of lazy federation engineers. It took her years before telling even Jada what she was escaping when they first met. Paranoia, fear, and the unknown make even family often the last to know when something is consuming your mind.

Each day, she learned more about the ranger’s passion and the yearning for a purpose; Miyan seemed to be a younger version of herself. Even twenty years ago, the Bajoran lawman could have easily won against an untitled and unknown Orion just trying to make her way through the universe. Every word reminded her of what she was looking for, and the green-skinned master manipulator was smitten, bordering on infatuation with the sheer courage in her captor's eyes and heart.

Miyan knew she couldn’t hold her prisoner indefinitely; she was a fleet commander of the battle of the Beta Dorados system; she literally saved the world. When the ranger was eventually forced to release Shavi, she expected to find herself exactly where her prisoner had been only moments before.

The look on the Bajoran’s face as the security field was deactivated and restraints were placed on her instead was more impactful in Shavi’s eyes than any of the last moments her memories captured of her victims. Shavi intervened and dropped all potential charges against the ranger and said they couldn’t punish someone for doing their job and no title or past makes you above the law.

No charges made it before a Magistrate, and Shavi was free to go. Miyan was released as well to return to her duties. Over the next eight weeks, Shavi found a reason to accidentally stumble upon or intentionally involve Miyan’s office in something she was working on. At first, Miyan assumed Shavi was lording her untouchability to the office or her authority at large. Over time, however, she saw Shavi was interested in her, not because of her position, not because of her background, but Shavi, one of the most influential people in the sector, wanted to get to know her better.   Eventually, Miyan gave up the idea that Shavi intended to recidivate her habits again and grew to enjoy her visits.

- - -

  Groundbreaking had begun at the starport: Shavi unnecessarily involved herself in building a new high security and defense force headquarters. She wasn’t an administrator the same way Jada was, and she wasn’t a foreman, but she was Shavi, and if she chose to be, she was the legitimacy everyone wanted in making this project a success. A heavy cruiser and a capital shipyard were being built to make Cerim IV a sector power.

  The people and equipment would soon be in place to legitimize the colony as a sovereign world. Miyan, like any other person not in the know, watched the slow but steady progression of its construction with avid interest. Soon she wouldn’t be a colonist anymore, but a citizen of Cerim IV, a first for the ranger.

She watched an antigravity pylon being installed to ferry semi-completed ships into assisted orbit. The project would have been the first significant defense platform built in the region since its independence. While its central beacon was aligning itself with the defense platform already in space, a light show of unimaginable brilliance bathed the countryside in an unnatural noon-day light. With every significant event, this prompted an atypical celebration that had consumed the entire province in its atmosphere. They called it the rave of the first pylon, a month-long festival celebrating the event, and they vowed it wouldn’t be the last time a party this spectacular was thrown again in its memory.

The ‘Ta Aeher’ tavern had been a favorite of Miyan's even when Gen was in charge. She had been on the planet for less than a month when the pirate mysteriously met his end. The prevailing theory was that he died at the hand of a Klingon assassin. He was supposedly working for the Klingon High-Command; Jada and Shavi were quick to ensure the people that the Klingon Council was making no advances to annex the planet or any other part of the sector. Still, five years later, the rumor mill always ran on unproven whispers from the shadows and salacious details of encroachment by a spy organization without a name. Miyan grew to enjoy hearing the stories but couldn’t for a moment believe them for even the briefest of considerations. Gen was a pirate; a rival had to have killed him, which was as complicated as she ever thought it could be.

Miyan absently drank rak’tajino and stared out the window towards the spaceport construction with her blue-green eyes the color of the sea before a storm smiled as her soft pink lips had creased into comfortable contentment at how peaceful things were. The warm, lively music in the background became dismissable noise as she daydreamed about being a starship captain someday. She had been so lost to her imagination she didn’t hear the uproar of a call for drinks and considerably more people entering the tavern, the clink of eights filling the tavern’s coffers.

Shavi walked in wearing a gambler hat with blue patterned cutoff top, exposing her green-skinned midriff flecks of amber speckled her skin as micro lacerations from the laser welder’s spray had bitten in her. A skin-tight pair of black leather leggings still covered in the soot from the day gave little imagination to how firm she still was even if she wasn’t operating any longer.

She shared in the festivities with so many of the lower-tiered workers she hardly gave the actual administrators the time of day when they discussed significant aspects to the dozen projects, she was token in charge of at any one point and time. She was famous for all the right reasons, but Shavi never seemed to take to the running of a sector the way her more renowned sister did. A brilliant smile that could have disarmed a charging targ seemed to radiate off of her face like a spotlight improving the lives of anyone it fell on. As her eyes caught Miyan, it took little convincing and pheromone control to get her body of followers to enjoy the night elsewhere while she excused herself.

The bold Orion watched her in silence for a moment; she liked that Miyan was average for a Bajoran. Nearly one point eight meters, broad-shouldered, and looked like she could hold herself in a fight. She had pinked skin; it gave the normally tawny peach-colored skin of her ancestors a more vibrant and alive tone. The warm glow of sun-kissed attention gave each shadow of her face the attention of anyone she committed her gaze on, or in this case, someone who had their eye on her.

The attentive Orion noticed a gentle scar marked a line along her jaw on the right side of her chin, ending just below the “D’ja pagh,” the earring on her right side so familiar to her people. She wore it on her right ear, something normally reserved for men, she guessed it was worn in memory to him; a symbol of his D’jarra; the Ke’Lora caste, the responsibility, and community given to lawmen and laborers. It made her distinguished to some, and it set her apart in the eyes of her admirer.

Shavi loved her long black hair, it was gathered in a loose ponytail. As she stared out the window, locks of pure night hung down her back and over her neck, highlighting the significance of her silhouette. She wore a long leather jacket that came down to her mid-thigh; it had an old charm to it, the scent and history only long nights on conflict could earn. It belonged to her mother, she wore it often, so it still smelled like her to Miyan’s imaginative mind, whether it was the truth or not it never seemed more than an arm’s length from her.

A gray button-down shirt peeked out from underneath; her badge and communicator still on, she hadn’t been home from work yet. The look of her hands were soft and well-groomed, she liked the way she looked, and it was clear; family meant more than fashion, and she wore both well. Shavi moved to take a seat at her table, breaking her out of her daydream.

“I’ve been looking for you, Miy!” Shavi said with her best smile from ear to ear.

   Miyan jumped just a little as Shavi took up so much of the room it was seemingly impossible for her to sneak up on anyone. She looked entirely lost in thought, and it took her a moment to recognize the green-skinned criminal she had been introduced to two months earlier.

“Sorry, I…” Her face visibly calmed, and a smile formed over her sculpted bow-shaped lips, revealing her teeth and creases in her cheek lines and crinkles around her eyes. Her smile was genuine, even if some part of her would always see Shavi as a criminal; she loved seeing the girl who always knew how to light up the room. “…I was just thinking of family, Shay…” She said with a sense of loss in her eyes and memory of something she was happy not to relive. “Good to see you.” Her smile returned as her posture relaxed a bit more.

Shavi smiled warmly in return; she had respect for those moments. Once upon a time, the nightmares of Alhena Station still woke her even while she were conscious. “Aye Miy, I remember daia berries in my mam’s cakes, da’s was always working on the planters, the sound of shuttles back and forth right next to the port, takes me back…” she remembered too, the fondness of those first few years were what made Alhena Station bearable.

Her smile grew listening to Shavi talk about such a good memory. “…For me, it was Pana leaves, Morning tea mom would always make us drink.” She let out a soft chuckle. “My sister ships me leaves every month; replicators just don’t do it justice…”

“I’ve never had it; next time I come by, I’m not leaving til’ you give up your family recipe…” she smiled warmly again and folded her hands over one another on the table, her left above her right. “things okay down at the preserve?” Shavi, the assassin of dozens of targets, killers of men and women who killed innocents for sport, tyrants, and autocrats, Shavi hardly blinked as she ran them through. In front of a girl she liked more than a little, she was as nervous as a teenager around her first crush.

Miyan nodded and took another sip of her Klingon coffee. “Even on Bajor, I never really felt like I was ye’ know… welcome… after the occupation and the provi government, nothing on Bajor seemed real anymore.” she would have never shared anything personal with anyone… but Shavi was impressively disarming. “I’ve lived on eight worlds; none of them felt like home.” Her smile seemed hopeful. “I fit in here… I have plants!” she giggled. “The spaceport… it's making me think this is where I should be…” Miyan said as though if she said it too much louder, it would vanish.

Shavi couldn’t get enough of her face; after eight weeks, she could dream of the sound of “Her Ranger” interrogating her. The first six days were burned into Shavi’s subconscious. Every emotion was real; Miyan was the first person she had ever met that always meant exactly what she said. “I’ve been planet-side for almost six years now. The first moment I stepped off the transporter pad, I felt the same way right now… this is home.” She tried to say it encouragingly, as though it would take more than a few acts of god to change the stars.

Miyan looked into Shavi’s large, seemingly iridescent blue eyes. “I’ve been trying to remember the Romulan phrase Sujor keeps saying…” she nodded her head to the wizened old man tending bar as he smiled and waved in return. “en ekiaid, ormiin… something,” she stammered, trying to remember.

“En ekiaid ormiin; mnean ejhoi en ei’krih i faedhe h’rau,” Shavi returned perfectly. “The universe lays out the best option for us; we decide the home to be ourselves in,” She translated. “He said that to me when I first came through here too. I think the old man knows the future.” She laughed warmly and looked into Miyan’s eyes.

Miyan nearly choked on her coffee as she nodded and laughed in return. “I swear I should open a file on em’” she jested, her eyes linked intently with Shavi’s. “Thanks, Shay…” she took another sip of coffee and then returned her smile. “For the attention, and the spaceport.” She motioned her head towards the window and the construction in the distance.

Shavi just nodded. “I wish I could take the credit; it’s been on the agenda for years… I just decided where it would go, and people started making plans.” She smiled and bragged as little as she knew how.

“You made this sleepy city very important,” Miyan responded appreciatively.

“I wanted to give something back…” she paused with a smile, looking down at the table. “Sujor told me something else that I think ultimately made the choice easy: “Ve aei'es eiihu mnea khira? Daehp vikra en a'rhea lagga.” she smiled; her eyes lost in Miyan’s. “If it’s only a matter of where? Create where the heart blooms.” She translated, getting very quiet.

Miyan blushed hotly, and her pupils grew larger, thinking about what Shavi said. “Psychic!” she shouted and laughed, pointing at Sujor. He seemed to be laughing as though he could hear her perfectly over the low thunder that was the noise in the tavern. “It was good seeing you… ye know… here, and not in my preserve…” She teased. “I need to get some sleep, and the jino isn’t doing anything to keep me up.” Miyan moved to get up.

“Not today anyway…” Shavi laughed in return. As Miyan moved to get up, Shavi reached out to touch her hand and gripped it gently. “I have to go back to the mob if you go.” She joked. “Can I walk you home, just for a little more quiet?” She smiled.

Miyan’s blush did not go away as her hot hand remained under Shavi’s. She nodded and tossed a few pieces of eight on the table with her free hand.

Shavi managed to follow Miyan out of the bar without making too much noise or recognition. As she passed Sujor, she dropped a slip of Latinum into his tip jar and smiled warmly at her first friendly face on Cerim IV.

Outside it was marginally quieter; the festival was just getting started, and there were many very excited people buzzing to and from the spaceport. Miyan moved at Shavi’s side as they passed down the wide and well-lit streets. For a while, neither said anything; they walked, appreciating the more anonymous air that was the main thoroughfare.

“So much better out here in the air, right?” Miyan spoke first.

“I don’t know which I like more: the noise that makes me feel normal, or the people not recognizing me that does,” Shavi replied, treasuring her privacy.

   “It must be crazy not having a moment to yourself,” Miyan spoke absently as if searching for the right words.

Shavi smiled and nodded without a reply.

Miyan smiled and walked with her another twenty or so meters before turning down a darker road with a few small houses along the sides and ending in a cul-de-sac.

She reached the third house on the right and turned to face Shavi, as their eyes met, and Miyan was about to speak when Shavi slid her hand along the nape of her neck and pressed up against her crushing her lips deeply against Miyan’s kissing her passionately against the wall of her house. Miyan feverishly returned the attention and grabbed both sides of Shavi’s face pulling her urgently into another. Miyan fumbled with the lock to her door as the door slid open, both falling to the carpeted interior of the living room. They both laughed into the kissing and slid away from the door enjoying each other’s attention far more in private.

(end of Part 1)]]>