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Unofficial Literary Challenge #37: Witchcraft and Spycraft
starswordc
Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
Welcome to the thirty-seventh edition of the Unofficial Literary Challenge: "Witchcraft and Spycraft"!
Prompt 1: "Beware False Prophets" by @moonshadowdark
Prompt 2: "Eye Spy" by @aten66
Prompt 3: "Where Are You?" by @jonsills
As usual, no NSFW content.
The discussion thread is here.
The LC Submission thread is here
Index of previous ULCs (click ULC 31 for earlier entries):
Prompt 1: "Beware False Prophets" by @moonshadowdark
The Bajoran wormhole has been displaying strange fluctuations of late. Your ship has been dispatched to DS9 to investigate. When you arrive, Captain Kurland informs you that a Mirror Vessel has recently come through the wormhole. The pilot of the vessel claims to be the Harbinger of the Great Destroyers of the Wormhole. Kurland explains that these Destroyers are actually the Mirror counterparts of the Wormhole Prophets and scans reveal that the Mirror Wormhole has been altered to lead into the Prime Universe. To make matters worse, it seems that the Destroyers are attempting to free themselves from the Wormhole into the Prime Universe. The only person who can help you end this threat is the Harbinger. Write a log detailing the interrogation of the Harbinger or how you managed to stop the Destroyers and end the Mirror threat.
* * *
Prompt 2: "Eye Spy" by @aten66
On a recent mission to the Romulan Republic, you've picked up a Romulan Delegation to drop off at your superiors base of operations. In an emergency repair, the computers have detected a worm that has been programmed into the ships computer, pointing to one of the delegates as they had used an out-modded Tal Shiar program. This spy used the worm to keep an eye on the engine room, holodecks, medical ward, and munitions locker. You must figure out who and where this spy came from, and what he plans to do to the remaining delegates.
* * *
Prompt 3: "Where Are You?" by @jonsills
The away team beams back from a mission. But the captain isn't on the transporter pad! What does the crew do now? How do they find you? Do they find you? Do they try?
As usual, no NSFW content.
The discussion thread is here.
The LC Submission thread is here
Index of previous ULCs (click ULC 31 for earlier entries):
31. There Are 31!
32. New Year, New Changes
33. What Happens on Drozana...
34. Moreau
35. Rhyme Directive
36. Past, Present, and Future
32. New Year, New Changes
33. What Happens on Drozana...
34. Moreau
35. Rhyme Directive
36. Past, Present, and Future
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
By StarSword-C, with Worffan101
Part One
Are filled with sacrifice and robes of lust
Dissonant choirs and downcast eyes
Selfhood of a condescending ape
Behold the crown of a heavenly spy
Forged in blood of those who defy
Kiss the ring, praise and sing
He loves you dwelling in fear and sin
Fear is a choice you embrace
Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale
Pick your author from à la carte fantasy
Filled with suffering and slavery
You live only for the days to come
Shoveling trash of the upper caste
Smiling mouth in a rotting head
Sucking dry the teat of the scared
A storytelling breed we are
A starving crew with show-off toys
Fear is a choice you embrace
Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale
From words into war of the worlds
This one we forsake with scorn
From lies the strength of our love
Mother’s milk laced with poison for this newborn
Wake up child, I have a story to tell
Once upon a time
Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale
— “Weak Fantasy” by Nightwish (studio track)
“TSUNKAT! TSUNKAT! TSUNKAT!” the crowd’s roar echoes across the arena.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and sentients of all forms!” a male voice echoes across the arena. “If you are here, you have worked to find us, and here is your reward: a red match!” The crowd roars its approval once again. “Direct your attention to the north door! Behold, your Green League champion, the one, the only, Vedakar of Rassilon!”
“Get ready,” the huge green pig-faced trainer beside me growls as the announcer lets the crowd cheer. “I know how you fight, Red, you can take him.”
I turn my head, spit in his eye and he squeals in irritation. “Phekk you.” He swings blindly and I sidestep. “Ah-ah. You don’t want to lay a hand on me right before the match. Might mean I lose.”
I don’t understand a word of his response but somehow I don’t need to.
“And now, the challenger, a newcomer, hailing from the Alpha Quadrant!” Whatever that means. “Though weak she may look, iron flows through her veins and steel beats in her, may I say, very fine breast.” I roll my eyes. “Before today, she has no fame, and no name, but fights to gain both! Behold, the Red Scar!”
The portcullis shrieks open in front of me.
For some reason, I don’t move. It feels wrong.
“Get out there,” the alien trainer growls.
Suddenly I sneeze in his face. He grabs me in a fury and throws me out, slamming the portcullis behind me. The audience doesn’t seem to know what to make of my landing in a heap on the sand, but some of them laugh. I’m still sneezing, four times, five, six, as I make my way to my feet. Now the audience is really laughing.
The big, scaly monstrosity on the other side of the ring doesn’t seem to know what to make of my nose betraying me. It gives me time to wipe my nose and fall instinctively into a fighting stance, hands up in front of the chest and legs about shoulder width apart, weight on my toes. The tickling in my nose is subsiding, thank the Prophets…
Wait, thank who?
“Really?” the big guy roars, pulling me back to the present. “This is it? You send me a hairless ape with a sinus infection?”
“Hey!” I shout back, outrage bubbling up instinctively. “Come and say it to my face, if you’re man enough to fight instead of standing over there yowling like a phekk’ta hara cat!”
He stops, and narrows his eyes at me. “Did you just misgender me, you little binary frash?”
“Uh…” Oh, phekk
“I’m rekkah sick of you rekkah binaries expecting monos like us Tlal’Ikan to conform to your damn stereotypes!” the lizard roars. “Fifteen Ikhren I’ve been fighting and still every little piece of upstart binary TRIBBLE thinks they’re better than me! I’ve had enough!” It—go with ‘it’ for lack of a better pronoun—charges, lightning-fast despite that massive upper body. I duck sideways, but its arm still clips me, sending me spinning into the dirt. Face-first, again.
I roll over, narrowly avoiding the Tlal’Ikan’s two-fisted hammer-blow, the meaty scaled fists slamming into the dirt. I grab its immense upper arm, thicker around than one of my legs, and try to get around to their back, knowing that I can’t match it in raw strength, so I need leverage.
The brute swings their arm out with a roar, and I grab for the back of the neck—then the other hand grabs me, but at this angle even this guy’s strength isn’t enough to dislodge me. Something pops as the alien tries to pull their arm back, and they howl in pain. I release the arm, which flops awkwardly to their side, and Vedakar shrieks angrily. My left gets across its throat…
The Tlal’Ikan jumps. Oh, phekk me.
The world goes white and I see stars. I feel like I got hit by a Gorn—what’s a Gorn?—and my ribs are screaming from the stress, but I manage to hold on to the neck, my grip strengthening as the Tlal’Ikan rolls to its feet, my breath coming back in gasps.
“Get OFF!” they roar, but it can’t shake me. I hold my arm hard across their throat as they struggle, arms flapping. It’s bucking like a crazed targ, and I grab my elbow as I struggle to hold on for dear life. Literally, this is a Red match, losing is death.
Well, it’ll be Vedakar’s death.
I can feel it struggling to breathe, to pull air into a windpipe I’m holding shut. The thrashing is weaker now, it scrabbles at my arms but at this angle I have the advantage, I just have to squeeze. It’s a slow, brutal way to kill someone, I realize, as the Tlal’Ikan slumps to its knees, then to the ground. Gradually its struggles abate, and it goes limp in my arms, but I keep on crushing the life out of them.
Stop, a small voice inside me says. Stop. Stop.
He’s disabled. Stop.
I release it and shove it away, standing and throwing my hands in the air. “Honored guests!” the announcer bellows. “First victory, first kill for the Red Scar! Tsunkat!”
Something makes me want to check that before the guards come out. I turn back, reach over to the alien’s neck. The artery is still pulsing and they’re still breathing, somehow. “It’s not dead,” I yell at the guard.
“What?”
“It’s still alive, but it needs medical attention. Dislocated shoulder plus damage to the trachea, unless you get a tube in it’s not going to be able to get enough oxygen!”
“What are you, now, a medic?” the scaly one that looks like his TRIBBLE is on top of his head—Hirogen—snarls at me.
“I don’t phekk’ta know, Draska, I can’t remember anything from before the shuttle crash, remember?”
I see him and his buddy shoot a glance between them. “Well, finish it off, then!”
“What? No!”
They look at each other again, then back to me. “What?”
“It needs medical—phekk, I’ll—”
“Kill it, already, it’s a red match!”
“Okay, there seems to be some commotion on the arena floor,” the announcer says uncertainly as we argue. The crowd is rumbling its displeasure.
“I won’t kill a helpless opponent!”
Then I shriek, doubled over in pain. PAIN, PAIN EVERYWHERE.
“Kill it!” the big green trainer demands, the remote for my implant in his hand.
“Phekk… you!” I shout my defiance as the two guards move in on me with billy clubs.
Wardroom, USS Bajor NCC-97238. Former Krenim Imperium, 11 March 2411.
“Eight days, fifteen planets, no captain. What the frak is the matter with you people?!” Tess yelled, throwing her PADD across the table. “We’ve got a quarter of Dyson Command fanned out across the sector and haven’t found a damn thing but wrecks from the Vaad invasion!”
“Damn it, Tess, you’re not the only one worried about her!” Commander Reshek yelled back, surging to his feet. “She’s your captain, she’s my wife!”
“Does this help at all?” Commander Riyannis said, striding through the door five minutes late, holding up a PADD.
“Biri. Where the…” She paused and took a couple of deep breaths, now equally furious at herself for her loss of composure. “Damn it,” she muttered. “Where have you been?”
“Giving the sensors from the transporter targeting array a deep-tissue massage for the twelfth time. I think I finally found something.”
The copper-skinned Trill tapped a few commands and a video from an armor suit’s helmet cam appeared on the main screen. SWO1. K’tar was marked in the nameplate. “The last away team down to Kyana Prime, they all insisted Eleya appeared to have beamed out normally, right?”
“Right, K’tar was actually looking and recorded it.”
“But her signal never entered the pattern buffer,” Biri continued. “When we tried to beam her out, that chroniton storm we were dealing with must’ve set off a verteric theta-baryon reaction in subspace—”
“Biri! English!” Tess exploded.
Biri looked at her askance. “She got sucked through a temporary wormhole.”
“Was that not your initial hypothesis?” Lieutenant Korekh noted.
“Yeah, but now I’ve proven it.” She threw a new slide onto the screen. “Class Two micro-wormhole, kinda like the one Voyager encountered out towards the rim on Stardate 48579.4.”
“That one went back in time twenty years,” Tess pointed out worriedly.
“This one doesn’t appear to. It was buried in the interference but once I spotted the trace reverberation in subspace, I knew what to look for.”
“You’re telling me you know where Eleya is?” Reshek said, starting to sound hopeful.
“Not exactly.” Everyone at the table groaned but the Trill pressed on, putting a chart up on the screen. “Look, it’s still a needle in a haystack, but at least now we’re looking in the right haystack. She’s gotta be in this area here, Kymathra Sector, and I’m ninety percent sure it’s one of these ten stars.”
“But is she a transporter beam, still?” Commander Bynam Ehrob muttered quietly. Everyone looked at the mutton-chopped chief engineer, who shrugged. “Look, everyone’s thinking it. I don’t like saying it any more than you do, but we gotta face the facts, the Captain’s probably dead.”
“I’m not gonna lie, the odds aren’t good,” Biri agreed. “But weirder things have happened in this part of the galaxy. ‘Nother of Voyager’s little misadventures: people getting spat out of a subspace vacuole fully formed after trying to beam out.”
“You know, I have the deepest respect for Admiral Tuvok, but reading that ship’s logs, I would’ve sworn they made half of it up,” Tess grumbled. “Like they thought they were writing for… What was that old Earth show she played for us at movie night a couple weeks ago? Farsight or something?”
“Farscape, sir,” Bynam supplied.
“Right, anyway…” Tess pinched the bridge of her nose in concentration. “Okay, I’ll get on the horn to Admiral Reynolds, redirect the search. Tell me about that sector.”
Reshek shrugged. “Inhabited. Lawless. Krenim conquered the place from the Rilnar Star Kingdom centuries ago but their empire was on the decline long before the Vaads woke up.”
Lieutenant Esplin raised her hand; Tess nodded. “I heard chatter a while back that a couple planets out there, Netheril and Iltkazar, put feelers out to the Benthan Guard after the armistice, looking to hire trainers for their security forces. I can send a message to the local high justicar, see if they’ve heard anything weird.”
“Captain Phohl,” Korekh began. “I would proceed with caution. The planets Esplin mentioned excepted, inhabitants of this region will not take kindly to a foreign fleet moving into their space.”
“So we don’t look like a battle fleet,” Tess agreed. “Maintain yellow alert, and run that ECM program of Master Chief Kinlo’s, make us look like anything but a ship of the line. I don’t want to draw any more attention than we have to, but if there’s a chance Captain Kanril is still alive, I’ll take it. Dismissed.”
My dreams are confusing. A green woman with a knife and a bikini disappears into lights, flashes, fire in the blackness of space. Fury, fear, pain. The sound of artillery rounds whistling overhead as I lead a fireteam through mud and sand and shattered trees, firing the weapon in my hands at glittering figures in the dark.
Then I’m lying in the arms of a beefcake of a blond, blue-eyed man with a disruptor graze over his eye. He kisses me, and all my fears vanish. I feel safe, loved.
I wake up later feeling like I’ve been worked over by a whole baseball team, bats included. And then naturally I try to remember what the phekk baseball even is. Must be from… whoever I was before the crash.
“Are we awake?” a male voice murmurs.
“Oh, phekk off, Penk,” I grumble at the mustachioed arena operator and turn over, intending to go back to sleep.
“Do I need to use your implant?”
I turn back to face him and immediately start sneezing again. Mix of mud and blood shoots from my nose, a smell I remember from my dreams. I pinch my nose to try and stop the bleeding. Doesn’t feel broken. Guess I’m still too valuable for the guards to do more than bruise, outside of a fight at least.
“You know, you cost me a lot of money today, Red,” he says conversationally. “A whole lot of customers flew a whole lot of light-years to see that fight. I had to expand the schedule to make up for the embarrassment. Strangest thing, you’re one silanit thet of a fighter, but refusing to finish off an opponent?”
“You force me into that ring, I'll defend myself, Penk, but I won't kill for you.”
“You’ve killed before. Many times.”
“Have I?”
He stares at me, studying my face. “You really don’t have any idea, do you?”
“About what?”
He just chuckles. “So, you refuse to kill. Why?”
“I refuse to murder a helpless opponent who’s as much a prisoner of your vole trap as me. The first duty of a prisoner is to escape, and if you can’t escape, be as uncooperative as possible.” I forget trying to remember where I’m quoting that from and fix him with a nasty grin. “Oh, and also because I don't like you.”
He laughs. “You know, I’ve seen your type before. Idealists. Your part of the galaxy is full of people like you, people who think you’re better than you are. But you know what?” He presses his face against the cell bars. “You’re all hypocrites. Push your backs against the wall, you turn right back into people like me.”
I sneeze again. I stop at three this time.
“Hey, you want need a box of tissues in here? I can do that for you. I could make your life in here a lot easier if you do what you’re told.”
“Why don’t you just go away,” I retort, wiping my nose on a corner of the bedsheet. “I think it’s your foul stench that’s doing it to me.”
He chuckles again. “That implant I stuck in your skull, it does a lot more than cause pain. See?” He holds up a tablet computer. Not as advanced as a Starfleet PADD, the screen’s not even in color, but… What the phekk is Starfleet?
“You see this chart?” Penk interrupts my thoughts, holding the tablet where I can see it. “It’s a record of your emotional state. It’s proof.”
“Of what.”
“That you like fighting.”
“Dream on.”
“Oh, I’m not dreaming. The adrenaline rush as the fight starts, the fear, the euphoria, the joy of having another’s life in your hands? Ring any bells?” I glare at him. “Oh, and this spike right here? This is the bit where you dislocated Vedakar’s shoulder, and this one, you put him in that choke-hold, nearly killed him. You were enjoying it, Red.”
“Get out.”
“You’re a born killer, Red, you can’t hide from it!”
“I said, get out!” I scream at him.
“Your next match is in two days. I expect a better performance, or we might have to revisit the arrangement.” He flips the tablet cover shut and strides off.
I crumple in a heap on the floor, suck air into my nostrils, hard, fighting back tears. It’s not true. If those dreams mean anything, maybe I was a soldier before, but I hate killing.
Or, damn it, maybe it is.
But, I refused to kill Vedakar. I did. I hold tight to that thought as I squeeze my eyes shut, flexing my hands in the sand on the floor as I breathe, some kind of exercise to get my heart rate down.
Then that thought comes back to me. That word: Starfleet. There’s something familiar about it, pleasing.
I start tracing a design in the sand, I don’t even know what it is. A high vaulted arch like a temple roof, a five-pointed star, and another, canted angle below.
What the phekk does it mean?
I hear the rattle of the cell door opening. The robed attendant with the second pair of nostrils on his forehead lays a tray of food on the table next to it. I’ve seen other escape attempts, I know he has a poisonous dewclaw on his wrist. Won’t kill you, just painful as all hell.
Still, I track him with my eyes from the floor, hoping for a chance, but no, he isn’t moving any further into the room than he needs to. Then his eyes cut to the design I’ve drawn on the floor and widen. Just for a moment, but I catch it. Then they flick to my face and I see recognition dawn in his eyes. “Kanril Eleya,” he blurts out.
“Bless you,” I answer uncertainly.
He grabs the tray from my previous meal, then kicks sand over the drawing (I’m too startled to react) and hustles out.
Kanril Eleya.
Those words. They’re familiar.
He was looking at me.
Maybe it’s my real name.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
"This is the Dragunov to that pathetic bicycle wheel with-six-curved-spikes-for-some-reason in space," opened Kronen. "We've responded to your distress signal and are heavily reluctant, as one would expect from our kind."
A static transmission broke through. "Kurland here. This is Kurland."
"Hmm. We're detecting a distortion from your communications systems being caused by the wormhole. Please repeat?"
The Captain on the other end tried again. "It's Kurland. Here is Kurland. Kurland here. Kurland here. Kurland here."
"Yeah, we're just going to check it out. No need to keep trying to exist," Kronen suggested before cutting the channel. "I'm not even sure if that was true about the wormhole; I just didn't want to interact with that guy."
Standing next to Kronen, Commander Red, a Klingon, monitored the ship's progress. "Nearing the wormhole now, Captain. It's fluctuating and it appears a Mirror Universe vessel is coming through!"
"This is the I.S.S. Dragunov and I am Kronen, the Harbinger of the Great Destroyers! Hyyyeeeeeee!" came the excited hail from another Birok-class heavy raptor as its Captain blinked on screen. "Oh, I am just soooo happy to meet you."
The Prime Universe Kronen was taken aback. "Ugh! Well, as an open-minded individual, I do not have a problem with your auspicious nature, but I must ask, what are the odds we would run into each other? Seems highly incidental?"
"Isn't that what life is all about, though? Events at random! Like how the Mirror Universe version of your Prophets, known here as the Great Destroyers, were able to have me divert our wormhole to your universe!"
Kronen looked confused for a second. "So, that means the Prime Gamma Quadrant is feeding into the Mirror Gamma Quadrant? That is abhorrently redundant."
"As I am the Emissary to them, also known as the Harbinger! Yeeeeee! I love it! Prepare for your universe to be destroyed! Hehe!"
Suddenly: The two Kronen's found themselves in a neutral plain of existence, resembling Operations on Deep Space 9.
---
Looking around, the Prime Kronen was then appalled by the Mirror Kronen.
"Bro!? Do you shave your arms? What the hell?" Prime Kronen asked, just noticing the devastation before him.
Mirror Kronen patted his muscular, hair-free biceps, out of his armless uniform. "How else could I show off these beauties? As a cat-like species, we Ferasans have far too much fur."
"It is the right amount of coiffure!" countered Prime Kronen.
Suddenly, a Prime Prophet approached from one side, and a Mirror Prophet approached from another.
"The state of things is not to be the state of things," claimed the Prime Prophet.
The Mirror Prophet nodded. "Indeed. As that statement pertains to us: We seek to be free of the Celestial Temple, referred to as the Elysian Gates of Astral Reaches, to a linear place of existence."
"Seriously? Just keep the same names for things! You're trying way too hard," claimed the Prime Kronen. "Also, as a contender of my universe, I am obligated to protect it from you, for some reason. I don't know. I was mostly hoping to consume targ wraps for lunch today."
Mirror Kronen shrugged. "But why deny them? Who is to say having us here is bad for you or anyone in any way? And, of the countless entities and cross-dimensional beings in space, how are the Mirror Prophets any less or have any noticeable crowding to the vast, infinite realm of your Prime Universe?"
"The squeaky, hairless Kzinti— that is, Ferasan— is correct," the Prime Prophet said. "He is truly an Emissary of revelatory nature, unlike our The Sisko who sat around for seven years before doing anything significant."
To that, the Mirror Prophet squinted, suddenly realizing where he/she was. "By the loathsome dirt-mongering, scatter-brained Bajorans we all know and hate! You have brought us to the wrong universe??"
"Yes! By use of the newly retrieved Orb of Possibilities," claimed Mirror Kronen. "Don't you see? It's all sunshine and lollipops here! Their Picard isn't a blood-thirsty war-dealer who drinks black coffee, and their Spock isn't a centuries-long sociopath who manipulates political power by sitting around raising one eye brow at a time! Hehehehe!"
The Mirror Prophet grabbed Mirror Kronen by the throat. "You are the most fail-bound Emissary of the many hundreds we have employed thus far. Linear realms such as this are much like your Klingon-grade rubber pants: The wrong ones do not fit and cause impenetrable uncomfort!"
Prime Kronen and the Prime Prophet watched in shock, as the Mirror Prophet turned to address them.
"Please, accept our apologies for the intrusion," the Mirror Prophet continued. "We will deal with our Kronen by putting him in charge of some filthy Bajorans. Ugh. We hate them so much with their constant losing and their insistence of relevance. Anyway, Mirror Prophets out!"
When they disappeared, Prime Kronen and the Prime Prophet glanced at each other.
"Well, that was awkward. I guess not all space-time aliens are alike; a lesson only learned through these rare encounters," Prime Kronen observed. "So, is Sisko still around? Do you need a new Emissary or anything?"
The Prime Prophet bowed slightly and unconvincingly. "Not at this time. But we'll call you if that changes." And then, diverting for a quick cut-off: "Such a thing probably won't ever change."
---
Seconds later, Kronen found himself back on his Bridge, with the other ship disappeared.
"Sir, you went completely blank there for a while," explained Red. "We took the opportunity to discuss politics with each other while you were comatose. We all agree the Federation is colluding with the Romulans."
Kronen blinked to get his visual focus back. "You know that talk always triggers me! Anyway, it would seem certain attributes are required, even for Mirror Emissaries. Perhaps I should try them next?"
"Agreed. Shall we report our findings to the pregnant Captain Kurland?"
The Ferasan jumped back in his seat in utter disgust. "NO! No, please no. We will just send them a text message, but only after we're gone and out of communications range. Both those Prophets took his form and I was puking internally the whole time. Set course and engage!"
"Aye, Captain," Red acknowledged, before taking out a PADD and using his thumbs to type on its screen. The Dragunov then turned in space and jumped to warp.
Part Two
And the pressure will just keep on rising, now the heat is on
It’s too late, there is no way around it
You will see it in yourself many times
In the end you will give up to fight it, unescapable
‘Cause you’re losing your mind and you sleep in the heart of the lies
Where is the edge of your darkest emotions?
Where does it all survive?
Where is the light of your deepest devotions?
I pray that it’s still alive
It’s the rule that you live by and die for, it’s the one thing you cannot deny
Even though you don't know what the price is, it is justified
So much more that you’ve got left to fight for, but it still doesn’t change who you are
There is no fear you’ll ever give in to, you’re untouchable
‘Cause you’re losing your mind and you sleep in the heart of the night
Where is the edge of your darkest emotions?
Where does it all survive?
Where is the light of your deepest devotions?
I pray that it’s still alive
You can’t stop yourself, don’t want to feel, don’t want to see what you’ve become
You can't walk away from who you are, never give in
(Where is the edge?)
Where is the edge of your darkest emotions?
Where does it all survive?
Where is the light of your deepest devotions?
I pray that it’s still alive
— “Where Is the Edge” by Within Temptation
The guards drag me semiconscious back to my cell. Blue match this time. I lost. Some kind of oversize mollusk with too many tentacles, reminded me of a Sulamid.
As I regain more awareness I finally notice the big-nosed attendant treating the sucker wounds on my arms and chest with antiseptic. I snap my hand out and grab his wrist. He tries to shake me off, but I hold on.
“I’ll warn you once, Red,” he starts to say.
“Who am I?” I demand of him, voice gruffer, commanding. “And don’t give me that ‘Red Scar’ shiel.”
“Let go.”
“Tell me. I heard you call me something, ‘Kanril Eleya’. Is that my name?”
He squints at me, but doesn’t shake back his sleeve to reveal the dewclaw. He starts to look around, then moves a little closer.
I release his wrist. “Tell me.”
“Yes. It’s your name.”
“And who am I? Was I a soldier?”
He nods. “It’s why Penk didn’t just use you as, uh, a training target, or an incentive. He likes ex-military, they’re better fighters.”
“Ex?”
“You’re active, probably listed as missing.”
I sneeze. “How did he get me?”
“You fell out of some kind of structure in the desert. It activated and just spat you out.”
“Just like that?”
“Hey, Yatha!”
The attendant grunts and turns around. “What do you want, Draska?”
“Another pain shot would be nice,” The Hirogen still has an arm in a sling from where I fought back two days ago. I smirk at the memory.
“You just had one,” Yatha retorts. “She cracked a bone in your wrist, it’s gonna hurt. Get used to it, unless you want a new expensive habit, smokehead.”
“What was it before?” I ask innocently, then sneeze again.
“Gambling on matches,” he answers, handing me a rag. “Penk had a job opening, let him choose between guard or fighter.”
I start chuckling and Draska grabs the door of my cell and shakes it. “Oh, don’t get me started on you, b*tch. You watch yourself, or, someday, one of the other guards might just leave this door unlocked. You spat in Fraggaz’s eye the other day, he doesn’t forgive—”
I roll off the bed suddenly, ignoring the pain and shoving Yatha out of my way, then snap my arm through the bars. Draska sees me coming but doesn’t react in time; I grab the front of his shirt and slam his face into the door. He grunts in pain and struggles, nearly breaking free, but then I grab the front of his pants with my other hand and squeeze, hard, meeting his bulging eyes with a glare. “Draska, allow me to clarify things for you. You even think about trying anything with me, and I will rip this off and shove it up your *ss so far you’ll be able to taste it. Do we have an understanding between us?” I wait for him to nod, then let him go.
I sag against the bars as he beats a hasty retreat to the amusement of another Hirogen guard. Yatha comes up behind me and throws my arm over his shoulder, helping me back to the bed. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yeah, probably not,” I agree. “I think that tentacle thing injected me with something.”
“No it didn’t, and I wasn’t talking about that. You’re making a lot of enemies here, and one of these days Penk’ll decide your fights aren’t worth the trouble you’re giving him. And you just insulted Draska’s honor, he won’t forgive it.”
Somehow that remark brings something back: me in a red uniform, arguing with a human—no, Betazoid, I remember that much—and something about the conduct of some war? Honor, and the lack of it. Then that leads me to a hulking brute with greasy, unkempt black hair, and I grimace. “I’ve met Klingon warriors with more honor than him,” I mutter, reminded of the memories.
“What?”
“Nothing. Look, Yatha, either Penk kills me in the ring, or he kills me with a disruptor in the back of the head. Either way, I end up in a shallow grave, so tell me, what the phekk is my incentive to play ball with these sons of wraiths?” He grunts noncommittally. “First duty of a prisoner is to escape,” I quote again, now picturing a middle-aged man in a uniform as gray as his hair drilling that into me and a roomful of others.
He doesn’t answer me, but I can see cogs turning in his mind. His lips tighten, then his jaw acquires a set to it. He cleans up his first aid kit and leaves, carefully locking the door behind him.
A humanoid in a royal blue uniform materialized on USS Bajor’s transporter pad amid a shower of blue sparks. Three silver stripes on the Benthan’s upper sleeves showed his rank: a high justicar, the Benthan Guard’s closest rank to a two-star.
Tess Phohl was already at full attention in service dress black, with four security officers standing behind her as honor guard. “Welcome aboard, High Justicar Mathan. It’s good to see you again, sir.”
The Benthan snorted air through his upper pair of nostrils as he stepped down and offered a hand for her to shake. “Likewise, Commander Phohl. Or should I say ‘Captain Phohl’?”
“You’re not in my chain of command, sir. ‘Commander’ is fine.”
“Did you change your perfume since we last met?” he commented as they headed out the door, followed smartly by Lieutenants K’lak and McMillan.
“Yes, sir.” Tess wasn’t sure what to make of the question.
“I like it, it reminds me of my wife’s.”
“I didn’t know you were married, sir. How is she?”
“She was nursing our third when I left. I haven’t seen her in almost eight months but we’re too close to Borg space out here to make me want to bring her to the base on Netheril.”
“Mmm. Command deck!” she ordered the turbolift as they entered.
The other senior officers, plus Command Master Chief Kinlo and Lieutenants Connor and Gantumur, were waiting in the wardroom at attention when they arrived. Vice Admiral Reynolds was visible on a screen. “At your ease,” Mathan acknowledged them, taking a seat and inserting a chip into the terminal at his seat. “We found her.”
“Oh, Infinite be praised,” Tess muttered.
Commander Reshek echoed the sentiment, bowing his head in prayer for a moment. “Where is she?”
“Here,” Mathan answered, pointing to a white dwarf fifteen light-years from their position. “We’ve been after a slave ring run by a Rilnar named Penk for several years now.”
“Penk,” Lieutenant Korekh echoed, beginning a search on his PADD. “Why is that name familiar?”
“One of his wanted bulletins may have crossed your desk, Senior Investigator,” the Benthan answered. The horned alien accepted the recognition of his Ver Eshalakh rank with visible pride. “Penk’s wanted for various versions of slave trafficking on twelve planets, including a death sentence in absentia for running forced gladiatorial combats on Norcadia Prime.”
“They still have capital punishment out here?” Lieutenant Wirrpanda repeated.
“Doc,” Reshek countered, “never mind the Klingons and Romulans, Bajor was still hanging collaborators when I was a kid. Anyway, sir, what else do you know about this Penk character?”
“Well, your Starship Voyager had an altercation with him on Stardate 53447 that ended in the destruction of his Norcadian operation. Since then he’s been running illegal tsunkatse matches to entertain rich underworld figures all over the three surrounding sector blocks. Most of the fighters aren’t volunteers: we got involved twelve years ago when several Benthan citizens were kidnapped and sold to him.”
Reshek stood. “High Justicar Mathan, all due respect, cut to the chase. What’s he done with my wife?”
“Your wife?” Mathan gave the big blond Bajoran a look rather resembling a zabathu caught in an ice crawler’s floodlights. “Oh, serley chrika, do you Starfleet people not have rules about—”
“What, fraternization?” Tess chuckled ruefully. “Technically, yes, sir, if considerably looser than the Guard’s, but they’re almost never enforced on long-range ships. When you’re cooped up in a tin can for weeks, months, sometimes five or six years at a time…?”
The Benthan made a noise through both sets of nostrils that sounded awfully like a harrumph. “Anyway, not a chance in Hell Penk would pass up a fighter of Captain Kanril’s expertise. We managed to infiltrate an operative into his organization about two years ago. We’ve been looking for an opportunity to capture him, but two times we got close and…” He honked in frustration, a sound almost like a trumpet. “He killed his stable of fighters and fled.”
Korekh growled. “Monstrous.”
“How did she even get there?” Admiral Reynolds asked.
“I have no idea. Penk’s operation is on a marginally habitable planet tidally locked to that star. Captain Kanril was found outside a ruin in the wasteland about a week ago after a subspace anomaly of some sort. Penk apparently recognized her right away but… Commander Reshek, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but she’s lost her memory.”
“Prophets have mercy.”
“Not completely,” Mathan amended. “Her skills haven’t been affected and our operative believes she’s remembering fragments.”
“Well, memory loss does occasionally happen in transporter accidents,” Biri noted. “Usually not permanent.”
Reynolds grunted. “That’s for Medical to worry about. Acting Captain Phohl?”
“Sir.”
“You are to draw up and execute a plan for a rescue operation. I will issue formal orders ASAP authorizing use of lethal force at your discretion and any Starfleet resources you require.”
“It will be my pleasure, sir.”
“Captain Phohl,” Mathan said, apparently following Reynolds’s lead, “I’ll give you whatever help is at my disposal, but my government wants Penk.”
“Sir,” Biri answered, “I can certainly understand that, but Federation law forbids extradition if the prisoner faces a possible death sentence.”
“I’m aware, Commander Riyannis, but that’s above my level,” Mathan said, smiling slightly. “I was ordered to present Chief of State Brandat’s wishes and I have done so.”
Tess chuckled. “Right. We’ll let the suits haggle over the prisoners after we have some. Mathan, have your allies taken any large pirates or smugglers recently? I’m looking for something in the multi-megaton mass range.”
Mathan nodded. “I see what you’re doing. The Netherese Navy captured a three million-ton dilithium freighter from the Kazon-Hobii about a month ago. Zahl-built, thirty or so years old with a souped-up warp core—or it was before the damn hairballs got their grubby paws all over it—and they never changed the IFF from the, erm, prior owner. We can have it ready in two days.”
Tess shook her head. “I’m not planning to fly it. We’re going to clone its warp field and IFF onto Bajor.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes, sir,” the Klingon chief of the boat confirmed from her chair. Bynam Ehrob nodded his agreement.
Tess turned to the map. “We’ll fly up to the heliopause making like prospectors and survey the system, then go from there.”
Another fight, another red match. My opponent is a Talaxian: short and stocky, weighs probably a hundred kilos and knows how to handle himself.
I disable one leg with a kick to the kneecap but he grabs hold of my leg and pulls me down. I flip over, kicking out with my heel at his hands, and he yelps in pain as I bruise his knuckles. He pulls back and tries to stand, so I scramble away and climb back to my own feet—not enough time to turn around on the ground, better to get back up. The Talaxian’s cursing but his leg’s still holding his weight—right, Talaxians are tough, thick bones. I take the initiative, going for his vulnerable face, but he blocks, and I barely deflect his counter. His leg snakes out for my shin and I take a step back, then push off straight into him.
My charge catches him off-balance and he stumbles backwards, enabling me to knee him square in the groin. That hurts him, he wheezes in pain and crumples back. I punch him in the face, once, twice, then a hammer-blow hits my abdomen and I stumble back, Prophets that guy’s tough. The neck’s too thick and short for me to repeat my stunt with Vedakar, but I have the agility advantage here, maybe I can…
The Talaxian spits out blood and a tooth and charges, and I sidestep and pivot on my foot, executing a wheel kick directly to the side of his head. There’s a sickening crack, and he collapses, bringing me down too as his arm hits the back of my knee at just the wrong time.
I flip back to my front as the crowd roars, and roll into a crouch as quickly as I can…
The Talaxian’s down, blood coming from the side of his head and running into the dirt. The spot where my heel hit him is concave, a depression a centimeter deep and three wide there for all to see.
I reach in and check. No pulse. The crowd roars and I smile.
Then I crumple to the sand. Phekk me. Maybe Penk was right.
“Well, Commanders,” Tess said, striding into Maintenance Bay 3, “what’s this thing you wanted me to see? At ease,” she added to Lieutenant Connor and her MACOs and several petty officers.
“Just a second,” Bynam said as he and Reshek worked the controls of an industrial replicator. A klaxon sounded and, behind a set of barriers around the glowing replication pad in the center of the room, a gunmetal-gray, coffin-sized box took shape in a shower of blue sparks.
Walking around it as the goldshirts lowered the safety barriers and began going over the project with tricorders, Tess noted a door on the front, darker-gray material on the base, arrays of small attitude thrusters on several surfaces. Then she turned around. “Guys, this is no time for pranks.”
“No prank, sir,” Bynam assured her. “It’s a drop pod. I based it on what the Captain and MACOs used on that planet in the mirror universe.”
“A quarter of the insertion team died on that drop, us and the Cardies!” she said incredulously. “The first officer of that Galor-class crashed and frakking burned!”
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Reshek agreed, “but you need to remember they were punching through some pretty heavy flak. And, to be blunt, they were Cardassian-built.”
Tess bit her lip. “Whose crazy idea was this?”
“Both of ours. Look, our scan of the target planet detected transporter scramblers, right? Come in with a shuttle, it’s too obvious, but that planet’s about to pass through a patch of decent-size meteoroids. So I figured we could hide the ship behind the moon, deploy the pods into orbit with transporters in the middle of the meteor shower, and hit the ground without being noticed.”
Bynam pointed to the thick darker gray plate on the bottom of the drop pod. “This darker material down here is designed to ablate, make the pod look more like a meteor breaking up. Airbrake fins deploy here, here, and here, then a low-power antigravity generator cushions the landing at the last second.”
“Best part,” Connor added, “we can go now, we don’t need to wait for support from command.”
“Have you used these at all, Lieutenant?” Tess asked her.
“Only in the holodeck,” the buzzcut MACO answered. “After that mission, Corps of Engineers started fu…ooling around with variations of the design.”
“Nice save, L-T,” Petty Officer Kallio commented under his breath.
“They roped in the big boss, Rear Admiral Halley, for tests,” Connor continued, ignoring him. “I tried two or three pretty similar to this in simulated and live drills when I was stationed on the Patagonia.”
“Survival rates?”
“We mostly made it down in one piece. One guy busted a hip once, but he hadn’t set his restraints right.” She shrugged. “As long as these idiots”—she motioned to the squad behind her—“make it down, I’m good with this plan.”
Tess squeezed her eyes shut and decided. “All right. I’m green-lighting this. Computer, bring up terrain specs!” An image of the planet several hours old appeared on the screen. “We land you in the desert, then you’re on your own. Bust in, knock out the scramblers, take whatever prisoners and rescue whatever gladiators you can, but Captain Kanril is priority one.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Connor,” Reshek said, “I’m going with you.”
“Uh…” She made a noise that sounded like a barely stifled curse. “Um, sir. I realize… what you’re trying to do, but this is going to be bloody—”
“Connor, my wife is down there.”
Connor looked to Tess. She shrugged. “I’m not going to need him up here for this op. It’s your call, Lieutenant.”
“Okay, uh… How good of a shot are you, sir?” The MACO lieutenant still sounded like she was trying to find an excuse not to bring the big blond Bajoran.
“Check my range scores. Haven’t used a rifle much but with a Type-2, tight quarters, I'm a better shot than Eleya.”
“Damn it.” She ran a hand over her scalp with a grimace. “This is gonna play holy hell with unit efficiency. All right, K’tar, see if we can find a GUNGNIR Mark IV suit to fit the commander. One of Luiz’s spares might work, get him checked out on it and weapons issued from the armory.”
“You got it, L-T,” the Klingon assented.
“Where do you want me, Lieutenant?”
“Support. K’tar has the combat tech stuff down, I’ll be on point, Luiz has the big gun, Lamont’s covering our *sses, so stay under Kallio’s overwatch and take potshots, hold the medkit. When we get the Captain, I’ll handle the enemy, you be there for her and patch her up as needed. If you get shot, she’ll have my *ss so if you die I’ll take it as a personal insult. Sir.”
“Thank you. Lead the way, Petty Officer K’tar.”
“Lieutenant Connor,” Tess said, “set up a practice drop in the holodeck. We should have time for a few runs en route.”
“Yes, sir!” The MACOs and sundry redshirts filed out, Tess eyeing the back of Reshek’s head as he followed.
Tess sniffed and turned to further examine the drop pod. That was when Bynam reached in with a hyperspanner. “Sorry, can I—?”
“Right, you’ve probably got more work to do.” She started to step away.
“Tesjha, talk to me.” Except phrased as it was in Andrisii, it was a gentle request. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Commander Reshek is a damn fool, Bynam. Yeah, he’s a good shot, he’s even a decent martial artist, but—”
“He’s going down there for her, Tess. Captain’s never needed anyone to protect her from the world, but being forced into prize-fights not knowing who she is? We might just need someone to protect her from herself, and that’s what he’s always done for her.”
Tess grunted. “I’ve never been comfortable with them being together and serving on the same ship. But you’re right. Even with us and Biri knowing her since we were all JOs, she’s always had to be the CO, but somehow she lets down that last wall with him.” She pursed her lips. “Makes me almost jealous.”
“Well, you turned me down back at the Academy,” the other Andorian needled her.
She chuckled at that. “Give me a break, we’d never have worked.”
“So you say. I still say you were too scared to try, after that frakked-up shelthreth you came from. We were good together.”
“Studying, sure. Tezha, usually. As sh’za and ch’te, we’d drive each other insane.” She grunted, feeling out the drop pod’s magnetic field with her antennae as the mutton-chopped chaan adjusted the controls. “Check the heat dispersion field again, Commander, I think there’s a fluctuation.”
“You telling me how to suck eggs, Captain?” Now he was using Imperial Andorii and the emphatic case, all business again.
“I’m not the captain,” Tess retorted in like manner. “Eleya is, and this pod needs to work right the first time so we can go get her.”
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
---
Kathryn stood straight while looking at the data scrolling on the display. “No offense S’Rel, but are you sure, absolutely sure?”
The female Vulcan sitting at her Operations station on the bridge nodded at the screen. “Yes, sir. Verification protocols were followed along with my own diagnostic. The worm was manually installed by attaché Motira, shortly after we departed New Romulus.”
Scanning the data, Kathryn whispered to herself, “holodeck, medical, a munitions locker and ... the engine room?” She looked away feeling confused, yet some action had to be done to stop further hemorrhaging of data. “Isolate and five-layer encrypt all records. Use whatever resources you need to purge every nanobyte of that worm code from the core. Then send this information to my ready room.” She turned to the Andorian First Officer. “Anthi, I need to speak with Ambassador V’Sar, immediately.”
“Aye, Captain.”
+++
The Romulan Ambassador finished reviewing the information from the screen, his face contorted with disappointment. Spinning the desktop display toward Kathryn, he sat back into the chair.
Kathryn sat motionless wearing a determined countenance. “I wanted you to see the evidence first. I must admit, it was sloppy work for Tal Shiar agent. Regardless, I trust you will allow me to detain Motira.”
V’Sar sighed uncharacteristically and nodded. “I trust you believe me when I say this is a complete surprise. How the Tal Shiar maintains effort to meddle in Republican affairs disturbs me.”
“How you are certain this is about the Romulan Republic? The worm was a digital recorder of specific sections on this ship, which is a well-known design. Unless –,“ Kathryn had the thousand-yard stare for a brief moment, but long enough for V’Sar to look at her questioningly. She tapped her combadge and stood. “Security, locate Romulan Attaché Motira and escort her to the Brig, expect resistance.”
“Captain?” V’Sar was clearly confused.
She moved around the desk and toward the door and then stopped to look at V’Sar. “The Tal Shiar program was an old one, which is how we were able to find it, and Motira has explicit surveillance for a reason. You can come with me, or you can stay here. Either way, it may not matter unless we stop her.”
V’Sar stood and demanded, “What are your thoughts Captain Beringer?”
“I think Motira plans to blow up the ship.”
+++
Deck 15
Sitting at the bar of the Headsail Lounge, Motira was looking into an empty glass; the Tamarian Frost was very tasty and the spice flavor lingered on her lips. Long dark brown hair fell to cover the sides of her face. As people had been entering and leaving the Lounge, she did not realize the security detail enter the room. Wearing traditional Romulan clothing made her easily stand out, even if she was the only one sitting at the bar.
Only when she noticed the bartender behind the bar back away from the direction of the main entrance, did she gather something was different.
I had hoped to have one more day, she thought to herself. Casually turning in her seat, she took stock of the two human males; one dark-skinned and the other lighter, both bulky and tall enough to prove the intimidation they exuded. Motira scoffed at the idea and then raised an eyebrow noticing they wore phasers at their hips.
The lighter-skinned one took a step forward. “Attaché Motira, please come with us.”
She looked around the Lounge and counted six others, who were looking at the situation calmly and quietly, before responding. “I am a representative of the Romulan Republic. What is the meaning of this?”
“We have been ordered to escort you for safety reasons.”
“Is there an emergency?”
The officer’s hand moved halfway to the phaser. “I do apologize for the inconvenience. Please come with us.”
Motira shrugged and casually strolled past the security detail to exit the Headsail Lounge.
+++
Deck 9
The Turbolift doors opened and Motira stepped into the hallway, the burley security team quietly following her. Turning a corner, she stopped as she noticed V’Sar and Kathryn waiting outside the doors to the Holding Cells several meters away. “Amabssador, do you know what is going on?”
V’Sar’s sneered. “Tal Shiar scum.”
The comment shocked Kathryn and Motria alike. Kathryn raised her hands to calm the Ambassador. “V’Sar, I think we-“
“For the Empire”, shouted Motira. She balled a fist to backhand the security guard to her left, and then side kicked the guard to the right. Both were thrown against walls, arms flailing from the shock attack. She quickly reached for a phaser and swiveled toward the pair down the hallway, quickly pressing buttons to adjust the beam setting.
Kathryn recovered from Motira’s surprise assault on the security team. “Motira, stand down! Whatever you’re plans, it’s done.”
Motira looked to the guards and comforted with them incapacitated, she stalked a few steps forward. “I just needed one more day,” she said aloud.
V’Sar stood motionless and relaxed even with the phaser trained on him. “One day or a thousand years from now, the Star Empire is part of the history books. New Romulus is the future.”
“Maybe so, but patriots like me will make every step to that future more difficult than the last.” She gritted her teeth as she prepared to fire.
The Ambassador pushed Kathryn away, the counter-force propelling him toward Motira. The phaser beam connected the two Romulans and V’Sar was wrapped in a cocoon of light. Not expecting the Ambassador to wear a personal shield, Motira stood surprised.
Without stopping, V’Sar charged Motira. He knocked the phaser out of her hand and then reached to choke the Attaché. She gasped for air and buckled to her knees, struggling against his grip.
A phaser emitter touched V’Sar’s temple, forcing him to pause. He looked to see Kathryn standing over him. “That’s enough Ambassador; I think the Republic is victorious this day.”
V’Sar grinned and released his grip to stand. Motira collapsed as she coughed in defeat. He regained his regal poise before reaching into the folds of his diplomatic uniform. Revealing a small device, he handed it to Kathryn. “Thank you for your assistance, Captain Beringer. I apologize to your crew for the inconvenience.”
Lowering the phaser, she replied, “indeed.” Accepting the cube-shaped shield projector, Kathryn added, “neat trick.”
“A man in my position can make enemies very quickly, wouldn’t you agree?”
Kathryn lifted Motira from the floor. The security team had recovered and escorted the Romulan toward the holding cells. She watched them disappear before turning to V’Sar. “What do you mean, ‘assistance’?”
The Ambassador became smug. “I must apologize, Captain. I knew there was a spy within the Ambassadorial coterie but was unable to discover who it was. Our presence aboard this ship was not only for diplomatic reasons, but also as a vehicle, so to speak, to find, flush and neutralize the agent. Or traitor, depending on who it was, of course.”
Kathryn's eyes narrowed. "Of course."