So I spent the last three days on this, and I'm pretty proud of it. It's heavy stuff, though, be warned.
Voice cast:
Major Elham al-Omani: Yasmine al Massri
Lieutenant Rachel Connor: Michelle Rodriguez
Captain Kanril Eleya: Jennifer Hale
Flesh and Blood
United Earth Starfleet vessel Kaiser Friedrich. Briar Patch sector. July 7th, 2127.
"Alqarf!" Major Elham bint Haroun ibn Salman al-Omani, United Earth Military Assault-Command Operations, swore as she was thrown sideways by a lurch that bled through the inertial dampeners, crashing into a wall outside the Kaiser Friedrich's infantry barracks. First Lieutenant Kowalski gave her a hand up. "Thanks!"
"Ja, no problem, Major. Amasawa! Move your arsch!"
Red Alert sirens blared as the MACO troops stormed to their duty stations. Elham cursed under her breath as Goodluck and Harsha caught up with her. "What do you think it is this time, eh?" the big Somali combat engineer asked.
"No idea. But we're a Daedalus-class, best in Starfleet, either we can handle it or we need the Vulcans to bail us out."
Captain Dingane's normally rich voice crackled through the speakers. "Captain Dingane to all hands, we are under attack by unknown hostiles, after sustaining damage transiting an unknown spatial phenomenon. This is not a drill. All hands to battle stations immediately. UNkulunkulu abenani nathi."
"That's not good," Harsha commented. The little Indian wiped her brow before she slid her helmet on in between strides. "He only says that last bit when we're in deep."
"I noticed. Come on, we're on the shuttlebay, get ready for boarders."
On the bridge of the United Earth Starfleet vessel Kaiser Friedrich, Captain Dingane kaSiyanda gripped his command chair's armrest as the bridge shook again. "Damage report!"
"Armor sustaining heavy damage, hull plating fractured on deck three!" The Ops officer swore in Finnish. "They have us outgunned, sir, they're using some kind of X-ray lasers and have a deflector field around their ship that's absorbing our laser cannons!"
"Bring us about and load atomics! Who the hell are these people?"
"Vessel matches no known configuration," shouted the sensor chief, Australian-accented English still harsh on Dingane's ears. "I'm getting strange readings from Navigation and nothing on comms!"
What the hell… "We have no choice, then. Broadcast a broad-band SOS and fire atomics on my mark, continue firing the laser cannons. Maybe we'll get through those shields." There was little hope, but he'd be damned if he didn't go down fighting. Dingane owed his people that much.
The alien warship, looking like a blocky, tan-colored X-wing from the long-running Star Wars movies, powered up another volley. Dingane nodded sharply to Tactical. "Now!"
Chemical-propelled nuclear missiles with warheads powerful enough to destroy a small town rocketed out from the United Earth cruiser's torpedo tubes, streaking towards the enemy ship with onboard guidance systems locking onto the vessel's broadcast signature. Dingane held his breath…
Lasers spat out, and the rockets vaporized. Dingane bit back a curse. "Evasive maneuvers, now, now, now!" The enemy's next volley slammed into the hull. Commander Tymoshenko screamed as she was thrown from her chair, and Dingane was sent sprawling. "Yinike manje? What happened to the inertial dampeners? Damage report!"
"Hull breach on deck 4! Our ventral armor's gone, sir, engines, communications, and weapons are offline!"
Damn it! Without engines, they were dead. Dingane stood, brushed himself off, and straightened his jumpsuit.
"Gentlemen. It has been an honor to serve alongside you."
"Wait!" exclaimed the sensors chief. "Detecting another contact inbound at...impossible, nothing's that fast or that large!"
"Captain! On the viewscreen!"
Dingane turned, and gaped. A titanic, pale grey vessel with a flat oval fore section and an elegantly-upswept rear hull supporting two immense warp nacelles, each considerably larger than the entirety of Kaiser Friedrich, decelerated from warp practically on top of the smaller alien warship. The tan vessel's engines flared and it tried to flee, but the larger ship's massive energy weapons lashed out with incredible power, orange beams searing through its shields and ripping through its hull like butter. The raider went dark, spinning slowly as it drifted slightly away from the behemoth ship. A blue beam spat out, and seized the tan ship, arresting its movement in a nanosecond.
Dingane said the only thing that came to mind, slipping again into his native Zulu. "Yinike manje?" What the fuck?
Bridge, USS Bajor. Federation-Talarian Republic border. February 16th, 2411.
"Talarian raider disabled, ma'am. They're broadcasting surrender."
"Good." Captain Kanril Eleya, a tall Bajoran with striking red hair and green eyes, licked a jumja stick as she considered the remains of the skirmish. "Should've stuck to their side of the border if they wanted to phekk with civilian shipping. Tess, prepare a prize crew to go over to the raider. And get Connor's team over to the ship they were—what the phekk?" she exclaimed, leaning over the helm and ops consoles as the stricken vessel swung into view as Lieutenant Park brought the bow around. "Is that a Daedalus-class?"
"Looks like," Park agreed. "Her IFF transponder's out and I can't make out the registration markings."
"I'll try to signal we're sending SAR teams with Morse code." Reshek Gaarra began fiddling with the controls for an exterior spotlight.
"I didn't even think there were any left outside of museums," Commander Birail Riyannis remarked from the science station. "Scan says it's an original, early 22nd century, looks like an all-human crew. Maybe some bigwig's private yacht?"
"What're they doing all the way out on the Talarian border? Tell Connor to be nice."
"Yes, ma'am."
Major Elham al-Omani buzzed up her stun rifle and nodded to Goodluck and Harsha. "Alright, keep 'em trained on the main doors, if they try to board us that's the natural weak point. Be ready for…"
Five bipedal shapes fuzzed into coherence six meters away out of a flare of blue light. Elham shouted in shock, and pulled the trigger, sending one of the smaller shapes stumbling backwards. The three biggest shapes-and damn, but they were massive even by infantry-grunt standards-rolled sideways behind crates for cover. The last one just snapped its gun up and hit Harsha with an angry orange laser beam, sending her sprawling with a gasp.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" another of the armored figures bellowed.
Al-Omani froze dead. English. Strange accent, but that was English.
"Shit, sorry," growled the figure in the open through some kind of helmet speakers. "Instinct, my bad. She'll be OK in a couple of minutes, that was just heavy stun. K'tar, check on Kallio."
"I'm OK," said the other smallish soldier, getting to his feet somewhat stiffly. "Armor took the brunt of it." His accent was different, solidly Baltic, maybe Finnish or Estonian.
"Who the hell are you people?" Elham challenged. "Goodluck, check Harsha, wake her up quickly."
"Yessir."
"Sorry, should've introduced myself. I'm Lieutenant Rachel Connor, Federation Starfleet MACOs, attached to the Starship Bajor. We took out the Talarians who hit you and beamed over to take out any boarders you might have. Med teams are coming as soon as it's secure."
"No boarders, not before you showed up anyway. I'm Major Elham al-Omani, United Earth Military Assault-Command Operations."
The armored woman clapped a hand to her helmet, retracting the visor to reveal a smooth face of indeterminate extraction, possibly southern European or from northwestern Turkey. "Bajor, this is Connor, send in the med teams, we're clear. And patch me through to the Captain. United Earth? What year is it, Major?"
"2127, why?"
"Oh, shiiiit," muttered one of the big soldiers.
"Um, Major, that's a bit of a problem. It's 2411. United Earth doesn't even have its own starfleet anymore, it got folded into the Federation Starfleet after United Earth, the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites founded the Federation."
"What? You're… you're joking, right?"
More shapes materialized, these wearing a strange grey-and-black uniform with colored strips under the shoulders. "I'm sorry, Major."
"But… my son… he was just about to enter first grade…" Elham slumped, collapsing to the ground. "You have to be lying. It can't be real…"
Goodluck collapsed back against the wall behind his CO, shaking his head. The female soldier winced. "I'm sorry. If you don't believe me… well, you're still using pre-2030s stun guns, not even phase rifles, and we've got transporters that can beam people and phaser rifles. We'll try to make it easier, I swear, but you're almost three hundred years from home."
"Three hundred… ya 'iilahi, limadha? Abd al-Basit...my son…"
The armored woman shifted on her feet uncomfortably, then slung the rifle over her back. "Medic, she might need...something? To help deal with it?" She walked closer and awkwardly lay a hand on Elham's shoulder. "I'm really sorry, Major. I don't know what happened to you, but we'll figure this out. We've got a great science team, they'll come up with something."
MACO Unit 131 barracks, USS Bajor.
I can't help but feel sorry for the United Earth people. Three hundred years from home? The poor bastards are from before even Chen Hwai and the first starship Enterprise, so far back that Venezuela was still a "peripheral member" of United Earth, Pyongyang was still an abandoned pile of rubble and dust, and the Finns were still administering Petrograd. The boys have similar opinions.
"22nd century, I still can't believe it," mutters K'tar, sitting on his bunk across from mine. Technically I'm supposed to have my own room, but somebody needs to outdrink these guys on off-day nights.
"Poor bastards," Kallio says with a shake of his head, sitting at our tlhInSa table with Lamont. They've been playing a game of Final Reflection for about half an hour. "Guess this explains what happened to the Kaiser Friedrich. Lost without a trace in the 2120s, not even debris."
"You found them? In the history files?" Lamont, Luiz, and I perk up.
"No, I heard a couple of guys from Security talking about it when I was trying and failing to chat up Gisela Hohenzollern in the bar with tales of my famous ancestor. For a soldier, she doesn't much like large guns." He winks. I roll my eyes back at him.
"Oh, come on," groans Lamont from across the table. "That joke was awful."
"You just have an unrefined, colonial sense of humor," the little guy challenges.
"Colonial, yes, unrefined, no. You've got however many centuries of knife-wielding freezing-cold angry drunks behind you all leading up to that shitty joke, I'm lucky enough that my family got off United Earth and grew their own, superior humor."
"Hey! That was uncalled for! We Finns are very friendly people! For the two mildly non-freezing months of the year, anyway."
I'm about to reply when my combadge pings. "Lieutenant Connor to the ready room."
Ready room? Captain's probably gonna chew me out for my hasty trigger finger. I push myself off of the wall that I've been leaning against, nod to the boys, and head for the door. "I'll be back soon, don't break anything while I'm out."
"Hey!" Luiz, leaning against the wall by his bunk, adopts a theatrically wounded expression. "When was the last time I broke anything? It was this cabron last time, remember?" He cocks his thumb at K'tar.
"Yeah, me breaking your arm last time we arm-wrestled," the combat tech counters. He's full of shit; K'tar's big, but Luiz's built like Saint Dwayne Johnson on serious steroids. His biceps are easily as thick as my thighs, and I'm no toothpick.
I salute the boys on the way out as they start the usual silly bickering, and trot for the turbolift.
"Ma'am?"
"Lieutenant, come in." The United Earth Major is sitting by the Captain's desk, and the Captain herself indicates another chair. "Have a seat."
"Yes, ma'am." The Major looks a little better now. Good; she looks like my sister, Amy. Or maybe Mom when she was younger. Seeing her looking half-dead makes me feel sick to my stomach. "I'm sorry for shooting your soldier, Major."
"No harm done, she's fine. Besides, I shot first."
"I called you up here because we got some interesting results on a DNA test, Lieutenant. Apparently you and the Major here are related."
I raise an eyebrow at the Major, who offers a weak smile. "Makes sense, I guess. Mom's whole side of the family's from Oman and Jordan. So we're distant cousins?"
"According to citizen records she's your ancestor. Her son, Ishmail, became an engineering noncom back in the day, he's listed in your family tree, and the Major as missing in action right above him. I brought you in because Doctor Shree thinks that it might help to have a relative help her integrate into modern society."
"Wow, that's lucky. Well, uh...nice to meet you?" I stick out my hand. The Major shakes, wincing slightly. "Ah, sorry, I've got a strong grip."
"That's an understatement," my apparent ancestor mutters. "So will—did my son get into college like I want—wanted him to?"
"Um…" I look at the Captain, who fiddles with her PADD and then looks impressed.
"Your son spent four years as an enlisted man in the UE Starfleet, served with distinction in the Xindi and Romulan Wars, then went to the Academy and the National War College. Made it all the way to Chief of Starfleet Operations, and was buried with full honors on his plantation on Eta Eri III at the ripe old age of 106."
"Wow, shit, I didn't know Mom had anyone like that on her side." Wish I could live up to that.
Al-Omani's blinking back tears. "He was a clever boy. I should've been there more for him, but he was a good boy. Abd al-Basit said that he was learning arithmetic the last time we talked."
"I'm sorry," I say. It sounds hollow, but the Major nods.
"I'll...he lived a good life. At least he was happy. That's what...what matters." She's crying, but she sniffs and sits up straighter. "He moved offworld?"
"Yeah, then in the 23rd century one of the granddaughters moved back to Earth with her family. Jordan, apparently-something for a Yoyodyne job by the looks of it. The Lieutenant here's the kid of one of that woman's great-grandson's great-great-great-granddaughters and an American of Irish extraction called William Connor. Noncom in Starfleet during the Dominion War, engineering division, pretty normal record except for a merit citation here for cooking a warp core on short notice to extract his ship from a tight situation. Nothing much notable in the rest of the family except for the Lieutenant here-Federation Medal of Honor, Order of the Romulan Empire, Distinguished Service Medal for the Arucanis Arm campaign, merit and marksmanship citations. I cited her myself for the Federation Medal of Honor; she came up with and executed a plan to board and capture the Iconian flagship during the Iconian War last year, turned a fiasco of a withdrawal from a strategic victory into a total victory, saved hundreds of ships if not more and probably millions of lives." She puts down the PADD and I duck my head to hide the flush. My nerve-laced camo skin means that what would just be a little blood flow to the face also turns my hands orange for a moment before I force my chromatophores to obey. "Congratulations, Major. She's a goddamn hero."
"That's...well, an impressive record." I look up. She's looking at me strangely. "I'm honored to have such a successful descendant...but, if it's not too rude of me to ask, what happened to your hands for a moment there?"
"Oh. Um. It's, uh, a thing."
"Lieutenant, for someone who has to give so many reports, you suck at explaining these things, you know that?" the Captain grouses. I nod with a grimace. "It's a side effect of a condition. Nothing serious."
"Condition?"
"That's private, Major. Doctor-patient privilege, even I don't know." Wow, she lies a lot better than I do, even my senses had a bit of trouble with that one. The Major nods.
"My apologies. Impressive, Lieutenant; boarding and capturing an enemy flagship. Was it active?"
"Uh, yeah. We used Bajor to open up a hole in their shields, then flew a couple of corvettes in and dropped assault teams in with transporters. We set up defenses, held off the enemy until they started running low on infantry, then my squad took point as we sent teams to hit primary systems. We terminated the enemy supreme commander, hacked their computers, and took control of the vessel, then turned it on their fleet. Total victory; and according to our intel we hit the enemy so hard by destroying their invasion sphere that they won't be back for centuries. We lost two thirds of our ships, but the enemy's invasion fleet was all but obliterated and most of the rest surrendered."
She whistles. "Wow. That's something, for sure." Heh, she even sounds a bit like me. "How many casualties on the assault team?"
"No fatalities, closest we came was when a high-profile enemy target bushwhacked my squad, liquefied a couple of my fingers and bailed before I could pin him so Kallio could nail him."
"Liquefied-god, are you alright?"
"Oh, yeah, a quarter hou-uh, couple days in sickbay and a new, uh, prosthetic and I'm fine."
She narrows her eyes. "Why the fuck are you lying to me?" Then her eyes go wide. "Oh, shit. You regrew the fingers. You said a quarter hour, before you corrected yourself—oh, walhifaz ealaa alllah li, you're not Human, you're too strong and you regrew two fingers in a quarter of an hour and—"
"Alright," the Captain interrupts. "I'm beginning to see why the Lieutenant got ambushed by Section 31 so much. I assure you—"
"She's an augment, isn't she?" She spits the word. The Captain's face says it all, and al-Omani shoves her chair back away from me. "Are you insane? What are you doing with one of those things on your ship? It could be plotting to kill us right now!"
"Major, Lieutenant Connor is not responsible for her condition, I'd appreciate it if you didn't treat her like a serial killer in a holoprogram."
"It's an augment!"
"She's part of your family, Major!"
"Impossible. I can't believe it," the Major sneers. "My own flesh and blood, if I'm to believe you, a traitor to the species. A damned Augment." She spits in my direction. "Go to hell with the rest of your filthy kind."
I jerk forwards in my chair, feeling heat surge through my veins. "Hey, I didn't ask for this shit! I can't even eat in public without using dentures, or I'll be sent to a super-max prison! You think I like having my skin get shredded every time something cuts me? I have to take enough drugs to kill a Klingon just to do full-contact sparring without the risk of having armor plating tear through my skin!"
"You're an aug," the Major spits again. "As bad as a Krasnovist or a Trumper or a Nazi. Your kind killed a hundred million people, and you think you can just excuse it by claiming you don't like being an inhuman monster? Well, tough. You don't get to do that. You're a damn mutant beast in human skin, and you should—"
"Enough!" the Captain finally bellows, slamming her fists against the table. Then, more quietly, "You are a guest on my ship. She is part of my crew, and you had best get used to that, Major. You hurt them, you hurt me. You hurt me, I hurt you. Now, I was going to have Lieutenant Connor help you integrate into our time period since we found that you're related to her, but since you apparently have deeper issues, I think that that's not going to work."
Major al-Omani snorts. "You think, sir? With all due respect, Captain, you should airlock that beast before it betrays you; I don't know if your species knows any Earth history, but augments can't be trusted."
"What did I just say about insulting my people?"
Major al-Omani outright chuckles sarcastically at that. "It's not a person, sir. It's an augment. Even the better ones like Khan Singh were psychotic despots, and the average ones ran horror shows like the 'Scientific People's Hegemony of Democratic Kampuchea'. They're designed to hate and to prey on the weak, they don't have Human emotions like love or compassion, just hate and lust for power. Every single one of those creatures is a totalitarian nightmare waiting to happen, we have to eradicate them before they get us. Sir."
It hurts, but she's right. I have to become a cannibal if I have to regenerate or adapt too many times in extended combat, and what's worse I get the same feeling from that as I do from a good meal. I can snap a neck with my thumb and I've got serrated blades for teeth-I'm not a human. I feel my breath catch as I slump back in my chair. Fuck. Why the hell do I make myself do this?
The Captain, however, doesn't seem to care about the Eugenics Wars or their legacy. "That's 'Captain' or 'Ma'am' to you, Major. And I don't care what your planetary government's policy towards augments is, you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to or about my officer."
"Its kind killed a hundred million people! They tried to nuke Mecca and Jerusalem!"
The Captain's voice is cold, though everything sounds like I'm submerged. "Tell me, Major, what were the first augments your people made designed for?"
"From what we know, Khan Singh and its cadre were supersoldiers, ma'am. A weapons project by the Chinese run in India under a corporate proxy, they dumped it due to cost, the Indians picked it up, then dumped it due to cost, and sent the augments into the military. Some were covertly sold to southeast Asian nations that the Indians were trying to get into their bloc."
"And how were they raised? Treated?"
"With respect, ma'am, how does that matter?" How does it matter, when your blood is screaming for you to eat the man you just killed or one slip of discipline in a sparring match will kill your partner?
"Raised in a lab, sold like slaves, forced to fight for the people who made you? The Federation's uncovered plenty of pre-war data in the last few hundred years, Major, and I took the liberty of doing some research when I found out that the leader of my MACO unit had been augmented. Yes, there were and are a history of psychological and even physical abnormalities among augmented individuals, even to this day. But Khan and the rest were products of a weapons program. You make someone, a child, a living weapon so you don't have to own the war and then discard them like trash, what the phekk do you think is going to happen!?"
"That doesn't excuse the Tehran Massacre or the Cambodian purges!"
I can't take it anymore, and stand. "Captain. Permission to be relieved?"
"Permission denied, Lieutenant." The order snaps into my soldier's spine like lightning, and I instinctively go ramrod-straight. "Sit down. Major, you're a Muslim, right?"
"Ibadi, yes, ma'am."
"I was stuck doing a guerilla op with a team including an American once, who told me about how his country used to think that all Muslims were bomb-throwing terrorists because some lunatic flew an aircraft into a building. Would you like it if people called you 'it' and talked about how you're a time bomb incapable of regular thoughts and feelings?"
"That's different! Islam is just a religion, as varied a label as 'Human' or 'Vulcan'! Augments are monsters!"
"She's right, ma'am," I hear myself say. "When I woke up in the lab, I killed a man with a headbutt, took down four fully-armed security guards in a hospital gown, and when my adaptation grew armor that took my skin off, I...I was on top of one of the guards, I'd just killed him, and I wanted to eat him. It was like...a craving, a need. And I've eaten sapient body parts, Heralds and other stuff, since then, for the food—"
"Yeah, and you need that food or you'll digest your own muscles. Wirrpanda gave me the short version from the medical files your Pakled friend sent over. With a body like that, I can understand a craving for any kind of food. Now sit the phekk down, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am." Instinct sits me down. I swear Captain Kanril missed her calling, she ought to be a DI…
She turns back to al-Omani. "For a species whose stereotype is smug pride about how enlightened you are, you Humans sure have a lot of bigotry right under the surface. Do you even notice how you're showing more respect for an officer of a state that you don't know who's a species that you've never met than you are to your own descendant?"
"It's not my descendant! It's—"
"Computer! Display Lieutenant Rachel Connor's family tree back to 2100 CE on the main screen!"
Al-Omani looks at the screen with another sneer. I duck my head; I don't want to be here, but orders are orders.
"...you're lying to me." The voice is shakier, but still defiant.
"It's a Federation citizen record, I don't have the clearance to mess with it."
"It's not… I can't… my son is not going to be the ancestor of a monster!"
"DNA doesn't lie," the Captain shoots back. "Your descendant on her mother's side has been a Federation soldier since 2403. In 2407 she was forcibly assimilated by the Borg; you can look them up later. At some point after that, her body was acquired and altered while in a comatose state by a ultranationalist terror group. She escaped, returned to Federation space, and got herself back into service."
"She's… it's a criminal in violation of the Zurich conventions!"
"This isn't Zurich, you son of a wraith. And Federation law doesn't say a damn thing about having your DNA screwed around with by some asshole in a lab! Lieutenant! Speak up, damn it!"
Fuck, I don't want to look up. I don't want to...but orders are orders. Somehow, that feels comforting as I straighten. "Ma'am. I can personally confirm that I was incapable of giving consent when I was recovered and altered by Section 31. I did not wish to subject my family to the trauma of having me come back from the dead only to be barred from most occupations, barred from contact with children, and required to register all changes of address with the government, and furthermore I wished to avoid being recaptured and likely tortured by Section 31. I do not reject the necessity of the Zurich conventions, but while in full control of my actions I did use a political connection to have myself sent back to the fleet to finish my tour and start another, in order to keep myself safe and to keep my family from experiencing the shame and stress. Ma'am."
"You see, Major? According to her own testimony, and she sounds pretty Human to me."
"You can't be sure that she's capable of free thought! She-it could be controlled by its altered brain!"
The Captain opens her mouth but before she can say anything there's a clunk to the major's left and howls of laughter. Commander Riyannis is leaning against the doorway, seemingly trying to pick a PADD back up without falling over.
"Care to share with the rest of the class, Biri?" the Captain asks.
"Ha, mph, yes, ma'am. Lieutenant Connor's modifications include corrosive blood and interstitial fluids. Her body consumes foreign bodies, including metals and plastics, and either uses or passes them. Combined with the way even her brain can adapt to external stimuli, she's effectively immune to any form of artificial mental manipulation."
"What, even telepathy?" That's the Captain, sounding impressed at my inhumanity for some reason.
"We tried a mind-meld," I say tonelessly, trying to keep control. "Lasted thirty seconds before my nervous system desynched, the Vulcan tried to compensate, managed to keep it together for another minute before my brain adapted properly and I spent the rest of the day with a headache."
"See?" the Captain challenges again. "There's nobody in this room more in control of herself than the Lieutenant here."
"What about her—its instincts? Augments are hard-coded to kill. That thing's probably designed to get off on killing—"
"Prophets, did you not hear the record I spouted off earlier? She's been on my ship six months, her men have seen her snap a Herald Harbinger's neck like a twig, and not only has she not hurt anyone on this ship despite ample opportunity to do so and getting drunk with the Security team a couple times a month, she's saved thousands of lives, sealed a diplomatic deal with the Tarin, and helped salvage critical data from a Borg data node. She's not a phekk'ta animal."
"Well, maybe she just hasn't snapped yet, I learned in school that they can be cunning—"
"And I learned in school that all Cardassians serve the Pah-Wraiths and all humans are cowards."
"What?" The Major nearly chokes. Even I'm surprised at that one.
"I had this one temple school headmaster who was big into that lunatic ultra-Orthodox Occupation theology. The humans part has to do with the Federation refusing to come in. That and a bad experience with the Orb of Prophecy and Change put me off church for the better part of ten years after I got my hands on some real history, thank you, extranet."
"I don't know what a Kardashian or a Pawraith is, but I can tell you that Humans are not cowards. The Polish Army fought to the last man against Krasnov—"
She holds one hand, then the other, wide apart. "You. Point."
The Major growls—actually growls, like I did to that douchebag who was making sexist jokes to Bev Kree-sanat in Basic before she waved me off and handed him his own ass on a platter. "What is your point, then? All I see is a representative of United Earth's apparent successor defending one of the creatures that nearly destroyed the Human race!"
"Prophets, I have seen black holes that are less dense than you! The point is that unless she's a time-traveler, too, she's not one of the people that nearly destroyed the human race."
"Ma'am, the Major's right, and the rest of the United Earth people are gonna say the same—"
"Lieutenant, shut up."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You know what? Phekk this. I don't give a vole's behind what you two think of each other. You can spend the remainder of this voyage either with civil tongues in your mouths, or in the brig. Your choice, but I will not have you disrupting the lives of my crew."
"Yes, Captain," growls the Major after a moment. She rises, pointedly not looking at me, and leaves.
"Either of you, Lieutenant."
My hands and feet feel numb and my stomach's a burning pit even though I ate only thirty minutes ago. "Yes, ma'am. I will avoid contact with the Major and other United Earth personnel, ma'am. Permission to hit the bar, ma'am?"
"Granted. Biri, what do you have for me?"
I don't stick around to hear the Trill's response.
"If you were drinking from my stocks I'd have cut you off by now," the Cardassian behind the bar warns me.
"If I were drinking from your stocks, I'd...I'd be halfway through the top shelf by now," I grouse. "No offense." For a moment, I see two Cardassians, but I blink and they fuse into Lang again.
He shrugs. "None taken. You have a truly remarkable capacity for alcohol, Lieutenant."
I snort, looking up from my canteen of ethanol blearily. "You don't know the half of it." Part of me wants to say it, to just shout to everyone what a perverted freak I am. Get it over with. Get airlocked, like the Major said I should be.
"I'm no psychologist, but I can tell that something is eating you. Do you care to talk about it?"
"'S personal shit," I mutter, and take another swig of alcohol so pure it's literally toxic to normal Humans, and just potent enough to get me drunk if I treat it like a stout. "Can't talk 'bout it."
He nods, and pulls out two cold beers from behind the bar, then hands them down to Hohenzollern and Cantrell, a couple of seats down from me. "Something about the people out of time?"
"Yeah, sort of." I don't offer more, taking another swig.
Somebody on my right pulls a stool back and sits heavily. "Lang. Can you get me a half-pint of bloodwine?"
"Coming right up, Petty Officer."
I turn to see K'tar, my tech guy, sitting next to me. He nods. "Lieutenant."
"Hey, K'tar."
K'tar's a big guy, and if I were less blitzed then I might find the sight of him perched on a stool next to me a bit funny. The dumbass is wearing a partial suit of UA-67 Interceptor unpowered body armor, too, for some reason. Probably just got out of drills with the regular security guys. "You alright, Lieutenant?"
I take a swig of my ethanol and swish it around my mouth as I stare at my hands before replying.
"Yeah. Blitzed off my ass. I'll be fine."
"How'd it go with the ancestor?"
"She knows I'm an animal and wants me dead. She ain't wrong, either."
"You're a fucking idiot, Lieutenant."
"The fuck you just say to me, Petty Officer?"
"I said you're a fucking idiot, sir," the Klingon growls, softly enough that only I can hear him. "You can punch through concrete, no-sell Borg nanites, and came up with a balls-out crazy plan that captured the Iconian flagship during Mockingbird. You think you're a rabid targ that needs to be put down? Fuck that, idiot."
I take another swig and turn on my stool. "Wanna repeat that, motherfucker?"
"Yeah." He leans in closer with a sneer. "You're an ancestors-damned miracle, the best damn soldier on any battlefield we beam down to, and here you are drinking your sorry racist ass stupid and feeling sorry for yourself because your ancestor doesn't like you. Officer or not, I oughta punch your sorry ass out until you drop the fucking self-pity and put yourself to work."
I throw the punch before I realize what I'm doing, hitting him center of mass and throwing the big guy six feet backwards, collapsing the entire row of bar stools and sending the Klingon sprawling on top of Cantrell from Maintenance and Hohenzollern from Security. I'm on him with lightning speed, punching his upper torso so hard the armor cracks, then hauling him up by his uppers to pull him over to the wall and pin him up against it. His feet are still trailing on the ground due to my lack of height, but I'm too drunk to care.
"I'm gonna kick your sorry ass into next fucking year, asshole!"
His knee meets my midsection, and I can't help but drop him, turning to the side and vomiting up a truly absurd amount of alcohol mixed with stomach acid. I feel him pick me up, then I'm body-slammed into the floor. I flip over, hauling myself to my feet (still a bit dizzy), and then take a shot in the chest, making my extremities go numb. The big Klingon has his phaser out and just hit me with what looks like light stun.
"You're gonna pull a fucking gun on me, Petty Officer?"
"If it gets you to pull your head out of your ass, I fucking will! I drew the fucking short straw, I'm gonna ram some basic damn common sense into your idiot head if it kills me!"
I charge. Two hundred pounds of supercharged muscle versus a ballsy Klingon MACO in unpowered armor—there's only one way this can end. Fortunately for me, both K'tar and Lang know it, because the bartender hits me in the back with his own phaser as K'tar hits me from the front. My nerves short-circuit, and I face-plant. K'tar grabs me in a headlock and pulls me close so he can yell at me better.
"You're a fucking soldier, Lieutenant, not some drunk damn barfighter! Have some fucking discipline, you're being an asshole!"
Adrenaline and my augmentation are rapidly clearing the booze from my system. I try to twist free with a snarl, but K'tar has his phaser sticking in my gut and pulls the trigger, shocking me into woozy semi-consciousness. My head clears from this, too…
"What the hell is going on in here? Connor, what the shite?"
Security's here, and Aly Gantumur looks pissed. K'tar hauls me upright. I shake my head, feeling the alcohol clearing. "Uh, oh, shit. I'm sorry. I'm…"
Fuck. What is there to say? This is what I am, isn't…
"My fault," growls K'tar. "Lieutenant was getting drunk off her ass. Personal issues. I told her she was being an idiot. She took offense."
Aly raises an eyebrow, then looks at Lang. "What do you say?"
"As long as nobody's hurt…" He looks around the room. Cantrell's cursing and holding a bruised arm, but he waves dismissively when we look at him. "In that case, I just want the stools put back up and the mess cleaned up."
"Right." She turns back to me and K'tar. "Get it cleaned up, then dunk your head in some cold water and sober up. Do something like this again and I throw you both in the brig until the Captain cares enough to come look at you."
"Uh, yes, sir, sorry, sir."
She just shakes her head. "What the hell got you so screwed up, anyway?"
"Personal issue," K'tar growls. "Lieutenant has her head up her ass about some personal stuff. I decided to do something about it."
"Next time, do it in private where you can't break the damn bar. Some of us like to drink in peace here."
"I thought you had it figured out," growls Lamont. He's pissed. So's Luiz and K'tar; Kallio's just cleaning his gun and pretending not to listen. "You said that you were good, after that nephew of yours said you were a superhero or whatever."
"Yeah, it's just…" I grimace. "Being reminded of it...wasn't helpful."
"Still no damn excuse," K'tar growls. "Your entire species has its head up its ass. So some failed supersoldiers turned into despots. Fine. Your Colonel Krasnov, that Russian leader, killed more people in that same war. You don't see Federation laws banning his bullshit ideology. Local stuff, maybe, but I took a look, half that shit is expired or got taken out on political liberty grounds. And you know what, sir? You have your head up your ass. You've so internalized that racist crap that you hate yourself for something that isn't even your fault. With respect, sir, wake the fuck up and stop moping."
"It's not racist if there's science that says—"
"And my aunt has our species' version of Tourette's Syndrome, our whole family is predisposed to it due to a genetic abnormality. Does that mean that my family is inferior or should be put on meds?"
"No, but-"
"You are not what the statistics say. You are not the demographic. You're an individual, like every jarhead in this room, every person on this damn ship. And speaking as one of the jarheads who takes orders from you, it's my ass on the line if you're too wrapped up in your own racist bullcrap to think clearly. Sir."
The big Klingon crosses his arms and leans back against his bunk. Lamont raises an eyebrow at him. K'tar shakes his head. "Kahless, your species drives me mad sometimes."
"I don't like to speak out against one of United Earth's crowning achievements, but he's got a point," rumbles Luiz. "Maybe I'm biased, my family's roots go back to Ecuador, so we didn't have more than a peripheral issue during the Eugenics Wars phase of the Third, but you're a good soldier when your head's not up your ass. And when you do let the...well, racism, when you let it get the better of you you do stupid shit like sending K'tar and Lamont and Kallio back when we're going through a Borg installation with some new-meat techie. That's a problem. The Iconian flagship plan? The shit we pulled in Mockingbird? Some of the best work we've ever done, any one of us. That crap back in January? Sir, you're letting your species' issues consume you, and that is bad for you, it's bad for me, and it's bad for the whole squad that needs our commanding officer at her best."
Lamont nods in agreement. "I'm a Brit. More of my ancestors' relatives died fighting the Russians and Moliere's goons in France than died against Khan. But even if I were Cambodian and had hundreds of years of parents telling kids about the People's Hegemony's atrocities behind me, I'd still be with Luiz. These past couple of months you've let your fear and personal issues creep into your work, and that's a problem. Started pretty soon after our leave, actually."
I wince. "Yeah. There was an...incident. My brother's a cop with some connections, you met him. He covered it up."
"Did you get revealed?"
"Nah. It was his girlfriend. Section 31 cornered me in a bathroom, Mom and Dad had invited everyone out to a family dinner-this was the day before we shipped back out. I had to pee. Section 31 was waiting, took me out with a high-pitched sonic pulse then multiple phaser shots, then a baseball bat to the skull to temporarily disable me. She wanted to retouch her makeup and followed me just after I left the group, she caught them just before they were going to beam me up and beat them up with her handbag, held them off until Mahmud realized something was wrong and came to help us. When I looked up...she saw my skin, where the bat broke it, healing. She was terrified."
"In the bathroom? And you never told us?" Lamont's fuming, his arms crossed and massive biceps flexing beneath his uniform.
"They had a tracker on Dad's aircar, then sent agents with personal cloaking devices. Experimental tech, they must've got it from a mole in Intel or something. But anyway, it was just another attack. One time, I was moonlighting as a bodyguard for this retired Cardassian officer in the Algira system, Section 31 tried to nab me during a True Way raid. Shit like that-it's become normal."
"We still could have done something, you fucking houkka," snaps Kallio, fitting his rifle back together and sitting up on his stool. "Listen, Lieutenant, speaking as the man who pointed a gun loaded with white phosphorous rounds at your head when I first found out you were an aug, I'm going to tell you right now that you're full of paska and Luiz is right. The closest thing to psychopathy I've seen from you is sending me back to the LZ on that Borg mission and the truly absurd amount of booze you can consume at one sitting without dying. You're a person like any other. End of story."
"I…" I can't form a cohesive thought. Something wet trickles down my face, and I turn aside to hide it. "Leave me alone. For a couple hours. I gotta think about this shit. Just...go, hit the holodecks or something. That's an order."
"Yes, sir. But, Lieutenant..."
"I gave you an order, K'tar." But I don't snap it out. To their credit, the big lugs (and one little guy) leave without another word. Lamont gives me a rough pat on the shoulder.
I push myself off of the bunk post and go over to my open locker. There's my Medal of Honor on the shelf, alongside the other medals I've been too ashamed of myself to wear unless directly ordered to.
Fuck. I'm being an asshole. I may not be worthy of Starfleet's highest honor, but I did earn that marksmanship medal from 2405 and that merit citation from 2406, and the Iconian War campaign ribbon with Mockingbird device, and maybe that Order of the Romulan Empire medallion that Praetor Velal gave to my squad for seizing the Iconian flagship. The boys are right. I'm more than just my DNA.
But what the fuck am I?
"Lieutenant. Major al-Omani still doesn't want to talk to you, though at least she's not calling you 'it' anymore, but she's expressed interest with meeting up with the rest of your family."
I shrug. "Figures. I have a second cousin who's a politico on United Earth, Mecca district in Jordan. Mom's cousin's half-sister's kid or something. She should check with him first, he can help streamline the bureaucracy. What's the plan for the survivors?"
"We're dropping them with an Intel unit affiliated with Temporal Investigations. Full societal reintegration should take a few months. Maybe more: one of the Polish guys is insisting he's German for some reason."
"That's… a complicated thing, ma'am. Mostly Krasnov's fault for what his goons did in Poland in the Third, but part of it was just soldiers settling down and starting families, and bilingual kids getting high on the wrong nationalism. Basically, his country claims to be a part of Germany but the Germans say they're independent and United Earth says that the 'will of the people' has to be respected, so they spent 50 years throwing referenda at each other before student protests made both sides sit down and hash out an agreement." Freistaat Polen, relatively pleasant as it was for its fifty years of existence, was one of those little historical embarrassments that both the Germans and the Poles would rather pretend never happened.
"Prophets, I thought my species' history was complicated." I shrug, and she changes the subject. "Now, I heard about your little scuffle in the bar. You got your head screwed on straight?"
"Ma'am, I apologize for my lapse of discipline. I shouldn't have let my nature get the better of me; in the future I'll be more careful to keep the monster under—"
"Cut the voleshit and take responsibility for yourself," she snaps. "That's an order."
My fists clench. "Ma'am… my men already gave me that speech. I need to focus on my job so I don't screw my comrades over, and that's it. If that means pretending that I'm not a monster—"
"Your lights are on but there's nobody home, Lieutenant," she interrupts. "You're a monster because you decided you're a monster. Let me tell you a story: my first ops officer was a Vulcan. Died saving my life on the mirror universe mission, ran her ship into a Terran Defiant-class on a ramming course. Posthumous Pike Medal, her name's on the wall of the lounge on Deck 13. You know what she told me once? That, contrary to popular belief, Vulcans do feel emotions: in fact they're far stronger than in most other bashal."
"'Bashal', ma'am?"
"Humanoids."
"Okaaaay. I'm not a Vulcan; what are you getting at, ma'am?"
"That Surak taught them to master their emotions rather than let them influence their judgement. So let me ask you: do your augs control you, or"—she stands up and jabs me in the forehead with an index finger—"is your head the one in charge?"
I lick my lips, feeling my hands clench my uniform pants uncontrollably. "I… I make the decisions. Even the first time, in the lab. I didn't eat the guy, I wanted to but I didn't."
"So decide, right now. Do you want it to end, Connor?"
I stand ramrod straight, instinct driving me as eight hours of soul-searching finally crystallizes. "Yes, ma'am." That much I'm sure of.
"Then make it end, for Prophets' sake!" she shouts at me. "My job's hard enough without needing to worry about your phekk'ta self-esteem. You're a MACO, damn it! That patch on your shoulder a shark or a minnow?"
"A shark, ma'am," and I can't help eying the matching shark on the captain's service blacks as I say it.
The Captain nods. "Good. So." She sits back down. "What are you going to do?"
I set my jaw. "I'm going to stop doing stupid shit because of what some augmented supersoldiers three hundred and fifty years ago did, ma'am. No more bar fights, I promise."
"Good. Visit Dr. Shree if you need to, she'll respect your privacy as a patient. Dismissed, Lieutenant."
"Ma'am." I start to leave, but remember something. I dismissed it while staring at the ceiling around 0300, but the tongue-lashing's making me reconsider. "And, Captain? If I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all the way. When...when I finish my tour in four years, I want to challenge the Zurich conventions."
The Captain puts down her PADD and grins at that. "I wish you the best of luck in that, Lieutenant, and I'll pull what strings I can to help you out. It's about time your species gave its own record a second look."