1: Let Her Find a Way to a Better Place
Music: ,,Feral Love" – Chelsea Wolfe
This would be a psychological tightrope walk, Admiral Katrina Cornwell knew. She forced her eyes open again und tried to chase away the heaviness that threatened to drown every one of her thoughts. Tried to built her plan further. Everything in her screamed to simply rest again, and even just keeping her eyes open was infinitely difficult, but probably she hadn't much time left. Using all her strength left, she examined her surroundings once again. There were stars above and at the right and left and in front of her, only some glass-like material between them and her. An battered duffle bag and an metal bar with something on its front half that looked disturbingly lot like blood laid in the tiny space beside her seat and the glass wall, and half-dried stains of blood sprinkled the floor. And in front of her, at the other seat of what appeared to be some kind of… (she tried so hard to remember the ship class, but thinking was so exhausting…) space ship sat L'Rell.
Vague memories of the world leaping and spinning to the sides and up and down as if from fast movements ascended in her, one blurred image of a phaser cutting trough space just a few meters beside the small ship. But they seemed to have escaped whatever this had been.
Her eyes fell closed once again without her wanting to, yet she found the power to open them again only after a few seconds. But she didn't know how long the Klingon would take to make sure that they had truly escaped, and she needed to be ready when she would face her. The more a person felt like an actual person and not just an object in their plans, the more they had a connection to them, the harder it would be for a capturer to injure or kill somebody. She had to form a bond with L'Rell. Show her information that made her seem more like an individual. And in return, letting her invest in her by answering to her questions and telling her parts about herself.
It would be a tightrope walk. Because with every information she gave L'Rell, she also made herself vulnerable. With every exchange, there was danger that she formed a bond with the Klingon interrogator that harmed her ability to think objectively. And as an professional interrogator, she would know very well about psychological manipulation mechanisms and would also be wary of giving away facts.
But her head hurt… Her eyes fell closed. This made no sense. She had to rest, only then she could prepare.
As she regained consciousness the next time, L'Rell was furiously trying to rub away something red from her face. At first, Katharina thought it would be blood – was all this blood here hers? – but then she realized that it was some kind of oily red paint. Here large, brownish-grey hands moved restlessly, hustling over the console in front of her, fumbling at some damage of her white armors spikes, rubbing over her face, entangling with each other. It was not extreme enough to be a Traumatic Stress Disorder syndrome, but still enough to show that L'Rell was greatly distressed. Disturbed. Something had happened to her. Had the others found out about her plan?
She was unsure if the Klingon woman trusted her already enough to try to comfort her, and after all she knew about Klingons her attempt to rescue her from her current state could as well be seen as humiliating her for her weakness. The best thing would be to leave her alone until she had put herself together a bit more.
Blinding pain shot trough Katrinas head again, and she couldn't keep herself from whimpering. L'Rell flinched and turned in one fast, predatory movement.
Now her plan of leaving her to herself was canceled, obviously.
She smiled faintly and tried to look as peaceful as possible to show L'Rell that she wasn't a treat. The other woman eased a bit but she was still very tense, back straigt, eyes wide, feet firmly on the ground so that she was just parts of seconds away from jumping into fight position.
,,Did we managed to chase them off?", she could still not find a more subtle and proper question, for dizziness in her head.
,,Yes.", L'Rell simply said.
Another wave of pain rushed trough the back of her head, and she touched it with her hands. Her hair was tangled, the skin underneath scratched and covered with dried blood.
,,Have you dragged me headfirst after you knocked me unconscious?", she murmured.
,,I am sorry. I had to look as if I would dispose your body without caring about it in any way.", she sounded truly pitiful and ashamed. It felt strange to hear a Klingon apologize for hurting someone.
,,And… all this blood… is that yours?", yeah, such a psychologically brilliant and subtle question.
,,Mostly. They only broke my nose, and some other minor injuries."
They fell back to not talking, Katrina staring out at the stars, L'Rell paying attention to her console.
,,What is with yours?"
She closed her eyes: ,,My head hurts. My back just tickles slightly, or I don't feel it at all, and my legs feel like lifeless things stuck to my body. I can still move them, thought."
She heard L'Rell leap to her feet, and despite she seemed strangely congenially to her, almost a calming presence with her well thought statements, she felt panic shot trough her. But she just seemed wanting to take her armor of.
Oh god, hopefully she wore something underneath it. After this shit of a day, she truly didn't wanted to see that as well. But her fear was baseless. After she lied the armor on the floor carefully, and took of her space suit boots off as well, she stood there wearing an high-waisted military-style trouser satchel once flat enough to be worn underneath clothing but now baggy with the things stuffed into them, and a rough-weaved shirt, soaked with sweat and blood, shoved into it, probably some kind of high-tech padding for her armor. She was thinner than Katrina had expected, but still muscular and heavy, with broad shoulders and broad hips.
She grabbed in the pockets and pulled out its content. Several pieces of materialistic jewelry, dressing material, packs of rations and water, some Klingon data storage units and, to Katrinas surprise, a Starfleet data crystal were lowered to the floor. The realization how damn sly this woman was hit Katrina in awe.
,,Did wear this underneath your armor the whole time?"
,,I expected that I am in danger on this ship since I am a threat to Kol, and he isn't foolish enough to miss that. And he…", her voice broke. Something flickered in her eyes, helpless hate and sorrow so deep that it threatened to swallow her. ,,he showed me clearly how less welcome I am on the Ship of the Death now."
And suddenly, she realized how defeated L'Rell looked. It hurt seeing the proud warrioress like this, so small and to vulnerable. What had happened to her? But it was still to early to ask. The relationship they had was still to superficial, and her wounds were to fresh. Asking her now could provoke any kind of reaction, completely unpredictable.
Needing more information to know in what kind of a situation she was, Katrina asked: ,,What kind of ship is this? How well are we now?"
,,This is one of the ships fast movers. I couldn't make it to my own shuttle in time, I almost couldn't make it to this one, even. I predicted that I would have to flee soon. But most of the supplies I prepared are in my own shuttle. We have water for only two days and only a few rations of food."
,,Which means that we need to take supplies somewhere."
L'Rell nodded.
,,How many resources will they use to hunt us?"
Something dark loomed in L'Rells eyes again. ,,To see me dead will have priority to Kol. But his house controls only parts of our territory, and I know how to avoid them. And he can't sent large portions of his forces after us or sent orders to hand me over to allied houses since he would show how dangerous I am and how weak he is then. Still, his army will be on every planet and their ships will search space for us. This vessel was created for short term fights, so it has good shields and weapons, and under light-speed, it is very fast and swift. But it wasn't meant for long distances. Its warp core overloads when it is used longer than an day used at full speed, and there is not enough oxygen. And it was meant to fight in a formation, not alone. Alone, every other warship outweapons us."
,,So we have to bypass them. Do you know if there are any tactics for such a case Kol would standard-use? Anything of how he deals with threats like you, how he plans?"
If you knew how your enemy thought, it was much easyer to predict how they would strike, and to understand how to fight them.
,,He will order every warrior of his house to capture and kill me if they find me, and in the spaces House Kor controls, he will sent out battleships for me, and search the routes I will most likely take. He does not know where I will head, thought."
,,And what would he believe is most likely?"
,,That I would flee to Mokai-controlled space near the Rihannsu border. Or to some of their bases in the empire. House T'Kuvmas power was only linked to the Ship of the Dead, the territory they control is mostly radioactive polluted wasteland on Kronos. And he knows that I wouldn't be so foolish to flee to Kronos. We will preempt this places."
Automatically, after years as Captain and Admiral, Katrina estimated actions, tried to find strategies. Not easy when you were in the middle of the unknown territory of an hostile enemy.
She looked at the console in front of her. It was lettered in Klingonese, and even when she could understand something of the language when spoken, she could not read it. It took her a long time to find out how the console worked. It had been the weapon control of the ship, but L'Rell had (of course) blocked the controls, so that she could only use the sensor control.
,,What resources do we have?"
L'Rell sighed: ,,I had to improvise, and most of the food, water and first-aid-medicals is on my shuttle. We have water for two days, the space suit that I am wearing, items that could be used as payment I managed to smuggle out and the spare parts that are standardely carried along in our fast movers."
,,Shit.", Katrina murmured, ,,We need to take supplies somewhere, there is absolutely no other way."
,,Ihmm", nodded L'Rell, ,,But every stronghold of my House is further away than five days."
After that, they both devoted themselves to their consoles. Katrina only looked up again as she heard the Klingon move in front of her.
L'Rell had got up, and approached her.
The pure power in her movements, her sharp facial features and the tension of her muscles screamed nothing than threat. It even increased as L'Rell pushed something in direction of her head. She wanted to flee, but her body felt far to shaky to move.
,,Hold still", a large, clawed hand grabbed her head and now she was ready to scream.
,,Drink", something hard touched her lips, and the Klingon instilled water in her almost tenderly.
,,Better?", she hadn't got clean water to drink since she had been captured. It felt so good, and maybe she was just imagining this, but was her headache becoming a bit better?
,,A bit."
,,You have to rest. You seem to be rather robust for somebody of your species", was that a smirk on her scarred lips?, ,,but even you should rest after an massive head injury, and electric shock"
She pointed at the duffle back. ,,There is a sleeping bag inside."
Katrina tried to got up, and her legs sag under her. Instantly, L'Rell was at her side, and helped her to stumble the few centimeters to the duffle bag. She carried her rather that Katrina walked herself. It wasn't until L'Rell sat in the pilots chair again that Katrina realized how less threatening the Klingons touch had felt like. The opposite, it had almost felt comforting.
It was already exhausting simply to sit there and open the bag, pulling the sleeping bag out and spread it on the floor. The fabric of the bag felt worn out and though, and the one of the sleeping bag no less. Dead insects fell on the floor as Katrina opened it out.
,,Is it not comfortable enough for you, human?", suddenly, L'Rell sounded hurt, well hidden underneath her aggressive hiss. Whom had this sleeping bag belonged to, that it was such an sensitive topic for her?
,,No. It is absolutely enough. Thank… thank you", her voice almost broke down. She didn't know if she thanked her for the sleeping bag or simply for carrying her out of the ship and saving her live.
She huddled into the sleeping bag, lying on her belly because she had learned on long survival trips back then in her cadets training that that was the least uncomfortable position when sleeping directly on the hard floor. The bag smelled after torch smoke and recycled air and old books, and just a tad like sweat and an strange foreign earthy scent. Was that how Klingons smelled like? She wondered how humans would smell for them.
Even lying in the sleeping bag, the world wouldn't stop spinning and shaking, and soon, Katrina sunk into deep sleep.
She awoke from terrible racket. Someone was roaring their lungs out in a language that sounded as if somebody would read Shakespear in Arabic while vomiting, and as if this wouldn't have been awful enough, it was accompanied by the scream of bursting metal. Katrina took a moment before she realized that this was supposed to be Klingon music. She had thought that maybe, the language sounded not so terrible when sung, but this suspicion seemed to be wrong.
L'Rell must have heard her startling, because she turned her head and asked: ,,How do you like it?"
,,It is really powerful and strong. I find it sounds interesting.", she said diplomatically.
,,No, you don't", L'Rell said. Katrina could hear the smirk in her voice, ,,No non-native speaker ever would think that Klingonese sounds somewhere even remotely close to ,good'."
,,Well, you are probably right.", Katrina gave in.
L'Rell chuckled. It was strange hearing your former enemy laugh.
,,What languages sound terrible for you, then?"
,,Betazoid. Chinese. Jao'gii. French.", she spat out the last word with disgust, ,,They all mumble the words so extremely that they blurry to one single, sticky, disgustingly soft mess that gums up your ears. And French, it always sounds extremly snootly, and as if their noses were stuffed. It is awful."
,,An interesting point of view. Now I'm wondering what languages you actually like, in turn."
,,I like how clear and precise Vulcan sounds. Then there is this human language of – how was this country called that was the second superpower for most of the 20th century?"
,,Russia."
,,Russian. So wonderfully heavy and definite. And German. Maybe that is because of what every other human says about German just like what they say about Klingonese, that it sounds like a mix of ,ch' and ,rr' and grunts and sharp vowels. But for me, it sounds wonderful. I am fascinated by how detailed one can describe processes in this language, and everything sounds precise and high-tech in it."
,,I never realized this.", Katrina reflected over the last time she had heard german. The chief secretary of her staff was half-andorian from the north of the planet, and half german-born-trill. Yes, she did indeed have an very precise way of articulate herself. If she would ever see her again?
Katrina tried to sit up, but then the world started spinning again, and she lied down again, and closed her eyes. For the rest of the day, she dozed of and awakened, watched the foreigen stars and L'Rell helming the ship towards Federation territory, and dose of again. She was thirsty and hungry, but she knew that they had hardly any supplies, and so she simply closed her eyes again, and after a while, the feeling always subsided.
The emptiness in her stomach was still there as she awoke, and L'Rell still sat in front of her console. As Katrina stumbled her way to the seat behind her, holding onto the transparent walls of the fast mover – it didn't seemed beautiful or ethereal to her that she could see space ascending all around her, it just seemed fragile and deadly, a reminder that behind this few centimeters of material there was just vacuum for lightyears – she turned her head.
She looked tired, her eyes half closed and unfocused, but she seemed to get just a little bit more awake as she saw that Katrina had gotten up. She was clicking trough some sensor data, Katrina realized, sitting on the OPS-console she had occupied before. The ship flew with auto pilot.
As she walked past her and sat down at the navigation-and-shield-console, she saw that the data were transmissions from all around them, from every kind of subspace transmissions to coded warp-signatures until lightspeed-fast-signals for within solar systems or ships of one formation.
Something in Klingon was played over the audio systems. Then L'Rell flipped her fingers, and the sound vanished and text spun over the screen.
Katrina stared at it, trying to understand it, but even if she was something close to being able to understand spoken Klingonese, she couldn't read it.
L'Rell changed channel again, and suddenly, a harsh, precise, pleasantly-sounding language filled the air, and familiar letters flashed over the screen.
Automatically, the sounds and patterns formed their English equivalents in her head, and she wondered how they would manage to have ships here. She understood single words or fragments of sentences, but overall, they didn't made any sense.
,,What is this?", she asked, ,,It sounds and looks very much like Vulcan. How can they sent transmissions in this territory?"
L'Rell smiled slyly, now seemingly fully awake: ,,That is because they are closely related to the Vulcans. They have their pointy ears and bowl-cuts and gorgeous sharp and elegant features and bodies, and olive-brown skin. Seems like their languages are related too. I would die to know what exactly they are sending."
,,They?" Why didn't she knew about those almost-Vulcans? Yes, the Vulcan High Council had an history of doing things on their own and withholding information from the humans, but she had thought that in this war it would be only logical to share everything they knew.
,,The Rihannssu. We are getting close to their territory."
,,Rihannsu?", she asked skeptically.
,,You must know them.", L'Rell turned in her seat, ,,They are one of the five major powers in this quadrant, surly the Federation must had dealings with them in the past."
Katrina tried to remind everything she might know about an major player of Vulcan descent, yet she found nothing.
,,It could be that this wasn't the case until a long time ago, though. They are not exactly open for other peoples, especially not if they could threaten them. We developed space fare at almost the same time as them, and yet we never actually had trade relations to them. Not even to talk about cultural exchange or friendship. For the most time, they ignore us, and we ignore them, and built our borders to fortresses. Sometimes we struggle for domination over each other."
And now Katrina realized. The notion that Federation might had contact with them only a long time ago and that they ignored other powers for the most time made her realize that she was talking about the Romulans.
,,Do you mean the Romulans? We had an war against them roughly hundred years ago and then nothing."
,,Romulans? That is what Federation calls them, isn't it? I heard that they find that offensive, as if they would have built their empire on an old earth civilization, not from their own unity."
,,Maybe it is.", she shrugged, ,,You speak their language?"
,,I am fluent in both their language and their writing system. House Mokai has a history of loose alliance with the Rihannsu, and they were indeed the first aliens I had contact with."
,,Hmn?", Katrina asked. Whatever she would tell her now, she had to look as if this was nothing new for her, L'Rell must never know how less Federation truly knew about the Romulans, ,,I can't even remember seeing someone who wasn't of my species for the first time, it is difficult for me to imagine how this must be."
,,Federation…"
,,And you ended up having contact with them due your houses and their diplomatic relations?"
There the sly smile was again: ,,One could… paraphrase it like this. I worked in an institute for our culture, mostly tending the library there." So she had played an friendly tourist guide to her culture while she had been looking out about for useful secrets and rumors.
,,I was quite young then, away from my Houses territory for the first time. And it was an complete culture shock. The Rihannsu are quite the opposite to us, even compared with Mokai which isn't the typical example of our culture – but I wasn't aware of that back then. Their unity and loyality to their state is everything for them. They are sly and quiet where we are straightforward and loud. What shocked me the most was simply waiting for a shuttle or sitting in a café or something and reading, though. On Qu'Onos, everywhere you are, you hear that you are surrounded by people. You hear them shout, laugh, scream, howl, talk, argue, fight. They quarrel about the food they bought at they street booth or how aggressively they flew, the talk about their last drinking session and their everyday live, they run, making loud stamps with their heavy shoos, because they are late. Everywhere is noise. And if it isn't peoples noise, you hear Targs howl, or the sound of machines, or the rush of storms. If your neighbors are to loud, you don't try to hide from their noise as Rihannsu or Federation people would do, you create counter noise; smack you broom against the ceiling or turn your TV louder.
On Rihannsu-planets, everything is quite. I sat there, didn't seeing the people around me because I was reading, and it seemed as if I was the only person on the planet. I looked up and they were right there, undergoing their everyday life. But as I lowered my head again into my book, I could not hear them. They hustled perfectly quite trough the streets. On Qu'Onos, it was as if civilization would gave a reply that it is there even if I'm not looking, but here… It was unnerving."
Katrina smiled: ,,I still remember my first time of being on another planet. I was only a child, travelling with my parents to Vulcan. I don't have many memories about it. Just how terribly hot it was, and that I was waiting for the next time I would got something do drink or there would be a opportunity to cool myself in the water or go into a acclimatized room."
,,Vulcan has an extremely hot climate, they say."
,,Oh, absolutely! And I was always wondering why the other peoples faces always looked the same, why their facial expressions were missing. I must have been very annoying for the Vulcans with my childish defiance.", she laughed a bit to nervous.
,,I would like to visit Vulcan if there were not be war between our people.", L'Rell said after several moments, ,,It sounds quite interesting, from all one hears."
Desperate to keep the conversation going, and also have an harmless topic, Katrina asked: ,,What else did astonish you on Romulus?"
The other woman needed a moment to answer, and Katrina noticed that her eyes were half shut again. Had she actually slept?
,,I wasn't on Romulus. I was only on some of their border worlds. We had peace with them back then, but they would have never trusted a Klingon enough to let them even close to their homeworld. No one but high-ranking politicians, anyway. Unlike our rather federal, if hierarchic organization structure, they have an centralistic governance machinery, which makes them an extremely dangerous enemy, but also vulnerably at this particular point.
It is fascinating how much about ones own species one only understands after one lives among aliens for a time. I remember that I thought, it would be typically Klingon to be sly and thoughtfull, because that were the traits of my house."
Katrina couldn't help but grin at that, and hoped that she would not see it.
,,How wrong my perception of my own people was. I had hardly any contact to persons who were not either Mokai or House T'Kuvma, and both of them have a lifestyle that is in no way representative for the vast majority of our species."
In which way did they differ? But it was most likely a still to intimate topic to ask about that, and so she kept quite.
,,The Rihannsu are quite pleasant people if they do not happen to fight against you or cover you in xenophobic mistrust because they are afraid. They don't tamper with your business and quietly go on with their affairs, don't burden you with their plans, they are loyal to their friends and allies but without rushing into senseless fights for them, they are unobtrusive and controlled. In many ways they share traits with people of my mothers House, maybe that is why I was always fascinated by them. "
,,I remember getting into deeper contact with people of a foreign species for the first time.", it wasn't exactly an neutral or harmless topic, but it was one that could show her valuable information about L'Rells past and worldview, or at least about the Klingon Empires relations to other peoples, and so she had to keep their conversation going. ,,I had just finished my studies, and thought, naïve as I was, that I could apply everything I learned at non-humans too. I tried to help a Trill who had panic attacks every time she was challenged with an new exercise at her ship, and I simply couldn't understand why the strategies they had taught me wouldn't work at her. Later, I found out that in Trill society, it is an ideal to become an so called ,joined', which means that they join with an symbiont that also carries the memories of past lives with it, and for which they need a quite high abilities because it is a thing only a small elite does. Now, everybody in her family was joined and she was scared to be not good enough to be it, too, one day. A fairly obvious reason, but I was still to single-minded to think alien psyches could work different than humans because their societies differ."
,,It gives you a whole new perspective.", L'Rell repeated, and Katrina already thought the conversation was over, as she continued: ,,They have a quite… interesting take on gender and sexuality." There was a soft, approving growl in her words as she said that, and somehow, it felt more threatening than as if she would have pointed a knife at her.
,,Also, one learns to listen to what people not say rather than what they say over time. An Euphemism here or careful silence there. Paraphrases that mean the opposite of what they say or these or that look can mean a difference between being an dissident and being an free citizen there. In my two years there, I witnessed at least three people disappearing randomly, and the thing I could not understand back then was how their bereaved didn't seek revenge or tried to mobilize their clans and allies for finding their loved ones and fighting whoever did this, but that they just continued as if these people had never existed or would simply have melt into thin air."
,,They have such an extreme police- and surveillance-state there? And you were never threatened as a foreigner?"
,,Oh, I was. Two years after I started my service their, a …friend of mine showed me silently that they wanted to talk to me in private. I thought I had missed their birthday or accidentally offended somebody with not knowing enough about their culture, but they said that they had heard from a colleague that there had been an putsch at the Rihannsu centralistic government, that a more militant praetor had taken over, and that after tomorrow, every Klingon still on their territory would be imprisoned – and that usually means torture or death there. I never forget the look in their eyes. Their pure desperate resignation.
In hindsight, my flight was something that made me understand their culture and my own much more, too. I remember vividly how I threw everything that mattered to me in my duffle bag, how I rushed down the forest behind the town towards the space port, the hammering of my own footsteps and my racing heart ringing in my ears, hot air playing around my face. I didn't even realize in this moment how much faster and lesser exhausting it would have been to simply take the subway.
As I arrived, their were already fights going on. It was a very surreal scene. There was this iceman, and in front of his booth there were half a dozen Klingons and some Rihannsu and other aliens as well beating each other up. And he simply stared over this mess with his eyes glassy with fear, and announced what sorts of ice he was selling, screaming to be heard over the clamor they made.
I run over the whole facility and back. Finally got in a fight over one ticket with another Klingon, an Nausician and an tiny Vulcan.
I won quite easily against the other woman, she was just a brainless brute. Beating the Nausician was a lot more difficult. But I managed to, bleeding on my face and limping from a wound at my hip afterwards. Now, there was only the Vulcan standing. He had stayed out, cowardience, foolish me thought. He was tiny and petite; at least two heads shorter than I, and quite pleasant to look at, as Rihannsu-related species generally are. He looked as if he would break after the slightest touch of me. I prepared to knock him out, stroke my blow – and suddenly his feet was in my face and then his elbow in my gut and his hand against my neck, with an force that made me actually faint."
,,Never underestimate an Vulcans ability to fight…", Katrina muttered, ,,They may not see it as a way to harm others, but simply as active meditation, but most of them still practice it from their childhood on, and they are a lot stronger than one would expect from their lean, slender frame."
,,That explains a lot."
,,How do you got away?"
,,I blackmailed an cargo freighter captain with what I found out in a seemingly panicked, meaningless dialog with him of what he really did when he said his family that he would be go fishing. The ship didn't brought me back to Mokai territory, but at least away from Rihannsu-space, and from where I landed I could take on jobs on ships and work my way back home."
Katrina listened carefully, trying to imagine everything down to the detail. A shape of how L'Rell was started forming in her head.
They didn't talked again at this day, and just like the other, Katrina slept or rested most of the time. She had a strange dream in which her whole life until now turned out to be a dream, and she was in some kind of afterlife that was a mix of Vulcan and Christian mythology, and Gabriel was with her, and Philippa was still alive and there had been an easy solution for the war, everything was alright again.
She awoke startled and confused, somewhat dashed that she was still alive. To disturbed to sleep further, she sat up – to fast, her vision began to blurry again – and finally stood up with infinite slowness, stumbling her way towards the other console.
The stars looked completely different from when she had last saw them. Were they already more than two days in here?
She was already half on her way as she realized that L'Rell had dozed of. She sat slouched against her seat, hands still on the controls, her head fallen to the side. Quickly, Katrina looked if they were still on the right course and hadn't crashed into something while their pilot was asleep. And then she took the other womans shoulders and shook.
She awoke as if someone would have flicked a switch, at one second she was sleeping, at the other she was fully awake.
Katrina only had time to see those unsettling electric blue eyes flew open, and then she was already pushed against the glass cladding of the Shuttel, an underarm pressed against her throat, so tight that she wasn't able to breath anymore. She only managed to let out an strangled shriek.
No, she wouldn't kill her, wouldn't she? She was her only chance to get to the Federation without being harmed, and intelligent as she was, L'Rell must know that, she could not kill her. But she hold her there with brutal force, no chance for Katrina to escape, and panic shot trough her heart.
And then L'Rell let her arm sink finally, and Katrina stumbled away, coughing.
,,I am sorry."
,,Don't… do that…again!", Katrina managed to say, and made a mental note to never startle the Klingon again.
Since she needed to sit down and the sleeping bag was not an opinion because it was to far away, she sank down onto the other seat.
,,And I could take piloting for six or eight hours, so that you could sleep."
,,I won't let you have control over this fast mover. How could I tell that you not betray me and fly straight to Kol because you think you would have better chances to survive with him?"
,,That is true. But as I know you, you have established blocks over all vital systems anyways, so even if I wanted, I couldn't deceive your plans."
,,Blocks can be overwritten."
,,Yes, but I'm quite sure you have checked every aviable data about my carrer? Did you see what kind of science my expert field is, and how less it has to do with technology?"
,,Yes.", L'Rell looked even more tired than yesterday. Her eyes were red and threatened to fall closed at any moment, and she was so exhausted that she actually mumbled slightly. No wonder, she must have been awake for more than forty-eight hours by now.
,,You are a psychologist."
,,I am. It has hardly anything to do with technology or informatics, and furthermore you are so exhausted that you fell asleep without wanting it just a few moments ago.", pointing that out was risky, but from all she knew of her, L'Rell didn't seemed like a person who would turn aggressive very fast, contradictory to what she thought she had known about her species.
,,Hmm.", she grunted. She hardly seemed furious. In fact, she seemed to had to concentrate just to follow their conversation.
,,How good would your chances be if Kols army finds you in that condition? Don't you think it would be lesser risky to leave the non-critical systems of this ship to me while you get the sleep you need?"
,,Try to use your rhetorical questions on somebody else. I protect myself, and I can stay awake, human."
Katrina shrugged, playing to give in: ,,If you think so… I don't know your species physiology that well, maybe you can pull up something like that and really don't harm yourself and others. You yourself must know that the best."
L'Rell stared into the air for a few moments, hardly still awake. Then she mumbled: ,,You have the helm, human."
And then she stumbled towards the sleeping bag and snuggled in it. The careful, almost tender way she touched it, and how she clung to it, showed even more clearly that it must have some personal importance to her. It took her hardly a minute, then she was sleeping peacefully and deeply.