Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.
Disclaimer: Apologies for borrowing the title from Ursula LeGuin - there is no connection between her excellent novel and this work.
This story has not been been beta-read, and therefore any mistakes in it are mine.
Author's Note: Readers may be familiar with the stories in my 'Jag' series that began with 'The Waiting Game'. Belen09 gave me the idea that something of the same could have happened in the Mirror Universe, and asked what might ensue if the subject there discovered what had been done to him.
This story is my response to that interesting question.
Warning: Rated for bad language and implied violence. This is the Mirror Universe. People here are really not very nice.
Dedicated to Rigel99, by way of welcome.
"Lie still, Major. You're quite safe."
Hah. 'Safe', indeed!The voice that speaks these words is the clearest testimony I need that I'm anything but safe. I'm presumably in Sickbay, and therefore I'm about as unsafe as I can get without actually being dead.
My groping hand doesn't find a pistol beside my thigh, which means I'm technically naked. Clothes I can do without if I must, but on an Imperial warship you don't ever let a weapon out of reach – particularly when you're the Head of Security, and therefore (by definition) not the most popular chap on board.
There again, I've regained consciousness and Phlox isn't leaning over me doing something in my innards, so things could be worse. Quite a lot worse, in fact. Though I'd imagine that he's quite well aware by now that doing something in my innards while I'm here to notice would probably have extremely unpleasant repercussions if I accidentally managed to survive the experience.
My eyes appear to be stuck together with gum, so I force them open. The right responds fairly readily, if stickily, but for a moment I don't understand why the vision in my left is restricted. Then the penny drops.
Bandages.
Phlox is at the bedside, smiling at me. As if waking up to find myself bandaged wasn't bad enough.
The first glance has me inking him in for an hour or two in the Booth. He's not nearly quick enough to wipe away the gleeful expression as he glances up at my bio-scan. Really, he does seem to have a death-wish sometimes, and if he grins at my misfortunes like that once too often I'll oblige him.
Automatically I try to sit up. But I don't try hard, and I certainly don't try for long.
"I did warn you to lie still," he scolds. Yes. Scolds. Me. He gets carried away sometimes, being the ship's CMO. He forgets that when I'm out of here and back as the ship's CSO, my rank trumps his when it comes to accusations of treason. He really needs to remember that I can easily arrange for him to get carried away … permanently.
CMO of Rura Penthe. Has a certain ring to it, don't you think?
However. Appealing as the idea may be, it will have to wait. The effort it costs me to move, and the pain that's my reward for it, tell me beyond doubt that my injuries were severe. I must have been here some while already. A glance around reveals machines I'm hooked up to and drips attached to my arm.
Slowly memories begin to eddy back into my head. The Gorn … the trap. The trap that I fell into like a damned amateur, after all these years.
"Did they kill him?" I ask. My mouth feels like a Denebian slime devil's been living in it for a year. Still, I don't bother with any alternatives like 'capture' or 'make a deal'; I know exactly what Captain Archer's techniques for dealing with resistance are.
Much the same as mine, actually, though sometimes I think he's a bit soft.
"Oh, categorically." His mouth takes on a disapproving twist. "I was hoping he might be captured alive. I've never had the opportunity to study a Gorn's internal organs."
Personally, if I'm going to be in here for any length of time I'm rather relieved he was deprived of the opportunity. I'm by no means averse to the sound of screaming, but a chap needs to get his rest if he's to recover as quickly as possible, and Phlox doesn't seem to find the noise particularly distracting when he's carrying out his little vivisection projects. Having seen the Gorn on the monitors I can be reasonably certain he wouldn't go quietly, and although I daresay there would be a certain amount of entertainment value in it I'd probably get bored eventually, or feel like going to sleep or something.
"So what's my status?" I growl. "How long will I need to be in here?"
"You sustained quite serious injuries, Major," he says chirpily. "I had to remove Foster's spleen and use it to replace yours. Fortunately you share the same blood group, so I was able to use other parts of his tissue to carry out other little repair jobs on you at the same time."
Well, I could have done without that news, though the corollary that the donor probably didn't survive the experience has both its compensations and its disappointments. He was a little shite who couldn't even scheme against me without leaving evidence, and his premature demise has probably saved him from being the next occupant of the Booth as soon as I'm up and about again, but there again I was rather looking forward to prising out his testimony against certain others of my staff who've been more astute than he was. Still, there are enough of my subordinates who are aware of certain little secrets of theirs that will come to light if any harm comes to me, so I'm reasonably sure that they'll provide me adequate protection while I'm in here; my survival, after all, means theirs. At a guess, one or two of them have dropped a word or two in Phlox's ear. I can't imagine that the captain will have exerted much pressure on my behalf after I failed him so spectacularly, so the fact that I'm still alive points to someone having intervened.
I have a splintering headache. And along with the memories, there are other images seeping into my brain: pictures that seem so real that they feel more like memories, but they can't possibly be any such thing. When would I have crawled around on all fours among a pack of mangy dog-things?
I shift carefully towards to my uninjured side as best I can. The images are so vivid they're actually scaring me. I can taste blood in my mouth, but even though my tongue feels as awkward as a block of wood I can't find any trace of injury – certainly not enough to account for the sweet, metallic taste that coats my teeth, my teeth that are buried in fur and savaging inwards…
"Are you feeling unwell, Major?"
Fucking hell, I'm nearly grateful for Phlox's voice, though I'm far from stupid enough to think his sharpened tone comes from any real concern for my health. Sickbay comes back to me, and with it the sound of an alarm from one of the machines to which I'm connected.
"What's going on?" I have difficulty articulating the words. For reasons unknown, the demand emerges slurred. Even I think it sounds more like the strangled snarl of an animal.
The doctor's blue eyes are fixed on the bio-readouts, and his expression is a mixture of surprise, interest and speculation – all three of which hurriedly become muted when he notices me staring coldly up at him.
"Fascinating!"
Being described as 'fascinating' by a Denobulan who gets his kicks out of investigating people's internal organs while they're still alive and conscious is not guaranteed to improve my mood. He's lucky I'm still as weak as a bloody kitten, because otherwise he'd regret applying that word to me.
"What?" I growl, trying to peer upward at the monitor that I know perfectly well will make no sense to me – I can't read it even when I'm looking at it the right way up, unless it's the pain receptor indicators, with which I'm reasonably well acquainted.
"Your brain waves. They're behaving…"
"WHAT?"
Lucifer knows I've been tempted to bite a lump out of the man's slimy Denobulan hide before now, but never quite so literally. I actually have to restrain myself from lunging at him – or as close to lunging as my weakened state will permit.
"Your brain patterns. There are two distinct sets of waves. I wouldn't have thought it possible." He sounds positively thrilled about it, racking up another hour in the Booth in due course. Still, it goes some way towards explaining the confusion in my head, which seems to be getting steadily worse.
"…Explosion?" I manage to get out. What I want to ask, of course, is whether this could be some after-effect of the trauma from that fucking bomb that nearly terminated me; I've suffered concussion before, but it didn't feel like this, and even Phlox can undoubtedly diagnose that without finding it 'fascinating'.
He beams down at me like I'm his latest vivisection subject. "Do you know, I think you may be right, Major. I believe it may have triggered memories – probably ones you were conditioned to suppress."
Memories? Memories I was conditioned to suppress? I can hardly think straight, but I can think straight enough to know I don't like that idea – I don't like it at all.
But although I don't like it, I bloody well want to know more about it. Above all I want to know who did the conditioning, and why. Because when I find out, sooner or later they and I will be having a little conversation. And I'll guarantee that by the end of it they'll be sorry they ever had anything to do with Malcolm Reed crawling around on all fours. Come to think of it, though, that won't be quite the end of it. The end of it will probably be a lot too painful for them to have regrets that specific, except perhaps that they didn't die before living became this unbearable.
My left hand snatches his wrist. Even now I can exert some pressure, and he winces. "Find out," I hiss. "Who. How. Why." There are other questions I want answers for, but those are the most pressing; and right now it's enough of a problem for me to articulate the important ones without going into the ones that can wait.
Phlox hesitates, and I tighten my grip until he yelps with the pain.
"There may be … some difficulty," he whines. "We would have to employ the services of a Vulcan…"
"Of a what?" I may be confused, but I understand that much. And I'll be damned if I want one of those treacherous pointy-eared bastards getting the idea that they have any kind of power over me. The captain may enjoy keeping one of them as some kind of pet, but I've no illusions: T'Pol feels as much gratitude towards him as an anaconda, and the day he drops his guard with her will be the day her jaws open wide enough to swallow him whole.
My sometime ally bends closer, as if he's going to share some dirty secret with me. "Mind melds," he whispers. "Vulcans can share thoughts."
I'd heard whispers about this, but never credited them. Even now my first reaction is to think he's been taken in. Telepathy? That conquered, despised race of people the Empire flattened years ago, those monuments to repression who make such a virtue of their lack of emotions? They have a power that could make them so dangerous to the Empire?
I search his face. If he's suddenly developed a death-wish as regards pulling my leg, however, it's not apparent. He clearly believes what he's saying. And it's not something he's going to promise me unless he's absolutely sure he can deliver. I'm a bad person to disappoint.
I've got to think about what I'm going to do about this, how I'm going to turn it to my advantage. But the first thing I've got to do is find out who's been fucking about in my head, and however sickening the idea may be, if I have to employ the services of a Vulcan then I'll do it whether I like it or not. But before then I've got certain arrangements to make. And right now I can't think clearly enough, so I tell him to keep his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him. I need to sleep, and with any luck my mind will be back to normal when I wake up again. Then he and I will be returning to this little conversation, at which point his facts had better be solid and his memory of them had better be functioning. (Also, of course, it would be healthy for him if he has an explanation ready as to exactly why he's never seen fit to mention this interesting little titbit of news before.)
Not that I'll forget, of course. I don't forget anything. I don't forgive anything.
And somebody somewhere will be fucking sorry they messed with me.
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