Asha decided a quick shower would be prudent as she didn't want to meet the Captain still sweaty from the competition. She also knew that the warm water would calm her down a bit. Even though on some level it had bothered her that she had been unprofessional with Worf in the gym it just wasn't in her nature to just blindly accept what she considered unfair in such circumstances.
Once under the hot, steamy water, Asha felt herself slowly began to relax. She closed her eyes and slowly took in several deep breaths. The steady rhythm of tiny water droplets rolling down her body and then gently splashing into the drain calmed her frazzled nerves. Slowly but surely she was able to centre herself and like magic the frustration melted away into the drain along with steamy water.
The shower was doing its job so well, she was completely caught off guard as the Enterprise abruptly slammed out of warp speed with such ferocity everything in her quarters went flying forward, including Asha. Luckily once she was aware of what was happened she rolled with the momentum but still hit the forward wall in her bathroom so hard it knocked the breath out of her lungs and she nearly lost consciousness.
Sprawled soaking wet on the tiled floor, her head was spinning from such a hard impact with the wall. As she tried to shake the cobwebs away, Asha slowly became aware of the obnoxious blare numerous alarms sounding, including the very distinctive red alert. It suddenly dawned on her whatever had happened to the Enterprise was not planned and was certainly some sort of emergency or most likely an attack.
With some effort she was able to stand up and make her way to her communications terminal. After a few frustrating seconds it became clear all systems were offline. Swearing to herself she figured the attack must have been so severe it knocked out the main computer. ..not good at all.
Slowly shaking her head still a bit stunned, Asha whispered, "Shit….now what?." She tried her com panel again and still no luck. Slamming the panel she swore, "Damn it!"
Asha suddenly realised she was completely naked and still dripping water from the shower. Quickly grabbing a towel and drying off as she walked, she stepped over to her closet to choose some clothes. After quickly putting on the first bra and panties set she could find she grabbed a uniform. She was half way through putting it on when she paused. It was suddenly, eerily too quiet.
The main red alarm alert, as well as the rest of the alarms had ceased without the pro forma announcement from the bridge. Asha wasn't the best soldier in the fleet, but she did know that after any red alarm, Star Fleet protocol dictated someone from the bridge was to announce the all clear. The dead silence was more telling than all the alarms put together. Someone had taken control of the ship…someone who definitely shouldn't be.
After rapidly peeling out of her Star Fleet uniform, Asha quickly put on her professional gear which consisted of black leather pants and jacket along with a tight black tank-top and sturdy but flexible black combat boots. She then grabbed some of her gear from her kit, including her two favourite daggers and without looking she gracefully placed them in their sheaths along her outer thighs.
As she expected, her cabin door was disabled. Whoever had control of the ship had initiated a hard lockdown. Asha had no doubt that security would be at work trying to get to the bridge, but their tactics where somewhat predictable and usually loud and clumsy. She hoped their attempts to take back control of the ship would serve as a distraction for what she had planned.
Not wasting another second, Asha ripped off the cover of her cabin's ventilation shaft and pulled herself up into it. After a few minutes of crawling through the dusty mess, she found an access panel into one of the Enterprise's Jefferies tubes. She stopped just long enough to listen if anyone was in the tube. Feeling it was safe, she kicked through the access panel and was soon working her way towards the bridge.
It was obvious the Enterprise was still not moving which indicated one of two things. One, whoever was in control of the bridge did not have full control of the ship, probably due to resistance in engineering or on the bridge itself. The other possibility was the party in control was most likely looking for something and had still not located it. Either way, she was only one level away from the bridge's main ventilation shaft.
Asha's heart was racing from the exertion of climbing multiple levels in the Jeffries tubes so she took a few seconds to relax and catch her breath before gingerly placing her ear to the bridge's ventilation shaft. Concentrating, she could hear several voices barking out orders on the bridge. Swallowing nervously, her blood ran cold as soon as she realized the voices bouncing around in her ear were speaking Romulan.
Stretching to look over her shoulder for a better view, Asha moved into a lateral Jeffries tube that ran parallel to the bridge but branched slightly off in a different direction. She intuitively knew from past experience, this tube was a isolated system that fed both cable conduits and ventilation to the Captain's ready room. All star ships had redundant and isolated resources assigned to the captain's ready room just in case some sort of disaster on the bridge trapped or necessitated the captain being separated from the rest of the bridge crew.
A few moments later Asha began to slowly remove the access cover into the ready room. She was fairly sure the room was empty but she was as silent as possible given the situation. The last thing she wanted was to alert anyone in the room or on the bridge that she was there.
She was at a bit of a disadvantage as the access panel was flush with the floor, so she was unable to get a view of the entire room before she entered. The access panel was also a tight fit to she had to really squeeze herself through head first. Her hips barley cleared the opening.
Once all the way through the access panel, it took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the low lighting in the room. She exhaled a breath of relief, the Captain's ready room was empty for the time being. Luck was on her side so far.
Rolling onto her stomach, Asha crawled forward a few meters to take cover behind the Captain's desk. She quickly found the weapons safe within Picard's desk but unlike most captains she knew, he had locked it down tight and without his voice command she was not going to be able to get to the hand phaser that she so desired.
"Well crap.", she whispered, "I knew my it wouldn't be that easy anyway."
Satisfied that no one was in the ready room she silently worked her way over to the door. She listened intently at the Romulan voices on the other side. Although she spoke fluid Romulan all she could really make out was that they were trying to break into the classified command level files on the main computer. However, it sounded as if they were having problems and some of them were getting very frustrated.
After a few minutes more of intently listening, she was able discern there were two men and possibly two women. Asha was actually impressed. Four people was a monumentally small force to even attempt such an attack on the flagship of the Federation, let alone succeed.
Asha quickly surmised it must be the Romulans' elite shock troops, better known in intelligence circles as the 'Emerald Elite' in reference green blooded species. These guys were the very best of the very best. It was obvious now to Asha they were indeed very aware of the Afari stone and doing whatever that had to in order to acquire it first.
Still thinking to herself, Asha figured the Romulan senate most likely got wind of the Enterprise approaching the Deyloceans beating out their own capital ships by at least a few days. Most likely the Romulans on the bride were just a small advance scouting group.
If the Romulans had attacked the Enterprise in Federation territory it would be an act of war however this far out in open territory it would just be a huge diplomatic mess. Either way, Asha had work to do and she would let the politicians sort out the mess later.
She was still standing by the door when she heard footsteps approaching. Quickly sidestepping and placing her back on the wall next to the door, she silently drew her daggers. Their cool hilts in her hands sent her into an almost meditative state. They were comfort, security while at the same time they sent bolts and bolts of adrenalin through her veins. Her muscles became tight, coiled as if a viper preparing to strike an unknowing target.
The doors slid open and a lone Romulan woman walked in. She didn't make it a metre into the room before one of Asha's daggers easily severed her spinal cord as it thrust into her lower back and out again through her abdomen. Asha's other weapon effortlessly sliced through the woman's neck from the front back. The Romulan was dead before she even knew she was being attacked.
Asha let the woman's body drop at her feet and simply stepped over the lifeless corpse as she entered the main bridge.
As she entered the bridge she noted the Enterprise's command crew all laying on the bridge floor unconscious. She had no idea if they were dead or alive and she didn't have time to check.
Luckily for her, two of the remaining three Romulans had their back towards her. The one that had spotted her moved to warn the others but with the gracefulness of a trained dancer, Asha threw one of her daggers towards the man and before he could speak the large knife impaled itself in his throat sending him to the ground either dead or dying. He never said a word.
The other two Romulans had by now noticed her and one of them quickly got off a shot with his disrupter, that Asha easily dodged, but the other woman immediately and harshly ordered him not to fire on the bridge less risk blowing them all up.
Trying to speak calmly, the woman looked at Asha and spoke with typical Romulan arrogance, "We have you outnumbered two-to-one. Surrender and we won't kill you."
As she cautiously crept closer to the Romulans, Asha replied with a lopsided grin, "It seems to me I was outnumbered four-to-one less than a minute ago and so far I'm doing pretty well so I think I will keep at it."
The male Romulan actually smiled at bit at Asha's obvious cheek but the woman wasn't impressed at all. Annoyed the woman sighed and then spoke, "Have it your way." Then charged Asha directly.
Pivoting quickly on her heels, as the woman charged, Asha then crouched low as she brought her remaining dagger up in a small arc disembowelling the Romulan as she passed. A quick look a confusion washed over the woman's face before she fell dead to the floor.
Suddenly alone, the remaining Romulan seemed a bit confused and was looking around as if waiting on something. Asha wasted no time rushing him before he decided the risk of firing his sidearm again was acceptable given the circumstances.
His arm reached for his disrupter but Asha reached him just in time to knock it out of his hand with a lighting fast roundhouse kick. The man was not inept though and was able to get a quick jab in with his other hand connecting with Asha's ribs. She ignored the pain, as much she could, and using her forward momentum from her kick she elbowed the man in the head on the way down. He staggered for an instant and that was all Ashe needed. She feigned another kick causing him try to block it but at the last instant swung her dagger arm around will all her force easily decapitating the unprepared man.
Asha immediately turned to check on the unconscious bridge crew when she was hit so hard in her chest she was knocked down to the ground in a solid thud. She didn't have time to think she just reacted. Rolling to her left she narrowly avoided a foot coming down on her head. Where had this attacker come from? Asha was positive she hadn't see anyone else on the bridge.
Continuing to roll for moment, she rotated back over onto her back and quickly snapped up to her feet. At this point, she still had not even seen her attacker so when she discovered a stunningly beautiful Romulan woman with flowing waist long, red hair staring back at her, Asha was more than slightly stunned.
The woman was nearly two metres tall, a good twelve to thirteen centimetres taller than Asha. She also had a solid, muscular build so much that Asha easily noticed her taught physique through the woman's tight fitting, dark uniform. But of all things that stood out most was her hair. Romulan women never had long hair much less ginger hair. As far as Asha knew, all full-blooded Romulans has brown to black coloured hair. However despite this, the woman's stunningly beautiful facial features were all obviously pure Romulan so Asha found herself a bit confused.
As Asha stood there studying the Romulan it was became obvious the woman was studying Asha as well. Asha's shorter and curvier body stood out in stark contrast to her Romulan opponent's tall muscular body. But Asha's long ebony hair was about as long as the Romulan's.
With a glint in her eye, the Romulan spoke, "Sorry to disturb your shower."
Confused for just a moment, Asha realised her hair was still soaking wet from the shower. The woman was very clever and observant. She also had such a smooth, sultry voice it put butterflies in Asha's stomach.
"Maybe the next time you illegally attack a Federation ship that I'm aboard you can give me heads up so I can at least brush it out first." Asha replied with a smirk.
The woman raised an eyebrow then charged Asha with almost supernatural speed. It was all Asha could do to block the Romulan's attacks and even then the woman still grazed Asha's face with both a punch and a kick. Before she knew what was happening the woman had knocked the dagger out of Asha's hand.
When the women punched again, Asha grabbed the Romulan's arm with both of her own hands and slammed her into a nearby wall. Then with one knee, Asha pinned the woman to the wall and quickly punched her a good half dozen times in both her sides and back. Asha wasn't holding anything back and could feel a few of the Romulan's ribs cracking. She was about to let up when the Romulan woman used the back of her head to smash into Asha's face breaking Asha's nose sending a gushing river of hot blood to run down Asha's face.
Stumbling back and partially stunned, Asha was unable to prevent the woman from escaping and so the woman spun around to face Asha again. Two more solid punches cracked Asha's face sending more blood spewing and she fell onto her back on the floor. She had never been struck so hard in her entire life and Asha was struggling heavily to stay conscious.
The Romulan woman instantly tried to jump on top of Asha, but in pure instinct mode at this point, Asha was able to lift her knees at the right time causing the Romulan to land on Asha's boot heels. Asha then grabbed the woman's arms and extended her legs fully with all her might, propelling the women over her head and slamming onto on the floor a good four metres behind her.
The bridge floor actually shook when the Romulan hit the ground in a resoundingly unyielding thud. Asha heard her scream out in pain as she tried to move after the impact. Asha knew then she had really hurt the woman's ribs earlier and hitting the floor so hard must have been nearly unbearable.
Slowly rising to her feet, a bloody Asha faced the Romulan who was also back to her feet but obviously having a hard time breathing due to the large amount of pain in her ribs. She couldn't even stand up straight anymore. Unfortunately, Asha wasn't any better off, losing blood by the minute and her head ringing loud she knew she didn't have much fight left in her.
Raising her arms to a fighting stance, Asha grimaced and signalled she was ready to start again. The Romulan also knew she also had limited time left to fight before passing out and quickly pulled a hidden disrupter out from her uniform stunning Asha sending her back to the ground.
For a brief scary moment Asha thought she was dead for sure. So when the Romulan woman straddled her waist as she laid in the floor paralysed, she could not help but smile.
Concentrating as hard as she could, Asha whispered, "I know who you are." Swallowing a bloody breath, Asha, continued, "N'aeali." Asha knew deep down it could only be N'aeali. She was staring at her own counterpart from the Romulan Empire. No Federation agent had ever been this close to her and lived.
A quick look of surprise flashed across N'aeali's face. Nodding in confirmation, she replied, "And I know who you are Asha but we normally refer to you as 'The Asp'."
Asha could not help but smile again with pride at the code name the Romulans' had given her. Looking up still grinning, Asha whispered, "So you going to kill me or fuck me? Whatever it is do it now because your bony arse is killing me."
It was N'aeali's turn to smile and Asha even detected a bit of a blush form across her cheeks. Leaning over to place her mouth right next to Asha's ear, she answered, "I don't have time to fuck you" then after sensually nibbling on Asha's earlobe for a few seconds she continued, "And you're just too good to kill. So until we meet again this will have to do." Looking into Asha's deep brown eyes, N'aeali barely kissed her lusciously, soft rose coloured lips.
Then speaking into a communicator attached to her uniform, N'aeali uttered a few terse sentences and materialised into atoms transporting off the Enterprise. Asha went to move but her body had reached its limit and she passed out trying to convince herself N'aeali's kiss hadn't excited her nearly as much as it actually did.
