Choosers of the Slain
A Star Trek: Voyager Fanfiction
Copyright 2009 by Vyrexuviel
Disclaimer: This story is an original work of fiction set in the Star Trek Universe. All characters from that universe used here are the property of Paramount Pictures. All original characters and story lines are the property of the author.
This story depicts a romantic and lovingly sexual relationship between two women. If this disturbs you, cease reading now.
. . .
Congrats, if your mind explodes reading this, it's your own damn fault now. *roguish wink*
Lots of thanks go to Cygirl1, who helped me polish this, and to G. L. Dartt for her lovely Just Between series that inspired a lot of the characterizations in this fic. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
This is set in my Valkyrie timeline, approximately five years after the end of that fic. For background on who these people are and why the timeline is so different, read that fic. If you do, please review it!
Note, there are a few Mary Sues / Larry Stus in this fic, but it was unavoidable. Also, I was inspired with the idea for the starsuit after watching the Iron Man movie, so please don't sue me there either.
Kathryn acknowledged the transmission with a curt "Got it." She crouched as the turbolift she was in reached the lowest level of its travel. From here down, only service shafts and Jeffries tubes ran deeper. The door slid open and she rolled out, modified compression phaser sweeping across the hallway. No one in sight. Janeway sighed in relief, then got to her feet. The only illumination, save the pulsing red glow of the Red Alert alarms was the small blue lighting along the lower edges of the corridor walls, giving the place an eerie glow that made Janeway's heart pound. She stepped swiftly down the corridor, every once in a while spinning to rake behind her with the phaser rifle. As yet, no one had appeared.
She pressed herself against the side of the corridor, slinging the rifle over her shoulder for the moment as she tapped a command authorization into the panel beside the massive door to the engineering section. She quickly brought the rifle back into position as the doors whooshed open with the low whine of servos. The woman counted five, to allow any hair-trigger reflexes for anyone on the other side to relax, then slid round the doorway to gaze into Engineering.
Her eyes widened in shock.
Lisa was playing hide and seek with the other Valkyries. She'd hide behind an asteroid, then dash out when they got close, drawing them further on into the Trojan asteroid cluster. When she tired of the chase, she'd quickly whip around a few asteroids, loosing her pursuers and hiding once more. But the game was starting to get tiring, and the Valkyries who were following her had started to give up. 'Time to turn the tables, I think.'
She grinned inside her helmet. The feelings of flying had always exhilarated her, but flying against someone who had her own speed and agility made it all the more exciting. The playing field was equal, only skill and talent mattered, both of which she had in spades. With a wild cry, she arced in a wicked curve around a small asteroid and thundered back towards her pursuers, making them scatter like pigeons before a hawk.
Annika was having a bit of a problem. Her port outboard impulse cluster had been knocked out and the starboard forward wingtip disruptor cannon was a melted bubble of slag that the ship's nanoprobes were busily trying to reconstruct. In addition to piloting the ship and targeting the Valkyries circling and pounding her, she was also reprogramming the Delta Flyer's computers to be able to issue commands to the nanoprobes themselves, freeing up her valuable concentration to keeping both ship and herself in as few pieces as possible. She slammed the ship through another bone-rattling turn, the monstrous impulse engines whining as the ship almost turned on its nose, then raced off back towards Valhalla Base.
"Ensign Thomas, I require your assistance."
Lisa's head snapped up as she heard the command. "On my way." She sent a sapphire coil of energy spearing out to flick the starboard wing from a Starwind suit, then launched herself at full impulse towards her mentor, dodging and weaving around asteroids and disabled starsuits alike. Blue fire stabbed out from her whenever a pursuing Valkyrie came close enough to warrant caution, but they soon stopped trying.
She found Delta Flyer being pounded by three circling Valkyries, and swiftly broke the wings on two of them before the third could get away. She screamed past the Flyer, almost brushing across the canopy as she shot in pursuit of the other starsuit who had been harassing her mentor. "You're clear, let's get back to the base."
Kathryn dove behind a console as blue fire washed over her, swearing under her breath. No wonder Gerald had wanted to get out of here. Connected to the main Omega reactor through a series of conduits, a half-circle of biobeds had been set up near the reactor. Two of the biobeds were occupied, the limp figures on them with their heads shrouded in the gleaming surface of a Romulan Mind Probe. The three technicians working the mind probes busied themselves, as a former Valkyrie pilot stood guard, his face a blank mask as he used his starsuit's cannon to keep Admiral Janeway pinned down.
'I can't risk hitting the reactor. If that detonates, everything in a several-million-kilometer radius will be so much radioactive dust, and subspace for light years around will be impassable. I'll have to work around to an angle I can work with.' She peeked out of her concealment, only to duck back just in time to avoid having her head fried. 'Time to call in backup.'
"Janeway to Ensign Thomas. I could use a little help in here."
Annika heard her beloved's call, her heart aching with the familiar sound of her voice. She saw Ensign Thomas's suited head swivel towards her as a couple Valkyries arrowed towards them. "Go. I can handle them in pairs."
Lisa nodded her thanks and shot off to the base. She arced around the massive asteroid and plunged in through the blasted-open hanger doors. The familiar buzzing of a pressure-maintenance field sang in her ears for a moment, then she felt the base artificial gravity take hold. She quickly switched her wings to 'hover' and slowly sank to the floor, her gleaming metaclad feet clanking softly as they touched. A quick glance around indicated that the repair crew were working on fixing the hanger doors, another pair working on the main doors to the rest of the base, but that there were no threats nearby. She moved swiftly to the doors to the rest of the base, her wings folding automatically to her back.
As she was about to reach the doors, she was accosted by a technician. "Hey, could you give me a hand here? We need these doors pried out of their sockets. Jammed." She hesitated a second, then decided time was of the essence. Her right arm lifted, the Valkyrie Cannon there assembling itself from components stored in her arm-armor. The tech took one look at the assembling cannon, his eyes bugging out as he ducked and ran.
The resulting shrapnel from the now unjammed door flew every which way, many fragments pinging off Lisa's armor. The tech darted over again, swearing at her. She cut him off with an externally projected, distorted voice, "The doors are unjammed now," and stepped through. She had to reach the admiral soon.
Janeway tore off the remnants of her uniform jacket and panted softly. The last ten minutes had been strenuous. The Valkyrie had shot at her every time she had emerged even the barest fraction from her hiding spot, but apparently didn't want to move from the point he was currently standing at either. Janeway had tossed her left boot off to the right, then rolled and darted for cover to the left, catching the surprised Valkyrie in a moment's hesitation. Now, she was behind a stack of crates, adjusting the final charge on the compression rifle to a threshold she hoped would be effective on the Valkyrie's armored suit.
At that point, another suit stepped around the corner of the open doorway. The Valkyrie guard turned towards it, and Janeway took her chance, snapping off a precise shot at the exposed side of the Valkyrie's armored torso, where the major shield generators were. The flare of the shields around the starsuit snapped on, then winked out in a dazzling flash. The other Valkyrie suit raised its--no her, this one was slimmer--arm and sighted at the now-shieldless Valkyrie guard's exposed face. The distorted voice of Lisa Thomas sounded in the room. "Cease and desist, Mark. I don't want to hurt you."
For answer, Mark turned his own cannon towards Lisa. Two cannon spat fire at the same instant. Lisa's shield flared in response, but Mark's head exploded in a burst of meaty gore and metal shards, none of which touched the ground. The excess energy from the impact washed out to lick around the sides of the Omega reactor, making Janeway hold her breath until the discharge had expended itself with no visible effects.
The techs, who had scattered at the first sign of a firefight, now peeked out of their hiding places. Janeway's rifle convinced them to come out with hands raised. The petite admiral snarled at them. "Turn off those mind probes and release those poor people."
"A-Alright, m-ma'am, but it'll take a bit for them to be extracted without permanent damage..."
Janeway nodded in acceptance. "Do it gently, but get them out of those things as fast as you can." She turned to the still-standing starsuit, whose faceplate had peeled back to reveal Lisa Thomas's familiar and welcome face, though the look of sadness on her face was uncharacteristic. The little admiral gave her a gentle smile. "Just in time."
"I came as fast as I could, Admiral."
At that moment, a soft siren began to wail.
Captain Harris sighed softly as she surveyed the wreckage of her shuttlebay. The Starwind pilot had refused to let anyone touch her, or get near her with the equipment needed to remove the armor suit encasing her. She was about to order the security guards to open fire when her commbadge chirped softly. She tapped it and murmured quietly to it in an annoyed tone, "What is it?"
"Sir, Valhalla base has sent an Omega signal, stating their primary core is about fifteen minutes away from catastrophic failure, and warning all vessels able to do so to remove themselves a full light year from the Sol system as fast as they can."
Captain Harris's face, already a pale shade naturally, turned the color of fresh cream when she heard that statement. The Omega Core in the Valhalla Base was the highest concentration of Omega molecules in any part of the galaxy, a full hundred of them being used to power the base itself as well as restock the Valkyrie suits when needed. If those molecules destabilized......
She didn't think anymore, snapping out to the security guard nearest her. "Let me through." The man, well trained, but cautious, stepped aside to let her through, but followed close. Harris marched up to about three meters from the Starwind starsuit, huddled in a corner of the shuttlebay. "Valhalla base's Omega core is about to go critical. I don't think I need to tell you what would happen if it did."
M'Lara's face turned ashen pale inside her suit as she listened to the captain speaking to her. She didn't hear anything else the woman spoke, merely got to her feet and turned toward the closed shuttlebay doors. "Let me help."
Janeway was working frantically to help stabilize the core as the techs at last got the Valkyrie pilots unhooked from that abominable Mind Probe. The instant they were clear, Lisa snapped off three shots, slagging the insidious devices into molten piles of metal. The techs cried out at the fire, but Lisa ignored them, trying to remember what Gerry had taught her about Omega cores and how to reinitialize the safety procedures.
The techs scattered, leaving as the calm, mechanically precise voice of the computer spoke the time remaining until detonation of the Valhalla core. Lisa looked up only at the sound of running feet, and saw a familiar face gaze back at her from the gleaming silver-and-gold Starwind suit in the doorway. Lisa's eyes burned as she glared at her former friend, and she was about to raise her Valkyrie cannon when M'Lara held up a hand. Lisa paused a moment, giving the traitors her last words.
"I know you hate me, Lisa. Kahless, I hate myself right now. Let me help, help atone for the terrible things I've done. Let me redeem myself."
Lisa paused for a moment, and Janeway glanced between them, unsure if she'd have to use the tuned compression rifle on her betrothed's star pupil to prevent her from becoming a murderer. After a few seconds, Lisa lowered her cannon and spoke in a choked voice. "I won't harm you, M'Lara. I wasn't myself when I chased you, I was mad with grief. Help if you can, we have twelve minutes before the core goes critical."
M'Lara nodded and started towards the Core. She stepped past the two at the consoles and began disconnecting the power feeds. Lisa gave her a puzzled look, but Janeway realized what she was doing and began helping her, her uncovered fingers making light work of the chore that M'Lara's suited hands were having trouble performing. Lisa soon joined them, and together they decoupled the core from its harness and power transfers. The two-meter-diameter sphere gleamed and glittered as it hung suspended by tractor cables from the upper corners of the room.
M'Lara stepped under the sphere and nodded to Lisa, who tapped the control that shut down the tractor cables. The sphere settled slowly onto M'Lara's waiting shoulders, and the Klingon girl grunted as her suit whined to keep the sphere balanced. Lisa moved to help steady the sphere as Kathryn set about implementing the emergency plans that had been set up in the extremely unlikely event that the core destabilized. Now, she was glad that she had insisted that a direct, shielded shaft to the surface be included in the designs for the Core level. It gave them a way to get the core out of the base rapidly, as time was of the essence. "Ten minutes, girls, think you can get it clear in that time?"
"We have to. It's the Federation's only hope." Lisa's voice was grave. She nodded to M'Lara, who gripped the sphere tighter as the last bulkhead opened in the ceiling, the glowing blue ring at the top indicating the pressure-retention field was on. Lisa lifted on her thrusters, palms and heels trailing gold fire as she rose into the shaft. M'Lara didn't bother with the subtle control of her thrusters, instead her wings flaring with ruby light as she rose on impulse drive into the shaft, pushing the several-ton core ahead of her.
Kathryn sealed the bulkhead, waited five seconds, then deactivated the pressure seal. "Good luck, girls. Go with all our hopes and fears."
Lisa barely had time to get her helmet faceplate back in place before the muffled roaring of decompression grabbed them and shot them out of the sealed shaft like shot from a shotgun. M'Lara grimly clung to the Core as she was shot out, tumbling. Lisa snagged her armored shin to steady her, then the pair shot off through the Trojans. Lisa caught a flash of blue and a return streak of green far off to her left, but she ignored it. She and M'Lara had to get the core clear of the Sol system and into deep space before the Core detonated, otherwise Earth and Earth's system would be lost to warp travel forever.
She deployed both her disruptor cannon and Valkyrie cannon, using all three to blast to atoms any asteroids that got in her and M'Lara's way, the pair rising through the flotsam on wings of steel and fire.
Annika had disabled almost all of the traitor Valkyries by this point, and was just chasing down the last of them when she spotted two more figures with a glowing-blue sphere. She had monitored the broadcasts, hoping against hope that Kathryn would be able to shut down the core before it went critical, but evidently that was impossible. Now, she gave her silent hope that Lisa and whoever else it was would be able to get the core clear in time. She wasn't in a position to help, with her warp drive currently offline. 'Go, Valkyries. Go with Godspeed.'
M'Lara's impulse engines were screaming on the edge of overload by the time she emerged from the Trojans. The core was far more massive than its two-meter-diameter would suggest, but her suit and Lisa's should be enough to kick it into warp. An odd thought struck her and she began feeling around on the surface of the sphere. She turned it just so, twisted slightly and gasped slightly in shock as the core's energies were flooded into her own suit. Everything seemed outlined in vivid clarity unmatched by any other experience in her life. M'Lara guessed this was what Klingon ascetics had been looking for on their long vision quests. But more than that, she felt the core's power swelling through her, making her seem invincible, and swifter than anything else in the galaxy. She augmented her warp field, extending it around the sphere held on her shoulders and, snapping her wings back in the attitude of a diving hawk, she shot forward into Warp, Lisa hard on her heels.
Lisa was amazed as M'Lara shot into warp. She had felt almost sure that the pair of them had to work in unison to get the massive sphere past the light speed limit and into warp, but M'Lara managed it in just a few minutes. Now, the star pilot skipped across the boundary between normal space and the otherworld where speed has no limit, following the Starwind suit of her former friend easily. "Valkyrie 7 to Starwind 5, I'll slip in ahead of you and extend my warp bubble aft. Hopefully that'll increase our top speed."
M'Lara nodded and Lisa suited action to word, her pointed toes within inches of the sphere M'Lara held on her shoulders and extended her own warp bubble behind her. She felt resistance for a moment, until she matched the frequency of M'Lara's field and the two bubbles merged into one, increasing their speed as the two engines strove in tandem to send them hurtling into the ever dark of space. Lisa watched her Warp Factor indicator rise to 9.93 and pass it, hovering about 9.95 as the combined warp field send both of them speeding along faster than the could otherwise. She exulted in the sensations of speed, sensing the universe itself flowing over and around her as she bent its weave and ducked between folds. Never had she pushed her suit so fast, and the blurred sense of sheer velocity brought her heart into her throat. The sheer sensation of being this fast was unlike anything Lisa had ever encountered, and she would remember it for the rest of her life.
M'Lara counted the minutes as she and her former friend flew hard into the emptiness of interstellar space, heading to the same place they had used to conduct their practice runs in the starsuits. At Warp 9.95, they'd reach the area with a few dozen seconds to spare. But M'Lara had other problems. The power feeding into her suit from the destabilizing core was burning through her suit like fire, and she could feel it as a burning pain running through her skin. She gritted her teeth and clenched tighter on the sphere that was burning her suit out, determined to do the right thing this time, now that she had a chance. She gasped softly and got her voice under control as she opened a channel to Lisa. "Get clear."
She could imagine Lisa turning her head to gaze down at the other starsuit just beneath / behind her. "Get clear? What about you, M'Lara?"
"I'm hooked into the core now, that's why we've been going this fast. I'm not sure I can detach in time, and even if I could, the power is burning my suit's warp drive out. I can't hold this speed much longer, and I don't think you can carry me fast enough to get out of the blast radius even if I did manage to disconnect in time."
Lisa was speechless with shock for a moment. "No. No! I won't let you sacrifice yourself, M'Lara! I already lost Gerry today, I don't want to loose you too!"
"I'm the reason you lost Gerry, Lisa. No, this is the way it has to be. Get Clear, damn you, or we'll both die!"
Lisa's whimpering sob was cut off as she closed the channel. With unconscious grace, she pulled back, breaking out of M'Lara's warp bubble and arcing back the way she had come. Her suit gave a jolt as she was kicked out of the other starsuit's warp bubble, but she quickly regained her attitude control and headed back the way she had come. Her friend had neglected to close the comm channel, and Lisa could hear M'Lara's last words in her ear.
"Alright you bloody bastard, let's see how far we can go before the end." A mingled roar of pain, rage, and defiance sliced across the channels as M'Lara poured every last erg of power she could handle through her warp drive, hurtling across the interstellar distances as the core began its final destructive throes. Lisa looked back, just in time to see the blue-white detonation of the Omega Core, and shot forward as fast as her warp wings would carry her. Her tears were ones of pride, instead of loss.
AN: Thank you all for being so patient! I'm looking forward to your reviews, so please, don't forget to hit the big green button down there! ^.^ There will be an epiloge to this, but I'm putting the Completed tag up now, to gather more people's attention.
