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Hal Dracas awoke to find his head throbbing like a poorly aligned plasma injector. It didn't make him very happy. Even worse, he could still remember why his head and body ached. The memory of over a dozen Roman soldiers firing on Daggit while Dracas slipped in and out of consciousness disturbed him even further.
Although Daggit hadn't a clue, Dracas had secretly admired the younger man for several months now. No one aboard (except maybe Macen and T'Kir, there was no telling how much they knew about anything) had a clue as to Dracas' sexual proclivities. Although the Federation claimed tolerance for any and all lifestyles, they also tolerated the same Ardannian prejudices that labelled his mores a deviancy. That, in Dracas' opinion, made the Federation partially responsible for the ongoing intolerance on his native world. He had been born the man he was, with the notable exception of his appearance, and no amount of discrimination could alter that.
Daggit himself remained rather ambiguous in his stated preferences but his continued attention towards Radil said quite a bit. Dracas pitied Daggit in his pining over what was clearly a lost cause. Radil favoured both Tom Riker and Kort over any other men and women on the team. Young Hannah Grace, however, would gladly succumb to any courtesies Daggit paid her. Dracas often wondered how such a gifted tactician could be so blind emotionally.
Daggit would never know of Dracas' true feelings for him. No man ever would. Although Dracas had long come to terms with his sexuality, his homeworld had not. Homosexual Troglytes were routinely executed, yet strangely, gay Stratosians were not. If Dracas' nature were discovered by his native authorities, he'd be drug home in irons and placed on the executioners block. All while the wretched Prime Directive ensured that neither Starfleet nor the SID would do a thing about it.
There was no telling what Macen might do, however. Dracas respected the Mission Commander. Macen did his best to take care of his people no matter the personal costs to himself. He'd been forced to leave Starfleet because of this, which only made him an even more effective agent for them.
Speaking of whom, it was time for Dracas to discover if his compatriots were alive. He approached the barred door of his cell and tested the lock. He studied it for a moment and realised he had nothing available with which to pick it. He hadn't been this helpless since the Andergani had… No. Best not to think about that. Focus on the task at hand.
"Commander Macen? Daggit?" Dracas called out, "Is anyone there? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine Dracas." Daggit's voice came back, "But Macen's been separated from us."
"Rab?" Dracas asked excitedly, his hopes rising; "Is that really you?"
"Yeah," Daggit replied forlornly, "it's me."
"Are you hurt?" Dracas inquired, trying to mask the true depth of his concern.
""No." Daggit replied morosely.
"Then what's wrong?" Dracas was confused.
"I failed." Daggit snarled, "I failed Macen and I failed you. We were captured and then separated. Who knows what these butchers are doing to Macen right now."
"As long as we're alive, there's hope." Dracas declared with more confidence then he felt.
"Strange sentiments coming from you, Chief." Daggit's sense of humour flickering to life, "Normally you're the dour one."
"I learned something during my recent… difficulties." Dracas explained, "As long as you're alive, they haven't won. As long as they haven't won, you still can."
A lengthy silence proceeded Daggit's reply, "Wish you could've been on the Tarsian Front with us Chief."
Despite his silence, Dracas concurred for entirely separate reasons.
Livia stood before the huge comm screen in the mobile HQ of the Roman Armies of the North. The screen was divided into several smaller screens for a conference call literally spanning the globe. The other participants were not other Roman generals, however, but the leaders of every free empire and disgruntled client nation across Nova Roma. This meeting would have been of utmost interest to the Praetorian Guard since it was a planning session for the dismantling of the Roman Empire.
Livia Germanicus saw herself as a patriot rather than a traitor. The Emperor had been deceived, and ultimately brainwashed, by aliens. Livia planned to liberate Magna Roma from this corruption. If she had to give away a few provinces in the process, so be it. The peace achieved by this bartering would enable the Empire to regain its former solidity. Her current "allies" would grovel before her soon enough.
That is, she amended to herself, if I can get them to stop bickering long enough to accomplish anything.
"Gentlemen! Lady!" she finally yelled out in frustration, "Enough!"
That drew everyone up short. Livia had always made a point of not losing her temper during these conference calls. They were so close to the fruition of their layered scheming that she couldn't help it. She wasn't about to let these various imbeciles throw everything away now.
"Listen here," she snapped, "we're almost ready to topple our common foe and yet here you stand ready to throw all our work away. I will not allow this to happen!"
The imaged leaders all shrank back from her wrath. She allowed herself a slight smile of satisfaction. It was no wonder none of these "great" and "noble" leaders had done little more than delay the Roman acquisition of their lands. The lot of them were nothing but squabbling barbarian whelps. She could tolerate their incessant feuding when it served her purposes but not any longer.
"If we are to defeat Nova Roma, then we must be united as one." she reminded them coldly, "Not just in word but also in deed. We must be kin to one another. If we are divided, we fail as one. If we succeed, we also succeed as one. You have put aside your fear and mistrust of Rome long enough to embrace me as your ally. Why can you not embrace one another, when all of you have more commonalities and shared grievances than disputes?"
"If you truly cannot abide one another, then depart this fellowship immediately. It is better to withdraw honourably than to bring the scourge of defeat upon our heads. Rome will not look any kinder upon one who is unfaithful than she will upon the rest. Once a traitor, always a traitor in Rome's eyes and I need not remind you of Rome's penalty for treason. We must stand now, united, or we must walk our own paths separately and know we let this one certain chance of victory slip through our grasp."
Livia let them mull her words over in silence. Twenty seconds passed, then thirty, and finally the nods of assent came. All of them agreed, without a single complaint or condition. This time, Livia did nothing to suppress her radiant smile as she basked in triumph.
Tom wondered onto the bridge. Thool and B'nner had Sito adjusting the targeting sensors. Radil was hip deep in the comm array while Lucarno struggled to repair the damaged shield emitters. The two engineers themselves were repairing more primary and secondary systems than Riker wanted to think about. Kort was using Sickbay as a makeshift galley, heating rations and distributing them as needed across the ship. That left Grace working alone on the bridge.
By some unforeseen happenstance, Navigation and Flight Control systems had hardly been damaged. That left Grace free to work on the most damaged bridge station: Ops. The entire link to the Main Computer had been severed. That essentially crippled Ops, not to mention whoever reported it to T'Kir if it wasn't at least partially repaired by the time she returned. If wasn't an option Grace would accept.
Free of prying eyes, Grace was able to use a little time saving device no one knew she had. It was a device that Federation science would be unable to explain despite the fact the technology was over a century old. It was a metallic, rectanguar box with six lights aligned along its outer edges. In the centre was a single activation stud. The device was specifically attuned to her brainwaves and could not be used by anyone else, even if they deduced it purpose.
Eyeing the burned out isolinear rods that formally carried data back and forth from the MC to the Ops station, Grace concentrated, then pressed the activation stud. The six lights flashed to life and the molecular structure of the rods began to shift until the damage to them was reversed. It was then that Grace heard the crunch of a boot on burnt insulation.
Grace whirled. One hand fastened her device to her belt while the other sought out the throat of her eavesdropper. Finding it, she lifted and let her momentum carry her around until she slammed the entire body into the bulkhead.
Seeing that she had Captain Riker dangling in the air, feet inches from the ground, Grace swore violently in a half-dozen alien tongues, each oath more profane than the last. She dropped Riker and backed away. As he launched into a coughing fit, she mentally prepared a new set of orders for her instrument. Her hand hovered over the activation button while Riker finished coughing and lifted his head to glare venomously at her.
"What the hell?" he croaked in outrage, "What was that about? What the hell were you doing and what the hell is that thing on your belt?"
The last were the words Grace dreaded to hear. She depressed the button. The lights flashed and Riker's face went slack. Grace shook her head in pity before speaking.
"You will forget that I attacked you and most importantly, you'll forget you saw my attuner in action. It was simply a tricorder. I was testing the repairs I completed on the isolinear rods. Do you understand?"
Riker nodded dumbly.
"Good." she started pulling her hair back into a tail.
Riker blinked several times then shook his head, "Grace?"
"Sir?" she asked innocently.
"What am... " he shook his head again, "Never mind. Good work on Ops. Nice idea sending a data stream through using your tricorder." He coughed
"Are you all right?"
Riker rubbed his throat, "Just a sore throat. I'd better go see Kort. I can't afford to get sick."
"Good idea." she agreed, cursing herself for not repairing the tissue damage around his larynx.
"Well, I'm off. Carry on." with that, he left.
Hopefully Kort'll chalk it up to a battle injury, she thought miserably but knew better. The jig was almost up. Her teammates would soon discover her true identity… and her true loyalties. Hell, Macen probably already knows.
For someone attributed with a lot of knowledge, Macen was spending his time reflecting on what he didn't know. In order, those things were: 1) how to get out of his cell, 2) how the rest of his team was, and 3) how to complete his mission now that it was compromised by an unknown alien presence. He assumed he'd make a break for it when the opportunity presented itself. The when part of the equation was the greatest worry.
His thoughts kept lingering on the status of the rest of the team. With the ground team ferreted out, it wouldn't be long before they began combing the spacelanes. These unknown aliens posed a potential threat in this matter as well as in others. They may have transferred over cloaking spoofing technology. With communications cut off, that left the separate units of the team on their own.
Macen knew Daggit and Dracas had been captured alongside him. After the interrogation, he knew T'Kir was still free. Or, she had been as of his meeting with Alaric and Ezexial. His thoughts lingered on T'Kir more than any other subject.
He inwardly berated himself for not confessing the depth of his feelings for her. Even if they were not reciprocated, and he strongly suspected they were, it would have been a necessary cleansing of the air between them. He felt inordinately concerned for her. It was selfish, he knew, since most of the escalated tensions derived from his unrequited desire to bare his soul.
Little did Macen know that his fate had already been discussed and decided.
"I respectfully disagree." Alaric protested, "The aliens could still prove useful. We haven't interrogated this 'Macen's' companions yet."
"My decision has been made." Augustus Romulus declared hotly, "If I did not know you from my childhood, I would suspect you of disrespecting your emperor."
Ezexial smiled as Alaric coloured under his liege's chiding, "Forgive me Caesar. I meant no disrespect."
"And I disagree." Ezexial's smile turned decidedly nasty, "I believe the good Admiral has been swayed by the prisoner's charms. He also hasn't seen the reports of the woman who escaped custody earlier today. The same woman who expertly manipulated our central data net. I believe she too is in league with the prisoners. They aren't here as observers. They're here to topple you Caesar. They must be executed."
"I agree." Romulus nodded, "And as long as they're going to die, they might as well provide some sport in the process. They will face the arena, and with any luck and the gods' intervention, they will die with honour."
"I suspect they will surprise us all, my Emperor." Alaric warned, "This could prove a mistake."
"Treason." Ezexial hissed.
Romulus' eyes narrowed as Alaric spoke again, "I humbly remind my Emperor that he is still a man and that men make mistakes."
"Such as speaking out of turn?" Romulus suggested, "Leave us my friend, and reflect on the fact that our friendship is all that prevents me from misconstruing your words."
Alaric bowed his head, "As you wish my Lord."
As Alaric departed, Ezexial sidled up alongside the young ruler, "He's growing far too arrogant."
"As do you my alien friend." Romulus countered, "You have much to offer my world, but you have not served me or my family half as long as Alaric. Whatever differences you two have, work them out. If I am forced to choose between you, then things will fare poorly for you. Am I understood?"
Ezexial bowed low, "Eminently so."
T'Kir blinked in surprise over the data on her screen. How anyone as security conscious and paranoid as the Romans could have missed this. Someone in northern Germania was making subspace transmissions to multiple locations outside the Empire. Earlier, a massive conference had been held linking all the various transmission sites.
T'Kir suddenly knew she'd found her potential ally. Only the Romans possessed subspace transmitters. While these transmissions could be between covert operatives and their handler, T'Kir doubted. The bureaucracy would have placed the Imperial transmission closer to Nova Roma, not to mention the lack of any documentation regarding these signals.
This was a private operation. T'Kir would, and was about to, stake her life and the lives of her teammates on it. T'Kir guessed someone was uniting all of Rome's enemies into one army, and if today's signal was any clue, they were almost ready to move. T'Kir had to get to northern Germania fast and co-ordinate Macen's release with these rebels. Some experts might have a problem with her offering technical support and information in exchange for her comrades' liberation but then again, T'Kir was neither an expert on the Prime Directive nor did she consider it much in effect after the Beagle landing.
Dracas could certainly build the rebels all sorts of destructive gadgets and upgrades. Daggit could drill their troops and Macen… Even captive, Brin had undoubtedly unearthed valuable intelligence and insights. T'Kir herself could demonstrate their continued communications vulnerabilities and offer methods of correcting them. She couldn't imagine being turned down.
Now it was just a matter of arranging transportation. She still had the credit line she's established for herself while in Nova Roma. Deducing that her first attempt at forging a bank line had nearly resulted in her capture, she'd been far more careful on her second and third attempts. She felt she could tap into these accounts with impunity. She just didn't dare draw out too much capital for fear of once again drawing unwanted attention.
She'd research the necessary travel costs and expenses and utilise both accounts to meet the end amount. Afterwards, she'd establish new accounts with different lenders. If caught, she knew fraud would be the least of the charges brought against her. She'd probably be executed outright upon first glimpse of her ears. Spock had been effectively demonised since his encounter in the Roman arena.
Once again, T'Kir found being a Vulcan working against her. Then again, her natural stamina was also why she'd been able to stay awake for thirty-six hours straight. There upsides and downsides to everything. She'd have to ask Brin his opinion on being El-Aurian when they were reunited.
She couldn't imagine not being reunited with him. It was too painful to conceive of. She cursed herself for not telling him of her feelings before they ventured forth on this stupid mission,. She'd kept silent too long. It was time to heed Lisea Danan's advice and tell him how much she loved him.
But first, she needed to buy a train ticket.
Macen sat upright on his bunk when he heard the rattle of keys outside his door. The lock mechanism released and the door swung open. This time there were four guards, all heavily armed. The closest guard returned the keys to her belt.
"Come on, get moving." she ordered tersely.
"Where am I moving to?" Macen asked.
"The arena." she replied with a feral smile, "You and your friends are going to provide some entertainment as you die."
Oh joy, Macen thought morosely as he rose to follow the guards.
