Disclaimers: See prologue.
Notes: Last one before the epilogue!
Chapter Thirteen
Kashyk
I couldn't seem to sleep anymore, and I didn't know why. Instead, I pounded coffee and generous tumblers of Bhanian liquor, more than I'd been prone to indulging in for years, and listened to Tchaikovsky on full blast in the privacy of my chambers. I should have been tired of it by now, but I wasn't. Not nearly. The song became my personal anthem, reminding me with each meter, each refrain, every agonizingly ethereal pull of strings and blow of horns, exactly what I had lost.
And it was so much more than just her or my self-respect. I'd lost my identity. My way of life. Just about every cornerstone of absolute, unbreakable truth I'd built my life upon until this moment had rotted and crumbled away beneath me with her last visit. She'd shaken me to my core. I no longer knew what was true and what wasn't. What was right and what was injustice. What was real and what had been shadow: tricks of light and arrogance playing together to deceive my too-long blind soul.
I'm too damned old for this. Too old to be in this position in the first place, too set in my ways, too ensconced in my career path and too certain of the purity of the Devoran people to be having this kind of childish personal crisis now, I kept telling myself. I'm not really this confused.
And sometimes, on particularly good days, I was able to make myself believe it for fractions at a time.
But her face refused to leave my consciousness in peace. I saw her every which way I turned. At night, especially, when the music ended and the silence descended about my ears and nothing remained of duty and routine to distract me, her image came to me, taunting me to return for her and to take what was mine. The scent of her seemed burned into my nostrils; no matter where I turned, I seemed to catch a puff of that exotic fragrance. It's like nothing I'd ever smelled before. It was the aroma of strength and sex, of fragility and control. It was maddeningly erotic, the contradictions that were her.
She beat me at my own game, yet I still wanted her. More so afterward. I hated that I hadn't just taken her then, though I knew she would have taken some persuasion. Especially once I'd revealed my deception. Oh, it wasn't that she wanted me any less after that...and she did want me, of that I was certain. It's just that Kathryn had such odd notions about things like duty and honor and right and wrong. And she couldn't…or should I say wouldn't…come to me if it went against any of those grandiose ideals.
I should have given her the choice I had intended to give her all along: her crew's safety in exchange for her…personalservices. The only offer the captain of Voyager couldn't refuse. She'd probably wanted me to. Of course I'd have been lying to her again; there's no way to keep track of individual prisoners once they've entered a relocation camp. And she would have known, by instinct as she calls it, that I lied. She seemed to see through me better than anyone. But she'd have had to take the chance I would keep my word anyway, and I knew she would have.
By then my fantasies had shifted gears. Initially, sex between us was going to be about my pleasure and her defeat. A brutal show of force and dominance and power: something I've done on many occasions with any number of gaharay women. And a few men. But now, my fantasies had softened, become about her surrender. A gentler display of desire and pleasure, and, yes, also power. Always between Kathryn and I, the game has been about power. Who has it and who is being made to think they have it.
When had the shift occurred for me?
Now, I knew that what I saw in her eyes was most likely regret. At the role she was playing with me. Or perhaps regret that I wasn't what I pretended to be. Either way, that I'd managed to work my way past that magnificent woman's defenses meant much more to me than it should have.
I thought it was enough. But it wasn't. Not hardly.
I thought I'd begun to hate her, to harden myself against that strange spell she seemed able to weave against me in person. That half-crazed, somewhat wary adulation I regarded her with began to sour and churn into something no less fervent in intensity but much less innocent in nature. She'd nearly managed to take everything from me. After I let her go! I broke my own principles for her, something she would not have done for me, I knew. And still, she would not leave me alone.
Her striking alien face taunted me from the shadows, waking and sleeping. Her voice goaded me every time I should have heard only silence. You lost, I could hear her gloat, her husky voice echoing through the air vents of my ship. You were out maneuvered, Kashyk. By a gaharay! You're nothing. You couldn't even stand and face me for long, could you? No. You ran, the moment you could…
Those were times I'd smash every breakable object I could lay hands on, just to drown out that voice. Then I'd get thoroughly drunk listening to Mahler, playing it as loud as the computer would permit. It was the only way I could sleep at all. And then she'd snake into my dreams…
I awoke again from dreams haunted by her, sweat plastering the uniform I'd fallen asleep in again to every fevered centimeter of my skin, and I ground my teeth. Ripped the sweat-soaked fabric from my body, hurled it to the floor. And threw things. Smashed things, things I'd only just had replaced to begin with. And considered, for the thousandth time, simply ending this torture. By either taking her before she could cross that border, or by doing myself a favor and ending it all, here and now.
That last I seriously considered. More and more with each passing day. We shadowed her ship from a safe distance. Close, but not close enough to be detected. She still had no experience with our cloaking technology, was unaware of what to look for. I'd only given her specifications for our shielding, after all. But there were merely a few intervals left, perhaps six of her hours until she crossed our borders and was completely out of harm's way. They might follow her a few light years out of the Imperium, but leaving isn't something we do, as a rule. Soon enough, Voyager would be out of danger, and I could stop playing this game with myself. Without her so close, within transportation distance, I wouldn't have to struggle so hard with temptation anymore. And she would be truly safe.
From me and from my people.
I was not so lucky, but my own safety could wait, I kept telling myself. Even as I half-worked at uncovering Prax's allies – which he must have had, common sense demanded – I told myself it would be easier to work everything out and dispose of the traitors once she was out of my mind and no longer foremost in my thoughts.
I still couldn't work out where Prax had sent that message. And, as no one had yet appeared, ready to take me into custody, ready to take my command, it should not have bothered me, should not have nagged at my every conscious thought the way that it did, but he had made it so that the transmission was all but impossible to trace. I'd never even known he was that skilled with the computer systems. Hells, I thought, scrubbing a hand over my bleary, blood-shot eyes, he's never given a single indication of that kind of ability. Oddly, Brex, was actually the most skilled at that sort of–
"Son of a gaharay mongrel bitch," I swore, sitting bolt upright in the lounge chair I'd thrown myself into upon venting my physical frustration on the rest of the room. My blood was freezing up inside of my veins, stuck on that last, innocuous observation. It made so much more sense.
But no. There was no way. No way in seven hells that Prax had turned one of my own personal guards into…
Was there? Could I have missed that? Missed the turn in Brex's eyes, too?
My stomach was slowly sinking into my boots as I considered all that would have to mean. Brex and Jahal are my right-hand men. Brex and Jahal are the ones I trust to do the sweeps of my chambers…the sweeps for surveillance or other recording devices…
Even before I could complete those horrid, blood-curdling thoughts, an insistent bleeping came from across the room. One that should have been much, much louder, really…
The damned music. I'd been all but tuning it out by now, barely noticing it, but it came crashing back down over my eardrums in that moment, sending my anxiety levels sky-rocketing. "Pause playback," I snapped, shoving back from my chair and stalking over to the console along the left wall. Once there, my heart sunk deeper into the floor at the particular locale of that insistent, now-properly-loud bleeping on the screen. At the color of it and at the color's meaning.
A message. Another message was being sent, right now, from deep within the bowels of my own ship. There should never be a message sent that I don't know about beforehand, haven't personally cleared. Never. And I was certainly not consulted about this one, which apparently necessitated being sent in the dead of night when I was sleeping…
Supposed to be sleeping.
I didn't bother with dressing again, aside from my pants, which I still had on, only bothering to fasten them as I made my way out of the doors. At the last second, I'd paused by the bed to remove my hand-held disruptor from its secure, hidden spot just behind the headrest, the cool weight of its metal handle feeling just right, comforting in the palm of my hand. Just in case, I mused silently to myself.
The corridor was deserted, and that was the second sign that what was transpiring was not above board. But the door wasn't even closed. The speaker and the recipient of the forbidden transmission laughed in unison, the first thing I heard as I rounded the corner to the science station control room. Which also should have been completely deserted this time of night. Someone in the room rumbled something as yet unintelligible as I drew closer to the infraction of protocol unfolding within that room.
More laughter. This time, it sent chills of absolute disbelief coursing through me.
Juryk. It was Juryk's laughter, and I would know it anywhere. I should. That was who the second voice belonged to. And the situation had taken a deadly seriously turn. Whoever was in that room was communicating with Juryk.
My mind was suddenly abuzz with a million thoughts, half formed and otherwise as all blood drained from my face, which felt red-hot even as my fingers and feet turned to the temperature of space-frigid ice. Prax's words played over and over again in my mind. He's in love with her. He's in love with her. He's in love with her…
No! Violently, I flashed back to twenty years ago, when we were younger. To the cause of all this discord sown between us since, and the memories are as crisp, as burned into my brain today as they were all those years ago…
It's late. We're already half-toasted as we stagger into the receiving room, knocking over priceless vases and shattering once of them. Belatedly remembering that my mother must be asleep upstairs and noise like this could wake her, if she hasn't taken one of the sedatives the physicians supply her with nowadays to help her sleep. Forgetting it just as quickly. I make no effort to clean the mess, merely shuffle some of the shattered alloy into the corner with my boot as I call for lights, ushering my four companions into the room. They enter laughing, taunting me for my unsteadiness, but it's been some time since I've indulged the way we have been all day. A plant falls clean out of its container on their entry, making another mess, but that, too is ignored. We spread out, some of them dropping casually into seats, cushions worth more than their entire lives. We continue pondering sending out for some of the local women to entertain us. It's been two years since any of us had the benefit of a good Devore woman. Having just returned from a deep space mission, having already consumed our fair share of good home liquor and comfort food, it's what we're craving more than anything else by now. We're tired of filthy gaharay dalliances in dark rooms, have had our fill of those. We're more than ready for some wholesome native women to take care of us this evening. I give raucous agreement to the suggestions, completely forgetting that my mother will kill me for bringing those women into our family home, much less at this time of night. Not much caring that it will piss her off in the extreme.
She always forgives me.
"Hello."
It surprises me – all of us. The voice, young and feminine, is completely out of place. We all pause, halted in our drunken revelry to behold the slight figure appearing at the bottom of the steps, pulling a light robe over her sleeping gown. Through the double vision, it registers that she is an enchanting figure indeed.
The girl smiles invitingly. Sweetly. Innocently. "You must be Kashyk. Juryk's told me all about you. I'm sorry he's not here to greet you. He wanted to introduce us, but he was called away on patrol this morning. He should be back in a few intervals."
I wrack my drunken brain for a long moment. Staring at the vision before me. Trying to place what a young, innocent and lovely thing like her would be doing in my family home at this hour of the night. Especially one that knows or has anything to do with my fool of a younger brother. And light on it, at last. Ah yes. They'd told me…
I smile. A full, broad smile that reaches my eyes and beyond. "And you must be my brother's intended." The intricate, braided chain she wears around her slim, pale neck confirms this now that I notice it. It nestles between delightfully enticing, firm young breasts.
"Illyia. Yes," she smiles in return. Innocently. So innocently.
Gods but she's lovely. So pure. So naïve. And she smells enticing, fresh, clean, as she steps forward, embracing me by custom upon our first meeting.
I fold her into my embrace. Noting the soft, obliging curvature of her cool body against me. Grinning over her head at the others, who are watching with keen, fascinated interest. "I've heard all about you. But I was not told that you were so…lovely," I note.
She blushes charmingly as I allow her to pull back from me, keeping my gloved hands on her slender shoulders. She steps back. "You must be parched, Kashyk. You've had a long journey." She beams at me, then at my guests. "I'll get you some refreshments, if you want to sit back down and rest?"
"Thank you, Illyia. You're most kind." I smirk more than smile now as she turns to leave us. Missing entirely the predatory glint in my eye. The glint in the eyes of my companions as we pass a meaningful, drunken look between us while she disappears into the next room.
"Shame Juryk's not here," Tanax growls not-quite-under his liquored breath as he jams a hard elbow into my side. "Perhaps you'll have to initiate her into the family for him in his absence, eh?"
Soft, broken but collective laughter fills the room. I turn to him. Shove him away from me, watching him stagger back before regaining his unsteady footing as the others rise with varying degrees of difficulty. Grinning hungrily, my eyes darting back to the archway my brother's delightfully sweet little intended has just disappeared through.
As one, we move to follow her.
I shook myself hard out of the reflection, forcing myself to focus on the present as Juryk's sharp voice penetrated through the possession the past had taken on me.
An alien sensation began to creep outward from my chest. Phantom fingers of bone-chilling ice massaged my veins and made me shiver in spite of myself. In that instant, I knew fear. True fear even worse than I had upon discovering Prax in the communications room over a week ago. Because now I saw that I might live through this mutiny someone on my crew had staged. Juryk would never kill me. The Imperium might, but Juryk wouldn't participate in something like that. And they would never expect him to. Killing a member of your own immediate family is deeply taboo.
Whether I wanted to or not, I would probably live through this.
But unless I could pull off some kind of unholy miracle, Kathryn would not.
"…really has no idea, then? That the whole ship is turned against him?"
My eyes narrowed in hatred as those words snapped me out of my thoughts. What? Impossible! I knew my own ship, had my finger on the pulse of its lifebeat, always. Never! They couldn't have turned the whole ship…I'd have known it.
"No. Not a clue. He wanders around in a daze most of the time. Holes himself up in his chambers, drinking and sleeping."
That, unfortunately, I could not deny. I had been. Thanks to her.
Another piercing bark of laughter. "I confess I didn't really see it when I met her, but she must be one hell of a piece of work if she has him so far up his own neurosis he can't see what's coming. He never would have slipped like this before."
"It's…unfortunate, Inspector. He used to be the best. I thought if anyone would be in line for Commodore Rennick's position, it would have been him."
"Well. Unfortunately for Kashyk…that promotion is going to me now," Juryk sneered.
"I've already informed the rest of the crew about their impending promotions."
"Good. I like the way you think, Jahal. It'll keep everyone calm and…not likely to do anything foolish, like come to his aid later."
Jahal. My other personal guard. If he was in on this little atrocity, then so too was Brex. That was no longer in question.
"That's what I thought, too. But make sure you don't leave us hanging for long, Inspector. He's still dangerous. If he should discover what we've done…our throats would be slit faster than we could blink."
They had that much right. Only for logistical reasons, it was going to be a nice, lethal blast of energy fossilizing their insides, instead of the clean, swift cut of a blade.
They would never be able to touch her, let alone me. They wouldn't get the chance, I decided, beginning to retain some of my famous cool and to gather my shaken wits about me. If I killed Juryk's allies before they could take me, then Juryk would have to catch me before he would do anything else…
I crept silently, stealthily up to the doorframe and peeked around the edges. There, in a small circle of traitors, sat both of my personal guards – along with several others. Manna. Gitrus. Jax. All of them, men I would have trusted with more sensitive information than most until this moment. The urge to slay them all, strike them down where they sat in gluttonous enjoyment of something I would never allow to come to pass tightened every muscle in my electrified body, and I tensed in preparation to power forward into that room and break up this little coup right now, to nip it in the bud. Violently.
"You'll be waiting, then? Just inside the nebula?"Gitrus sounded worried.
And he damned well should be, because his head is about to be blown right off his mutinous shoulders, I avowed darkly to myself. My lips were curling into a feral snarl across my hardened features.
But the words he'd spoken tugged at me, sunk in belatedly. Damn my life. Inside the nebula. The one Kathryn was undoubtedly intending to use as additional buffer against possible aggressors because of its sensor impenetrability, if I knew her at all. I'd given her the specifications of that phenomena earlier, had assured her it was safe. And her ship appeared to be intending to pass right through it, was heading directly for it.
And Juryk's ships were already there – my God – waiting for her.
I'd have to warn her. Immediately.
"Yes." Juryk's reedy voice, which had annoyed me from childhood, intoned idly. "We're here. Waiting for them."
"You'll have to be," Brex chimed in, his gruff, deep voice recognizable at once. "We can't do this without the Imperium's support. Once he realizes…without backup, we're dead men."
Brex had always been the more intelligent of the pair of them.
And they were already dead men. They just didn't know it. When that transmission ended, I was going to end them. All five of them. And I may have been finished, but none of these five would ever have the satisfaction of enjoying those promotions they so casually allotted themselves now. Juryk, I would simply deal with afterward. Though of course I couldn't kill him.
Pure rage slammed through me, powerful bolt by powerful bolt. I was insulted by their gall. Their unmitigated gall–
"Don't worry. It's not just my three. We've more than enough ships, now, since the Commodore sent his reinforcements." Another laugh, even as I froze up in preparation to round the corner.
What? No.
I shook my head, hardly even aware of it, unable to process that crushing final blow. No. No, that was impossible. If the Imperium itself had been contacted…
No!
"We're also monitoring their ships communications now that they're in range. If he should discover you somehow in the interim, we'll catch any transmission he might send them. And we'll move to intercept immediately."
So much for contacting her. The images of what would happen to her, to her beloved ship were overwhelming me in a blazing torrent. That I would lose my command, my houses, my wealth, and my wife and children – all that I'd worked my entire life to achieve, along with my memories and identity when I was undoubtedly sent for reprogramming – all of it took second tier. What I knew they – Juryk, in particular – would do to her was gut-wrenching. Soul-destroying.
He has been waiting almost his entire life for this moment. For this woman. Simply because of what he believed she meant to me.
"I've been put in charge of the seizure of the gaharay ship, since it was I who brought Kashyk's betrayal to the Emperor's attention in the first place. The mission is under my command, and I have his full support."
"Congratulations," Manna was swift to flatter, as always, moving himself up to the top of the death list immediately.
"Thank you. I think it goes without saying that I'm going to enjoy this immensely. I confess, I can't wait to see his face when we wake him in a just a few short hours and present him with what's left of hisLOVE."
More laughter, the tone of it insidious and vile as I swallowed hastily. Doing the math. That many ships…even joining together with Voyager, we wouldn't be able to win that kind of a firefight. If I could find anyone that was willing to fire on Imperial ships, fear of my wrath or no…!
"You're going to see to her personally, I assume?" Jahal sneered, and in his voice was more venom than I'd ever have ascribed to his usually passive nature. It sickened me.
Jahal had no idea how close to the mark he was on that prediction, or why.
But I did.
"Oh yes. I've been ordered to make an example of her. And I'll have help, but yes. I plan on taking an…active role in her disposal, don't worry. I'll even let the five of you watch, if you're interested," he boasted disgustingly.
It was only the smallest of daggers slicing deep into my gut. For it was simple confirmation of what I'd known already, from the instant I heard his snide little voice laughing inside that room. Confirmation of what he would do to her. What he would, without question, find a way to make me know he was doing to her, if he could. And with Imperial help, from the emperor himself from the sound of it, I knew full well that he could.
Unless I could find a way to stop it, somehow.
There was no need to hear any more of their insidious planning. I knew where Juryk was, where the ships were. And I knew what they were planning to do to Kathryn. Killing them now, when they'd as much as said there were numerous others on the ship on their side, involved in this unthinkable and abhorrent setup, was just as dangerous as letting those five live.
For the moment.
I fled to my chambers, sick and enraged and admittedly more fearful than I'd ever been in my life.
And hardly an ounce of that fear was for myself.
I slammed into my chambers, tucking my weapon inside the top edge of my pants. Stalking directly up to the little ledge above my console, pausing for half an instant to drag the chair at the computer terminal over so that I would be tall enough to reach. Feeling around for just a half second, I located the expected device. A curse exploded from my lips as I threw the tiny little surveillance imager to the floor, grinding it to dust under the heel of my boot.
So they'd seen. The entire little interlude with her in my chambers. My acceding final defeat to her and letting her go. My subsequent disposal of Prax's body. Everything. There would be no getting out of this. Not for myself, and not, my inner reason tried to make me see, for Kathryn. Not for her ship…
I refused to listen to it. Refused to concede defeat to the five bloodless rat traitors that had been assembled down in that room. To Juryk, most especially. There had to be a way.
Aware of the fact that I had almost no time left, that Kathryn had almost no time left – and no idea of the danger she was in at this moment, I found myself thinking of anything, any way I could possibly save her.
Nothing came. I found, too, that I would have given anything, perhaps even a limb to have her here at my side in this moment. To have her sharp, keen mind helping me to formulate a way out of this untenable situation.
Still, nothing came.
At a loss for ideas, I grabbed the ice cold pot of coffee I'd had prepared for myself earlier that morning and poured out the remaining quarter-liter of it. Gulping it down and ignoring the way the dregs wanted to stick in my throat. Reviewing everything Prax had said in his message, and combining it with all that had transpired thus far while she'd been in our space. Grasping at anything, at sickly seedlings of ideas, desperate or not, and more often than not discarding them just as swiftly as they'd formed. Painfully conscious of the way time was ticking by, and how every second of it was possibly time she, and I, did not have to waste with me standing here like an idiot, drinking coffee.
Kathryn's life depended entirely on me in that moment. There had to be a way, there was always a way. Even if the way was distasteful, unthinkable and against every law of common society, there was always a solution to every problem. That was something of my motto in life, and it had not yet failed me. It had almost, almost led me to that wormhole. My gut clenched in swift realization as it dawned on me.
The wormhole. It was, ultimately, the key in all of this.
As well as what, exactly, it was that those traitors knew. What they could prove, not what they believed. That was my starting point. Damning as it all looked to their eyes, was there a way to spin it, a way to come out of this all with my career intact – and her life spared?
There was always a way, there was always a solution. Whether it was a moral or vaguely un-appalling solution, or not.
Juryk was fueling this thing, was the driving force behind it all. I saw now. He had contacted Prax at some earlier junction to plant the seeds of discord in hopes of sowing them among my ranks. But it was me, my behavior that had caused Prax to sway to his side. To betray me. He never would have, if he didn't believe…if I hadn't mistakenly led him to believe that I had feelings for Kathryn. And Juryk would never be pushing this so hard if he wasn't certain of it now, as well.
It was he who was going after Kathryn, and his concerns had nothing to do with whether I'd betrayed the empire or not. I knew this full well, even if the others did not. The emperor had not given that order about making an example out of her of his own accord. That had been all Juryk's doing. He was only going after her because I cared for her.
So then. Logically, he would back off if and only if…
If I could convince all of them, Juryk especially, that I didn't. That I'd never cared for her but had been making her believe that I did. For the sake of getting the secrets of that wormhole, which could only be argued to be for the good of the Devoran People…
The ghostly tendrils of a plan began to form, even as my new psyche, the man that I had become viscerally rejected it. It was abhorrent, and it was sickening. But if they believed I didn't care for her. Wasn't falling for her, hadn't ever been…
They'd seen all of what had transpired in my chambers between us, and it was galling, but I forced myself to go over it all again in my mind. The last time we met. All that had happened. She had told me she'd ingested the toxin, and then she'd lapsed into unconsciousness. She'd warned me that going after her again would only prompt her to take it once more. Could I claim – convincingly – that I'd been waiting, trailing along behind her undetected so that I could surprise her at the last possible moment? When she least expected it, and thereby prevent her from getting to more of that devious toxin? Could I pretend…convincingly…that I didn't care what I had to do to get it? That I'd been unaware of the little mutiny they'd all been staging behind my back this whole time and that my own timing just happened to preempt their insidious, scheming machinations?
It was possible. There were the dying dregs of a chance.
But I would have to make this the performance of a lifetime. Anything less and my feeble endeavor would be seen through, my desperate attempt at deception would be revealed immediately, and Juryk would prevail and have his way. Damn his soul to all seven hells for eternity!
I couldn't help but understand it – now.
I still regret it. It had been…unnecessary. Juryk would have killed me all those years ago. Just as I would kill him now if it would spare Kathryn what I knew he was planning.
I can still remember the look in his eyes when he noted me stirring. When he realized that I was awakening to find him there. His hand had still clutched the bloodied blade that had dispatched my men. He'd carefully placed his dead lover on the floor and made for me in that instant. He might even have been able to dispatch me in my hungover condition. Had not our mother stumbled on the scene in that moment…had not she intervened…
Until recently, I believed half of his resentment due to the fact that she had always favored me. That she protected me, even in that instance. She had been the one to tidy up the mess the two of us had left behind, and she had threatened his inheritance if he should utter so much as a word of the incident to anyone outside of our home. He never did forgive her for that…
Yet now. Now, I understood. I knew why he hadn't forgiven me. Why he still burned for vengeance. He has been waiting for this opportunity ever since. It was what I would have done in his place. What he would do to Kathryn now if he got the chance would rival anything I had so callously, drunkenly done to his lover all those years ago.
She wouldn't live through his vengeance. My only chance, Kathryn's only chance…was to make Juryk believe he had been mistaken in his assessment of my feelings for her.
But could I do it? Could I convince them I'd been planning this all along? That I'd never intended to let her leave, but needed to win her trust – truly – win her trust in order to be able to extract the information from her at a later date?
They would never believe it. Not unless there was a way to actually make them believe I had no feeling for her. And I didn't think that I could do that convincingly.
They would be expecting me to harm her. Brutally. Going by any indications from all of my previous decades of ingrained, consistent behavior with gaharay transgressors – God help me, I was all but infamous for my brutality. Smacking her around a little…would never cut it. If I wanted any one of them to think that I was genuine in not caring for her…my behavior would have to be abhorrent. Disgusting.
Cowardly and vicious.
I was almost violently ill just thinking it. I shook my head fiercely to rid myself of the taint of those unthinkable thoughts. I could never do what was required to convince them of that. Never – not…anymore.
No. There had to be another way, I just wasn't thinking hard enough…
Where was she, when I needed her? She would help me to find a way, a better way than that. She would be able to come up with a plan in record time, one that would probably put any plans I had to shame…
I heard silence. Only silence.
Fractions passed. Agonizing, torturous fractions, in which the coffee was long since gone and the silence that had descended over my ears was deafening, because, in it, I could hear the wild thumping of my heart, pounding away inside of my damned and convicted chest. After several full moments of this, time seemed to grind to a halt, and I had the required moment of absolute clarity.
There were no other options. No amount of begging or pleading for her life, her dignity, was going to spare her now. This was too far gone, the conspiracy too deep. They would be unmoved by any entreaty or possible trickery or bargaining from me. Juryk wanted his fractions of flesh, the flesh and the torment that by all rights I owed him, and this he would have, from her, and from no other. And even worse than what he would do to her, from what I knew would be her point of view, was that he would take her ship. Imprison her crew. Before he killed her – made me watch him kill her.
Unless I stepped in and somehow managed to control the fallout. Unless I stepped in and convinced them…all of them…that she didn't matter. It was too late to cry and to regret and bemoan my losses. Too late to whine and howl and protest to the gods of the universe about the wretched unfairness of it all, of the absolute wrongness of the fact that it was me who had to do it.
Too late to worry about whether or not I could do this. Whether I had it in me. Too late to think to myself that I could never stand to see the absolute contempt, the hatred in her eyes reflecting back at me the way I was undoubtedly going to when I appeared on her ship and…
Too late, all of it.
It was Kathryn's only chance…her ship's only chance. And I already knew that her ship was everything to her.
And she would want me to do it, I told myself in addition. If it was the choice between having to harm her, significantly harm her, even, and losing the ship, the deaths of her beloved crew…I knew without a doubt what she would want me to do. Urge me to do. Letting Juryk take her ship was what would destroy her most utterly.
She was possibly the strongest woman I knew, had ever encountered. Nothing I might do to her would be something she couldn't recover from. Nothing. So long as I left that ship and crew unharmed at the end of it all. I held onto that one certainty. Used it to fortify my gathering resolve.
I rose. Forcing myself to function, to begin to prepare, even as I thought about the best way to do this. Going alone was my preference. But it would never fly. Not with her if I tried to explain it, if I told her why I needed those wormhole coordinates. And not with them, the traitors. They wouldn't trust what one of them hadn't seen with his own eyes. My recounting of what I had done to her wasn't going to matter.
Not to Juryk. He would never buy it. I would have to take witnesses with me, I realized with growing unease. Unbiased witnesses, to the Imperium's point of view – Devore. Non gaharay.
Not to mention the rest of her crew probably wouldn't let me near her alone…and that thought brought me up short.
What if she wasn't alone? It was well into evening now on Voyager, I knew, but…she worked late. Very late, sometimes clear through until early morning. If she was anywhere else on the ship…anywhere that I couldn't get to her in time…her crew would defend her, when they realized my intentions. If I couldn't get her alone…
I would just have to beam to her quarters and pray that she was there. And alone. That she couldn't put up too much of a fight. If she wasn't there…
There was nothing I could do about that now. I would have to proceed as if she was and deal with it when the time came if she was not.
First, before doing anything, I would have to clean myself up. I could display no weakness, no hint of uncertainty or unusual behavior. When I called Brex and Jahal into this room in a few moments…and I would have to, I'd already decided moments ago, for there to be any appearance that I did not know exactly what they had been doing behind my back in recent days. Because leaving the ship without them was abnormal in the extreme…but when I called them, I must be entirely above scrutiny. Entirely cool and put-together, my appearance circumspect and flawless, as usual.
The Non-Hydro Cleansing pod was finished with me in less than two fractions, and I used the time I spent standing, ensconced within its sterile walls to plan. I'd need drugs. Many, if I wanted to pull this off. Not the least of which was probably going to be the one I'd used on her initially. The one I'd sworn never to subject her to again. I couldn't see any other way of getting her to tell me those coordinates. Whether I told her the truth or not. There were some things she would sacrifice her crew for, I knew, and this was one of them.
And I'd need the antidote then, as well. In order to avoid killing her with it because her physiology was decidedly incompatible. I'd learned that the hard way the first time. And I'd spent quite a bit of time trying to make up for lost time on that abhorrent mistake…
Wasted, now. For what I was about to do to her…was now forced…to do to her…
There could be no forgiveness this time. She was going to hate me, despise, loathe me from this moment on. At least before, I thought I'd ended on relatively good terms. And it mattered to me, that. More than I possibly could have believed it ever would have.
It was gone, a thing of the past. A foolish, fantasy notion I must leave behind in the vented plasma exhaust now. Something I should have left behind long ago. I should, by all rights and accounts, by all standards of judgments, only have done what I was about to do to her now long ago.
Why then…did the very notion fill me with such violent sickness? Why did the thought of what awaited me on that ship…what awaited her at my own hand on that ship…fill me with such self-loathing? Such self-disgust?
Grimly, sick to the core of my wretched and confused being, I selected a new uniform, dressing swiftly if mechanically. Noting the shaking of my hands and forcing them to still, to steady. That would betray me as swiftly as anything. Donning my accessories intently, methodically, my weapons harness and gloves. Lastly, my boots. To fetch them from the bathroom, I had occasion to pass by my own reflection in the mirror. I stopped. Starting at what I saw there, and at the circles under my eyes. The bleakness of those eyes. My hair, usually plastered into submission about my skull, spiked in wild tufts every which way. I realized I would have to attend to it, of course.
My hair took slightly longer than I'd have liked, felt I had time for in order to arrange to perfection, but after a tedious battle it capitulated into some semblance of order. I strode purposefully back out into my office area, clean and cloaked in an appearance of refreshed alertness. In reality, the alcohol lingered in my system, causing my muscles to react to my brain's commands just a fraction too slowly.
No one shall notice, I decided. A final appraisal, passing the mirror on my way out of the bedroom area left me satisfied enough to do what I had to do next.
Taking a seat at my desk, I scoured the database, looking at the list I'd comprised. Not everyone on the ship could know, could be involved in this little conspiracy. I eliminated all individuals who had had extensive contact with Prax before he died, as well as those that normally worked shifts with Brex of Jahal, when one of them was on duty with me and the other was working normal shift at his regular post. I choose two names at random. Kurros and Frenz. They were low men on the ranks list, men I'd all but ignored until this moment. They would be puzzling choices to Brex and Jahal, but they would at least be relatively sure to still follow my orders, my commands, no matter how odd they might seem.
And they were going to seem odd, to all four officers, I already knew. But I am an eccentric man, to any who know me. Hell, to my own standards. Eccentric is more the expected of me than it is not.
Frenz and Kurros came obediently when summoned. I'd awaked both, and both certainly looked it. Kurros in particular was having difficulty stifling his periodic yawns, but I ignored it. I studied their eyes closely the moment they appeared. They were frightened, afraid that they'd been summoned for chastisement over some minor infraction or another. But both of them were absent of the kind of traitorous, too-knowing glints of wariness that I would be expecting of the other two.
What was more, they didn't question me. My explanation that I had chosen them specifically this evening to glean personal experience under my direct advisement had to have seemed cryptic at best, but neither moved to question my intentions, my destination, or my motives.
These two were still loyal. Probably because they were too stupid to be trusted with anything important or covert, but that couldn't be helped at the moment.
"Inspector? I thought you were sleeping…" Jahal was in perfect form, smoothly guileless and…oh indeed but the boy was priceless…concerned as he appeared, breathless, in my doorway. He took in the other two, standing at perfect attention along the left wall, and swallowed thickly. "Is…there…something wrong, Inspector?"
I smiled ingenuously at him, just as Brex appeared, nearly stumbling into Jahal in his haste to rush into the room.
"Not at all, Jahal. It's simply time. Come. Help me make Devoran history," I entreated them in grandiose, unconcerned tenor.
Brex and Jahal exchanged looks with each other. Clearly uneasy.
"Sir?" Brex interjected, seeing no help from the other two, who simply stood, looking stout and stalwart…and confused. "I'm afraid I don't follow…what…what you mean."
"Don't you?" I returned evenly. My smile widened, even as I strode calmly to the vast storage closet of chemicals I was renowned for having acquired. I opened the double doors. "No one here really thought the gaharay captain we're shadowing was going to walk away with those wormhole coordinates, did they?" I watched, out of the corner of my bitterly triumphant eye the way that Jahal and Brex paled noticeably. Clucked my tongue. "Surely everyone in this room knows me…much better…than that."
"I…" Brex stuttered.
He trailed off, at an obvious loss for words, and I kept my smile tight and small. And made a show of calmly selecting from my vast selection. I chose six different assortments, checking their tips and ensuring their security and integrity. The ease of dosage. Trying to account for all possibilities that Kathryn might throw at me, and also at the last minute, eyeing one in particular I'd never had occasion to need to use on myself. And prayed to hell already I wouldn't have occasion to use on myself this evening, but I took it anyway, slipping it into the pocket at my thigh, where it wouldn't be too obtrusive, in case I didn't need it.
I turned, gesturing to the door. "Well?" I asked them all. Staring most pointedly, piercingly at the two soldiers I'd sooner have gutted than stomached the presence of in my personal chambers. "Are the four of you coming, or not?"
Kurros and Frenz moved forward immediately, well used to not having the benefit of me explaining my decisions to them, but Brex and Jahal lingered.
"Sir," Jahal finally entreated, taking a single step forward. "It's the middle of the night."
"As it is on Voyager," I informed him, pointing a gloved index finger at his chest with a chuckle. "And they've had no experience with our cloaking technology. They only know to look for refractive shielding, and they have no idea we've circled back to shadow them. She won't be expecting me to appear out of nowhere, and especially not in the middle of the night – are you following this now, or do I need to lay it out for you more plainly?"
They were used to my sarcasm, my caustic demoralizations, fortunately. The fact that this one was genuine and more bitter than most hopefully slipped by, unnoticed.
"I…" Jahal swallowed hastily. Still pale. "Of course not, Inspector. It's…brilliant. I just…didn't expect…now."
"So?" I pressed. Losing my patience more and more with each passing fraction that was slipping away under his hedging.
"I…does no one else know what you're planning?"
"I'm unaccustomed to clearing my every move with my own staff, officer," I growled, the warning rumble of it advising him of the dangerous waters he was now treading. "Are you suggesting that I should have to?"
"Of course not, Inspector," Brex finally stepped in for him, drawing my attention to him. "It's only…you must allow us to at least inform Manna. As head of Integrity, he needs to know that we're boarding the enemy vessel." His voice was soothing, calm and gentle. He was clearly trying his best to reason with me. And practically soiling his uniform pants with fear at the position I'd placed him in now. There was no way for him to properly tip off Juryk, or anyone else. Unless he wanted to unveil his deceit to me, now, and risk me or the other two killing him, he had no choice but to play along. And to accompany me to Voyager.
I considered his request. Knowing that, by making it, he hoped Manna would inform Juryk, and in some ideal world Juryk would come rushing to his rescue before I could discover his deception…or it looked like he was in on mine. On my side, aiding me.
But that nebula was three intervals away. I would order Voyager brought to a halt, and that would give me three intervals before anyone from Juryk's ship could reach me. Three intervals time was more than enough to accomplish my necessary, crucial goal.
The others aboard ship would be too afraid to follow me to Voyager, to try and stop me by themselves. They were primarily cowards. All of them.
I nodded. It was protocol to inform Manna, and not one I'd ever felt the need to deviate from before. "All right. But hail him on our way. We're leaving immediately."
I gestured them down the hall in front of me. The doors hissed shut behind me as I propelled my stiff body forward into the corridor, my legs fortunately needing no instruction from me, on this, what felt like my own death march I was setting now. They traced their route by habit to the end of the corridor and to the right, toward the correct station...
As Inspector, I have the best chambers onboard. It's merely three corridors from the command room and only two and a half turns to J-9. Same deck, all. So it comes to pass that only a moment after our departure, we're almost at the transporter room, Brex making his ridiculous hail to Manna, who pretended to be awoken from sleep and bewildered to be called at this hour of the night. I ignored their acting, pretended to be unaffected by it, or their strange behavior.
I began to input the proper sequence that would deposit us into Kathryn's living room, aboard Voyager. Having to compensate for their shielding matrix, which I'd gained access to easily enough from their database. It had been hidden, very well, in fact, but there. And I'd learned those specifications some time ago. It took several longer fractions for the algorithm I added to our scans to land on the correct deviation of frequency she was using now, but, after a moment, it did, and I would be able to beam us through Voyager's relatively unimpressive shields.
I was not entirely surprised to hear the viewscreen to the communications console switch on behind me as I entered the final sequence, hardly even tensed by much to hear the reedy growl coming from behind me.
"Kashyk."
I feigned surprise. "Juryk," I acknowledged pleasantly, my stomach sinking. So he knew. Manna must have run to contact him, that son of a gaharay rodent…
I smiled tightly. "May I ask what the devil you're doing on my view screen, breaking into my ship's official channels?" I drawled calmly.
"What the hells do you think you're doing, Kashyk?" he demanded in an incensed hiss. And he looked…just this side of upset, I decided, affording him a bare glance. Well good. At least I would have that, then, when this was over. Even if he won, I would now have at least that one instant of unnerving him.
I looked to Brex and Jahal and raised my eye-ridges. They failed to respond with even a flicker of emotion, their faces frozen masks as they stared straight ahead. Cowards. But it was also vaguely rewarding to watch them squirm, so uncomfortably caught between how to play this little scene out now.
Someone shoved Juryk aside from the view screen, bearing down into the frame as he leaned over, pressing his face close to the imager, and I did blink to lay eyes upon none other than Commodore Rennick himself.
"Commodore," I acknowledged pleasantly, recovering. Swallowing subtly to moisten my suddenly dry throat. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"You already know the answer to that, Kashyk," he barked grimly. Rennick, the dirty old cudgel, always barked. It was the only volume he had, by all accounts. "Clearly, you know."
I shook my head, as if disinterested. Checking over my weapons, rechecking my drugs. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Commodore. But, I have to ask your forgiveness, for as you can see," I gestured around at the transporter room we stood in, "we're just on our way out."
"Don't do this, Son," he ordered. Almost paternal in his command. It was not unusual. He had a particular fondness for me.
Or did, before today.
"I demand that you return to your chambers, now, and wait for our ships to rendezvous with you. You need help, Kashyk."
Again, I raised my ridges. Appearing shocked. Or so I hoped.
But a good lie is always best executed when some part of yourself believes it. I threw myself into the performance. Making myself believe my own innocence.
"Ships?" I repeated. "Help? Whatever for, Commodore? Are you sending reinforcements? Thank you. I don't think they'll be necessary, but I do appreciate the thought. And I'm glad to see you, by the way. I believe you'll be…very interested…in what I will have for you shortly." I glanced over at the console as if something had alerted me to. Shrugged apologetically. "See you soon, Commodore."
I leaned over and cut the transmission, right in the middle of his opening mouth and reddening face. Turned back to regard the four officers standing on the transporter platform, waiting. The now four very green-looking officers, and I sighed.
"As you can see, I'm sure they're a little confused about what's been happening all this time with regard to Voyager. But if the four of you have learned anything from serving under me, it should be that stellar results can only come from playing the most sensitive information close to the chest. We're going to beam over to that vessel now, and I am going to have a little…chat," I smiled widely, the way that I'd been used to doing with ease, "with Captain Janeway. When I'm finished, I will be in possession of the formula that will enable us to locate the Brenari wormhole at each of the next locations it opens to. Once I have that, I will be the single most important man…well…in the entire Devore Imperium. My career will be made, and no one will care how I eventually arrived at that information."
I could see their eyes were still wary, but I had swayed at least Frenz and Kurros. I turned my piercing stare to Brex and Jahal primarily. "When that happens, I assume the four of you will want me to remember you as the men who made that extraction possible? No?"
I'd framed it in a way that they could not refuse.
Jahal swallowed. Still looking green. And so did Brex. But Kurros and Frenz looked convinced. Even…eager, and I knew then why.
For of course they were now expecting one of my infamous shows. Why wouldn't they be? I had yet to disappoint in that regard. I began to second guess consuming that third tumbler of liquor several hours beforehand. Because I was feeling decidedly ill and shaky.
"Let's go, then," Kurros exclaimed, his excitement building. "What are we waiting for?"
"What, indeed?" I murmured. I smiled frostily. What I hoped looked expansively. Input the activation sequence, with a five fraction time lag. Stepped up to the platform. Turned to face the controls. And closed my eyes as I felt the dematerialization begin to take place.
And told myself, again, that I had no choice. That I had no choice but to completely destroy her now.
It was our only hope.