Chapter 15: Empty Layers

It took Malek a few days to realize he got fired. He just thought he was reassigned to the ISS Discovery project like he'd wanted. Then he noticed that his admiral's access and privileges were revoked and he was listed as "Ambassador Malek" on the roster. He felt guilty that he hadn't checked earlier and kept wearing an admiral's badge. He didn't feel too guilty about getting fired because the war was turning him into a nervous wreck.

Psychological issues aside, probably the main reason he got fired was the cat (or whatever the creature was). He insisted on taking Ragsy to in-person meetings with the admirals and she often escaped his lap and caused chaos. She spilled coffee on Cornwell more than once and most recently, she latched onto Duffield's face and ripped off his prosthetic ear. Instead of having an honest conversation with Malek, the admirals fired him without actually telling him.

T'Lara called Malek several times. He stared at Ragsy licking her tail and didn't answer.

He had good reason to be nervous. The Klingons were intent on killing/catching and torturing the admirals. Nowhere felt safe. Admiral Terral was killed shortly after this Hurgh'hov presence appeared, though they weren't the ones who did it. Malek tried to do his job logically and not worry about something that hadn't happened yet but he was overcome by nerves and the only thing that helped was the cat. He was reconciled with the possibility of death, like any Vulcan in a similar situation, but he couldn't stop feeling like prey and felt better by touching the cat, who did not worry about the future.

I should probably be on Starbase 5 with Gabriel, he thought.

So, the ol' ISS Discovery! It was a shitshow. Captain Tilly did the bare minimum to keep her crew in line. They smashed things and fought each other. All of them had bio-tracers so the Federation grabbed them and patched them up whenever the games got too rough, but occasionally the damage was too severe. The Terrans didn't bother to have funerals for their fallen comrades.

Malek came up with a lesson plan. He thought history would be the greatest teacher. If the Terrans could see how this universe's violent, proud, illogical humans rose above their base natures to create the Federation, perhaps they would be inspired. Malek thought he'd get through to the Middle Ages on the first day but he didn't get a word in edgewise. The Terrans, assembled in an auditorium, called him rude words, hit each other, and didn't listen. If Malek hadn't heeded the Starfleet officers and protected himself with a containment field, the Terrans would have found some way to hurt him.

He tried simpler things, like children's stories about friendship. The Terrans pelted his containment field with rotten apples. They replicated apples and let them rot in a box just to throw at him. Malek tried to calm them down with classical music. This really didn't go down well. He tried appealing to their instincts and showed documentaries about bloody wars. This pleased them a little. Still, they were bored and demanded to be sent home or allowed to fight Klingons.

Malek also met with Tilly every few days, or, as she was called sometimes, Killvia. They met in her living room. Malek had a communicator on standby to beam him out if she got violent, but she wasn't stupid. She knew he was her only chance to get out of this boring situation. But he didn't trust her and always beamed over with a portable containment field around him, and a chair.

"Tell me a little about yourself, Tilly," he said early on.

Tilly smiled creepily and played with her curly hair, which she couldn't be bothered to straighten for some Vulcan.

"Like what?" She asked.

"Where were you born? Let's start there."

"I was born in Maine. My parents worked in a factory. I took a test when I was five years old and the Academy put me in a boarding school."

"That sounds nice," said Malek, and immediately thought, Mother would be so disappointed if she heard me using human platitudes!

"Yeah, well, I never saw my parents again and heard that they died from radiation exposure at the factory. Not that I cared but I guess for your universe, that's not very nice."

"Um…so you didn't care?"

"I don't care about anything."

"Very well…we'll come back to this point later. What was this test you took?"

Tilly explained that the Academy administered tests to all children from the working class starting from five years old. If children passed the test, and they had several tries until they were adults, they were taken to boarding school to become officers in the Imperial Fleet. The tests were ridiculously hard so few children were accepted. These children never saw their parents again. The Fleet needed children from the working class because so few of its members procreated. They screwed around, as we well know, but they didn't have kids.

"So what happened later?" Asked Malek.

Tilly told him about the strict regime at the Academy. It was still a weeding out process so there wasn't quite as much fun as in the Fleet. Rules and regulations smothered people and led to expulsions if they were broken. The workload was brutal. Everybody strove toward the light at the end of the tunnel, admittance into the Fleet. If you studied too hard, though, and didn't look where you were going, somebody just might slit your throat to take your place.

Tilly said all this with her trademark little smile. She continued her life story without Malek prompting her, tallying up all the bodies she left in her wake. Finally she spoke of how she joined the Fleet. Of course, it was dog-eat-dog like the Academy, but there weren't any more exams. Tilly started her Fleet career as an ensign on the ISS Buran, under Captain Lorca.

She stopped there for the day and said she had to make some rounds. The replicators were down in some areas and people needed to be yelled at to fix them. Malek offered his assistance but she said she'd seen enough of his pointy ears for one day.

She continued the story next week. Tilly wanted to go high in her world. Lorca promoted her after only a few months and soon promoted her again. She was his best engineer and fearsome in battle against the rebels. But then, after another promotion to commander, she asked to be transferred off his ship. A row ensued but Tilly won and transferred to Discovery, where she quickly dispatched with the captain and took his place.

"Interesting," said Malek. "It almost makes me wonder if you transferred off the Buran to spare Lorca, whom you would have had to kill to become captain."

"That's what he thought too," said Tilly. "He accused me of giving in to affection instead of pursuing power."

"And what did you say?"

"It's good to suck up to people. I said I just thought Captain Reynolds would be far easier to off than Lorca. And he was."

"But do you think you could have 'offed,' as you put it, Lorca?"

"Perhaps. I was already learning his weaknesses. They all had weakness, those three. Burnham, Georgiou, and Lorca. Three idiots. But at least Lorca never pretended it's all any more than a stupid game."

"Hmm…so you didn't feel any affection for him?"

"Ugh, no! You're all so obsessed with feelings in this universe, even you Vulcans. See, we Terrans don't have to suppress any sentimentality because we don't have it in the first place. No, I let Lorca live because he was more fun than the others. I knew for years that he planned to kill Georgiou. He knew I knew and we laughed about it sometimes."

"He knew you knew and it didn't worry him that you might tell the Emperor?"

"That was against the rules we made up. It was supposed to go this way: he killed Georgiou, and Burnham if necessary, then I'd kill him."

"You planned to kill him after all, your friend?"

"He was not my friend!" Snapped Tilly. "He was just another player."

"Why exactly do you think life is a big game?"

"It's too absurd to be anything else."

"And who's in charge?" Asked Malek. "Who created the rules? Some deity?"

"You're taking it too literally. There doesn't have to be a deity in charge. There could be nobody in charge. Hence, there are no consequences and everything is either absurdity or a game. You decide. Lorca and I decided to treat it as a game because it's more fun that way."

"I feel like I'm not getting through to you."

"I don't care how you feel."

One day, Malek showed up with Ragsy, thinking a cute animal might soften up the harsh Terran captain. Ragsy didn't like the narrow containment field and fidgeted. He had to take her back after only a few minutes or she would have scratched up his arms. He went back to Tilly and told her about how he got fired, hoping for a smile. Nope, try harder!

"Ew, do you talk to animals or something?" She asked.

"Not exactly talk. I can connect to them in a way."

"I didn't know Vulcans can do that."

"I didn't know either. I think I'm special that way."

He told her how he found out he could communicate with animals. Seven years ago, a Tellarite ambassador showed up at the embassy on Vulcan. The guy refused to get the recommended vaccinations, saying that he survived the Something Something War and no pointy ear flu would bring him down. He was out for two months, diarrhea, vomiting, hallucinations. When one set of symptoms was cured, another began.

Meanwhile, he had a big pig for a traveling companion. Who knows why? He insisted the pig needed to be hand-fed every day, washed, and walked. T'Lara gamely volunteered her son for the job. Malek accepted, thinking this would be like the sheep-pig from the movie "Babe." He once watched that movie with Lorca and it got him really wound up. Twenty minutes into the movie,[1] he started acting high and yelling, "I love that duck! Oh no, the sheep is dead! How can they think Babe did it? How?" Lorca refused to let him see the sequel, or watch any other children's movies with him, for that matter.[2]

The Tellarite's pig was no Babe. It was mean and strong. It snapped at the food, nearly biting off Malek's fingers a few times. It shook when he washed it and stepped on his feet or knocked him over into the bucket of water. Worst of all, it ran off every time he took it for a walk. He got dragged through the woods at the end of its leash several times before he finally got fed up and decided to take drastic measures. A shock collar would do wonders for the pig's character but Vulcans are against violence toward animals, even those that deserve it. After being dragged through a boggy patch and getting beetles in his mouth, Malek wrapped the leash around a tree and advanced on the pig with a crazy look in his eye.

"Pig, you are mine," he said.[3]

He took off the thick gloves he wore to avoid getting his skin peeled off by the leash and grabbed the pig's head. Despite its bold, aggressive manner, the pig's intelligence did not put up a fight. It may not have even realized Malek communicated with it and simply accepted his commands as its own decisions. Malek came back to the embassy with the pig at his heels, victorious. He told his mother about his success.

"Ten-year-old swineherds are capable of managing these animals with sticks," she said, "and you had to resort to an advanced mind meld technique."

Finally, finally, Tilly cracked a grin.

"What happened to the pig in the end?" She asked.

"To be honest, I never followed up on that," said Malek. "The Tellarite was fine and he treated the pig like family, so I guess it lived a good, long life. He actually never told us the pig's name. I didn't want to just copy the movie and call it Babe so I called it something that rhymed, Gabe. I never told Gabriel that I named the pig after him, though."

Tilly suddenly looked pissed off and said she had to go. Malek didn't understand what he did wrong. She refused to see him for some time, claiming that she had to put the ship in order. Malek assumed this involved violence. He met with her bridge crew, who were a bit less rowdy than they used to be. But he couldn't get them to focus on lessons.

"I took enough classes at the Academy," said Rhys. "I just want action!"

Detmer seemed nicer than the others and Malek actually got her interested in superhero movies. The entertainment industry was dominated by propaganda TV in the Terran Empire. Everything had to lead back to the central message of "the Empire is the best." They had something like Star Wars, only it was about an empire crushing a pesky rebellion. Malek figured Lorca would be heartbroken if he knew. Detmer watched several movies on her own time and insisted they were still full of Federation propaganda, only it wasn't so boring and you could almost ignore it. Then she said a surprising thing for a Terran.

"Maybe if you believed it, you wouldn't notice it at all."

Tilly agreed to meet Malek again. She'd cut her hair and he thought she looked cute. He rambled on about the status of the war. Tilly seemed preoccupied and didn't look at him much. Malek tried to gleam what might be bothering her. He remembered the last remark he'd made that seemed to upset her, how he named the pig Gabriel. Suddenly, he had it! So much for Vulcans not understanding human feelings!

"You must be very upset that Captain Lorca died, aren't you?" He asked.

Tilly folded her arms across her chest and said, "Not at all. He meant nothing to me. I'm pissed at the manner in which he died. I thought he was better than that. I kind of looked up to him. But then he died because of some idiotic desire to save his stupid Federation counterpart. I…like, what? How could he do such a thing? What about our agreement? It was supposed to be me against him!"

Before Malek could say anything, she continued, "You know, I once saved his life. From himself. He sometimes got really depressed and moaned about how stuff has no meaning and he can't even be bothered to keep going. That often happened to him if he had only one glass of wine. It's best to give him a second one as soon as possible. We were hanging out, drinking, and I forgot to make him drink more and he got really down and slit his wrists. I was kind of wasted and barely patched him up. The next day I beat the crap out of him. He had no right to do that! We had an agreement!"

"Tilly, you keep saying you don't care about him but that's not what I'm hearing. I think you must have liked him very much. It's OK to feel affection for other people. It's not a weakness to be concerned for their welfare."

"I don't know what I feel!" Cried Tilly. "Please tell me! Can't you do a mind meld on me, like you did with the pig? I don't understand what's going on with me. I feel so alone!"

Malek was deeply touched and quite proud that he got through to her at last. He created a hole in the containment field and took Tilly's unusually sticky hand, expecting to feel her sorrow and confusion.

Instead he felt her triumph.

"You tricked me," he mumbled as he fell into unconsciousness.

He woke up a bit later, feeling cool air on his…naked body? Yep, he was down to his underwear…and handcuffed to Tilly's bed. Oh dear. Before he even started considering the situation, he thought, What if Mother sees me like this?

Tilly stood in the bathroom wearing his uniform and carefully putting on a black wig, hence the short hair. He should have been alerted by that. Next she put on some pointy ear attachments. She had obviously sedated him with something specific to Vulcans that she smeared on her hand. While most weapons had been removed from the ISS Discovery (it was impossible to remove all of them, there were just too many) and their synthesizers formatted not to produce any, nobody thought to close down Tilly's biochemistry lab.

Her goal seemed obvious but Malek didn't understand how…

"Why couldn't you just synthesize a Federation uniform?" He asked.

"I thought stealing yours would be funnier," she said.

Malek watched her touch up her eyebrows and finally asked, "How do you expect to pull this off? I don't really want to point it out but we have very different figures. They won't believe you're me."

"Ha, I knew even a dried-up thing like you couldn't help noticing my figure. But nobody will have time to inspect it."

"Are you going to kill someone?" He demanded.

Tilly didn't answer and attached a voice simulator to her throat. She unbuttoned her (his) uniform and ripped some of the shirt underneath so a part hung down. She picked up a tube of bright red lipstick and drew a line down from her mouth and across her neck. She smudged it up with the back of her hand.

"Now for the hardest part," she said in Malek's voice. "To make myself cry like a little bitch."

She sliced an onion until her eyes got red and tearful.

"I've heard of people being compared to onions," she said. "Having layers and layers of complexity. You saw too many layers in me. I'm really just a jerk."

She pressed a button on Malek's communicator. The transporter room tech on Starbase 46 picked up.

"Please, get me out of here!" Tilly yelled in Malek's voice.

She was beamed away. As Malek later learned, she appeared huddled in the transporter room, crying, "She tried to abuse me!" Without letting the transporter techs approach her, Tilly ran off with her head down and the ripped shirt flapping. The techs exchanged glances, then laughed. Tilly used Malek's badge to get into his room, stole money and the keys to his private shuttle and ran off. She disabled the tracking system on the shuttle and nobody thought to search for her for an hour while Malek tried to escape from the handcuffs.

Detmer showed up before he managed it. She stared at him.

"Um…Tilly went to get some…sexy equipment," he said.

"Yeah…right," said Detmer.

She put a knife to his throat and called the Federation, demanding that her crew be released to help with the war or she'd kill him. Cornwell had half a mind to let this be the end of Ambassador Cat Lover but the admirals promised to find occupation for the Terrans.

T'Lara arrived on Starbase 46 like a vengeful goddess. She had reinstated her status of acting admiral, which she hadn't used since S-VEG got disbanded.[4] She felt the admirals were making mistakes left and right. They had no Vulcan on the team anymore. How could they hope to make logical decisions? It was about time she took this war into her own hands. Of course she stopped by to deliver Malek a lecture.

"I have never seen you in Federation uniform, Mother," he said.

"Do not change the subject," she said. "Your behavior has put our family to shame. Never, and I mean never, has any Vulcan been fired from the admiralty. Never has any Vulcan made such a heap of blunders while managing an ambassadorial mission. I am severely disappointed. I did not expect quite such poor performance. And what is this about your attachment to an animal?"

Malek called Ragsy from under the bed and showed her to T'Lara. His mother refused to pet the cat.

"Do you have anything to say that could redeem you in my eyes?" She asked.

"Probably not," he said.

"How did you let that red-haired Circe ensnare you?"

"Circe? She did not turn me into a pig, Mother."

"Oh, she may as well have. In fact, I think a pig would have shown more intelligence in this situation."

"Hyperbole of that sort is beneath you, Mother," said Malek a little wickedly. T'Lara glared at him and again demanded to know how Tilly beat him.

"I thought she was undergoing an emotional upwelling," he said. "She asked me to help her understand her feelings. Despite what was on the surface, I do still believe she felt real grief at the loss of her friend."

"How human of you! I do not understand this need to dig out whatever tiny morsel of good might be found in an otherwise wretched person. The effort will exhaust you and the results are meager and useless."

"Well, I would rather believe that these meager results lead to good intentions that somehow end up saving us."

"Good lord! You just made me use a hackneyed expression of surprise."

Malek just patted the cat.

"You need to figure out your place," said T'Lara. "Are you Vulcan or are you human?"

"You'll be terribly disappointed if I choose the latter, won't you?"

"What does it matter what I think?"

"Because you are my mother, and I love you."

T'Lara's eyebrow twitched and she didn't say anything for a long time. Finally she touched his shoulder very lightly and said, "That'll do, son." Then she left.

All things considered, Malek figured it wasn't a bad ending to a meeting with his mother. "That'll do," was what Farmer Hogget said to Babe at the end of the movie, and Malek thought the farmer and his sheep-pig had a very good relationship.

T'Lara terrorized the admirals for weeks, citing their inefficiency about everything. She dashed about all over the galaxy, hardly resting, chiding everyone in her path. She had about fifteen close calls with Klingon vessels but luck was on her side for the time being.

One day, however, T'Lara was in the bathroom while her yeoman, a silly Vulcan girl barely clever enough to write up a decent artificial intelligence program (in T'Lara's opinion), brought some refreshments. T'Lara came out and picked up her usual evening glass of green tea. After the first few sips, she felt woozy and knew she'd been poisoned. Her yeoman stepped out from the antechamber.

"You are the worst thing to happen to Vulcan since our ancestors foolishly contacted humans," said the yeoman, establishing herself as a logic extremist.

T'Lara was a tough old bird and played dead, hoping the yeoman would leave and let her reach the medicine cabinet, but the logic extremist expected this. She stabbed T'Lara for good measure. As she died, T'Lara thought, logically or not, that after all these years, she finally understood what her father had been writing in the air.

Footnotes

[1] Spoiler alert, though this movie is, like, 30 years old.

[2] Good decision, "Pig in the City" is really weird.

[3] A statement that Lorca's father probably made in a different context.

[4] An admiral who left voluntarily in good standing could come back without warning or asking anybody's permission. T'Lara spent the last few years in the Environmental Protection Bureau on Vulcan, making sure monsters like the one that almost ate Burnham when she ran away as a kid had enough land to procreate.