Title: Sealaionn 2: Temted by the Devil
Author:TrekPhile47
Summary: The sordid saga continues; B'Elanna Torres and Seven of Nine are put to rest and everyone has to move on. An old haunt makes an offer B'Elanna can't refuse and she becomes a murderer.
Tom grieves for his beloved, Janeway grieves for her lost crewmen. Tamrak is evil in his ways. B'Elanna is forced to do something that she has never done of before. B'Elanna betrays her Captain and her lover.
Rated: R, for the "F" word, angst and serious slashiness. Oh, and there's gore in this one.
Warnings: If you are adverse to female/female stuff, I advise you to run away. Adversity to violence is also a good reason to run away as well.
Disclaimer: Hail Gene Roddenberry! I profusely thank Mr. Braga for the borrowing of his characters. I promise I'll play with them gently (sort of).
Spoilers: Same as in Sealaionn 1 and Pathways.
Keywords: B'Elanna, Voyager
Classification: Angst, Slash, Violence
Archive: Please e-mail me first to get my permission (it's not that hard to get) TrekPhile47@hotmail.com.
Notes: The poem by the Unknown Poet is one of my absolute favorites, it's a comfort when a loved one dies. If you wish to have the entire thing, I'll send you a copy via email. All other poetry is by e. e. cummings. If you are adverse to slash, I am really sorry, but I kind of thought it would be interesting to make the readers think of B'Elanna as unsure sexually, and I want to make you think of how it will affect the P/T relationship. Sorry if you think of me as the anti-Christ of P/T-dom. My bad.
***
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep.
...
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die."
Poet Unknown
*
If a starship had natural night and day, and if it had rainstorms and sunshine, then this day would be dark and rainy. But on Voyager, all there is to betray night and day is the level of the lights, and the only weather is on the holodecks.
But on the bridge, the mood was dark, and the faces were wet not with rain, but tears that refused to go away. And perhaps, that could have been substituted for the weather.
Gathered on Deck One, the Bridge, were all the remaining senior officers, and the officers who had posts taken there at the appointed time of day. Each officer was dressed in the best: the Starfleet dress uniform, each replicator-starched into crisp perfection and unfeeling. There wasn't a single officer who felt the same way the uniforms reflected.
Tom Paris bit fiercely down on his lip until his blood spilled into his mouth. It didn't matter to him how much physical pain he was in, he needed to get rid of the emotional pain. His body was rigid as a latinum bar, but inside, he was blowing around like a feather in a gale. He had tears in his eyes that stung angrily, but he refused to let them fall.
"All hands, this is the Captain," Kathryn Janeway said over the comm system. Static erupted on the bridge, but everyone was silent. Janeway's voice cracked as she continued. "This is our final farewell to two of our best: Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, and Seven of Nine---Annika Hansen."
A single tear slipped down Tom's cheek, burning a path for the rest to follow. He didn't move, afraid he'd crumple and break out in sobs. Instead, he locked his knees and focused ahead of him.
The caskets were empty, there were no bodies for them; but it was fitting tribute to set them adrift in space, in a way to metaphorically let the bodies leave and to attain a final peace. Tom couldn't bear to bring himself to touch the metal, to touch the plaque with his beloved's name pressed into it. It was too final for him: too harsh and real.
"Tom," Janeway asked quietly, "is there anything you'd like to say?"
There was so much that he wanted to say, but then, so much holding him back. He cleared the tears from his throat and spoke, "I just want to...thank B'Elanna for living, and thank her for loving. She changed me in ways I can't begin to describe. I feel...I...will miss her so much. B'Elanna, wherever you are, please, know that I love you and be at peace."
Janeway nodded and held his shoulder, staring up at him with pained eyes. Tom couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze: he wanted this finality to be her fault.
But it wasn't his captain's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. There was no evidence to collect, there were no traces of either crewmember. They couldn't spend the rest of their lives searching for phantoms when the rest of them had lives to live. Tom was resentful at first of the Captain's decision; but while he was alone and thought things through, he begrudgingly admitted that it was the right thing to do.
It still hurt.
Janeway turned from him in understanding. Harry met her gaze, and through his own pain announced, "Attention all hands."
Janeway paused for a moment, "'May the roads rise up to meet you, may the winds always be at your back, and may the sun shine warm upon your face.' Goodbye, Seven; goodbye, B'Elanna." She took another deep breath, "Torpedo bay one and two, on my mark. ...Release caskets."
Everyone on the bridge held a unison breath in waiting as the black caskets appeared side by side in space. Tom wanted to reach out his hand to be able to touch the last of his love before she had gone entirely.
The caskets disappeared in the dark of space.
Gone forever.
"All hands, at ease," Janeway said in between her tears. "Mr. Paris: lay in a course for home...Warp 9."
You failed Janeway! I have won! I have won!
***
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is quite a new thing.
Muslces better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
*
Two weeks.
It had been two weeks since the first time B'Elanna had ever seen Tamrak, and it was two weeks too many. Her whole body ached as she lay on the floor of what became her new quarters.
She had figured that she was in a large testing facility on the edge of a small moon orbiting a planet. It must have extended for a good four square kilometers in every direction; she had seen the maps that lined the walls. Though she couldn't read the language it was written in entirely, she was beginning to catch on and could read words like "fire" and "escape" and "prisoners." She slaved over learning them at night, and Tamrak left residual information in her brain as he raped it, and he had helped her to learn that way (even if it went unthanked) while she was alone.
She had seen some of the other prisoners, too. They looked just as emaciated as she figured she did. All of their eyes had dulled of life, and B'Elanna feared that was the way she was going to look in only a few more weeks of the mental rape.
She had seen the other prisoners as Tamrak and the others made cell exchanges to suit whatever needs they had for the next day. They looked as if they had seen months and even years of the same treatment that B'Elanna was going through. Their limbs were nothing more than hopeful toothpicks, and their legs were barely muscled, even from the drudging walks that they had been put through. Their eves were about as bright as a starless system; and they were about as strong as Neelix's cooked hair-pasta.
She had spoken to one of them, if only briefly, it was enough to pull her away from the cliff.
"How long have you been here," she asked.
"For many, many cycles," the old woman replied. "I was taken here when I was a teenager; a POW."
"But, you're so...old," B'Elanna noted, not trying to sound insubordinate of her old-wisdom.
"Not so," the old woman replied back, "in a few years of this, dear heart, you will look just like me. ...Such a pity, you are so beautiful and you look so strong."
B'Elanna was struck dumb.
"Escape," the old woman lit the candle. "Get out of here and tell everyone what is going on."
B'Elanna was yanked in one direction and the woman was yanked in the other, and they had been separated forever. B'Elanna didn't even know the woman's name.
She thought it strange that she hadn't seen the Caretaker's Assistant.
She was doomed to stay with Tamrak and the Caretaker's Assistant forever; or so it seemed. She hadn't seen the light of day in two weeks and it was a stretch to say that she had eaten four full meals within those fourteen days. Her stomach crawled again for the millionth time like a wormhole opened in her stomach and she debated whether or not the dirt on the floor was edible. She actually opened her mouth to stick her tongue to the ground before she realized what she was doing. She sat up and stared out the window that had a fake scene of the outdoors on it. Tamrak's people seemed to have no desires to keep their patients happy.
She hadn't heard any news of Seven of Nine in all the days that she had been there. No one spoke of her in front of B'Elanna, and there were no traces of her wherever she had been taken for the different mental tests. But, even looking for information on Seven was nearly impossible; she had no idea where to begin searching.
She missed Tom. Every night that Tamrak and his assistants left her alone to sleep, she dreamt of him. Sometimes the dreams were good, but mostly they were bad; he died, rose, tortured himself and died again. She watched herself in the mirror of her dreams, but instead of her ridges, she saw cerulean blue and a quirked smile. Every morning that she showed up in the exam room, Tamrak asked her about her apparitions. She figured that he had read them and perhaps even controlled them. Damn the bastard.
Just thinking of Tamrak made nausea hit her like a level-10 force field.
Her mind was as runny as warm pudding, she couldn't even be sure if she was thinking for herself anymore. Everything had been opened and pored through so many times, B'Elanna wondered how she'd ever forgotten the memories were even in there.
Tamrak seemed utterly dissatisfied with his ravishment of what was hers. He left her and the exam room not seemingly frustrated, but she could feel the static he emitted when he raged against her subconsciously. They frustration in his brain woke her up as if someone had dumped antimatter on her.
B'Elanna made damn sure that she knew that he was getting nowhere with her; making the Array appear farther away every time he looked over his shoulder from his work on B'Elanna to see if it was there. And with his frustrations, B'Elanna realized that Tamrak was a control-freak: when he spoke to his subordinates, he shouted and yelled and intimidated; he enjoyed making them scatter to please him.
She wouldn't let him push her around like he did the others.
Of course, he was the one who had the upper hand, but B'Elanna made it as difficult as she could for him. He wouldn't kill her like he had threatened: if she died, so did his hopes for ever getting technology for the Array. He did make it as painful for her as possible, but she had taught herself how to deftly ignore it.
That only infuriated Tamrak more; he made sure that her after-hours were as miserable as her on-hours. Her food rations were drastically cut (as if she had any to begin with) and her mind was run too ragged for her to sleep decently. Hence, the onslaught of nightmares.
Tonight seemed no different. She was just settling down for a night of exhausting sleep when the door swung open and light flooded into her room.
"What have I done now," the words were meant harshly, but she was too exhausted.
"You are wanted," the woman said to her.
"By Tamrak?"
"No, Caretaker's Assistant."
B'Elanna pulled herself to her feet and slunk to the door, then stopped as the horrible dizziness tried to pull her back to the door, "I need water."
"I'm sure that the Caretaker's Assistant will provide you with something," she lied. "Come along; she wishes to speak to you now."
B'Elanna hurried as best she could, but her bare feet could barely hold the floor (and that was with gravity).
She was taken down a path she had never been before. She tried to memorize the way (for what reason, she was unsure of), but the twists and the turns confused her and she realized that retaining the way was impractical.
B'Elanna hadn't even realized she was poorly dressed for the occasion until she looked at herself. She was still wearing the flimsy gown that she had been wearing for the past two days, the gown that was cheap and practical and didn't do anything for the prisoners' figure or happiness. She crossed her arms over herself, as if she could hide herself from the Caretaker's Assistant's brooding and discerning eyes.
Caretaker's Assistant was sitting primly in a chair and staring at her. She had changed her appearance foe their meeting, or since her partner had died. She had a light, pale face with a high nosebone that looked like she was wrinkling her forehead; and her white hair was piled on top of her head into multiple rolls. Her sharp violet eyes pierced holes right through B'Elanna's brain, making it nearly impossible not to get sucked in.
"So, you're the one that I received," she said simply, yet haughtily. "I had hoped for Chakotay."
"I appreciate the compliment," B'Elanna shot snidely, thanking herself for always holding that closer than silence.
"You have a right to be angry," she replied, "I heard this morning of what Tamrak was doing to you."
"And yet, you didn't stop him?"
"Of course not," she shrugged. "Thank whatever god you have, B'Elanna Torres; Tamrak has killed others because they didn't expose themselves to him."
"Then you are as bad as he," B'Elanna shot back with hotness that wasn't her own.
"Don't liken me to him," Caretaker's Assistant shot back to her as any self-indulged princess would; she scrunched her nose farther and B'Elanna was sure that she was going to throw a princess-sized temper tantrum.
"What do you want with me?"
"Simply information."
"All this grief for information?"
"If it is what Tamrak wishes to please himself with, then he is free to do so." Caretaker's Assistant shrugged the annoyance away as if it were an unclean robe.
"So everything that he has put me through for the past two weeks was nothing," B'Elanna shrieked.
"He will never get the secret of the Array," she replied smoothly, unrepentant.
The nails of B'Elanna's fingers broke the skin easily and the hot redness dripped into her palms making them slick and greasy. She swallowed her absolute rage as best as she could, "How do I address you?"
"Much better," Caretaker's Assistant smiled wryly. "I go by the name Kulkinara-Amet. Or simply, Kul."
"Kul," B'Elanna began sweetly, "where is Seven of Nine?"
"Seven whats?"
"The Borg that came with me," B'Elanna swallowed annoyance of her own, but it was hardly nourishing. "I haven't seen or heard from her in two weeks and I am worried."
Kulkinara-Amet tilted her head as she pondered through her brain, wondering whether or not it was worth telling her prisoner, "She is in stasis in one of the labs."
"What is going to happen to her?"
"Do you know what people will pay to see a Borg that cannot assimilate them?"
"You're sick!" B'Elanna raged at her.
"It was not my idea," Kul replied with the simplicity that was aggravating far beyond any itch that couldn't be reached. "I only support it because I have no use for her, in essence."
"What of me? Am I to be a guinea pig for some other experiments?"
"I need you, B'Elanna."
Simple annoyance. Simple enough to take her bare hands and break Kul's trachea.
"I'll always hate Voyager, I'll always hate Janeway."
Thank you for the shrouded ambiguity and the sharp bluntness. B'Elanna didn't understand Kul's flight pattern. Even Tom wouldn't have understood the way she was piloting the conversation.
"She killed my partner."
"He was dying!"
"She shouldn't have meddled in what she didn't understand. She killed him and all of our hopes," Kul screamed at her, standing up in her chair and shaking harder than a leaf caught in a storm.
So; Kul and the Caretaker were lovers; not business partners. Kul figured she would avenge her lost love through placing the blame on Voyager. "You loved him?"
"You're damn right I loved him," Kul spat. "I still love him; I will always love him and Janeway took that away from us."
"She saved a race of millions," B'Elanna urged.
"And killed the only dream that I ever had," Kul sobbed. She placed her face in her hands and wept freely now that the scar had been ripped open to bleed again.
B'Elanna could understand her pain, but not her reasoning. "Make another Array."
"I can't," Kul admitted. "Caretaker knew the key to it, he was the one who had the power, not I."
"Did he keep it from you on purpose?"
"He meant to tell me everything as he saw fit; before, I just lay there and looked pretty, but I wanted power from him," Kul said.
"We're you going to usurp him," B'Elanna shot the phaser without heed. "Give him a goodbye fuck and then walk away?"
Kul was on her in seconds, the slap on B'Elanna's face was so sharp and stinging that it felt like the skin was peeling off her face. B'Elanna reached out with her bloody hands to protect herself, but Kul had already pinned her to the ground, kneeling on B'Elanna's back with her hands pinned behind her. Kul's breath was hot and moist against her ear as it dripped poison as the Claudius killed the King in the garden as he slept.
"I don't play your petty Klingon games, half-breed," she hissed and B'Elanna gave a shout and tried to struggle under the crushing weight. "I wanted power to show Caretaker what it was. I loved him, but he was weak and in the end, he couldn't even piss without asking someone for advice about it. Do you know what it's like to watch everything you have drain away with the curse of old age?"
The blood was clogging B'Elanna's ears and she couldn't move; her arms were getting numb from where Kul was kneeling on them. If she had wasted the breath to answer, it wouldn't have come out right, anyway.
"Where is Janeway?"
"How the hell should I know," B'Elanna hissed, "I've been gone for two damned weeks."
Kul seized B'Elanna's face in her face in her hands despite the fact that she wasn't facing upwards, and B'Elanna waited for the ground to crash into her nose. "I can't create another Array, B'Elanna. I will make Janeway pay for that, and you're going to help me."
"I won't!"
"If you don't help me, B'Elanna, I will make your life miserable," Kul affirmed.
"Too late, Tamrak's already ridden me to Hell and back," B'Elanna spoiled the fun.
"I'll set you loose in space in a tiny little shuttle with about a week's worth of water and a crappy-assed comm system. You'll never find Voyager or any other ship that will want you," she promised. "And I'll will laugh until my lungs collapse."
B'Elanna grunted as Kul's sharp knees dug into her back, "And if I comply?"
"That's what I like to hear," Kul's smile could be felt. "You get to live: in pain and alone, but you'll live."
"What an incentive."
"It's all up to you, B'Elanna. So far you have chosen the difficult path; I don't like to see that. But, if you choose to be as rebellious as Tamrak has said, then I will ride you like a lame horse."
"And you believe Tamrak," B'Elanna wheezed.
"You will tell me everything about Voyager: I want to know it down to the bolts. I want to know how each crewmember ticks so that I can rip you all apart thread by thread," Kul ordered.
"Get the hell off of me," B'Elanna screamed as she squirmed.
"Tell me now: will you help me or will you make things difficult?"
"Go to Hell!"
The blow to the back of her head was gratefully painless and took her to the black pits of her nightmares where Tom sat and threw rocks at her while he laughed and held Kul's hand.
***
All in green my love went riding
on a great horse of gold
into silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.
*
B'Elanna lay on the ground of the arena, completely motionless and exhausted. He sides heaved and her eyes drooped, and she had a walloping headache.
She had been here before, usually only to watch as the prisoners were rounded up, herded, sorted and exploited. Today, she was the only on there, and the underground water system clanked and creaked beneath the hardpacked dirt. Normally, she was sure that this arena was used as entertainment for anyone of Tamrak's people. She hoped that she wasn't the next subject, or she'd give them a show they wouldn't soon forget.
After her meeting with Kul, she had been put in solitary confinement, forced to live in a space not suitable for a large dog. She was cut off from the sun, from voices, from anything. She had lived like that for three days; total sensory deprivation.
This morning, she was finally taken out; cleaned in the showers, given new clothes and offered food (she didn't eat it, she knocked it out of Tamrak's hand and he only smiled and left).
Now, she wished that she'd eaten the food that Tamrak had offered, no matter how vile and insulting to her position is had been. He still hadn't been told about the Array, but B'Elanna had no urge to release the secret and his wrath onto her.
She lifted her head for a moment when she heard the clicking of heels. The stride was that of a woman with long legs, and the sound of the fabric was definitely one she'd heard before. Her brain still hurt from the last rape, but she could place things that Tamrak had recently rummaged through.
"Seven," B'Elanna croaked, "they let you out of stasis? How?"
The woman looked down on her and narrowed her blue eyes, "Get up, peh'taQ." Her features were harsh and scratched in the ambient light of the arena.
Her usage of Klingon vocabulary struck B'Elanna first at something being odd. "What?" B'Elanna asked; her voice pitifully weak. "What are you talking about?"
"Get up." Seven's voice had a hard edge that not even B'Elanna had ever heard before. There was something fierce and animal-like in it, not prideful as it had been when she was Borg. Something about it was frightening, but also taunting. Seven sounded completely furious, like B'Elanna had just insulted her adjunct.
If this was the way Seven wanted to play... "I will not."
"You will not stand to meet your enemy?"
"You aren't my enemy, Seven," B'Elanna insisted, but it sounded like she herself was unsure. "We're crewmates."
"Honorless peh'taQ," Seven spat again and backhanded her, despite the fact that she had to stoop to do it. B'Elanna reeled and smashed into the ground, feeling the searing force it had created in her wrists. "Come and face me!"
B'Elanna stood and grabbed Seven's wrist. "Don't you see that they are turning us against one another? They can control our thoughts: I won't fight you Seven!"
"You-will-fight-me," Seven replied. The gleam in her eye darkened with a feral quality, and B'Elanna shuddered as she noted the change. How strong would she match against Seven if necessary? They were both weak from their ordeals, but B'Elanna was half-Klingon, and Seven was formerly Borg. It would end up a deadly stalemate.
Seven grabbed B'Elanna by the throat and lifted her from the ground. B'Elanna gasped at the sheer strength and she could feel her breath being taken away as she struggled and flailed with her feet, "Put me down!"
Seven said nothing and began to squeeze; her nails digging into her neck nerves and her jugular vein, making the pain nearly unbearable. B'Elanna kicked and squirmed, trying to knock herself free from Seven's grip without hurting either of them.
"You will die without honor!"
"Let me go," B'Elanna said with more force, but it was choked with lack of oxygenation. She flailed with her hands to reach for Seven, but could not. She could feel the edges of her world haze as she grew faint.
Her fingernail scratched against something in her aimless flailing: Seven's ocular implant. Seven's fingers had just about choked the life out of her; "You fight like a weakened targ, half-breed; you are worth nothing, not even worth killing."
The insult attained the desired affect and it encouraged B'Elanna to fight back. With a sudden uncontrollable howl of rage, B'Elanna pulled as hard as she could against the implant, emitting a cry form Seven. B'Elanna felt the air rushing back into her lungs.
Instead of letting go of the implant, she pulled hard, ripping the metal painfully free of Seven's skin. Seven howled in absolute agony as the flesh and bone were separated, muscle and blood ruptured. Her hand went to cradle the injury and she doubled over to stop the bleeding.
B'Elanna pounced like a coiled animal, her fingernails assailing the Borg's eyes, but instead raking down her throat. Seven returned with her teeth, biting hard into B'Elanna's own cheek and the blood dripped from her face. B'Elanna couldn't stop herself, and for that matter, neither could Seven.
They became a tangle of flesh and fury, inseparable and morbidly involved in their brawl. What once was a beautiful Aryan face was now torn practically to pieces at B'Elanna's own hands. The fingers on her right hand were broken at the joints from where Seven had twisted them back painfully. B'Elanna realized this fight would end in the death of one of them, her fear encouraged her.
Seven's howls became more animalistic as she realized that she was in the severe danger of loosing. Her eyes were muted with blood as her flesh had opened with each blow. Her nose was mangled as B'Elanna brought the base of her palm into it.
Seven grabbed B'Elanna by the neck again and lifted her into the air. The place where the ocular had ripped free was now red with congealed blood and the glass eye that the Doctor had fitted her with was cracked and broken, the bone protruding from the flesh and the blood paining the skin down to her upper lip. Seven didn't seem to notice the fact that her nose was broken. B'Elanna couldn't look away as macabre interest turned full attention.
Seven's left hand stretched out and stopped about a foot from B'Elanna's face. B'Elanna recoiled as best she could, waiting to be punched.
Assimilation tubules sprouted from the hand and wafted towards B'Elanna. She cried out as they drifted and darted beneath her nose like two cobras ready to strike.
"We...are...Borg," Seven said and the tubules shot into B'Elanna's collarbone. It stung in her mind like a thousand angry hornets had descended on her all at once and wouldn't relent.
"Argh! ...You bitch!" B'Elanna howled as she kicked Seven with all her might in the stomach. Seven fell back and they both hit the ground. Seven was stunned in the fall, but B'Elanna was ungratefully coherent.
B'Elanna was overcome with fear as she felt the nanoprobes flowing through her body. She crawled with all her might to Seven and pinned her there with her knees. She straddled Seven as she glared past the white-hot rage accumulating in her body.
Borg.
I am Borg.
We are Borg.
Millions of voices when B'Elanna couldn't even stand her own. She was going to live with billions of other living in her head. She wouldn't have anything for herself anymore. There were no personal accomplishments, no gains. No fears...no hope. She couldn't begin to live a life with that. She'd kill herself and anything standing in her way.
Kill.
...Kill the Borg.
Her hands wrapped around Seven's neck and she began squeezing. They both couldn't live if it meant B'Elanna had to be Borg, Seven would not live to take her to the collective to serve as a Borg.
She wouldn't do it; there was no way. No way in Hell.
Her bloody hands stained Seven's neck as she squeezed. For all intents and purposes, Seven made it more enjoyable as she flailed her head around and kicked her legs. "I'll hate you until I die for this, Seven! You Borg bitch! I will resist!"
The snap of Seven's trachea was like an explosion. Seven's eyes limped back in her head and her body stopped its fruitless struggles. B'Elanna still held to the collapsed trachea, pressing it still as if it would make the nightmare untrue and only a nightmare.
But it wasn't. B'Elanna was still alive and would still be Borg.
Suicide....
Kill the Borg! Kill the Borg!
Destroy!
Seven's blood soaked B'Elanna's hands. She noticed that the implants hadn't sprouted underneath her skin, and the only part that was noticeable was her upper right forearm. The skin was sickly green against her deeply tanned skin. B'Elanna's brain rummaged around, feeling for nanoprobes, wishing to purge. But there was nothing left to purge; the assimilation had stopped.
Her own screams filled the black arena as she had realized what she had done. She was a murderer, cold and heartless. She had killed a member of her crew with her own bare and bloodied hands. The body lay beside her, mangled and defaced. Seven's glass eye was the only one that was still alive, and even that one was dead to begin with.
Seven's Borg-clad hand reached out to B'Elanna.
Come to me.
We are Borg. We are Borg.
You must join us.
Can't you hear them, B'Elanna? They are here for you.
"Noo!" B'Elanna clawed at her skin where the implants were, ripping them free from her body, not feeling the pain as her own muscles were ripped from the bone. She flung the green skin from her; she smeared her blood in the dirt, trying to bury it.
"Look at me," she screamed at Seven. "Look what you did to me!"
Come.
Join your brothers and sisters.
We are Borg.
B'Elanna passed out from pain and blood loss next to Seven's body. The two lay next to each other; one butcher, one butchered. Seven was the butcher, Torres was the butcher. Each had done the cleaving; each had been chopped to pieces.
We are the Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
...You must comply.
Let me go, a tiny voice screamed in the din. The brain that had taken her along for a ride finally released its mental clench.
...You must comply, B'Elanna: if you don't, we will kill you.
***
it's just like a coffin's
inside when you die,
pretentious and
shiny and
not too wide
*
B'Elanna's eyes were red and her stomach hurt from crying so hard. She hadn't remembered being removed from the arena, but she did remember waking up and looking at herself.
There were no implants, there was no Borg nanoprobes floating in her system, there were no cuts or bruises on her skin, and her fingers were unbroken.
But Seven was still dead.
She heard the whispers as people passed by her cell, they talked about the Klingon who'd killed her crewmate with her bare hands---no remorse and no second thoughts. Passers-by looked in to gawk at the man-beast. They were disappointed to see a fetal ball curled up in a corner and weeping.
B'Elanna looked out her fake window for the millionth time and burst into a fresh set of tears. In her hand, she clutched the string that held her gown shut. It flapped open, and the string was clean and white against B'Elanna's soiled hand.
Kul had promised that if B'Elanna didn't comply, she would make B'Elanna's life miserable. She had not made idle on her threats: B'Elanna wanted to die.
She promised herself that she would, she couldn't let this murder go unpunished...even if it was she who was the murderer.
She looped the cord around her neck, and the cotton stuck to the sweat on her skin. Her nervous swallow made the string fall limply to her collarbone. It wouldn't be loose for long.
She wouldn't snap her neck; she would asphyxiate, but that suited B'Elanna fine. As long she didn't have to live with the gaping hole of pain in her body.
The window bars were just high enough so that she could hang from them when she dropped to her knees in final prayer. She made quick work of trying the cotton to the bars, even though her fingers trembled. She thanked the fact that there were no cameras in the room---at least none that she had seen or found when she scoured it.
By the time Tamrak could read her thoughts, it would be too late for him to reach her and for her to still be alive...or useful. She would make it quick; she wouldn't draw it out so that she wouldn't have to suffer any more than she had.
Her tears nearly melted her face off. She swallowed and paused for a second. It was all the time he needed.
"B'Elanna, no!"
"Tom," she choked.
"Don't do this," he begged as he reached his hand to her. His eyes were dark with worry and fear, but he dared not approach her in fear that she would drop to her knees right in front of her.
"I killed her," she sobbed. "In cold blood, I killed her. I can't live."
"You can move on, I'll help you," he urged.
B'Elanna shook her head and lowered herself; Tom backed up the steps that he had crept closer to her. "I can't live with this."
"How do you think I feel," he whispered.
"You're not the one killing yourself."
"Not now I'm not."
"Wh...?"
"Charlie, Bruno and Odile. It was my fault that they died," he confided. "I knew it and I'm sure they knew it; and it hurts like fucking hell to know that that was probably the last thought that they ever had before they died. ...That and 'Oh shit!'"
"I can't," she whimpered and lowered her head and let her tears run off her cheeks.
"Three deaths B'Elanna; you have two more to go. ...And I lived," his voice dropped at the last tone.
"If I don't kill myself, then they will." The rope at her neck was starting to burn her skin; all she wanted to do now was take it off. Damn him, ruining her life again.
"They won't," he promised her. He reached his hand out and stroked her face. His ghostly touch was enough that she could feel it like electricity against her. He held his hand there and gathered her tears, she didn't move. "I love you, B'Elanna, and I miss you. Don't do this; it wasn't how you were meant to die."
"What can I do?"
"The old woman knows," he replied. "Do as she told."
"But how? I have nothing; I cannot escape."
"Go to Kul, she knows." The enigma in his voice coiled around her brain tighter than the makeshift noose; it held her and it refused to let her go.
"But she is my enemy," B'Elanna explained to him. "She wants to kill everyone aboard Voyager."
"Keep your friends close, but your enemy closer," his face turned up into the patented Paris Grin of Flippancy. "You're smart, B'Elanna, you'll figure it out."
"Don't go," she screamed as he began to fade from view.
"I am always with you," he replied. "I am here," he touched the space of her heart that she thought had died, but jumped to life at his touch. It threatened to jump free from her chest as he pressed.
"I love you," she admitted. "And I am so sorry about what happened between us."
"Don't speak," he said and stepped close to her. As she kissed him, her heart felt like it was going to explode. The pain was nearly excruciating, and she tried to scream, but Tom's lips interfered, eating her breath.
The pain had ended as suddenly as it had come. B'Elanna opened her eyes through the ion storm and looked for Tom, but he was gone, and so was the urge to kill herself. She felt his lips burned into hers as her shaky hands removed the noose from her neck.
She threw it out the window, and it burned up in the force field.
"Guard," she screamed out the opening of her cell in a inflection of urgency. Two of them came running to her and paused outside of her door. "I have to see Kulkinara-Amet right now. She will be expecting me."
The guards looked at each other in bewilderment and then back at her. "Back away from the door and put your hands on top of your head. Any sudden movements and we will be forced to use constraint."
"Yeah, yeah, spare me the sermon," she replied quickly. She hadn't felt sarcasm chew at her guts in a long time, and this new pain was welcome. She felt the pangs of being a murderer, but she didn't take them as the punch in the stomach that they had.
They came in slowly, they were wary that she would try to attack them, too. It didn't matter that they had starved her into near-death, they were still as succumbing to hearsay and had probably seen her kill Seven of Nine.
The shackles that they placed on her wrists and ankles bound her back to her situation and the chains made it nearly impossible for her to walk. She trudged slowly down the hall, listening to the catcalls of the other prisoner's ring in her ears like carillons.
"Hey, it's the murderer."
"She's one feisty beast."
"I had three like her back on my planet."
"She killed the other with her bare hands."
"Hey, I wouldn't mind her bare hands, any day."
B'Elanna felt her cheeks redden with anger and embarrassment. She would have frightened them with her face, but it was twisted into neutrality. Instead, "My hands are for another."
The entire cellblock erupted into catcalls and cheers, this time, her face reddened with encouragement.
B'Elanna walked the long walk tow where Kul would be waiting for her; it was a different route than taken before. She had no idea how she would play her cards, but she damn close to a Royal Flush, so she could bluff for a while. The chains were absurd, she was too damned weak to even break out of the cuffs, the chains were overkill. They clanked and sang as she trudged closer to her destiny.
Destiny.
Odd, that she would consider this of all things her destiny. Wasn't Engineering on a ship such as Voyager enough? Obviously not to her brain---destiny was exactly what the body and mind was meant for.
The tingle of impending death shot straight down into her stomach and rollicked her brain. She wouldn't let Kul kill her; she wouldn't let anyone kill her. This was her time, she had been at the bottom of the pecking order long enough.
Her head was bowed like a good little prisoner as she was led into the room where Kul was. She was sitting at a desk that sat in front of a screen that looked like the one in Astrometrics. The memory of Seven knifed through her like an alcohol lance, but she bit it down.
"Leave us," Kulkinara-Amet commanded the guards.
"But she..."
"She's harmless," Kul stormed, "now leave us!"
The guards kissed their own asses goodbye as they backed out the door, not taking their eyes of their python of a master.
"Murderer?"
"I was surprised too," B'Elanna lied with mute compliance that could only have been forced with a hypospray.
"I'm actually not surprised, B'Elanna," Kul confided. "Displaced energy: it happens to the best of us."
Her laughter was in Zen. "You set her on me," B'Elanna deadpanned, not willing to blow her guise this early in the game.
Long pause as Kul stared at her seductively.
"Yes, actually, I did. Not with that desired affect, of course, but stasis does crazy things to people."
"I've come to help you," B'Elanna nearly bit her own tongue off as payment for saying that.
"I knew you'd see it my way," Kul grinned, her million-watt smile lighting the entire room. The smile was as fake as the light. "What was it that pushed you over the edge? Solitary? Killing the Borg?"
"A lover."
"Well, I have heard stranger," Kul shared with B'Elanna. "God, you look awful. Those chains don't suit you at all."
"Remove them, then."
"Why B'Elanna, I barely know you," Kul smiled coyly and walked over to B'Elanna with measure, her robes billowing behind her as a cloud would. Her eyes displayed nothing; she had learned the art of deception well. B'Elanna wondered if that was the same look Kul had used on Caretaker to get all of his secrets.
"You're so beautiful, B'Elanna," Kul said, placing a hand to her face. B'Elanna looked down at Kul with dispassion in her eyes, she wasn't sure what to make of Kul's game. "I'm so glad that you have finally come and seen the truth."
"Truth is only a mask for what is good and bad."
"True, B'Elanna, true. ...I admire your mind, B'Elanna, truly. I have little to work with, besides with and looks," Kul circled B'Elanna and admired the muscle lines on her, despite her emaciation. She placed a finger in a chain link and rattled it in the enjoyment of seeing B'Elanna flinch. "True, I have intellect, but I can't call them into action as well as you can."
Yellow alert.
"A lover, you said," Kul mused as she stood in front of B'Elanna again. Damn it, Kul smelled like Tom, strangely. "What's this lover like."
"Hardheaded, piggish, macho," B'Elanna recalled, making clear to Kul that Tom was her territory.
"A man," Kul's fangs showed through her pearled teeth.
"Yes."
"And as a lover? How would he suit you?"
"He does."
Kul cocked her head and smiled like an imp who knew a secret of giant's proportion. "Males weren't built for intimacy, they are built for their bodies."
"And you are suggesting," B'Elanna replied with the same soft demure that Kul had used.
"A woman, naturally," Kul said, tracing her fingers down B'Elanna's ridges. B'Elanna bit her tongue until it bled. "Have you ever kissed a woman?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"All in good time, you will understand as things are revealed to you. ...Have you ever kissed a woman?"
"No."
"You are missing a lot," Kul's voice became hoarse and throaty. "There are some things a man can never give."
B'Elanna's head bent down and accepted Kul's lips on hers. Kul was very gentle and accepting of the newness of the feeling, she placed a hand to B'Elanna's chest and pressed, making B'Elanna growl with anger and uncontrolled craving. Kul fed on that growl and sucked on B'Elanna's lower lip, forcing the blood to flow as her sharp little teeth bit into B'Elanna.
It wasn't fair; Kul had full motility and B'Elanna was bound against using forceful passion as any good Klingon would. Was Kul one for bondage?
B'Elanna broke from Kul firmly by enough not to seem cold and raised her head to be unreachable by Kul's seeking lips, but Kul seemed satisfied with the damage she had done.
"How do you feel now?" she asked, wiping their blood from her silver lips.
"Like I betrayed Tom," B'Elanna replied, but there was no emotion behind it.
"Granted, although it was one kiss. ...But how did you feel?"
"I...don't know."
"Not many people do the first time," Kul replied. "One word and it won't come up again."
It scared her when she didn't answer right away, "No."
Kul nodded and respected her space. "You came to help me. I am glad of that. I was worried I was actually not going to get anywhere with you."
"I couldn't remain silent forever," she said.
"Not many people can, I fear. Silence is a gift---it is golden. ...Do you feel anything about betraying your Captain?"
"I am dead to her," B'Elanna mused. "I have been here for two and a half weeks and Janeway has not come for me."
"You will feel something soon enough, B'Elanna, but you have to understand that that is natural. I will allow you to grieve if you must; but if you screw up this simple plan, I will kill you."
"What am I to do?"
"Eager, aren't we? A little too eager."
Red alert!
"She hit you, didn't she?"
"What!?"
"Janeway seems utterly like the type," Kul mused. "Not physically, of course, but she hit you."
"Y---yes." The more she thought of it, the more it seemed that way. B'Elanna ripped her brain out of Kul's seduction; "You hit me, too."
Kul smiled and stroked B'Elanna's ridges again, dismissing the distrust. "Tell me first everything about Voyager, then tell me of Janeway. I wish to know everything."
"I will," B'Elanna whispered as she formulated her plan. The threads began to weave themselves.
End 2/5
