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"You know, Sir, if you turned on your IR, you wouldn't bump into us all the time."
Jungjohann, a small wiry German woman with an affable demeanour, smiled at Chakotay in the dark night - as far as the commander could see.
And true enough, the very alien equipment did present Chakotay with some problems. The special Antarian IR lenses, placed directly on his eyeballs and allowing him to see in the dark, were no doubt a stroke of genius; that is, if one could figure out how to use them.
The big bronze man adjusted his wrist piece that allegedly sent signals to the lenses in order to make them work accordingly. But nothing happened.
"Just my luck to get some damaged goods." He murmured good-naturely.
Jungjohann grinned, - and now Chakotay could easily see her white teeth flash like a 100 watt electric bulb - and took the equipment from him.
"These things are usually very easy to fix." She stated and bashed the wrist device into a nearby stone with cheerful determination. Chakotay almost jumped at the cracking sound, but then suddenly the world became clear to him. Jungjohann's "repairs" had worked like a charm.
"Right. Now that you can see, Sir. What way?"
The first officer didn't need to consult his electronic map. He had memorised all the possible paths going to the Parliament and chosen the one least conspicuous. Although his team was the decoy, he suspected that underestimating Lore's deductive abilities would be the worst idea of the millennium.
After reminding his men that light and sound discipline was hereby activated, Commander Chakotay began leading the combat group in the direction selected by Mel and himself. He drew a silent but deep breath. It felt good to be in the field again.
About ten miles from Chakotay's operation point, Sergeant Jonesy took a good deep breath before he lowered himself into the foul remains of a once highly famed underground disposal system. The majority of his group was already there, waiting eagerly for their commanding officer to join them in their charming and aromatic heaven, contrary to the two remaining scouts who had no hurry in joining their fellow GI's.
Jonesy's group consisted mostly of small individuals who would have no problem squeezing their bodies through the more inaccessible parts of the tunnels. One exception was the Antarian, Delaan, who was their FMOPS agent on the planet and whose impressive height and size, compliments to his species, did not allow him to crawl the sewers together with the rest of the group. He would join them at junction B5H1 and secure their entrance and their exit in the basement of the Parliament.
Jonesy hailed the group's only Horta, Lonc, and gave her last minute instructions.
"Listen, sweetie," he whispered intently, "You know your job, I don't have to tell you how to drill out a tunnel. I just want you to bear in mind that the android might have left some 'surprises' here and there, so you should let us scan the area before you start your drilling."
The Horta nodded. Such a psychedelic sight to see half a ton of stone move its upper part up and down while gravel and pebbles ran down its surface. Lonc had picked up the nodding from her human colleagues, but Jonesy wasn't sure he cared much for the slightly unnerving effect.
Jonesy squared his crouched shoulders to the extent that the tunnels permitted him. He wrinkled his hawk like nose, shook his thick dark hair and spit out his toothpick.
It was time to save the damsel in distress and kick some serious robot arse.
Sgt. Justine Hildegard chuckled when she heard Jonesy tell the Horta to steer clear of booby traps.
"She knows that. He's just saying that to have something to say. He's got a bloody thing for her, that's for sure."
Her group chuckled with her. They had dug themselves down behind some ruins from which they could hear everything team "Maggots" were doing as was their assignment, fully equipped with listening devices. The plan was to give the team a head start of ten minutes and then keep track of them by entering another sewer entrance. Hildegard and her group would be the Maggots' shadow and make damn sure that they would be in the vicinity should things suddenly become very uncomfortable for the unfortunate Maggots.
The sergeant chortled. So very fitting to call the team "Maggots". They were the ones entering the lion's cave directly whereas "Underdog" - her group - were guardian angels and "Chief Bully" simply a decoy. Her corporal had a pool going, she knew. At every OPS people would wonder who had come up with the team names and the crew would have a pool going. How the hell the organisers found out the truth, god only knew. This time she had guessed Mallennie as the inventive baptist. It sure sounded like her twisted humour.
"Ten minutes." Corporal Ayoll Cox, a short Trill with spots running down his nose, reminded her. She nodded and initiated light and sound discipline with a raised hand. Her group immediately fell dead silent.
God damn it, she thought proudly, I can't even hear them fucking breathing.
*
Some might have felt that seeing Myth in his current state was the most eerie and uncanny phenomenon they had ever seen. Some might have felt that a sight like that was unnatural and unwholesome. Some might even agree that it was less than human.
They couldn't have been more right.
Yet, Myth's silicone composition was the perfect control unit for the alien device that he had plugged himself into. Without being able to actually see it, Mel knew that he hadn't just put his hands on the controls; in effect, he had let tendrils reach into the machine components and was now receiving the teams' bio-signals into his body directly, which enabled him to read and interpret all their life functions, using his long experience with organic species.
Mel had long stopped feeling spooked at the sight, despite the way her friend's eyes became vacant, his mouth distorted and his features blurred. She knew that his human shape was all an illusion and that he simply had problems maintaining the form while concentrating on the device.
She decided to make it easy for him.
"You don't have to keep your human shape in front of me, Myth." She said in a factual tone. She knew this to be a cause for embarrassment for shape shifters. He didn't react. So she changed tactics, knowing her man to the letter, an ability that made her the leader she was.
"Don't worry - I will respect you in the morning."
She saw a shadow of a smirk on his imaginary mouth before his shape finally melted to nothing more than a blob at a console. The shiny mass of silicone and water glimmered like silver in the chair and on the console surface where Myth's tendrils were still firmly imbedded in the machine. Good, Mel thought. But she still needed to communicate with him. As intently as she knew him, he knew her. A soft voice boomed out of the computer's com system:
"Way ahead of you, Cap."
Mel grinned, teeth flashing with a vengeance.
"As always, Myth, as always."
"Maggots has penetrated first perimeter, Underdog is trailing and watching their backs. Chief Bully has chosen route B5 and is currently at coordinates 23.4.567. All in good health. Jonesy's heart rate is little high."
"That's Lonc. He has a thing for her." Mel chuckled gently.
"What do you think of B5?" Myth asked his captain curiously.
She shrugged. "I wouldn't have chosen that route. It's safe, all right, but it's also somewhat more difficult to keep an eye on the other teams from that route. But I'm sure that Commander Chakotay has his reasons."
Myth offered no comments. Mel was giving Chakotay the benefit of doubt as always with subordinates she hadn't quite come to know yet, and the shape shifter appreciated that. He also knew that the ability to see a case from all its possible angles was a definite must in Mel's job. Without it, she wouldn't have been heading one of the most prestigious and complex crews in Starfleet.
*
As it was, Chakotay did have a reason for picking B5. His (and Mel's) first choice had been B3, a less direct path but more open in regard to communication. However, when he arrived there with his team, a massive cave-in blocked the route to the extent that the first officer believed it too time- and strength consuming to start clearing it.
Route B5 was a little more shielded from communication. This might give him problems getting in touch with the rest of his platoon. This possible consequence, however, also meant that the opponent would have equal difficulty discovering their communicative activity.
Chakotay raised his right arm and signalled the group to stop. It was time for the one and only contact he would have with his other teams during the entire operation.
Jungjohann, knowing exactly what the halt was about, crept closer to her commanding officer to receive further orders.
"Sergeant, secure the perimeter and hook me on." The first officer whispered intently to his squad leader.
Jungjohann nodded, signalled her men and turned back to Chakotay to handle the hook-up.
The trick was to remain undiscovered in exchanging information. The solution was simple. Jungjohann simply connected their com system to any available communication wave and piggybacked their signal. Since a very lively traffic of communication was nearly cluttering the atmosphere, Jungjohann managed to hook on in a matter of seconds. After a few moments of concentrated work, she nodded her CMO a go for open link.
Chakotay nodded back, his eyes conveying respect. These were good, capable people.
"All hands, this is Chief Bully papa. I repeat, all hands, this is Chief Bully papa. Prepare for report, over."
The responses came in surprisingly fast. Evidently everybody was on their posts, had already plugged in and were waiting for him, quickly and efficiently. Chakotay's respect for the Chief Cochise and its crew continued to grow every minute.
"Chief Bully papa, this is Underdog papa.... we are go for reports, over."
"Chief Bully papa, this is Maggots papa... ready when you are, over."
In the ship above them, the shiny silver blob in the chair shivered indiscernibly and a soft voice reached and almost caressed Mel's attentive ears.
"Pulses slow and relaxed, brain activity up and going. They are ceasing to report."
"First and only contact before show-down." Mel murmured into her coffee mug.
"Jonesy's pheromones are up."
"Gotta separate those two." Mel murmured on. Myth's liquid body shook a tad as if laughing gently. He knew to whom she was referring.
"They are getting up. There is go for final stage."
Mel bit her nail. There was something she didn't like. Myth recognised the symptoms immediately; the captain's intuition was working overtime.
She is going to get up, pace, drink cold coffee, replace it with cold tea, stare out the view port, lock pondering eyes with some ensign and then she is going to call in the big guns.
And she did all of that, except locking eyes with an ensign since there was no ensign present in the room, which was occupied by her and Myth only. In the end she did punch a control button and barked at Mallennie:
"Mallennie, have Ape run a radiation and magnetic waves diagnostic, ask T'Rees to use the imagination she doesn't have to come up with any possible radiation, magnetic or any other kind of pulse or waves that the android might be able to generate or monitor and then get all your hineys into the conference room."
"Acknowledged." The Bajoran said without surprise, knowing her captain in and out. At some point in almost every operation, their CMO would get a hunch and act on it. Usually it paid off, the crew of the Chief Cochise had learnt to respect their captain's hunches.
Mel turned to Myth while she installed an ear com device in her own ear.
"I'm gonna do some research myself. Keep me posted at all time, Myth - go to CEDS."
Myth complied immediately. CEDS was Communication Ear Device System, which meant that Mel was going covert big time. Obviously something had occurred to her about the ship's security integrity.
Myth didn't have energy or concentration left for concern. That was one of the advantages of being hooked up to an all-strength consuming alien device, he thought wryly.
Sweat ran down Jonesy's forehead, tickled his eyelids, stung his eye sockets and tasted salty as it reached his mouth. Having a Horta in a tunnel group was worth gold but bloody hot. Heat was being generated whenever the Horta drilled and ate the stone it penetrated with its impressive devouring fluids. Heat enough to fill the tunnels and cover the group in a blanket of moist and steam. Fortunately it wasn't very visible, but it sure could be felt by all parties involved.
The live rock in front of him suddenly stopped and shook its massive body delicately.
"Lonc?" Jonesy said quietly with his jaw, transmitting the movements of his speech to the Horta's communication device.
"We have reached junction B5H1." Her voice sang back to him with astounding gentleness.
"Then where the hell is Delaan?" the sergeant asked her and the rest of his group.
Delaan is delayed, Myth said to his captain through CEDS. Mel didn't even move an eyebrow. She was assembled with her commanding officers in an intense discussion about all kinds of waves and pulses. Yet she never hesitated.
"I'm coming in." She murmured back into her ear piece and left the meeting with an order for the remaining officers to stay put.
Even before Mel Dayton entered the control room, even before she stated her request, Myth knew what she had in mind, and he feared it as much as he longed for it.
"I need to go in." She said curtly, waiting for an answer that she knew what would be.
"Go ahead", Myth said. Did his voice tremble? They had done this before. Had she heard his voice tremble?
Mel resolutely stepped over to his glistening body at the console, bared her right arm to the elbow and dug it deep into Myth's shining mass of entity. The gelatinous bulk shivered, then stilled and then seemed to float.
Mel felt a sweet tinkling as evidence that her friend had now succeeded in connecting her to his own neural net and thus the machine. She gasped at the overwhelming sensation and tears started forming in her eyes in nobility of pride and fierce concentration.
Myth.
You're on. Go ahead.
She knew that this was as far as he could take her; she would have to go the last distance herself. So she tried to block out the enormity of his thoughts and mind and to concentrate on her ear piece instead. It was hard, oh, so hard. But her group was in danger and she had to do her damnedest to reach them.
Jonesy.
Jonesy almost sat upright in the narrow tunnel, nearly banging his helmet into the rock ceiling above them. Was this their cap speaking to him, or was he finally losing it?
Mel caught her breath. She was through to Jonesy via her ear device and via Myth and his machine.
Jonesy, if Delaan is not there at the appointed time, something is wrong. I want you to make a rat hole and stay put. If I do not contact you within one hour, use your own judgement.
The sergeant heard the desperation in her otherwise calm and reserved voice and knew that their situation was critical. The sweat that was now forming on his brow was no longer caused by a rock eating alien, but by pure, undiluted fear that he welcomed heartily like a long lost friend.
Mel now tried to reach the other groups to let them in on the latest development. Time was of the essence and her concentration as well as Myth's strength was fading.
Then suddenly the connection was brutally severed. In fact, the discontinuation was so abrupt and painful that it made Mel stagger backwards with shock, her mouth open in a silent scream at the abuse and maltreatment of her shredded neural pathways. Fighting his own crisis, Myth reached out for her, his silicone mass converting itself into something tangible in the process and grabbed her just before she hit the floor. Their tactile contact shocked Mel back to reality and onto a chair. A stunned Myth was still holding her hand while she was fighting to regain her breath.
"What happened?"
Captain Dayton looked up to see Myth in his human shape again and now disconnected from the device. His face was oddly drawn and his eyes looked haunted with both trauma from the experience and concern for his captain. She hadn't been the only one who had suffered from the sudden and curt disruption.
Mel opened her mouth and was surprised to find that she actually had some voice left.
"I believe that was our first contact with Lore."
*
Yellow eyes squinted and a pale head with dark brown hair as a stark and ironic contrast was cocked. A disturbingly gentle sigh left quivering, colourless lips and slim fingers strong as steel flexed and then relaxed.
It was all coming together. They were coming. And with a little luck his dear brother was there as well. He smirked and the lips lost their sensitive character. He smiled and the quality of the mouth now became feral. Quite close to him something moved and a rustling sound reached his fine tuned ears.
So she was still with them. Almost. The android giggled with a sound that would have made the fine hair stand on the toughest FMOPS soldier. To a Sigmarian the sound was pure dripping evil, promising the hostage a living hell.
Lore stopped giggling and looked a little more closely at the fragile senator, appraising her state of mind and body. She was strong. Strong for a Sigmarian. Lore smiled happily like a boy who has just spotted his favourite candy. Time for an experiment. He kneeled and the simple action made the hostage shiver almost uncontrollably. The android leaned forward and started hushing the terrified woman with the most gentle and caring voice and intonation that his sick programming could muster.
"Hush... shhhh... relax. Everything will be fine. I'm not going to hurt you. There... hush, dearest. You're safe... nothing to fear... nothing to be afraid of."
And he reached out to stroke her dark marine coloured hair with its rich texture and lavender scent. He knew that she couldn't feel it, having no tactile sense whatsoever. But her hearing was marvellous, so she compensated for her lack of tactility by hearing the caress so clearly that it almost made it a touch. He continued hushing and stroking her.
Yet her shivers didn't appease, on the contrary... they increased. Lore smiled his eerie smile. Astounding, how organic beings could still sense intent despite contradictory actions. Would that mean that the theorem was valid the other way round?
The Sigmarian senator suddenly felt her head being yanked backwards. Though she could not feel the pain, she could certainly tell when her movements had become brutal by the aide of a second party. And then there was his voice... so close to her three lobed ear that she nearly forgot to breathe.
"No, I am not going to hurt you. You are going to hurt yourself. Let me outline the idea for you..." the voice hissed, saturated with twisted malice and sociopathic joy.
And he outlined it in details, enjoying every comma of his own style and linguistics. He was good.
The Sigmarian woman collapsed by his feet, her brain closing down, not being able to process the massive sensory data of violence and viciousness her system was being fed with despite her inability to comprehend the words.
The android rose adroitly with a satisfied leer on his artificial face. He would have her later, of course, when she was awake, seeing and fully conscious to sense what he was doing to her. He had never had a senator.
As for now, things had to be done, plans had to be initiated, traps put out.... enemies killed. Through the net of neural emitters he had laid out to cover the sixth satellite, he had felt a touch of their adversary directly in his own neural pathways; someone who was trying to contact the men that were crawling all over the sewers. The sensation had filled him with joy and hunger; his old friends were there for him - touching, touching; hopefully bringing his dear brother with them. Of course, he would be there. Data had always been the humans' prawn.
Lore turned to one of his companions, who was standing at a computer console that looked advanced enough to put the Enterprise's bridge to shame.
"Patrio - report!"
"They have reached junction H4B5... after taking the path we manipulated them into choosing."
The android's smug smirk broadened.
"Of course, they did." He said.
"They have no choice when the puppeteer pulls the strings."
*
Ignorant of the drama aboard the Chief, of the missing Antarian and of Lore's actions and plans, Chakotay still made steady and safe progress through the tunnel that would lead them directly to a backdoor into the Parliament.
The diversion had been planned to the smallest detail; safety was the keyword where his men was concerned.
When the group stopped at junction H4B5, Chakotay took time to sit down with Jungjohann and her men to discuss their further progress. The big Native American regarded the smaller German as she sat down; her sinuous limbs revealed no fatigue or strain as she crossed her legs and sat down, ready as a spring to pop up and do her job. Her black uniform was jumbled and dirty, but not one hair had escaped her helmet for the simple reason that all the women in the special troops had cut their hair painfully short.
Chakotay blew away one escaping lock of jet black hair of his own. Well, it was definitely time to cut this mane as well - and stop dying it, come to think of it.
Time to acknowledge my age.
He winced.
"Something wrong, Boss?" the German's factual voice asked jovially.
"Age." The big man admitted with a groan. Jungjohann flashed a charming grin at him.
"Let time worry about age, Commander. In this job you're blooming lucky to be able to celebrate another birthday."
He knew that, of course, but it was nice to be reminded in a subtle way that he was there to make sure the group survived and the job be done. Not to worry about his age.
"Status?" he asked.
"Bob keeps hearing an odd hum. Kos reports an increase of phosphorous matter on the walls, and we are three miles from our destination according to our tricorder."
Chakotay nodded.
"The hum is probably the air restoration unit, situated in the Parliament's basement, The phosphor indicates that we are close the original dumping point from the toilets - algae, you know."
"I know."
"What would be the other groups' location at this time?"
"Jonesy must have made contact with Delaan by now and making his way to the kitchen area. Hildegard must consequently have found the perfect route to back Maggots up."
"What do you reckon that would be?"
"If the maps are sound, I would choose route H8 - and then have my Horta make a detour through the wall between H8 and C5 right before junction H8B5."
The Native American locked eyes with his squad leader. Damn, she was good. He hadn't even considered that possibility. He blinked and suddenly heard his captain's words again:
They know what to do a helluva lot better than I do. The sergeants know their men and squads in and out. They know what weapons to employ, what equipment to bring. You just point the way and tell them their assignment and they'll do their job.
"But then, Jussie insists on being different and unpredictable. She might have sent her Horta down corridor H2 to blow the end wall there and make a jump to C3." Jungjohann continued, knowing her friend like the back of her hand.
Chakotay blinked again. Another interesting possibility he hadn't considered.
Mel had been right. Just point the direction and let them do their job. As for now, this group was his responsibility, and he would make sure they made it in one piece.
*
"Couldn't you have done that a little more silently?" Hildegard asked her Horta with a telltale grimace as the end wall of corridor H2 crashed noisily from the living rock's efforts.
"What did you expect me to do? Catch the stones, one by one as they fell?" the Horta whispered back in his com device. Justine growled. Ah, well, even a Horta can't eat an entire wall in the short time it takes for the rocks to fall, she admitted inwardly.
Out loud she said: "Never mind, Hew - what do you see?"
"Nothing alive on this side of the..."
"GET DOWN!!!"
Justine's warning was said in normal volume, but through the ear devices, it sounded like a magnificent roar. All her men ducked and squeezed themselves flat against the rock wall, including the live rock that simply pulled itself together like a tortoise, making the analogy perfect by lying dead still.
Remaining completely immobile with a helmet that was about to tip down and into her eyes Justine listened to her surveillance bugs for almost ten minutes before she finally dared explaining her actions to her men.
"Listen up, men." She whispered in a tone that made everybody sigh with relief and turn up their ear pieces once more.
"Maggots have retreated into a rat hole. Something is wrong, but we don't know what. Reports."
"Nothing unusual." Her Trill next-in-command said after a few seconds of listening to the others.
"Well, there's gotta be something or Jonesy wouldn't be doing something as drastically as this. I have his location on the 'meter. We will go to point Lima and dig ourselves a rat hole there... and wait."
Nobody requested further information. Nobody questioned her decision. The group simply picked up their equipment, woke up Hew and proceeded to point Lima.
They were too well trained to do otherwise.
*
They could tell it by the way she entered the room.
They could tell it by the way she walked.
They could tell it by the way her eyes pinned them in their seats.
They could tell it by the way she sat down and neglected to throw her legs on the table surface.
Something was very wrong.
And she didn't waste time on art. Instead she blurted right out:
"Lore is capable of monitoring our communication between the Chief and the planet."
The room became dead silent for several seconds.
"How?" Mallennie finally wanted to know, her religious earrings tinkling revealingly in apprehension of the news.
"You tell me - you're the cybernetics expert." Captain Dayton reminded her.
"Are we talking about all our communication?" Ape asked relevantly.
"Unknown. However, I strongly suspect that he hasn't yet found a way to listen in on our ear pieces which is why I suggest we all go to CEDS when we part after this meeting."
"But we can't afford to take it for granted." Myth contributed, having snuck in with Mel's wake. The others immediately noticed that he appeared to be somewhat weak and slightly shaky.
"Precisely. We must leave nothing to chance and come up with an efficient defence against intruder piggy waves."
"That means a comprehensive update of our entire radiation shield." Ape said, a heartfelt groan on the tip of his tongue.
"Correct."
"What do we use for spatial communication instead, then?" Betak asked.
"Nothing. We are now completely severed from the operation on the planet. And if my surmise is correct, we need to be more concerned about this ship and its crew than of the away team."
Nobody had expected the captain's last remark; that much was certain. She knew that, of course, and continued:
"It seems to me that we have been working on this problem from the wrong angle. We have assumed that the extremists' goal was actually the senator and that their angle was a hostage caper. I no longer believe that."
Her officers saw it faster than she had anticipated.
"Lore!" Mallennie breathed.
"Lore, indeed." Mel concurred, "Since he has become an element, we must see it solely from his POV. What does he have to gain? Possession? No, that has never been his desire. Power? Bingo."
"How would he gain power by taking a Sigmarian senator hostage?" Ape said, still a bit confused.
"He doesn't care jack about either of the worlds involved." Mel said, her tone bone-dry, "It is more likely his purpose to lure a certain flagship to the rescue."
"The Enterprise? Lieutenant Commander Data?"
"Let's just say that I don't believe the Soong family's black sheep ever really forgave his kid brother that he turned him off."
Betak leaned forward. He had been doing his homework since their last meeting and was eager to air his own theory.
"Let's not forget the role Captain Picard has played in this android's fate either. According to Starfleet sources, Lore has been most insistent in including Picard in his vengeful actions."
"That is true," Mel agreed, "in other words..." she looked at Myth, who readily added:
"Lore has been expecting Starfleet to send the Enterprise to deal with the Sigmarian situation."
Mel leaned back, smiling for the first time since her hunch had drummed her officers into action.
"So that's our advantage, people. Lore's first mistake. He doesn't know whom he is dealing with."
*
The head sewer narthex was somewhat bigger than Chakotay had anticipated. And a lot smellier. The minute he stuck his head round the corner, he was reminded of one memorable visit to Paris and its miles and miles of eerie catacombs loaded with odd patterns of skulls and bones from dead Parisians. Fortunately, he was happy to conclude, the Sigmarians had not been using their sewers for storing dead people.
However, the general picture was similar to that of Paris. Endless corridors with small and incredibly dirty rotundas where one could pause sitting on humid soil before entering another maze of damp, stinking tunnels the only constructional purpose of which seemed to be evoking dormant claustrophobia in innocent bypassers.
And now this huge cave, 20 yards from top to bottom, with moisture running down the rocky surface of the walls and forming little puddles on the ground where it would mate with the chalk and make a man slip and fall. Treacherous.
Chakotay shook himself out of the odd state the spooky atmosphere had lulled him into.
"Secure perimeter." He mouthed to his squad leader. She was already on it.
The first officer tilted his helmet and looked round. Six tunnel entrances, one apparently connecting the whole system with the building. The latter was the one they were headed for. Easy to spot. Easy to rig with a trap.
Bloody easy to die there.
The bronze man deliberately pushed away the morbid thought and concentrated fiercely on the operation, brutally quelling any uninvited feeling that might impair his actions. From here on it could get very complicated. Their plan was to sneak in, roam around to pretend looking for the senator, get Lore's attention and pull back, drawing - he hoped - all their fire while the Maggots located the hostage and got her out of there.
Simple.
A simple way to die.
Stop that damn thought. Quell it. Terminate it.
All in good time. First of all they had to synchronise it with Jonesy's group. Chakotay activated the time indicator in his IR lenses.
We're early, he realised, still 15 minutes to go.
Fifteen minutes to sweat. Fifteen minutes to get increasingly nervous. Fifteen minutes to pray. Fifteen minutes to live.
"Fifteen minutes to relax.", Jungjohann's calm voice came from behind.
Chakotay exhaled the breath he had been holding very, very gently. Thank you, Jungjohann. She had given him the perfect reason to love those 15 minutes.
*
The heat was getting intolerable. One thing was drilling their way through solid rock with a steaming Horta, who took perverse pleasure in generating even more heat as she ate. Another thing was squeezing themselves into a rat hole with hot Horta and all and simply... wait.
The cap must have her reason, Jonesy thought. Though he sometimes suspected that she was cultivating a particularly sadistic trait in herself, he very much doubted that she would carry it as far as implementing it in the OPS.
Despite still hot rock walls, the rat hole they had dug for themselves was a marvel. Once more Lonc had proved herself indispensable. The hole made five turns, each in odd crooked directions designed to make an intruder completely directionally confused. God knew that they were themselves just from crawling in there. In addition the carefully constructed turns and angles made it easier for a warning sound to reach them before their breathing would alert a possible intruder. A masterpiece of intelligent drilling.
Jonesy sighed as silently as he could, but the tiny sound didn't escape the acute hearing of his favourite private.
"Bored, Boss?". Her communication device translated the odd aural Horta waves into a fascinating glockenspiel of tiny, crust bell tones.
"Hot, Lonc."
"How long yet?"
The sergeant consulted his IR lenses by blinking rapidly twice.
"Fifteen minutes till Chief Bully breaks in. Thirty-two minutes till improvisation."
"Do you suppose they know?"
"I certainly hope so."
"I felt a presence when you were talking to the cap."
"I know. So did I."
"It worries you?"
Jonesy almost smiled. He never could hide anything from his Horta.
So he didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Sweat continued to trickle down his face, and the young man stuck out his tongue to taste the salty fluid, the motion becoming almost a ritual to help him kill time. He briefly wondered if Sigmarians sweat.
*
She had long stopped reaching her dry tongue out for the sweat that dribbled down her now heather coloured face. She knew how it tasted anyway. Sweet. Like Terran honey, in fact. She had sampled Terran honey once in her life when their earth liaison had been a novelty and nothing bad could come from a planet like that. The Federation would provide, protect and inspire them to do better; they would educate them, watch them grow with pride, catch them when they stumbled. The Federation could do nothing wrong. Ever since then she had loved to taste her own sweat. Sweet and flowery.
Illara Ki's hands were still tied behind her back. She still couldn't see anything. Slowly as fear had crept through her every pore, she had stopped caring about even that. Yet somewhere in the back of her head, she hoped and prayed that the Federation would rescue her and make everything right.
The scary man with the velvet voice had left her momentarily, but he would probably be back. And when he came back he would probably torture her again the way he knew hurt her the most. Preventing her from seeing, preventing her from employing her limited range of senses.
Illara Ki's body suddenly jerked. She had heard a sound. A brutal sound. However, without her eyes she could not fully determine what kind of sound exactly. It had sounded like a ... smack... or a bang.
And then suddenly her blindfold was ripped away from her eyes. With a sudden and frightening pang she realised she could see and understand everything round her. She was in a damp, dark room, the sound she had heard had been the door being opened... she gasped. Though never having seen him before, she recognised the eerie creature that now leaned down towards her. An oval, chrome coloured face with a largish nose and beady yellow eyes hovered over her, his pit black pupils piercing her white ones. He stood thus for a while and then let a smirk spread over his face, an action that made an odd creaking sound in her acute ears.
"I want you to understand what I am saying to you now." He said, completely calm and without touching her the least.
"Men are coming to get you. Men from the Federation. They will not succeed because I have laid a trap for them. I know them well; they are Terran and I was created by a Terran. I will take over their ship and bring you with me. Safely aboard, I will rape you and do with you as I please."
The android gave himself exactly four long seconds to fully enjoy her expression and reaction to the news, see her gullible childhood faith in her precious Federation crumble like the fragile card house it was before he sent her back into dark oblivion behind the blindfold.
*
On the other side of the wall that flanked the Parliament's boiler room, Commander Chakotay's group lay ready to enter the lion's den. The waiting was finally over, the countdown of the last minute had begun and Lore, the android, had all his helpers positioned so that the invading group wouldn't stand a chance in hell of escaping extremists claws until it was too late.
And Lore smiled.
Part 5
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