Chapter 9
"Mistress!" Mighkel yelled, while slamming her hand on the door repeatedly. "It's eight o'clock. Mistress! Wake up!"
"I'm awake!" a hazy voice from behind the door answered, "I'll be out in a minute."
Dana stretched herself out and yawned. "Wake up, Klarok!" she said loudly in his ear.
He sat up abruptly. "What?" he said. She grinned at him.
*****
Three hours later.
She was still trying to wash the taste out of her mouth. The Klingon's dinner menu might be tasty, but their breakfast she considered disgusting. Klarok had laughed at her disgusted face as she had swallowed the horrible sludge down. He seemed to like his breakfast. Klarok had left by now of course. He needed to be on time for a scheduled Council meeting.
For the past one and half hours she'd been examining Kuruan, cutting him open and examining his internal organs. She made notes on her PADD and had the autopsy filmed. It would help Federation doctors a lot when they had to treat Klingon wounded, at a time - undoubtly somewhere down the line - that the Klingons and the Federation would be fighting along side each other. It took her a long time - checking out everything against knowledge stored in the Klingon version of the Internet - to find substances that were not part of the Klingon natural make up and substances that were part of it but had unnatural levels.
After she found what she was looking for in Kuruan, she checked herself out. Adrenaline levels were normal, but that was expected, it was a short-lived substance. Testosterone levels, however, were even now still higher then they should be.
"You're going down, Murad," she said sinisterly to the corpse and the otherwise empty room.
*****
Outside Council Building
13:47
Approximately twenty Klingons stood between them and the building - them being Dana, Mighkel, MacLeod and five guard Klingons of Mighkel's house – the twenty Klingons all wore markings of Murad's house.
"You're not getting inside," the lead Klingon of Murad's forces stated, disrupter pistol drawn as all his men.
"Yes, we are," MacLeod answered as he pulled his phaser pistol. The Klingons pulled out disrupter pistols.
"Hold it," Dana commanded. "Fighting this out is one thing, but damaging the seat of Klingon High Council with energy blasts? I've got feeling whoever is left will be hunted down and banished to Rura Penthe for good."
Murad's forces looked at each other for a moment, then reluctantly put away their disrupters and pulled out there bladed weapons. MacLeod put his phaser back and pulled out his katana. Dana, Mighkel and the five guards followed suit.
The battle raged. These Klingons weren't so honorable that they came at them only eight at the time. No, they all came at them. This of course had an advantage. Being out numbered means that it is almost difficult to miss one of your enemies. The draw back is that it's more difficult to avoid getting hit yourself. Over fifteen minutes later the battle still wasn't over, with two Klingons dead on their side and six of their enemies dead.
"Josie, Mighkel, get inside, it's already after two. We'll hold off these bastards," MacLeod yelled. They nodded, and with a concentrated effort of the five of them, they made sure Dana and Mighkel got into the building.
*****
"Madam Chancellor, the Ambassador and Mighkel don't even have the decency to show up," Murad said in Klingon. "I think . . ."
"Sorry we're late, Chancellor," Dana interrupted him as she past through the entrance of the Council halls and ran, with Mighkel close behind, to the center of the circle, "but Murad's men were busy keeping us out of this hall by trying to kill us."
"Murad!" Azebur exclaimed.
"I assure you, Chancellor, if my men did attack the Ambassador's and Mighkel's party, they did so without my knowledge," Murad answered smoothly.
"If I find out you're lying Murad, you'll spend the rest of your life on Rura Penthe," Azebur threatened.
"Of course, Chancellor." Murad bowed slightly as he said those words, thinking, *Those incompetent fools.*
"Oh, he's lying all right, about many things," Dana said as she passed a stack of PADDs to one member of the Klingon High Council. "Please take one and pass the rest down." They did so, and Dana waited until every member of the Council had their own PADD.
"This morning," she began, "I performed an autopsy on Kuruan and did some tests on myself. What I found was rather interesting. You see, this all started yesterday when I recognized Murad. I started thinking, went over all the events in my head. I remembered that I pulled out my sword before Kuruan did. Under normal circumstances, I would never do that.
"I took the chance, and you know what I found," Dana said, waiting a second before she continued. "As you can see, one of the substances I found in Kuruan's body was a substance that would slightly reorder the make-up of his scent. I checked with my own pheromone receptor. His new scent I would instinctively consider as ugly."
"What has this got to do with anything?" Murad asked with a faked indignant look on his face.
"Trust me, Chancellor. It will lead to something," Dana answered Azebur's questioning look.
"Go on," Azebur told her.
"A second substance I found, as you can see on your PADD, diminishes a Klingon's capacity to handle alcohol. And a third activated his sex drive and made my pheromones irresistible to him. As you know, I was already in a relationship with Klarok, which would make any advances by another man only irritable, especially if this man didn't know when to stop," Dana explained. She waited a second to see if anyone had a question. When none came, she continued, "Tests on myself revealed, that my testosterone levels were higher than normal, which means they were at an all-time high two nights ago. Testosterone is the Human male sexual hormone and the hormone that regulates - in both sexes - our aggression, our irritability. Someone with a high testosterone level will start acting instinctively in certain situations. An unknown sound or an unknown smell would normally be something to discard, especially in rather safe situations, but under the influence of testosterone they all become possible threats. Identification of these possible threats, or irritants, like an unwanted man trying to seduce me, will stimulate the production of adrenaline. Given a high enough level of testosterone, which I had that night, there would be a high level of adrenaline production.
"Klingons, as most species, have an adrenaline-like substance in their bodies. It makes you impervious to pain, and you get a sense of detachment from reality. Adrenaline in Humans however doesn't stop there - and this is what makes Humans rare, and probably why so many people, including you, underestimated us. First it makes us stronger. With a Human male sometimes up to ten times and a female up to eight times as strong. Second it speeds up our brains to about ten times its normal speed, cutting our reaction time to approximately a third of our normal response time. If our testosterone levels are high in combination with a high adrenaline level, we become irritable to the extreme, almost everything will seem a threat, and every threat must be dealt with. We'll be like caged animals ready to strike out at anything, we'll have no conscience, we'll be three times faster and up to ten times stronger than normal. We'd be virtually unstoppable, vicious killers. Perfect for eliminating a rival, drugged out fellow Klingon, wasn't I, Murad? You used me to murder Kuruan."
"I did no such thing," Murad said, an irritated look on his face. "How, for example, do you know that it was two nights ago that your testosterone levels were at their pique? Why couldn't have happened before, or after?"
"Simple, that night I killed Kuruan in an extremely agitated condition. I have not been agitated since, I have eliminated all natural testosterone production spurts, except for the one who drugged me, there are no artificial testosterone sources on Q'onos and nobody afterwards came close enough to drug me, except my food, but nobody in Mighkel's house stands to gain from putting testosterone in me," Dana answered him with cool force.
"I see, from your evidence, obviously somebody has drugged you that night, but it was not me," Murad stated with conviction.
"Really?" Dana answered. "Than how come you knew so quickly that Kuruan was dead? Even this morning some of the other Klingons who could lay claim to Kuruan's lands and titles didn't even know Kuruan was dead. Yet you knew early yesterday morning, as if you had watched me kill Kuruan yourself. I saw you watching me spar with my bodyguard, so you knew I was good enough to beat a drunken Klingon. Over the course of the last week I've seen you take quite an interest in me. You saw me with Klarok, thus you knew I would have no interests in another man. You saw Kuruan appraising me several times, knowing that he found me attractive. Then it was easy: petition the Federation for insight into our physiology," Dana tapped a button on her PADD, all the PADDs switched to another screen, showing Murad's request for Human physiology. "Exactly five days ago, get the testosterone and the drugs for Kuruan and slip it to us at a gathering where we both were, two nights ago. I remember me apologizing to you, Human courtesy reflex, when you bumped against me. And you stretched your arm across my plate to grab something to eat. That was the only time I could have been slipped the testosterone, and you slipped it to me!"
"Murad, is this true?" Azebur asked sternly.
"No, she's lying! I demand satisfaction!" Murad exclaimed.
"Fine!" Dana exclaimed as well, as she pulled her sword from under her coat, "Let's do it, right here, right now!" Mighkel stepped out of the way as Murad pulled the bat'leth from his back.
Dana blocked Murad's first downward swing. "A drunken Klingon is something other than fully sober one, Human. You'll never win!"
"Then it's a good thing, you're nothing more but a dishonorable p'tagh, isn't it?" she sneered at him.
"Bitch!" he yelled as he removed his bat'leth from her blade and swung it at her left side. She blocked it easily. She tried to attack, but the other side of the bat'leth prevented that, and she was forced to block. *I really should've sparred more with Klarok, dumb, dumb! Hormones!* Dana chided herself. It took her about a minute of defensive battle before she adjusted to the weapon that could strike on both sides. After which it was her battle. She easily blocked his swings and forced him on the defensive. Then she tripped in a crack between the tiles, and she was imbalanced for a second.
Murad used it to try and hack her head off. The bat'leth swiped down upon her diagonally from her left. Without thinking, she used the opening. She brought up her sword and stuck it through one of the holding openings in Murad's bat'leth. Murad roared in pain as her sword cut off one of his fingers and almost did the same to a second. Dana twisted herself to her right while moving to her left and pulled the bat'leth from his hands. It clanged against a pillar a few meters away. She was to his right side now, and she used her momentum to turn all the way around. She jumped up to just the right height for the last half of the circle. Her sword cut through his neck easily, and his head dropped to the floor. She backed up quickly to avoid the red blood spurting from his neck.
"I guess that means he was lying," Dana said out loud as she pulled a piece of cloth from her coat and started cleaning her sword.
"Yes, it does," Azebur broke through the stunned silence of the Klingons around them. None of them had ever expected her to win, and especially not this quickly or brutally. "Somebody clean up this mess!" she ordered, and a few guards came out and started pulling Murad's body away.
"From this moment on women can be given - under unusual circumstances - special dispensation to lead a Klingon House. And you're the first Mighkel," Azebur stated out loud for everybody to hear. Then she stepped down, walked to Dana, and quietly said to her, "I think I must thank you. If Murad had gained Kuruan's titles and lands, he would've gotten on the High Council . . . such a dishonorable bastard on it, would not have been good."
"No need to thank me. The Federation couldn't afford someone like that in your government either," Dana explained.
Azebur gave her a smile, then - before walking out of the hall - she stated with authority, "This hearing is dismissed."
Mighkel walked to Dana and said, "How can I ever thank you?"
"Divorce me. No offense, but I'm interested in a certain Klingon male," Dana said, looking over Mighkel's shoulder, and seeing Klarok waiting there as the only one of the Council left.
"With pleasure. No offense, but I'm just not a . . . lesbian. Is that the term?" Mighkel said, pleased that she had remembered as Dana nodded her affirmative. Mighkel smashed the back of her hand in Dana's face, careful not to really hurt her. "N'Gos tlhogh cha!" she exclaimed and spit to the floor.
"Thank you," Dana answered grinning. Mighkel walked off, passing her. She saw Klarok walk towards her.
"Well!" MacLeod called from behind Dana, startling her as his presence buzzed in her head. "It seems we missed the party!" Loud Klingon laughter followed the statement.
Dana turned around as Klarok walked next to her, and they walked towards MacLeod, the two surviving Klingons and Mighkel who had reached them.
"Celebrate your victory, men. You've deserved it," Mighkel said as she passed them by.
"Yes . . . Mistress?" their statement was as much an affirmative as a question. Mighkel nodded.
"Lieutenant, from the looks of things we missed the party," Dana observed, as she saw them covered in crimson, thick, Klingon blood from head to toe. Duncan grinned, and the Klingons laughed out loud. "But Lieutenant, what did I say to you about proper attire in my presence? I think you'll have to run around the compound again, a hundred laps this time."
"What!" MacLeod exclaimed, indignant.
"Just kidding, just kidding," Dana grinned at him. MacLeod looked up at the sky, exasperated.
*****
Two days later.
Dana was on her way to Klarok's house, alone. It had taken some convincing in order for MacLeod not to come. The thought of MacLeod hovering around her when she was with her lover had been horrifying. One night of that was bad enough. She grinned as she thought about what Klarok and she would be doing tonight. First sparring, of course, and teaching each other about their cultures' weapons. Then later sex, Human or Klingon, she didn't know. She would have to see in what mood they both were.
Suddenly a Klingon rounded the corner she was close to. She saw something metallic flash, and the next thing she felt was a painful stab in her back right before the metal of a d'k tagh dagger plunged in her chest. She fell down to her knees and leaned herself against the wall of the house she'd been passing.
A third Klingon arrived, grinning viciously. "You disgraced our Master. You have to pay."
"I didn't . . . disgrace him. He did that . . . himself," she wheezed out. Apparently that stab in her chest had punctured a lung. She continued, "I just . . . brought his disgrace . . . to the light."
"I don't care," he answered and plunged his dagger into her stomach, twisted several times and pulled it out, bringing a large portion of her intestines with it.
"That . . . was a . . . very . . . big . . . mistake," Dana managed to choke out before the darkness claimed her.
"Put her in the alley, we don't want her found that easy, do we?" the Klingon ordered, and his companions did as he said.
*****
Marco Darren, 450-year-old Immortal headhunter, saw the whole proceedings from his hiding place. He had arrived the day before and had thought now had been the perfect opportunity to challenge Dana Katherine Scully, 330-year-old student of Duncan MacLeod. She would be a perfect addition to his already impressive power. However, those Klingons had beat him to it. He hated that. Once they left, he walked towards her regenerating body.
When he reached her, he looked down upon her from his impressive two meters and seven centimeters height. He wasn't evil. He wasn't good. He usually left mortals alone, except when they seriously bugged him, or actively got in his way.
His sense of honor showed through as he grinned broadly and said, "I guess we're going to have to do this another day. I'll warm them up for ya." He chuckled and followed the three Klingons.
Five minutes later he stepped in the bar he had seen the Klingons enter not twenty seconds earlier. The bar, as most Klingon bars, was loud and crowded. Almost every table was filled with Klingons drinking Bloodwine and sharing tales of glorious battles. Klingon women were there as well, some trying to seduce men, others were being seduced by men. Here and there a non-Klingon trader was doing business with a Klingon.
"So, what's the preferred alcoholic beverage around here?" Marco asked the bartender.
"Bloodwine," the bartender answered. "And yes, blood is brewed in it. Want some, Human?" The burly bartender laughed and a few Klingons joined in with him.
"Yes, give me some," he said as he threw a few Klingon coins on the counter.
"Be careful, this stuff is rather strong," the bartender chuckled.
"Don't worry, I've got a strong tolerance for alcohol," Marco answered and took a sip. It tasted rather good.
"For a Human, perhaps," the bartender said, grinning.
"No, for every race," Marco answered absentmindedly as he scanned the bar. Once he saw the three Klingons, he stepped over to the table they were occupying. Several other Klingons were sitting there as well. One was telling a story.
"May I join you? Thank you," he said as he pulled a chair up and sat in it. He received a few angry looks from the Klingons, but they soon turned their attention back to the story. He took a swallow of his Bloodwine and listened to the story. It was about a Klingon avenging the murder of his wife and children after he returned from the battle, during which the wife and children were murdered.
Once the Klingon was through talking, Marco asked, "Would you say it's possible for a bird from Earth to be right here on Q'onos?"
"Impossible," one of the three Klingons he had followed answered.
"Yeah, I thought so . . . that story you just told, that reminds me of a legend from Earth, a legend about vengeance, about vengeance incarnated. Would you like me to tell?" Marco asked enigmatically.
"Yes, tell. I'd like to know some of your Human stories," the storyteller answered enthusiastically.
"Well, then . . . there was once a man named Eric Draven . . ." Marco started, remembering a movie from the nineteen nineties.
*****
Dana woke up with a gasp. All thoughts of Klarok were gone. Only one thing was in her mind at this time: those three Klingons were going to die.
But where had they gone? Dana chose a direction, the wrong direction. It would take her some time before she found them.
*****
" . . . and so ends the story of Eric Draven and 'the Crow'. Knowing this story, you should always remember the legend of 'the Crow': In ancient times people believed that a crow brought the souls of the dead to heaven. But sometimes a soul carries so much pain with it that it can't rest in peace. And sometimes, just sometimes, a crow can bring such a soul back to put the wrong things right," Marco finished.
"Magnificent, truly magnificent!" the storyteller exclaimed clapping his hands. Many of the other Klingons who had gathered around to listen to his gored-up version of 'the Crow' made similar sentiments public by exclaims and grunts.
"The story isn't finished yet, though," Marco grinned enigmatically, looking around the crowd, his gaze finally resting on the three Klingons who had killed Dana. "Sometimes a herald is sent to those who will die in the crow's inferno . . . I saw you three kill that woman an hour or so back. Not very honorable was it? At least not to our standards. Remember when I asked you about that Earth bird . . . well, I saw a crow land on the roof of the building that made up one side of the alley, you dumped her in." Marco laughed hard with a sinister laugh then swallowed down the last of the Bloodwine. He stood up, noticed only a little of the alcohol's effects and said, "I must be off, I don't want to be anywhere close to those three when that woman crow comes for them. Sometimes there's collateral damage you see." He laughed again and walked out the bar, leaving three very nervous Klingons inside.
*What to do now?* he asked himself as he chose a random direction.
After about twenty minutes of walking he found another bar and decided to enter it.
"Bloodwine," he ordered the bartender.
"One Bloodwine," the thin bartender said a few seconds later as he placed the cup in front of Marco.
Marco took the metal cup and drank from it.
"Well, hello there, handsome. I didn't know Humans came this big and strong," a Klingon woman, only a little shorter than he, said with a growl.
"Go away, you don't want me. Trust me," Marco hissed at her.
"Oh, no. I know what I want, and it's you," she growled at him.
Marco looked at her for a second, looked around and saw something he thought he recognized. "Go use somebody else to make your boyfriend jealous."
"I would never use you for such a thing, you look far too good," she growled and grinned at him.
"What are you doing with my woman?" the Klingon male Marco had just spotted asked as he arrived at the scene.
"I'm not your woman anymore, G'rak," the woman protested.
"I'm not doing anything with her! I don't even like her," Marco added for good measure.
"Oh, so now you insult my girlfriend!" G'rak hissed.
"Great, real great." Marco muttered, getting angry.
"Leave him alone, G'rak. He's just a Human. He won't stand a chance against you. If you want to fight someone, fight me," the woman told her apparently ex-boyfriend, a threat hanging in the tone of her voice while she placed herself between him and Marco.
"Stay out of this, Mirka!" G'rak growled. Suddenly they both felt something cold and sharp against their necks. They looked along it and found that the blade stretched from G'rak's neck to behind Mirka's neck and was held by Marco.
"Yes, Mirka. Stay out this, dear. It's been a long time since I killed a fool like him. It'll be my pleasure," Marco said, grinning a malicious smile.
"You want a fight, Human, you can have one," G'rak hissed.
Suddenly there was a loud bang on the bar. All three of them looked and saw a disruptor pistol trained at them. They followed the arm and saw the bartender. "Outside!" he threatened. "Or pay the damage up front!"
"Let's go outside, shall we?" Marco grinned.
Once they were outside, most of the people in the bar were as well in order to watch the fight.
G'rak pulled out his bat'leth. Marco swivelled his sword around a few times before holding it up. The Klingons seemed a bit astonished that he was able to pull it off with such a large sword. G'rak knew instantly that the sword wasn't for decoration as he had thought.
G'rak attacked, and Marco blocked easily. He swung his sword in a nice arc for G'rak's neck, which G'rak blocked. G'rak felt the vibration through his bat'leth and was starting to see that he had seriously underestimated the Human.
Marco pulled his sword back and thrust it forward. G'rak jumped to the side when he noticed the sword already coming at him. He blocked it, stepped back a little and let his bat'leth swivel to a defensive position before he attacked Marco with a serious of rapid blows, feints and swipes. Marco blocked or parried each of them easily. G'rak was holding his bat'leth horizontally in front of his body.
"You're good . . . for a mortal," Marco added the last three words menacingly, then put his sword over his head and brought it down rapidly, point almost vertically downward.
G'rak had no idea what he was trying, but the sword wouldn't even come anywhere close to his body. He grinned. He knew he had the stupid Human. That idea quickly vanished as he heard metal on metal. He looked at his bat'leth and saw Marco's sword stick through one of the openings in it.
Marco brought his foot down upon the bat'leth and slammed it to the floor, pulling G'rak along with it. Then Marco pulled his sword out of the cracked pavement and with an easy, practiced swipe severed G'rak's head from his shoulders. It bounced on the floor several times before coming to a rest almost two meters away. Marco quickly jumped aside to avoid the copious amount blood that spurted from G'rak's neck. Some of it hit his boot anyway.
"Damn! My boot!" he exclaimed, and tried to wipe it clean as best as he could, then did the same with his sword and deposited it back in his coat. He saw the Klingons stare, and joked, "What?! Never seen a Human clean his boot before?!"
The Klingons laughed, then, as the laughter started to die down, one of them said, "Not after he cut off a Klingon's head!" The Klingons started laughing again and slowly poured back into the bar.
Marco followed, found his way back to his drink and gulped it down. "Another one, bartender! Oh, hell!" he shouted in announcement as he dropped the needed cash on the counter. "I won! A Bloodwine for everybody!" Every Klingon in the bar cheered before going back to what they were doing. *Well, that was rather nice, and the garbage pickup in the morning will just come and pick up the body in the morning. No worrying about any cops. A guy could begin to like this place,* Marco thought as he took a gulp from his new Bloodwine.
"Well," Mirka said as she leaned seductively against the bar, making sure to show off her cleavage. "It seems you've more things going for you than I gave you credit for."
He really hadn't been in the mood, but remembering that he had just cut off the head of her ex-boyfriend and she still wanted him . . . it was getting him in the mood. "Oh?" he asked. "Still want me after cutting off your boyfriend's head?"
"Still? Now I actually want you; it turned me on," she growled erotically, coming even closer to him.
"Really?" he said blandly, gulping down the rest of his drink. "How turned on are you?"
"This turned on," Mirka answered, grabbed his collar, pulled him to her and bit him on the cheek, tasting his blood, then quickly let him go. It pissed Marco off. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head backwards, then put his left head at her throat and squeezed. He looked angrily in her eyes and saw genuine fear mixed with desire there.
*She tasted my blood. That's a mating practice with some animals. I guess it's one with the Klingons as well,* he grinned as he realized this, kissed her deeply and felt her press her body against his. "What d'ya say about us leaving?" he said with some anger in his tone. He saw a flicker of fear again, then it was replaced with hunger.
"Oh, yes, please," Mirka said. They left the bar, then he thought of something.
"Come on, Mirka, we've got to go do something first," he grinned at himself.
"What?" she asked.
"You'll see," he said, with an even broader, mischievous grin.
*****
It had taken her some time and several wrong directions, but finally Dana had found them; there they were walking through the alley. Death would be upon them soon, for nobody tried to kill her and lived.
She stepped into the alley, letting the shadows play across her. "Hello," Dana said grimly. "I told you it was a big mistake killing me . . . it's time to die." Dana was pleased, the Klingons seemed filled with terror. Not something she had expected, even though she had come back from the dead. The Klingons pulled their weapons out. Dana laughed sinisterly. "Do you really think those can kill me?" She pulled her own sword.
Two minutes later the Klingons were dead.
*****
Marco grinned. His instincts had led him to the right spot. There they were; three dead Klingons, each one disemboweled and decapitated.
*Nice work,* he thought, appreciating the carnage.
"Promise me on the honor of all your ancestors and all your descendants that you'll never tell anyone I did what I'm going to do," Marco whispered, looking deep in Mirka's eyes.
"I promise," she said. He bent down dipped his fingers in the blood and painted the symbol of the crow on the wall with it, dipping his finger back into the blood whenever there was no more left.
"Now we can leave," Marco grinned.
"I don't understand," Mirka answered.
"Perhaps you'll find out if you're lucky, and if one of those I told the story to, tells it to you," he answered.
*****
His hotel room
Marco was looking forward to fucking the Klingon slut. Then she smashed him in the face. *Ah,* he thought, *killing her boyfriend's killer using the element of surprise, eh?* It made him angry, really angry, and he smashed the back of his hand into Mirka's face. She flew backward from the impact and landed on the hard bed.
Mirka growled and said, "And he knows Klingon mating rituals too. You're getting better by the minute."
*Mating rituals?* he asked himself, then he grinned in understanding. Mirka was about to hit him. He blocked her fist and smashed his knee into her right side. He felt her rib crack and was worried that was a bit too much. Mirka, however, gave a painful, yet erotic growl. *She likes it,* Marco grinned inwardly. He twisted her arms to her back, then pushed her forward, smashing her head hard into the wall behind the bed. Then he pushed her down so her shoulders leaned on the bed, and ripped her clothes off.
"Take me," she growled.
A place where you could duel without the chance to be thrown into jail and where the women liked to be beaten up and then fucked. Perhaps he should stick around for a while. Scully wasn't scheduled to leave for another week. *Yeah,* he decided, grinning, as he plunged his erection brutally into her vagina. *Not tomorrow. I'll kill Scully in a week, see the sites, fuck the women.*
*****
One week later.
"She left a few minutes ago, Chairman," the girl answered.
"Do you know where she went?" he asked her.
"I'm sorry, Chairman. The Ambassador did not tell me where she went," the girl answered apologetically.
She wasn't at the embassy, she wasn't at his house, and she wasn't on any official business anywhere. *So where could she be?* Klarok asked himself as he stepped outside the Federation Embassy. He breathed in deeply. Wait a minute, he'd know that smell anywhere. Nobody on Q'onos wore that perfume. He grinned. He had picked up the scent, literally.
Klarok followed it for almost half an hour, went in the wrong direction several times, needing to double back as the scent was evaporating. He heard metal clanging to metal. He slowed his stepped and looked around the corner. There he saw something that astonished him; Josie was fighting another Human - who was easily two meters tall with thick muscles - with swords. He had thought Humans only used swords on each other for sport, for sparring, but this was none of that.
He saw the man rush forward rapidly, pushing Dana in the wall behind her forcefully. Dana yelled in pain, then her right foot kicked him on the insides of both his knees and he staggered back. Dana immediately made a swipe for his head, but he blocked it easily and twisted her away from him. He stood up again, wobbly for a second, but then he regained his footing.
"Bitch!" he yelled and attacked with a series of lightning-fast moves that she parried with equally fast moves then twisted to the side. His sword came up to protect his neck, but that was not where her swing was going; it cut through his upper arm, but not deep enough to sever it. His sword came down rapidly. She twisted aside and cut him in his side. He turned immediately, letting his sword cut through the air. She wasn't fast enough, and his sword cut through part of her arm and right breast. She winced, letting out a loud groan, but suppressed the urge to grab the wounds. His kick followed too quickly for her to block, and she flew to the ground. His sword rapidly followed. She rolled aside to her left and used his imbalance to swipe his feet from under him. A moment later they both stood once more, wearily circling each other for a moment or two.
Klarok was looking at them in astonishment, consciously willing his jaw shut. They were moving so fast, so fluently it could rival any Klingon, but it was done by two Humans. *You've been holding out on me, Josie,* he thought as he saw the two combatants start up again. Their blows, parries and feints followed each other rapidly. So fast, that at times their hands were nothing more than a blur to him.
Dana swiped at his legs. He jumped over her foot, and as he came down kicked her hard in the face. She dropped backward and quickly rolled back to her feet and ran at him. He thrust his sword forward, and she quickly twisted to her right to avoid it, making a try at his neck in the process. He quickly turned toward her and moved his body backward. It allowed him to get his sword between his neck and her sword just in time, and they clanged against each other loudly. She kicked her foot out at his exposed stomach, and he staggered backward. She attacked, and he twisted to the side and grabbed her hair with his left hand. He smashed her head into the wall to his left, then did again and again. The next time he pulled her head back he got her elbow into his stomach, after which she jumped up, grabbed his head and let her self fall down, making sure his neck smashed on her shoulder. He gurgled and choked. Dana quickly got back up, attempting to take advantage of the situation. When she came at him though, he made a quick feint and jab and managed to run his sword through her right side. They both pulled back.
Klarok saw Dana and the man stand back a little and expected them both to give up, or at least slow down. With those wound you couldn't fight at high speed. It would be your own undoing. He couldn't be more wrong. Only an instant did they allowed themselves reprise, then they both hefted their swords again and went at each other with even greater speed and ferocity. *What are you doing?* he thought, stricken, as he saw her clothes grow slick with red liquid. *That'll only open that wound more, you'll lose.*
Dana and Marco didn't care much for their injuries. Even though they hurt a lot and limited their breathing, they already felt them healing. Their swords clashed faster, and their wounds spurned them on. In their combat and with their healing, you had to. If the other would heal up faster than you, you'd be doomed. Thus you had to take every advantage you could take, even forcing your opponent to make such fast and bad - for their wounds - moves, as to slow their healing down. After two minutes they slowed down a bit - encircling each other for a few seconds - when they noticed both their wounds had healed already.
Dana attacked. Marco kneeled down, blocking her blow, then sliced his sword across her stomach, leaving a deep laceration just short of disemboweling her. Her rapid kick sent him down to the floor, and her sword came down with high speed. He rolled aside in the nick of time. He stood back up, where he was forced to block a blow from her. She ducked beneath his next swipe, then thrust her sword into his stomach. He quickly backed up, making sure he wouldn't be run through with her sword completely.
Klarok couldn't believe it. With her side getting skewered and the speed with which she had been moving afterwards, she should be on the ground bleeding to death by now, and he should have been on the ground gasping for air. But neither showed any sign of weakness nor he any sign of breathing difficultly. Now they both had severe wounds again, and yet again they started attacking each other without any sign of letting up. Klarok was impressed. Impressed was an understatement, he was in awe. He looked at them. They fought with brilliant speeds and determination, pain didn't slow them, wounds didn't seem to hurt them. This was a fight worthy of song. It was worthy of an entire opera, he decided. Then he noticed something.
Where was the blood? With those wounds on her she should be dripping blood all over the place. She had, right after she was wounded, but not anymore. He looked closely. For a moment her front was turned to him. Her clothes were cut, and he could see her skin . . . blood covered it, but it was definitely skin. Not a wound, but skin. This time his jaw did drop, unable to comprehend but trying to. How could there be no wound? How was it possible that the wound had already healed?
Klarok watched and saw Marco swing his sword. Dana duck beneath it, walking passt his right side rapidly, and cutting it open again. Marco winced but kept his mouth shut, already turning around. But he was too late. Dana pushed her sword backwards and skewered him at the height of his heart. Klarok saw Marco looking shocked at the sword point sticking out his chest, then laughed hard. Dana pulled her sword out. He dropped to his knees. With a kick she sent his sword skidding away.
Klarok saw her raising her sword above her head and heard her yell, "There can be only one!" Then the sword came down and severed the still laughing head from Marco's body. As his head flew through the air he still laughed for six whole seconds - of which the last four were gurgles since he had no air to move through his throat - before he stopped as his brain died. Klarok felt shivers of eeriness run through his body as he heard Marco laugh even when his head was severed.
He thought it was over, but then electrical sparks started sparkling on Marco's neck and a ghostly mist starting forming across his body. Then, suddenly, a lightning bolt struck Josie, and it came from Marco's body. Then another and another as the ghostly mist slowly traveled into her. The amount and size of lightning strikes grew. Now they no longer traveled into Josie alone. Some now struck the buildings that made up the back street in which she stood. Josie screamed, seemingly as much in pleasure as in pain. Then lightning strikes flew out of Josie and into nearby objects. Klarok felt tremors course through the street up through his legs. *The sewers,* he realized and a cover close to him shot upward as did several others a distance away, electrical discharges encircling the openings. Some of the lightning from Josie shot upward and into metal objects. Was he seeing things that weren't there? Or were the buildings actually shaking and rising a little? In the middle of it all Josie was kneeling, hands in the air, screaming as more strikes hit her body.
Then, just as suddenly as it started, it ended. The lightning strikes died down, the tremors and the winds disappeared and the buildings stopped shaking. Here and there a little electrical discharge curled around, mostly metal, objects. Klarok slowly walked to her, completely in awe, barely able to believe that what he just saw was real.
Dana looked up and shook her head to remove the daze from her head. She looked to her left and saw someone peeking from behind a corner. If she was right, he was Human. She gave the Watcher a one-fingered salute and a grin. He quickly disappeared back behind the building. She forced herself to her feet and looked up. She saw Klarok sauntering over to her. Astonishment could be read of his face easily.
"Great!" she muttered and walked to him, sheathing her sword beneath her coat and closing it to minimize the amount of blood people could see. Something occurred to her and she asked him softly, "How many Klingons, do you think, have seen that?"
"A few, at least," Klarok answered, still not entirely over what he saw as Dana pulled him along in the direction where he came from.
"Fantastic. I thought this place was deserted, but not only do I have my Watcher's company, but yours and some Klingons too," Dana complained as they rounded the corner he had just been hiding behind.
"What was that?" he asked.
"A Quickening," she answered.
"And what's a Quickening exactly? Better yet, who or what are you?" Klarok asked, a bit intimidated and loud.
"My real name is Dana Scully," Dana answered him softly, putting her finger in front of her lips to show him he should be soft as well. "I'm almost 330 years old. I am Human, for the most part . . . I was born Immortal, and I can not die unless somebody takes my head and with it, my power . . ."
*****
A few days later
"So you're not staying?" Klarok asked her.
"No, I'm not," Dana answered him, as she packed up her belongings.
"Not even for me?" he asked gruffly.
"I'm sorry, but I've got a daughter out there you see. I protected her life from her father, and she didn't like what I did . . . so she said she never wanted to see me again. Now she's looking for that very same father. I don't know whether it's just that my worries have grown over the past eight years, I've seen some glimpses of her in Marco's memories or a combination of both, but I must find her," Dana explained. "I'm not just leaving Q'onos, I'm leaving this job as well. Perhaps I'll even leave this identity behind.
"Mac, you'll check everything about her right?" she asked MacLeod who was leaning against the wall.
"Of course. I don't want to see anything happen to my niece, either," Duncan answered with compassion.
"Well then, I guess it's time to turn this gig back over to Dax," she stated, grabbing her bags and walking out her room.
*****
Curzon and his attaches materialized, and he walked forward, stretching out his hand to shake Scully's. She took it as he said, "Impressive handling of the situation, Josie. A little risky though."
"Sometimes risk must be taken in order to achieve a better state," Dana answered him.
"True . . . You know, this has been on my mind ever since we talked first; have we met before that time? Because you look familiar?" Curzon asked, his head in a frown, trying to remember.
Dana gave him an enigmatic smile and answered, "Not unless you're over two hundred years old."
Curzon was shocked. *Could she know?* he asked himself, *It can't be, and what did she mean by that anyway?*
Dana's communicator beeped. She pulled it out, opened it and said, "Yes."
Ambassador Taelman, are you ready to be beamed up? Kirk's voice asked, as it came through the communicator.
"Of course, Captain. You can beam me up anytime," Dana answered, and several seconds later she disappeared in a shimmering light.
~~X~~