CHAPTER 9: We Once Were Promised Time Eternal
AUTHOR: MNEMOSYNE
RATING: R, for violence and some language
CATEGORY: Angst, Drama, Romance, Action, Deathfic
CODES: R/S (heavy on the R) with touches of everyone
NOTES: The chapter in which much of what you've wondered is revealed, and yet some things are still left unanswered. ;)
Malcolm's fall had been cushioned by the same pile of bodies on which T'Pol was standing. With a strangled cry of revulsion, he rolled to the side and onto his feet, phase pistol at the ready, aimed at the serene science officer's head.
"Who are you?" he snarled.
She arched an eyebrow, in familiar fashion. "We are T'Pol."
Malcolm snorted. "Well unless T'Pol has suddenly metamorphosed into a princess and decided to use the royal plural, I think you're lying." He shifted his hands to get a better grip on the pistol. "Now I'll ask you again: Who. Are. You?"
"T'Pol" calmly leapt down from atop the pile of bodies she'd been using as a platform, and made her way smoothly towards him. "Your weapon is not necessary," she said, her rich, alto tones somehow different - as though they echoed in her throat. "Had we wished you dead, you would be dead."
Malcolm didn't waver his aim. "I'll keep it here, if you don't mind. And I think that's close enough."
T'Pol stopped moving and nodded her head once. "Very well." She clasped her hands behind her back and assumed an at-ease position. "What would you know of us, Malcolm Reed?"
"How about we start at the beginning. What in hell are you?"
"We are the Shoyuz'gala."
"Mind translating?"
"The Amorphia."
Malcolm squinted at her. "What do you want?"
"What all life wants, Malcolm Reed. Food, shelter, and safety." Her clear gaze wandered to take in the entirety of Engineering. "Your ship is a good home. It provides what we need, and allows us to find more once this shell is depleted." Her eyes found his face again, and Malcolm shuddered. If eyes were windows to the soul, then T'Pol's soul had been shattered into a million pieces. "We are happy here."
"How wonderful for you," Malcolm spat. "Sorry to say, you've outstayed your welcome." Pressing the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, he hissed, "Get out of her, and go away."
T'Pol blinked. "Why would we do that?"
"Because if you don't, I'm going to shoot you."
She shook her head. "We do not want to lose this body."
"Learn to live with disappointment."
"You will not hurt this body. It is precious to you."
"T'Pol would understand. She would say I was being illogical right now, allowing you to live just to rescue her."
"You cannot rescue. You can only kill. We inhabit the husk, but we do not need it. We will find another."
Malcolm squinted again. It was a worthless exercise to shoot T'Pol, if it didn't kill the alien inside her. Admittedly, the Thing may well have been lying, but he didn't dare take the chance. Not with thirty dead crewmen eyeing him with cold eyes dried in their sockets. "Where did you come from?" he asked instead.
"The Void." She said it as he would say The Earth.
"What do you mean?" he asked, annoyed. "Do you mean space?"
A nod.
"What kind of species are you?" There didn't seem to be any wound to T'Pol's body; no entryway for an alien to clamber inside.. Whatever was possessing her was not a creature like he had ever encountered.
"We are the Amorphia," she replied.
"That doesn't tell me anything," he snapped. "Be clear!"
The Thing That Was T'Pol arched her eyebrow again. "The Amorphia live in the space between the stars. We travel on buffets of solar wind. Where that does not take us, we find husks to help us the rest of the way."
"Stop calling us that!" Malcolm barked angrily.
"What would you have us call you?"
"Call us hosts, if you must call us anything." The words tasted bitter in his mouth. "You're parasites, after all. That's all you are. Filthy parasites."
She didn't seem to see fit to answer that, and stayed silent.
Malcolm watched her, unblinking. So they floated in space, eh? If they could survive in a vacuum then depressurizing the ship wouldn't help the situation - it would just make it worse. What about some sort of inhalant? Could he create something that would be poisonous to the aliens but wouldn't harm what was left of the crew? The bodies stacked here were too many to contemplate, but even a quick check was enough to prove to Malcolm that this wasn't the entire 83 member crew. Of the remainder, some - if not all - were bound to have been possessed by this species and would have to be… exorcised.
Some. Not all.
What type of creatures WERE these? Certainly not carbon-based. Not oxygen-breathers, either. Perhaps some form of intelligent energy signature? What was it that old British author had joked about once, centuries ago? Hyper intelligent shades of the color blue*?
Whatever they were, how could he kill them?
Suddenly, realization struck. His eyes widened for a moment as a memory of a blinding flash of electric blue light washed through his mind. "The bioplasma storm. That was you, wasn't it?"
Another nod.
To say he was stunned was an understatement. "But how? The She'Lac would have been here no less than a day ago. They would have known something was wrong." How could these aliens work so quickly?
"We are not impatient. We waited, though we enjoy Vulcan bodies. They are agile and strong." As if to demonstrate, T'Pol flexed her arm, splaying her long fingers. "Human bodies are less strong, but we enjoy them nonetheless."
Malcolm felt a cold shiver, like rain on a gravestone, work through his body. "How many humans are you familiar with?"
"Many." She smiled slightly, making the Vulcan's face all the more unfamiliar. "Your ship is the first vessel we have encountered of your species, and we are very happy. "
He refused to rise to that bait. "Answer me this, since you're in such a chatty mood," he said instead, through gritted teeth. "There seem to be two types of body on this ship. There's your kind," he tilted his head slightly to indicate the mummified cadavers which surrounded them. "And then there's the other kind. The bloody ones." His finger slid over the rifle's trigger. "Why the difference?"
T'Pol tilted her head. "We did not take the others. Those were made by you."
Malcolm blinked. "What?"
"Your people. They believe we will die if they kill the husks we inhabit. We are indestructible. Death of the host can only delay us for a short while. We will always survive."
Malcolm's brain was swirling. "You're lying," he snarled, jamming the butt of his phase rifle even more tightly against his shoulder. "The crew would never do that." He tried to picture Hoshi putting the point of a rifle against Nichols' head and pulling the trigger. He couldn't do it - it was unthinkable.
"Yet you are willing to do it to this husk. Are you not one of them?"
"It's different." Hoshi didn't even like killing bugs. She was the epitome of Wouldn't hurt a fly.
"We have known many species. All are the same. All fear us; all wish us dead. Always they turn on their own. Always we survive." T'Pol's brown eyes were so calm, it was difficult to remember it WASN'T T'Pol. "This is no different. You will kill this host, and we will survive."
Something inside Malcolm snapped. He had never been very good at keeping his temper in check; that was why he had become a tactical officer. The chance to blow up the occasional asteroid, enemy vessel, or hostile planet more than assuaged his internal anger. Psychologists would have said he had repressed rage related to the suppression of emotions during his childhood. Malcolm would have told them all Bollocks and then gone and had a good long workout on the target practice range.
They would have all clucked their tongues and made scribbled notes on their diagnostic pads had they seen him now.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!" he bellowed, standing upright and advancing on T'Pol. "Just what in bloody hell do you want!" Hoshi. "Why are you here!" Hoshi. "How many more people are you going to kill before you've glutted yourself!"
HoshiHoshiHoshiHoshi…
The barrel of the phase pistol stopped with a fleshy thump!, pressed square between the Vulcan's eyes.
"Get off my ship," Malcolm hissed, ice blue eyes flashing. "Or I swear to God, I'll find a way to kill you, and I'll make sure it's slow."
T'Pol studied him quietly for a moment. Then, with a speed and fluidity that was surprising even for a Vulcan, she swung her hand up, grabbed the barrel of the rifle, and pushed it aside.
"We have been patient, Malcolm Reed," she growled, and the voice she used was no longer T'Pol's. It seemed as though a thousand voices mingled together into a single, booming sound, like the roar of a waterfall. Her hand twined in the front of his uniform, tighter than a vice grip. "We would have made you of us. But you have proved yourself an imperfect husk. So we will feed, and the problem is solved." A crackle of electric blue energy passed over her brown eyes.
"I don't think-" he began, but was cut off by a strong hand clamping over his mouth, and an equally powerful arm binding his elbows behind his back.
"He is ready," a voice boomed in his ear. Malcolm rolled his eyes back and to the side to see his captor.
It was Trip.
We would have made you of us.
//Oh God,// Malcolm thought bitterly, remembering the kiss against the warp engine; the flash of blinding light. //Not Trip. Please, not Trip, too.//
T'Pol moved closer. Malcolm's body tightened as her whip-thin form stopped a hairsbreadth away from him. He stared her down, refusing to let any fear show through in his gaze.
"It is good you came," she said, that same booming waterfall voice ringing like a heavy bronze bell in his ears. "There are many of us, and we are hungry. Very hungry." She leaned forward
Trip peeled his hand away from Malcolm's mouth. "Get away from me, you bi-!" he tried to bellow, but was cut off by the Vulcan's lips landing squarely on his. He squirmed and fought to get away, his arms flexing in Trip's grip. But the engineer had gained strength, thanks to the aliens who possessed him - escape was impossible.
There was no warmth in T'Pol's lips. It was as if he were kissing a corpse. She levered his mouth open with her tongue.
And slowly, deliberately, she began to suck.
* A/N: Honest to goodness, these aliens are NOT based in any way on the Borg, nor are they influenced by those pesky zombie aliens from the Andromeda episode "Dance of the Mayflies." To be completely honest, the idea for them comes directly from Douglas Adams, whose famous "hyper intelligent shade of the color blue" phrase from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has always been one of my favorite moments from that book.