I vaguely remember a sort of dizzying sensation enveloping me as
Janeway led me into my hovel, her strong arm holding me up, and guided me
to a seat on the sleeping mat. I remember distinctly that I sat there while
she quietly built up the fire, holding my reeling head in my bloodstained
hands. Mostly I remember feeling numb. I hated the soldier who killed
Lexei. I hated the Builders for devising a world that would kill Lexei. I
hated Lexei for getting himself killed. I even hated Janeway for her part
in all of it. Most of all I hated myself. How could I have been so
shortsighted? I should've known he'd be watched closely. I should've known
that whatever he did would be discovered. I should. The hate made me cold
and the cold made me numb.
"Melai?"
Gentle fingers under my chin raised my face and once again I found the worried blue eyes of Kathryn Janeway. She was kneeling before me, seeming unsure of whether her touch would break me to pieces.
"Yeah?"
"You're shaking. Are you all right?"
Slowly, I shook my head.
"It's funny, you know? All I wanted was to do something right. Something right, that's all. I thought. I thought that if I could just share that with someone I'd be all right." I swallowed, barely able to continue. "I just got my best friend killed!"
I finally crumbled and fell into Janeway's waiting arms. She held me as the sobs I screamed into her arm racked my helpless body.
"Because of me. because of me Lexei doubted himself! Because of me he broke the rules! Lexei's dead because of me!"
Janeway was quiet for a while, then spoke softly into my hair.
"He died because a soldier shot him. Because of you he got the opportunity to think for himself. Because of you the last thing he saw was a friend. Not everyone can have that gift."
"I'm going to kill them."
"No-"
"Yes I am, I'm going to kill them!"
"No, Melai. You won't."
"I know!"
Gods, I hate being so transparent. I squeezed my eyes shut, wringing the tears out into Janeway's steady sleeve.
"Aw, Janeway. I just. If anybody was going to die, it should've been me! Why did it have to be Lexei?"
"I don't know, Melai. I don't know."
"How are you feeling?" Janeway asked an hour or so after my 2-hour cry, just as the suns were beginning to set. She was sitting across from me at the table after holding me until I'd run out of tears. After she made us both tea infusion we'd been sitting in silence until she spoke up.
"A little better, thank you," I said, trying to smile. "Please forgive me. I know better than to lose my head, honestly."
"Mourning someone close to you when the crisis is over is hardly something to be ashamed of."
Not having the energy for anything but the most blunt form of communicating, I sat back and asked my question: "Janeway, how do you do it? You are a leader. You and your people have nothing but each other. Things happen up there. People get hurt. People don't come home. How do you do it? Is it a hu-man thing?"
"No, Melai. People have different ways of handling loss. Species rarely has anything to do with it - unless of coarse you're a klingon, in which case you'd just puree everything between yourself and the offending party and then eat their heart before it stopped beating."
"Klingons, eh?"
"No ideas, Melai. My point is that when - things - happen, you find ways to keep going until you have the time to reflect on them. I find that focusing on the task at hand does well for me."
"The task at hand, right. Like when you blow things up in the square to get me out of a jam?"
"Your basic Starfleet Academy chemistry. You're just lucky there was gunpowder nearby."
I flashed a crooked grin.
"So now what?"
"Tell me what you can about getting my people out of that compound."
"Honestly? I'd guess the only reason they're not dead already is because the chance to make a spectacle of universal domination by executing a bunch of off-worlders doesn't come around very often and the Builders don't want to waste the opportunity by not taking the time to plan and advertise. Considering everything I know, I'd give your people until sunset tomorrow."
"There must be something I can do, some way to reason with them. Maybe we can strike a deal."
"I told you: Deals, money, profit, the betterment of life in general, or any other motive besides keeping the populace subdued does not interest them."
"Then I'll just have to get them out myself, won't I?"
"There's only bad news!" I informed her with a flail of my hands. "The tower's not even the actual prison. It's just a fortress. The cells are meters underground, surrounded by steel and concrete, magnetically sealed doors, armed guards every nanometer, electrically charged fences."
"So no one gets in or out but authorities?"
"You mean besides the ones who get strip-searched first? Sometimes cadets go there on a sort of career exploration day."
"When does that happen?"
"Last week."
Janeway shrugged away whatever plan she was considering.
That's when there was a rough knock on my door. One of my hearts leaped into my throat, the other froze.
Get a grip, Melai! The task at hand.
With a motion for Janeway to stay silent, I crept to the peephole in my door. I swear that just to look out at the distorted image the warped glass displayed made me shrink by centimeters. A man was occupying my stoop, dressed in the finest long silver robe and crystalline where most people have embroidery. His bald head reflected the fading light of the suns, and his primly trimmed white beard carefully outlined the limits of his jaw. His eyes were cold, his look was cold, and his posture was prim and cold. On either side of him were a total of four big men dressed conservatively in black, the most intense sense of forbidding about them that I had ever sensed.
Shura. I knew it.
The heavy hand on his right busted my door halfway down again. I stepped back slowly, disbelieving.
"What's wrong?"
The task at hand.
I broke out of my panic and seized Janeway's arm, hauled her to her feet, and hustled her to the center of the hovel's single room. There, under the carpet was the door to a coal hull. Nobody used them anymore; nobody even built them anymore. It was just big enough for a certain Earther fugitive.
"Inside!" I said, lifting the door.
"Melai, who's out there?"
"Shura himself!"
Janeway's shoulders fell as she looked at the door.
"Looks like my time's up."
"What?"
"It's me he's after, if I give myself up then maybe he won't even find you here."
"If he finds you here, he'll kill us both! Trust me!"
Janeway chewed her lower lip in a final tense hesitation, then jumped into the coal hull.
"Open up! Now, in the Builders' names!" the baritone voice at the door was yelling.
I smoothed the wrinkles out of the scene, straightened up, and walked slowly to the door.
Did I say 'door'? I meant 'doom'. And now, ladies and germs, the amazing Builder Shura will make my career as a Madditan go as extinct as the saber-toothed dodo in 9 minutes or less.
Upon entering my abode, Shura took my best chair, his right and left hand men the others, and the remaining thugs stood behind them like hulking razor beasts.
My old training instinctively taking control, I stood at stiff, trembling attention. I couldn't even wonder how they'd found me, though later I'd learn that the two bandits from before had ratted me out after being arrested. I knew what was coming: As soon as he asked the question I'd be choosing between being expelled from an entire nation or not. And as if it could possibly be more complicated, that was far from the extent of it. I was choosing between martyrdom or living, the latter of which could prove to be infinitely more difficult, and following the rules or my hearts, and the fates of Janeway, her crew, myself, any chance of a rebellion.
"Melai of the Krischta family, where is the Earther?"
The bluntness of it struck me like a fist in my face. I looked down.
"You can tell us," Shura said patiently, quietly, knowing that as always, it would be only a matter of time before he got his way.
I could feel myself turning paler and paler. As the two options flashed themselves before me, I took an instant and grabbed the one that presented itself in my mind at the time, no other reason.
"I cannot," I heard my own small voice.
It was the following silence that made me look up at Shura who I found with his shocked eyes ablaze.
"You can and you will."
I looked away and felt the tears forcing themselves into my eyes, then back.
"I will not."
A theatrical pause.
"You will. Because you love your country and the Builders."
I did not hesitate so long with my next response, but I had to fight to get the whisper out of my throat and through my teeth.
"I do not."
Shura finally stood and came to stop centimeters from me. I had to crane my neck to see his flushed complexion.
"Then because you love your world and the memory of your mother, tell me where the Earther is."
Shaking, I said, "Because I love them. I will not."
Shura's eyes narrowed.
"What did you say? Melai, take care. Is this your final world?"
I continued to shake but less form fear than fury.
"It is." I pounded my crossed fists to my chest and held them there. "It is by both my hearts!"
By the next moment, I was down to hands and knees, my head spinning, trying to grasp my senses again as I watched the blood dripping from my nose face form a small puddle on the floor below. Immediately after that, I received a kick to my lowered face, which flipped me into a sprawled supine position. Once my eyes focused I looked up the leg standing on my chest to find Shura, calmly murderous.
"Melai Krischta, former national of the Republic of Madditah. As of this day you are cast outside the law. As an outlaw, any right and courtesy socially offered you in the past is hereby revoked. Any in this world or the next who offer you shelter, protection, or comfort will be deemed treasonous." He leaned closer, his weight crushing me. "Understand this, Melai of the Krischta family: You are now no higher is status than a lump of cold poison and I will make it my personal quest in life to make sure that everyone is aware of that. Any person walking by will sooner cleave your pathetic skull than look on you. Gods only grant you the patience to endure the future you have made for yourself."
Made for myself indeed! It sickened me to think that this man, this horrible man who had killed so many, had brain-washed me for the majority of my life, who led my beloved country with hatred and fear, who was hunting Janeway who only wanted to protect her people to the ends of the world for the unforgivable crime of being different, and now was responsible for the loss of the closest thing I'd ever had to a family, was going to keep doing what he was doing until either he or everyone else was dead.
With a quaking breath, I spat my blood clear up to Shura's sour face. Unfortunately, I missed his reaction except for the part when he kicked me in the head and sent me flopping over onto my belly. As the men exited, they each took a shot at me with their heavy boots: my ribs, my belly, my kidney, and my face again. By the time I heard the door slam shut behind them, it was all I could do just to focus the double vision. An instant later, Janeway was down next to me, lifting my shoulders. One look at her face told me that having heard it all from her perspective was a lot more painful than getting kicked in the face.
"You shee that? I had the firsht one right where I wanted him. Then the othersh jump me," I said through my swollen face, moving my jaw as little as possible.
"Shhh."
Janeway's gentle hands continued to dab at my face, gradually swabbing the blood away. I held a towel full of snow to my bruised ribs.
"You were certainly right when you said that you can't generalize Madditans."
I tried to smile, the simple action pulling at my split lip. It was then that I noticed with the eye not swollen halfway shut that Janeway was lightly sweating and her skin was very pale. I didn't know what I could deduce from that with an Earther, but with Madditans it's not a good sign.
"What're you doing out of bed anyway?"
"Hold still."
"It doeshn't hurt."
"Liar. You'll be eating oatmeal for a month."
"Ote-meel?"
"It's a pasty foodstuff we have back home, ideal for people with damaged teeth." She rung her cloth out in the nearby basin and continued to address my face. "What'll happen to you now?"
"Ash he shaid, I'll make it if I can avoid everybody. The thing to conshider'sh what'll happen to you. Shura'll be back shoon. I can't hold him off forever."
"Indeed. You won't have much of a face left to hold him off with in a couple more visits."
"I've got and exhtra heart and that'sh more than I can shay for you," I teased back. I reached up to touch her face. "Hot, even for you."
She sighed. "Fever."
"Shcavengersh are no match for real healersh, eshpecially when infection shetsh in. I hate to be overly frank, but I think I'll have to find your ship in a hurry. For now you go to bed. I can take care of myshelf."
"No," Janeway said firmly, "I'm not putting you in any more danger."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"What're you shuggeshting?"
"It's time for me to go. I'm sure there's a way into that compound. Once I get my crewmen out, all we need to do is hold out long enough for my ship to find us."
"Don't be rediculoush! You'll freezhe or bleed to death, whichever comesh firsht."
"I'll have to take that chance." She put down the cloth and stood shakily. "You've already done m-more. than."
Her voice trailed off and she nearly passed out. I steadied her before she fell, then ignored her exhausted resistance as I steered her back to the cot.
"I gather there are people who need you to be alive. If you don't want to let them down, you better shtick with me."
"Nice try."
"I know how to shurvive, eshpecially when my biggesht obshtacle ish an idiot like Shura."
"I can't let you die for me in a lost cause - Ungh!"
I quickly drew my hand well away from her wound and supported her by the arm instead of the body.
"Shorry. By the by, your vote of confidenshe ish overwhelming."
Once I let her down on the cot, she fell back against the cushion, panting and strengthless but still managing to look absolutely fierce.
"This has nothing to do with your survival competence, Melai. It's about my responsibilities. You have to let me go!"
"Have to nothing. After jusht sho much time, one shtartsh to get tired of one order after the other."
I picked up her feet and swung them onto the cot with the rest of her, then pulled the quilt up over her shivering body.
"Don't you dare change the subject."
"What shubject?" I demanded, noting just how irritating I must be with an inner smile. Then, turning serious, I sat on the edge of the mat and explained. "The thing ish. I like you, that'sh all. And how you talk of your 'Federation' and your waysh." I paused to look down. "One shtartsh to get tired."
By the time I finished the sentence, she'd passed out. I sighed, knelt next to her, and after a moment's hesitation laid my hands lightly over her would. I don't know how long I stayed there like that, not knowing what to do but watch over her. The same thought kept coming to me over and over, every second I looked at her strong albeit ashen face, every time she wheezed a shallow breath.
I'd give my hearts to make you whole.
I remained in the position last mentioned for perhaps an hour, too emotionally drained to do anything but watch the Earther sleep when there was a startling rap rap rap on my door. Janeway didn't stir, though I jumped clear up to the Voyager ship.
Wow, I thought, Shura doesn't waste anybody's time, does he?
What didn't occur to me at the time was that government-endorsed angry mobs don't usually knock on their victims' doors. The sound came again, so timid I could barely hear it (also out of character for a vigilante brute squad looking for brownie points from the authorities).
I finally made my deft way to the door, took a breath, opened it a crack, and peered out. If I've ever been surprised in my life, it was then. A young woman in the clothes of a trade-villager occupied my front stoop, a little boy no more than five or six rotations old clutching the ends of her robe and peeking timidly from behind the cover of her leg. Both met my entrance with round, hopeful eyes. Another new experience.
"Are you Melai of the Krischta family?"
"My brow furrowed. "What do you want?"
"You are Melai then?" The woman looked me over and frowned. "Forgive me, I was just expecting someone.taller."
"What do you want?" I asked again, my disposition not helped by her calling me short.
"I'm sorry! I - Please, could we come inside?" she stammered desperately.
After my hesitation, I heard the tired voice piping up from inside the house: "Well, Melai? Let her in."
Janeway's prompt as well as Why not? Again led me to comply.
"Of coarse, please," I waved them inside and closed the door after their halting entrance. I heard a shallow gasp and turned from the door to find the woman halted in her tracks, staring at Janeway in shock. Janeway, sitting up now and propped against the wall relaxed and looked patiently back.
"How do you do. I'm Captain Janeway of the starship Voyager."
The woman turned to me and stage-whispered "She's an off-worlder!"
I straightened up, trying to devise a controlled, non-threatening tone.
"She's my friend."
She made her disbelief obvious until she registered my unspoken assertion that Janeway's presence was not negotiable. The boy however suddenly forgot his outward shyness as it was overrun by a child's amazement. He rushed over to Janeway's side and reached his little hand out to touch her temple.
"Tieghy!" the woman scolded, "That's. not polite."
The boy called Tieghy withdrew in shame.
"It's quite all right," Janeway put in, causing Tieghy's face to light up again. "I'm getting used to it."
She leaned toward him to make the point of interest easier for him to reach.
"Please, sit down," I offered the woman, "You look frozen."
"Thank you."
I threw another log into the stove and then joined her at the table.
"I'm sorry if I was rude. I thought you'd be someone else."
"I can imagine," she said with a slight gesture at my bruises. She looked down at her fidgeting hands, wanting to say something, but not knowing how to start. "They say that. you spat in the eye of the law."
A corner of my mouth quirked upwards at that. Spat in the eye of the law indeed!
"Do they?"
"They say that you were turned over by demons to resist your destiny by deserting your countrymen and trying to keep a traitor from justice."
My eyes narrowed and hackles stood on end.
"Lexei was not a traitor. He was just another soldier who loved his people with both his hearts and died for no reason. Now if you came here to redeem me -"
"They say," she clarified hastily. "They say, not I."
I relaxed a little. "What do you say?"
"I say, you're my only chance at saving someone that I love."
Intriguing, but there's only so much a person in my state of mind at the time is inclined to figure out on her own.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Sandron of the Kleed family, my son Tieghy." She nodded toward the boy who was busily peppering Janeway with questions. "Melai Krischta. earlier in the rotation we hit bad luck and when tax time came we had nothing to give. My husband's been in the compound for two lunar cycles now. I've gotten word that he's sick. I know he'll die if he stays there, but the fee." her voice choked and she fell quiet.
I'm sure I would've been touched if I weren't so bewildered.
"I'm. sorry to hear that," I broke the silence, hoping it would prompt an explanation of what I had to do with anything.
She answered all my questions with four words: "You're my only chance."
".. What a minute -"
"Tieghy isn't getting enough food as it is. There's no way we'll meet the sum to save my husband."
"Wait a minute -"
"You were an academy cadet, the top of your class. If anybody can get in and out of the compound, you can. You're an outlaw already, what've you got to lose?"
"Wait a minute!"
"Melai," Janeway's steady voice broke into my panic, "I think you should calm down and hear what Mrs. Kleed has to say."
Sandron pounced on my hand and clutched it between hers as though it was an ember that meant the difference between a long meaningful life and agonizing death by hypothermia.
"Please. Please, Melai of the Krischta family. My husband only wanted to feed his family. He does not deserve to die in there." She turned her glazing eyes toward her son where he was still busy making a new friend. As she did so, Janeway lolled her head toward me in a glance and I shrugged desperately. "My son shouldn't grow up without his father. I fear he'll grow to hate the world that took his father from him."
Oh, my hearts. One little - well, I suppose not so little, but just one anyway - incident that I made a bit too public and I had people showing up on my doorstep asking for extremely illegal favors.
"I don't think you understand, Ma'am. I don't habitually do this kind of thing."
"Really?"
I shot a face at Janeway who blanked her own in return.
"I swear on my birthstars I wouldn't be here if I wasn't desperate. I know nothing of the compound or military ways. There's nothing I can do on my own. I'll do anything, anything you ask if you'll only try."
So much sometimes being too much, I said "Would you excuse me for a minute? Um, please, sit by the fire."
"Of coarse. Tieghy," Sandron called her son.
I moved to sit wearily at the edge of the mat. Janeway's pale face bore an understanding look, but she said nothing.
"Maybe if I give her an answer she'll go away."
"I don't think you mean that."
"You know I don't." Fully aware of the naked pleading in my own eyes, I asked her "What would you do?"
"I'll never know enough about your culture, your values to tell you that."
"I think we share the values concerned."
"Then what's holding you back?"
I looked sadly at the floor. "What I know is that people who go in there don't come out. What I don't know is what on Rycose IV a skinny little academy dropout is supposed to do about it. What I think. I still can't shake the feeling that this is my last chance. I know it's selfish."
"That's what it is? You're afraid of wasting your chance."
"I'm scared out of my mind, Janeway. If I screw up now, I can tell you exactly what'll happen: The Builders will use me to show everyone what happens to anyone who gets in their way. No one will stand up again."
"And if you hide for the rest of your life, then what's the point -"
Janeway lapsed into a fit of coughing, during which all I could do was steady her.
"Gods, Janeway. Those two over there want me to save the world and I can't even save you properly. They think that one person can change an entire social structure as easily as changing her mind from wanting eggs or bread for breakfast. Now, you and I know that things are not so simple."
"I won't lie by telling you that there's an easy answer to this," Janeway concluded, still trying to catch her breath. "All I can tell you is that I'm getting my people out of that compound tomorrow one way or the other, but that can't be what makes up your mind. So the question remains: What would you do?"
I continued to study the floor, letting the Earther's words settle in. What would I do? Indeed. For a moment I considered announcing that I needed time to think, but I was so damned sick of thinking that I'm afraid I would've retched if I tried. But then, I didn't have to. I'd known the answer since Lexei died in my arms.
After running a weary hand down my tender face, I looked back up at my Janeway.
"Will you help me?"
She reached to give my shoulder a squeeze.
"We'll help each other. Now tell me, did you happen to hang onto your cadet uniform?"
With each trotting step Mrs. Kleed's scuzzlebat took as it carried Janeway and myself into town, I felt the jostle in every high-strung nerve. Even more, I felt it in my uneasy stomach.
I was vaguely disappointed that the cadet uniform I'd had buried in a box in the frozen ground of my front yard since I'd left the academy still fit me. I was hoping I'd grow another cm or two while the growing was good. But on the contrary: I still had to roll up the gray pant cuffs to keep them from tripping me, and I could've sworn that before my hands actually extended all the way out of the sleeves. Before we left the Kleeds behind at the relative safety of my house, Janeway remarked that I looked 'dashing' in it. I couldn't help noting the strained way she hid her smirk.
"How are you doing, Melai?" Janeway asked as the buildings of the metropolis came into view.
"I don't know," I said quite honestly. "It's odd - I know I ought to be. scared, or. anxious in the very least. It's like there's just not room inside me for those things now."
I heard Janeway sigh behind me. Her hands slowly began to knead my tense shoulders.
"Melai of the Krischta family, I hope you never understand."
My own smile flashed and disappeared when Janeway began to cough again.
"You're getting worse, aren't you?"
"It doesn't matter," she pressed when she caught her breath. "This is one mission I intend to see through."
I dropped my shoulders and despaired in the fact that the fate of the compound's most innocent inmates rested on them. Of course there was also Janeway, but she was slowly falling apart at the seams. Suffice it to say that I was not confident that her plan would work, and the best I had any right to hope for was for just one of us to survive.
We made it trotting into the city and headed down a quiet street toward the square. On the edge of the square, we parked the scuzzlebat behind the corner of a building. After sliding off myself, I lent my shoulder to Janeway that my support would lessen the jostle to her wound. She still tried to hide her cringe when her feet hit the ground. I steadied her until her hands on my shoulders began slowly squeezing into the muscle and releasing, rhythmically working out a bit of the tension. I found Janeway's blue eyes looking dead into mine.
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
I tried to will a nod from my trembling body.
"You can do this," she firmly assured me.
"S-sure, sure I can."
Janeway nodded and went to take her position. It was amazing to me how sure she seemed, practically jogging along the square's perimeter toward the compound. I on the other hand watched the compound take up steadily more of my field of view as I walked slowly toward it, each step drumming out my impending doom. The plan was that since only people in uniform had any business being anywhere near the compound, I could get close enough to engage a guard at one of the less obvious entrances in some sort of discussion. The idea was that the distraction would give Janeway the opportunity to work her way behind him from some handy area of cover and incapacitate him if necessary. When I asked her just what I was supposed to discuss, she said something about my train of thought, his favorite color, my favorite color; anything as long as I kept him interested. Then I asked what we'd do once inside. She said "Leave that to me." Hooray.
We selected a door to the rear that met a loading dock where I found a junior officer who was no more than a boy, a wet-behind-the-ears pup guarding. I approached carefully, trying to look casual. I tried to talk to him, joking about the weather and teasing him about his glorious assignment. He stood there like a statue, just like the handbooks said. Desperate, I resorted to the heavy artillery.
"Boy, why are you being such a dick?"
The poor sentry was immediately flustered beyond repair (while the Madditan military has regulations of conduct and duty, it also has codes of honor which demand protection). Instead of responding with a calm, reasonable 'Oh, isn't that mature?', his voice found its way to a point about two octaves higher than it was ever meant to be.
"I'm not a dick, you're a dick!"
"Sorry kid, but you're definitely a dick. I mean, here I am trying to be friendly and you're standing there making me talk to the wall, you stupid dick."
"I am not! You're a dick!"
"No, you're confused again. You're such a dick, your initials ought to be U.R.A. Dick."
"Shut up! I am not!"
"Get over it, dick. You're the master of dickitude and you rule over your dickdom with an iron fist to keep it from falling."
"I am not a dick!"
"Oh yes you are, Your Dickness. You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
I had to pause to formulate my rebuttal.
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick-dick, you little dick."
"Shut up and back off!" he finally yelled, sharply bringing the nose of his rifle up to my chin.
"Well, this is a dickish thing to do, don't you think you flying dick? You're pointing that thing at me just because I called you a dick. Anybody ever tell you that you look like a dick with a hat on?"
"Hey, you call me 'dick' one more time and I'll blow out your eyes and spit down your ocular cavities!"
"Is that so? Can't you read between the lines? I love you!"
I grabbed his head and planted a shamelessly hardy kiss. I held him there as he choked, hoping to find Janeway behind him. Actually when I looked up, there she was, not two paces closer to the doorway than my new friend and me and staring with one of the most disbelieving looks I've ever seen. I had to force all of the situation's direness into my eyes alone to break her out of the shock. Once back in the moment, she promptly bashed in the guy's head.
I observed him as he lay moaning on the ground.
"Dumb dick."
"This is your train of thought?"
"I told you I was weird," I said with an apologetic shrug.
Janeway looked half amazed, half amused.
"Come on, Melai."
We stole the guard's gun and slid into the compound. A dimly lit hallway lined with stone walls and a few heavy doors. Janeway looked to me and I pointed to the door at the very end of the hallway that I recalled from my cadet tour as the way to the stairwell. We glided toward it with the greatest stealth, stopping only to duck behind a corner as a pair of guards came marching down an intersecting hallway. We silently listened to their fading steps. Threat passed, we continued in haste.
"Electronic lock," Janeway observed the control panel next to the door.
"Voice and key code activated. We'll never -"
Before my eyes, Janeway raised the guard's rifle and fired it into the panel, resulting in an impressive display of yellow sparks and a fist-sized hole. She proceeded to fiddle with the wires within as distant voices alerted each other to the suspicious noise and heavy footsteps began rushing toward us.
"Janeway -" I said nervously.
"Hold on."
Janeway remained in deep concentration until the last possible second when the door suddenly slid open, we jumped inside, and the door promptly slid shut behind us.
"How'd you do that?" I demanded.
"Do you really want a crash course in Starfleet engineering right now?"
I nodded. "Another time."
Down the stairs we went. The farther down we descended the darker it got, the fewer the guards, and the more numerous the barriers. Janeway dispatched them one by one with her Starfleet magic. Finally, behind the last door, we found the deepest, darkest, coldest, filthiest place the Builders could devise. On the right was a solid stone brick wall coated in a fine layer of bacterial sludge. The floor was composed of rough, sharp rocks. Straight ahead, there was no end in sight. And to the left were the cells, four square meters each, separated from the hallway and each other by barbed and electrified chicken wire, humming with the voltage.
The first few cells were empty. The next contained several skeletons and decaying carcasses responsible for the barely tolerable odor that suffocated the enclosed space. Next came the cells that housed the compound's live victims. Most huddled tightly against the far wall when they heard us coming, their spirits broken, caring only about as much pain as they could. Some were sick and dying, all wallowed in filth. The hallway itself seemed unending.
"How do we know which one is Mr. Kleed?" Janeway brought up as we proceeded deftly down the hall.
"Mathias of the Kleed family? Mr. Kleed, are you there?" I put into the air.
I heard movement not far ahead. A few cells later, Janeway and I found a tall man who in all ways resembled one of the farmers in the Madditan villages. He bellied defiantly up to the chicken wire.
"I am Mathias of the Kleed family. I'll give you no trouble, but please leave the rest of these people alone."
"Mr. Kleed, I'm Captain Janeway of the starship Voyager. This is Melai of the Krischta family-"
"How do you do," I snuck in.
"- We don't have time to explain, but when the time comes, look for us and we'll take you to your family."
We left him standing with his mouth agape and continued down the hallway. I was beginning to fear that Janeway's people weren't even there after all when we hit the very last cell before the stone dead end. Inside were four figures, two men and two women. One of the women had human features, yellow hair, and blue shoulders where Janeway's were red. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall. The other had gold shoulders and a series of ridges on her forehead. She was pacing the confines of the cell with heavy, determined strides like a trapped animal. A pointy-eared man dressed in the same colors was standing in the center of the cell like a statue with his arms folded tightly across his chest and his brows drawn into what looked like permanent scowl. The last was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the back of the cell with his eyes closed and his head slightly bowed. My eyes widened when I saw him. Even sitting, he was tall, powerful. His face was dashingly handsome, and marked by a patterned design above his left eye.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Janeway's people.
Janeway herself was eyeing the cables that ran across the low ceiling to supply the wire barriers with thousands of volts of electricity. Just as I was categorizing the situation as hopeless, she turned and looked at me, or more specifically, my feet.
"Your boots," she said thoughtfully. "Are they rubber-soled?"
"So are yours."
"Good. Take them off and give me a boost."
"What are you going to do?"
"Trust me."
I complied as she took off her own boots. When she climbed up on my shoulders I could no longer see what she was doing, but over the next few minutes I would see a shower of white sparks rain down on me and immediately afterwards, Janeway dropped one pair of boots. She continued to work as I looked at them on the ground before me, finding the soles nearly melted off and singed black. The display was repeated with the other pair of boots and the electric hum of the chicken wire was gone.
Janeway came down from my shoulders and immediately set to work on the mediocre lock of the cell 'door'.
"Who's there?" the man in the back demanded.
"Be quiet, Chakotay! It's me!"
So this was Chakotay. No wonder she spoke his name in her sleep.
"Captain!" all of them said in near unison.
Janeway soon manipulated the door into opening and I hung back in the shadows as she went in. I watched a miraculous reunion. Everyone except the one with the pointed ears touched her in some way, a squeeze of her shoulder, a hand on her arm as though making sure she was real. All of them, even Pointed Ears looked like they wished to do more, to embrace her and hold on for hours, but some unspoken rule kept them from it.
"They told us you were dead!" the woman in gold said.
As if on cue, Janeway's face went stark white and she swayed. Chakotay caught her before she fell.
"Captain, are you well?" Pointy asked with a deeper frown.
Chakotay removed his hand from where it happened to cover her wound and examined the palm, then showed it to the others. It was covered in blood.
"We have to get her out of here," Chakotay announced. "B'ellana, Tuvok, Wildman, let's get to work on the locks of the other cells. If all the prisoners escape at once, everyone'll have a fighting chance."
"I'm all right," Janeway protested as Chakotay half-carried her out of the cell.
"Like hell," he retorted.
"Commander -" Pointy broke in sharply.
Chakotay and the others jumped at his warning. I spun around, expecting to find a threat behind me, but there was nothing but the gloomy hallway. I looked back at the small group of Fed's for an answer and found them staring guardedly at me. The next thing I knew, the woman in gold pounced viscously, pinning me to the wall with a thud. I flinched as she raised her hand to strike.
"B'Elanna, no!"
The strike didn't come and I dared to open one eye. The one called B'Elanna was looking over her shoulder at Janeway in surprise.
"This is Melai," Janeway said. "She saved my life."
B'Elanna looked me up and down, then gently let me go.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly.
"Don't mention it," I coughed.
"Well? You heard the man. Grab those locks and get cracking."
At Janeway's order, the team jumped into grim action. Within minutes, all cells on the floor were opened. The prisoners inside were hesitant at first, approaching their opened doors like a hunter does a razor beast he's not quite sure is dead. Thankfully, they grew bold and began forming a mob of perhaps 70 in the hallway. It was Mathias who had to find me in the sudden din.
"You said you'd take me to my family," he said above the noise.
I looked desperately around for the Fed's, each of whom I found battling their way through the crowd toward me. Together we made it to the door. There we began our ascent. Soon the sirens began to blare, but every guard that got in our way was nearly trampled in the stampede. The clog of desperately moving bodied was like being trapped under the waters of a raging river.
I counted the floors until the main floor. There's something about a prison that almost exclusively houses condemned prisoners that gives me claustrophobia. When I actually emerged onto the main floor, relieved to finally have the beacon of the front door in my sight, I was jerked out of the stream of people by my elbow. I was drawn into a nook in the hallway the size of a large closet where the Fed's and Mr. Kleed had convened.
"Why are we stopping?" Mr. Kleed demanded.
"Because they have our weapons. They're the only tactical advantage we have against the authorities. We can't leave them here," B'Elanna said.
"We don't have time! They could be anywhere in -" I stopped short, remembering an old lesson on the floor plan of the compound. The instructor had pointed out a certain. "My gods, I know where they are!"
"Do you have a way out of here?" Chakotay said.
"Yes. Our scuzzlebat is parked across the square."
"Good. Melai, tell me where to go and the rest of you get the hell away from here."
"No," Janeway said. "You're not doing this alone."
"Fine. Then I'll go with him," I said before I could change my mind.
Without giving Janeway time to protest, the others took her out of the compound.
"We'll wait as long as we can. Hurry!" B'Elanna called.
"This way," I directed Chakotay to an adjacent hallway.
To be continued.
Please review. I've worked really hard on this.
"Melai?"
Gentle fingers under my chin raised my face and once again I found the worried blue eyes of Kathryn Janeway. She was kneeling before me, seeming unsure of whether her touch would break me to pieces.
"Yeah?"
"You're shaking. Are you all right?"
Slowly, I shook my head.
"It's funny, you know? All I wanted was to do something right. Something right, that's all. I thought. I thought that if I could just share that with someone I'd be all right." I swallowed, barely able to continue. "I just got my best friend killed!"
I finally crumbled and fell into Janeway's waiting arms. She held me as the sobs I screamed into her arm racked my helpless body.
"Because of me. because of me Lexei doubted himself! Because of me he broke the rules! Lexei's dead because of me!"
Janeway was quiet for a while, then spoke softly into my hair.
"He died because a soldier shot him. Because of you he got the opportunity to think for himself. Because of you the last thing he saw was a friend. Not everyone can have that gift."
"I'm going to kill them."
"No-"
"Yes I am, I'm going to kill them!"
"No, Melai. You won't."
"I know!"
Gods, I hate being so transparent. I squeezed my eyes shut, wringing the tears out into Janeway's steady sleeve.
"Aw, Janeway. I just. If anybody was going to die, it should've been me! Why did it have to be Lexei?"
"I don't know, Melai. I don't know."
"How are you feeling?" Janeway asked an hour or so after my 2-hour cry, just as the suns were beginning to set. She was sitting across from me at the table after holding me until I'd run out of tears. After she made us both tea infusion we'd been sitting in silence until she spoke up.
"A little better, thank you," I said, trying to smile. "Please forgive me. I know better than to lose my head, honestly."
"Mourning someone close to you when the crisis is over is hardly something to be ashamed of."
Not having the energy for anything but the most blunt form of communicating, I sat back and asked my question: "Janeway, how do you do it? You are a leader. You and your people have nothing but each other. Things happen up there. People get hurt. People don't come home. How do you do it? Is it a hu-man thing?"
"No, Melai. People have different ways of handling loss. Species rarely has anything to do with it - unless of coarse you're a klingon, in which case you'd just puree everything between yourself and the offending party and then eat their heart before it stopped beating."
"Klingons, eh?"
"No ideas, Melai. My point is that when - things - happen, you find ways to keep going until you have the time to reflect on them. I find that focusing on the task at hand does well for me."
"The task at hand, right. Like when you blow things up in the square to get me out of a jam?"
"Your basic Starfleet Academy chemistry. You're just lucky there was gunpowder nearby."
I flashed a crooked grin.
"So now what?"
"Tell me what you can about getting my people out of that compound."
"Honestly? I'd guess the only reason they're not dead already is because the chance to make a spectacle of universal domination by executing a bunch of off-worlders doesn't come around very often and the Builders don't want to waste the opportunity by not taking the time to plan and advertise. Considering everything I know, I'd give your people until sunset tomorrow."
"There must be something I can do, some way to reason with them. Maybe we can strike a deal."
"I told you: Deals, money, profit, the betterment of life in general, or any other motive besides keeping the populace subdued does not interest them."
"Then I'll just have to get them out myself, won't I?"
"There's only bad news!" I informed her with a flail of my hands. "The tower's not even the actual prison. It's just a fortress. The cells are meters underground, surrounded by steel and concrete, magnetically sealed doors, armed guards every nanometer, electrically charged fences."
"So no one gets in or out but authorities?"
"You mean besides the ones who get strip-searched first? Sometimes cadets go there on a sort of career exploration day."
"When does that happen?"
"Last week."
Janeway shrugged away whatever plan she was considering.
That's when there was a rough knock on my door. One of my hearts leaped into my throat, the other froze.
Get a grip, Melai! The task at hand.
With a motion for Janeway to stay silent, I crept to the peephole in my door. I swear that just to look out at the distorted image the warped glass displayed made me shrink by centimeters. A man was occupying my stoop, dressed in the finest long silver robe and crystalline where most people have embroidery. His bald head reflected the fading light of the suns, and his primly trimmed white beard carefully outlined the limits of his jaw. His eyes were cold, his look was cold, and his posture was prim and cold. On either side of him were a total of four big men dressed conservatively in black, the most intense sense of forbidding about them that I had ever sensed.
Shura. I knew it.
The heavy hand on his right busted my door halfway down again. I stepped back slowly, disbelieving.
"What's wrong?"
The task at hand.
I broke out of my panic and seized Janeway's arm, hauled her to her feet, and hustled her to the center of the hovel's single room. There, under the carpet was the door to a coal hull. Nobody used them anymore; nobody even built them anymore. It was just big enough for a certain Earther fugitive.
"Inside!" I said, lifting the door.
"Melai, who's out there?"
"Shura himself!"
Janeway's shoulders fell as she looked at the door.
"Looks like my time's up."
"What?"
"It's me he's after, if I give myself up then maybe he won't even find you here."
"If he finds you here, he'll kill us both! Trust me!"
Janeway chewed her lower lip in a final tense hesitation, then jumped into the coal hull.
"Open up! Now, in the Builders' names!" the baritone voice at the door was yelling.
I smoothed the wrinkles out of the scene, straightened up, and walked slowly to the door.
Did I say 'door'? I meant 'doom'. And now, ladies and germs, the amazing Builder Shura will make my career as a Madditan go as extinct as the saber-toothed dodo in 9 minutes or less.
Upon entering my abode, Shura took my best chair, his right and left hand men the others, and the remaining thugs stood behind them like hulking razor beasts.
My old training instinctively taking control, I stood at stiff, trembling attention. I couldn't even wonder how they'd found me, though later I'd learn that the two bandits from before had ratted me out after being arrested. I knew what was coming: As soon as he asked the question I'd be choosing between being expelled from an entire nation or not. And as if it could possibly be more complicated, that was far from the extent of it. I was choosing between martyrdom or living, the latter of which could prove to be infinitely more difficult, and following the rules or my hearts, and the fates of Janeway, her crew, myself, any chance of a rebellion.
"Melai of the Krischta family, where is the Earther?"
The bluntness of it struck me like a fist in my face. I looked down.
"You can tell us," Shura said patiently, quietly, knowing that as always, it would be only a matter of time before he got his way.
I could feel myself turning paler and paler. As the two options flashed themselves before me, I took an instant and grabbed the one that presented itself in my mind at the time, no other reason.
"I cannot," I heard my own small voice.
It was the following silence that made me look up at Shura who I found with his shocked eyes ablaze.
"You can and you will."
I looked away and felt the tears forcing themselves into my eyes, then back.
"I will not."
A theatrical pause.
"You will. Because you love your country and the Builders."
I did not hesitate so long with my next response, but I had to fight to get the whisper out of my throat and through my teeth.
"I do not."
Shura finally stood and came to stop centimeters from me. I had to crane my neck to see his flushed complexion.
"Then because you love your world and the memory of your mother, tell me where the Earther is."
Shaking, I said, "Because I love them. I will not."
Shura's eyes narrowed.
"What did you say? Melai, take care. Is this your final world?"
I continued to shake but less form fear than fury.
"It is." I pounded my crossed fists to my chest and held them there. "It is by both my hearts!"
By the next moment, I was down to hands and knees, my head spinning, trying to grasp my senses again as I watched the blood dripping from my nose face form a small puddle on the floor below. Immediately after that, I received a kick to my lowered face, which flipped me into a sprawled supine position. Once my eyes focused I looked up the leg standing on my chest to find Shura, calmly murderous.
"Melai Krischta, former national of the Republic of Madditah. As of this day you are cast outside the law. As an outlaw, any right and courtesy socially offered you in the past is hereby revoked. Any in this world or the next who offer you shelter, protection, or comfort will be deemed treasonous." He leaned closer, his weight crushing me. "Understand this, Melai of the Krischta family: You are now no higher is status than a lump of cold poison and I will make it my personal quest in life to make sure that everyone is aware of that. Any person walking by will sooner cleave your pathetic skull than look on you. Gods only grant you the patience to endure the future you have made for yourself."
Made for myself indeed! It sickened me to think that this man, this horrible man who had killed so many, had brain-washed me for the majority of my life, who led my beloved country with hatred and fear, who was hunting Janeway who only wanted to protect her people to the ends of the world for the unforgivable crime of being different, and now was responsible for the loss of the closest thing I'd ever had to a family, was going to keep doing what he was doing until either he or everyone else was dead.
With a quaking breath, I spat my blood clear up to Shura's sour face. Unfortunately, I missed his reaction except for the part when he kicked me in the head and sent me flopping over onto my belly. As the men exited, they each took a shot at me with their heavy boots: my ribs, my belly, my kidney, and my face again. By the time I heard the door slam shut behind them, it was all I could do just to focus the double vision. An instant later, Janeway was down next to me, lifting my shoulders. One look at her face told me that having heard it all from her perspective was a lot more painful than getting kicked in the face.
"You shee that? I had the firsht one right where I wanted him. Then the othersh jump me," I said through my swollen face, moving my jaw as little as possible.
"Shhh."
Janeway's gentle hands continued to dab at my face, gradually swabbing the blood away. I held a towel full of snow to my bruised ribs.
"You were certainly right when you said that you can't generalize Madditans."
I tried to smile, the simple action pulling at my split lip. It was then that I noticed with the eye not swollen halfway shut that Janeway was lightly sweating and her skin was very pale. I didn't know what I could deduce from that with an Earther, but with Madditans it's not a good sign.
"What're you doing out of bed anyway?"
"Hold still."
"It doeshn't hurt."
"Liar. You'll be eating oatmeal for a month."
"Ote-meel?"
"It's a pasty foodstuff we have back home, ideal for people with damaged teeth." She rung her cloth out in the nearby basin and continued to address my face. "What'll happen to you now?"
"Ash he shaid, I'll make it if I can avoid everybody. The thing to conshider'sh what'll happen to you. Shura'll be back shoon. I can't hold him off forever."
"Indeed. You won't have much of a face left to hold him off with in a couple more visits."
"I've got and exhtra heart and that'sh more than I can shay for you," I teased back. I reached up to touch her face. "Hot, even for you."
She sighed. "Fever."
"Shcavengersh are no match for real healersh, eshpecially when infection shetsh in. I hate to be overly frank, but I think I'll have to find your ship in a hurry. For now you go to bed. I can take care of myshelf."
"No," Janeway said firmly, "I'm not putting you in any more danger."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"What're you shuggeshting?"
"It's time for me to go. I'm sure there's a way into that compound. Once I get my crewmen out, all we need to do is hold out long enough for my ship to find us."
"Don't be rediculoush! You'll freezhe or bleed to death, whichever comesh firsht."
"I'll have to take that chance." She put down the cloth and stood shakily. "You've already done m-more. than."
Her voice trailed off and she nearly passed out. I steadied her before she fell, then ignored her exhausted resistance as I steered her back to the cot.
"I gather there are people who need you to be alive. If you don't want to let them down, you better shtick with me."
"Nice try."
"I know how to shurvive, eshpecially when my biggesht obshtacle ish an idiot like Shura."
"I can't let you die for me in a lost cause - Ungh!"
I quickly drew my hand well away from her wound and supported her by the arm instead of the body.
"Shorry. By the by, your vote of confidenshe ish overwhelming."
Once I let her down on the cot, she fell back against the cushion, panting and strengthless but still managing to look absolutely fierce.
"This has nothing to do with your survival competence, Melai. It's about my responsibilities. You have to let me go!"
"Have to nothing. After jusht sho much time, one shtartsh to get tired of one order after the other."
I picked up her feet and swung them onto the cot with the rest of her, then pulled the quilt up over her shivering body.
"Don't you dare change the subject."
"What shubject?" I demanded, noting just how irritating I must be with an inner smile. Then, turning serious, I sat on the edge of the mat and explained. "The thing ish. I like you, that'sh all. And how you talk of your 'Federation' and your waysh." I paused to look down. "One shtartsh to get tired."
By the time I finished the sentence, she'd passed out. I sighed, knelt next to her, and after a moment's hesitation laid my hands lightly over her would. I don't know how long I stayed there like that, not knowing what to do but watch over her. The same thought kept coming to me over and over, every second I looked at her strong albeit ashen face, every time she wheezed a shallow breath.
I'd give my hearts to make you whole.
I remained in the position last mentioned for perhaps an hour, too emotionally drained to do anything but watch the Earther sleep when there was a startling rap rap rap on my door. Janeway didn't stir, though I jumped clear up to the Voyager ship.
Wow, I thought, Shura doesn't waste anybody's time, does he?
What didn't occur to me at the time was that government-endorsed angry mobs don't usually knock on their victims' doors. The sound came again, so timid I could barely hear it (also out of character for a vigilante brute squad looking for brownie points from the authorities).
I finally made my deft way to the door, took a breath, opened it a crack, and peered out. If I've ever been surprised in my life, it was then. A young woman in the clothes of a trade-villager occupied my front stoop, a little boy no more than five or six rotations old clutching the ends of her robe and peeking timidly from behind the cover of her leg. Both met my entrance with round, hopeful eyes. Another new experience.
"Are you Melai of the Krischta family?"
"My brow furrowed. "What do you want?"
"You are Melai then?" The woman looked me over and frowned. "Forgive me, I was just expecting someone.taller."
"What do you want?" I asked again, my disposition not helped by her calling me short.
"I'm sorry! I - Please, could we come inside?" she stammered desperately.
After my hesitation, I heard the tired voice piping up from inside the house: "Well, Melai? Let her in."
Janeway's prompt as well as Why not? Again led me to comply.
"Of coarse, please," I waved them inside and closed the door after their halting entrance. I heard a shallow gasp and turned from the door to find the woman halted in her tracks, staring at Janeway in shock. Janeway, sitting up now and propped against the wall relaxed and looked patiently back.
"How do you do. I'm Captain Janeway of the starship Voyager."
The woman turned to me and stage-whispered "She's an off-worlder!"
I straightened up, trying to devise a controlled, non-threatening tone.
"She's my friend."
She made her disbelief obvious until she registered my unspoken assertion that Janeway's presence was not negotiable. The boy however suddenly forgot his outward shyness as it was overrun by a child's amazement. He rushed over to Janeway's side and reached his little hand out to touch her temple.
"Tieghy!" the woman scolded, "That's. not polite."
The boy called Tieghy withdrew in shame.
"It's quite all right," Janeway put in, causing Tieghy's face to light up again. "I'm getting used to it."
She leaned toward him to make the point of interest easier for him to reach.
"Please, sit down," I offered the woman, "You look frozen."
"Thank you."
I threw another log into the stove and then joined her at the table.
"I'm sorry if I was rude. I thought you'd be someone else."
"I can imagine," she said with a slight gesture at my bruises. She looked down at her fidgeting hands, wanting to say something, but not knowing how to start. "They say that. you spat in the eye of the law."
A corner of my mouth quirked upwards at that. Spat in the eye of the law indeed!
"Do they?"
"They say that you were turned over by demons to resist your destiny by deserting your countrymen and trying to keep a traitor from justice."
My eyes narrowed and hackles stood on end.
"Lexei was not a traitor. He was just another soldier who loved his people with both his hearts and died for no reason. Now if you came here to redeem me -"
"They say," she clarified hastily. "They say, not I."
I relaxed a little. "What do you say?"
"I say, you're my only chance at saving someone that I love."
Intriguing, but there's only so much a person in my state of mind at the time is inclined to figure out on her own.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Sandron of the Kleed family, my son Tieghy." She nodded toward the boy who was busily peppering Janeway with questions. "Melai Krischta. earlier in the rotation we hit bad luck and when tax time came we had nothing to give. My husband's been in the compound for two lunar cycles now. I've gotten word that he's sick. I know he'll die if he stays there, but the fee." her voice choked and she fell quiet.
I'm sure I would've been touched if I weren't so bewildered.
"I'm. sorry to hear that," I broke the silence, hoping it would prompt an explanation of what I had to do with anything.
She answered all my questions with four words: "You're my only chance."
".. What a minute -"
"Tieghy isn't getting enough food as it is. There's no way we'll meet the sum to save my husband."
"Wait a minute -"
"You were an academy cadet, the top of your class. If anybody can get in and out of the compound, you can. You're an outlaw already, what've you got to lose?"
"Wait a minute!"
"Melai," Janeway's steady voice broke into my panic, "I think you should calm down and hear what Mrs. Kleed has to say."
Sandron pounced on my hand and clutched it between hers as though it was an ember that meant the difference between a long meaningful life and agonizing death by hypothermia.
"Please. Please, Melai of the Krischta family. My husband only wanted to feed his family. He does not deserve to die in there." She turned her glazing eyes toward her son where he was still busy making a new friend. As she did so, Janeway lolled her head toward me in a glance and I shrugged desperately. "My son shouldn't grow up without his father. I fear he'll grow to hate the world that took his father from him."
Oh, my hearts. One little - well, I suppose not so little, but just one anyway - incident that I made a bit too public and I had people showing up on my doorstep asking for extremely illegal favors.
"I don't think you understand, Ma'am. I don't habitually do this kind of thing."
"Really?"
I shot a face at Janeway who blanked her own in return.
"I swear on my birthstars I wouldn't be here if I wasn't desperate. I know nothing of the compound or military ways. There's nothing I can do on my own. I'll do anything, anything you ask if you'll only try."
So much sometimes being too much, I said "Would you excuse me for a minute? Um, please, sit by the fire."
"Of coarse. Tieghy," Sandron called her son.
I moved to sit wearily at the edge of the mat. Janeway's pale face bore an understanding look, but she said nothing.
"Maybe if I give her an answer she'll go away."
"I don't think you mean that."
"You know I don't." Fully aware of the naked pleading in my own eyes, I asked her "What would you do?"
"I'll never know enough about your culture, your values to tell you that."
"I think we share the values concerned."
"Then what's holding you back?"
I looked sadly at the floor. "What I know is that people who go in there don't come out. What I don't know is what on Rycose IV a skinny little academy dropout is supposed to do about it. What I think. I still can't shake the feeling that this is my last chance. I know it's selfish."
"That's what it is? You're afraid of wasting your chance."
"I'm scared out of my mind, Janeway. If I screw up now, I can tell you exactly what'll happen: The Builders will use me to show everyone what happens to anyone who gets in their way. No one will stand up again."
"And if you hide for the rest of your life, then what's the point -"
Janeway lapsed into a fit of coughing, during which all I could do was steady her.
"Gods, Janeway. Those two over there want me to save the world and I can't even save you properly. They think that one person can change an entire social structure as easily as changing her mind from wanting eggs or bread for breakfast. Now, you and I know that things are not so simple."
"I won't lie by telling you that there's an easy answer to this," Janeway concluded, still trying to catch her breath. "All I can tell you is that I'm getting my people out of that compound tomorrow one way or the other, but that can't be what makes up your mind. So the question remains: What would you do?"
I continued to study the floor, letting the Earther's words settle in. What would I do? Indeed. For a moment I considered announcing that I needed time to think, but I was so damned sick of thinking that I'm afraid I would've retched if I tried. But then, I didn't have to. I'd known the answer since Lexei died in my arms.
After running a weary hand down my tender face, I looked back up at my Janeway.
"Will you help me?"
She reached to give my shoulder a squeeze.
"We'll help each other. Now tell me, did you happen to hang onto your cadet uniform?"
With each trotting step Mrs. Kleed's scuzzlebat took as it carried Janeway and myself into town, I felt the jostle in every high-strung nerve. Even more, I felt it in my uneasy stomach.
I was vaguely disappointed that the cadet uniform I'd had buried in a box in the frozen ground of my front yard since I'd left the academy still fit me. I was hoping I'd grow another cm or two while the growing was good. But on the contrary: I still had to roll up the gray pant cuffs to keep them from tripping me, and I could've sworn that before my hands actually extended all the way out of the sleeves. Before we left the Kleeds behind at the relative safety of my house, Janeway remarked that I looked 'dashing' in it. I couldn't help noting the strained way she hid her smirk.
"How are you doing, Melai?" Janeway asked as the buildings of the metropolis came into view.
"I don't know," I said quite honestly. "It's odd - I know I ought to be. scared, or. anxious in the very least. It's like there's just not room inside me for those things now."
I heard Janeway sigh behind me. Her hands slowly began to knead my tense shoulders.
"Melai of the Krischta family, I hope you never understand."
My own smile flashed and disappeared when Janeway began to cough again.
"You're getting worse, aren't you?"
"It doesn't matter," she pressed when she caught her breath. "This is one mission I intend to see through."
I dropped my shoulders and despaired in the fact that the fate of the compound's most innocent inmates rested on them. Of course there was also Janeway, but she was slowly falling apart at the seams. Suffice it to say that I was not confident that her plan would work, and the best I had any right to hope for was for just one of us to survive.
We made it trotting into the city and headed down a quiet street toward the square. On the edge of the square, we parked the scuzzlebat behind the corner of a building. After sliding off myself, I lent my shoulder to Janeway that my support would lessen the jostle to her wound. She still tried to hide her cringe when her feet hit the ground. I steadied her until her hands on my shoulders began slowly squeezing into the muscle and releasing, rhythmically working out a bit of the tension. I found Janeway's blue eyes looking dead into mine.
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
I tried to will a nod from my trembling body.
"You can do this," she firmly assured me.
"S-sure, sure I can."
Janeway nodded and went to take her position. It was amazing to me how sure she seemed, practically jogging along the square's perimeter toward the compound. I on the other hand watched the compound take up steadily more of my field of view as I walked slowly toward it, each step drumming out my impending doom. The plan was that since only people in uniform had any business being anywhere near the compound, I could get close enough to engage a guard at one of the less obvious entrances in some sort of discussion. The idea was that the distraction would give Janeway the opportunity to work her way behind him from some handy area of cover and incapacitate him if necessary. When I asked her just what I was supposed to discuss, she said something about my train of thought, his favorite color, my favorite color; anything as long as I kept him interested. Then I asked what we'd do once inside. She said "Leave that to me." Hooray.
We selected a door to the rear that met a loading dock where I found a junior officer who was no more than a boy, a wet-behind-the-ears pup guarding. I approached carefully, trying to look casual. I tried to talk to him, joking about the weather and teasing him about his glorious assignment. He stood there like a statue, just like the handbooks said. Desperate, I resorted to the heavy artillery.
"Boy, why are you being such a dick?"
The poor sentry was immediately flustered beyond repair (while the Madditan military has regulations of conduct and duty, it also has codes of honor which demand protection). Instead of responding with a calm, reasonable 'Oh, isn't that mature?', his voice found its way to a point about two octaves higher than it was ever meant to be.
"I'm not a dick, you're a dick!"
"Sorry kid, but you're definitely a dick. I mean, here I am trying to be friendly and you're standing there making me talk to the wall, you stupid dick."
"I am not! You're a dick!"
"No, you're confused again. You're such a dick, your initials ought to be U.R.A. Dick."
"Shut up! I am not!"
"Get over it, dick. You're the master of dickitude and you rule over your dickdom with an iron fist to keep it from falling."
"I am not a dick!"
"Oh yes you are, Your Dickness. You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick."
"You're a dick!"
I had to pause to formulate my rebuttal.
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick!"
"You're a dick-dick, you little dick."
"Shut up and back off!" he finally yelled, sharply bringing the nose of his rifle up to my chin.
"Well, this is a dickish thing to do, don't you think you flying dick? You're pointing that thing at me just because I called you a dick. Anybody ever tell you that you look like a dick with a hat on?"
"Hey, you call me 'dick' one more time and I'll blow out your eyes and spit down your ocular cavities!"
"Is that so? Can't you read between the lines? I love you!"
I grabbed his head and planted a shamelessly hardy kiss. I held him there as he choked, hoping to find Janeway behind him. Actually when I looked up, there she was, not two paces closer to the doorway than my new friend and me and staring with one of the most disbelieving looks I've ever seen. I had to force all of the situation's direness into my eyes alone to break her out of the shock. Once back in the moment, she promptly bashed in the guy's head.
I observed him as he lay moaning on the ground.
"Dumb dick."
"This is your train of thought?"
"I told you I was weird," I said with an apologetic shrug.
Janeway looked half amazed, half amused.
"Come on, Melai."
We stole the guard's gun and slid into the compound. A dimly lit hallway lined with stone walls and a few heavy doors. Janeway looked to me and I pointed to the door at the very end of the hallway that I recalled from my cadet tour as the way to the stairwell. We glided toward it with the greatest stealth, stopping only to duck behind a corner as a pair of guards came marching down an intersecting hallway. We silently listened to their fading steps. Threat passed, we continued in haste.
"Electronic lock," Janeway observed the control panel next to the door.
"Voice and key code activated. We'll never -"
Before my eyes, Janeway raised the guard's rifle and fired it into the panel, resulting in an impressive display of yellow sparks and a fist-sized hole. She proceeded to fiddle with the wires within as distant voices alerted each other to the suspicious noise and heavy footsteps began rushing toward us.
"Janeway -" I said nervously.
"Hold on."
Janeway remained in deep concentration until the last possible second when the door suddenly slid open, we jumped inside, and the door promptly slid shut behind us.
"How'd you do that?" I demanded.
"Do you really want a crash course in Starfleet engineering right now?"
I nodded. "Another time."
Down the stairs we went. The farther down we descended the darker it got, the fewer the guards, and the more numerous the barriers. Janeway dispatched them one by one with her Starfleet magic. Finally, behind the last door, we found the deepest, darkest, coldest, filthiest place the Builders could devise. On the right was a solid stone brick wall coated in a fine layer of bacterial sludge. The floor was composed of rough, sharp rocks. Straight ahead, there was no end in sight. And to the left were the cells, four square meters each, separated from the hallway and each other by barbed and electrified chicken wire, humming with the voltage.
The first few cells were empty. The next contained several skeletons and decaying carcasses responsible for the barely tolerable odor that suffocated the enclosed space. Next came the cells that housed the compound's live victims. Most huddled tightly against the far wall when they heard us coming, their spirits broken, caring only about as much pain as they could. Some were sick and dying, all wallowed in filth. The hallway itself seemed unending.
"How do we know which one is Mr. Kleed?" Janeway brought up as we proceeded deftly down the hall.
"Mathias of the Kleed family? Mr. Kleed, are you there?" I put into the air.
I heard movement not far ahead. A few cells later, Janeway and I found a tall man who in all ways resembled one of the farmers in the Madditan villages. He bellied defiantly up to the chicken wire.
"I am Mathias of the Kleed family. I'll give you no trouble, but please leave the rest of these people alone."
"Mr. Kleed, I'm Captain Janeway of the starship Voyager. This is Melai of the Krischta family-"
"How do you do," I snuck in.
"- We don't have time to explain, but when the time comes, look for us and we'll take you to your family."
We left him standing with his mouth agape and continued down the hallway. I was beginning to fear that Janeway's people weren't even there after all when we hit the very last cell before the stone dead end. Inside were four figures, two men and two women. One of the women had human features, yellow hair, and blue shoulders where Janeway's were red. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall. The other had gold shoulders and a series of ridges on her forehead. She was pacing the confines of the cell with heavy, determined strides like a trapped animal. A pointy-eared man dressed in the same colors was standing in the center of the cell like a statue with his arms folded tightly across his chest and his brows drawn into what looked like permanent scowl. The last was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the back of the cell with his eyes closed and his head slightly bowed. My eyes widened when I saw him. Even sitting, he was tall, powerful. His face was dashingly handsome, and marked by a patterned design above his left eye.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Janeway's people.
Janeway herself was eyeing the cables that ran across the low ceiling to supply the wire barriers with thousands of volts of electricity. Just as I was categorizing the situation as hopeless, she turned and looked at me, or more specifically, my feet.
"Your boots," she said thoughtfully. "Are they rubber-soled?"
"So are yours."
"Good. Take them off and give me a boost."
"What are you going to do?"
"Trust me."
I complied as she took off her own boots. When she climbed up on my shoulders I could no longer see what she was doing, but over the next few minutes I would see a shower of white sparks rain down on me and immediately afterwards, Janeway dropped one pair of boots. She continued to work as I looked at them on the ground before me, finding the soles nearly melted off and singed black. The display was repeated with the other pair of boots and the electric hum of the chicken wire was gone.
Janeway came down from my shoulders and immediately set to work on the mediocre lock of the cell 'door'.
"Who's there?" the man in the back demanded.
"Be quiet, Chakotay! It's me!"
So this was Chakotay. No wonder she spoke his name in her sleep.
"Captain!" all of them said in near unison.
Janeway soon manipulated the door into opening and I hung back in the shadows as she went in. I watched a miraculous reunion. Everyone except the one with the pointed ears touched her in some way, a squeeze of her shoulder, a hand on her arm as though making sure she was real. All of them, even Pointed Ears looked like they wished to do more, to embrace her and hold on for hours, but some unspoken rule kept them from it.
"They told us you were dead!" the woman in gold said.
As if on cue, Janeway's face went stark white and she swayed. Chakotay caught her before she fell.
"Captain, are you well?" Pointy asked with a deeper frown.
Chakotay removed his hand from where it happened to cover her wound and examined the palm, then showed it to the others. It was covered in blood.
"We have to get her out of here," Chakotay announced. "B'ellana, Tuvok, Wildman, let's get to work on the locks of the other cells. If all the prisoners escape at once, everyone'll have a fighting chance."
"I'm all right," Janeway protested as Chakotay half-carried her out of the cell.
"Like hell," he retorted.
"Commander -" Pointy broke in sharply.
Chakotay and the others jumped at his warning. I spun around, expecting to find a threat behind me, but there was nothing but the gloomy hallway. I looked back at the small group of Fed's for an answer and found them staring guardedly at me. The next thing I knew, the woman in gold pounced viscously, pinning me to the wall with a thud. I flinched as she raised her hand to strike.
"B'Elanna, no!"
The strike didn't come and I dared to open one eye. The one called B'Elanna was looking over her shoulder at Janeway in surprise.
"This is Melai," Janeway said. "She saved my life."
B'Elanna looked me up and down, then gently let me go.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly.
"Don't mention it," I coughed.
"Well? You heard the man. Grab those locks and get cracking."
At Janeway's order, the team jumped into grim action. Within minutes, all cells on the floor were opened. The prisoners inside were hesitant at first, approaching their opened doors like a hunter does a razor beast he's not quite sure is dead. Thankfully, they grew bold and began forming a mob of perhaps 70 in the hallway. It was Mathias who had to find me in the sudden din.
"You said you'd take me to my family," he said above the noise.
I looked desperately around for the Fed's, each of whom I found battling their way through the crowd toward me. Together we made it to the door. There we began our ascent. Soon the sirens began to blare, but every guard that got in our way was nearly trampled in the stampede. The clog of desperately moving bodied was like being trapped under the waters of a raging river.
I counted the floors until the main floor. There's something about a prison that almost exclusively houses condemned prisoners that gives me claustrophobia. When I actually emerged onto the main floor, relieved to finally have the beacon of the front door in my sight, I was jerked out of the stream of people by my elbow. I was drawn into a nook in the hallway the size of a large closet where the Fed's and Mr. Kleed had convened.
"Why are we stopping?" Mr. Kleed demanded.
"Because they have our weapons. They're the only tactical advantage we have against the authorities. We can't leave them here," B'Elanna said.
"We don't have time! They could be anywhere in -" I stopped short, remembering an old lesson on the floor plan of the compound. The instructor had pointed out a certain. "My gods, I know where they are!"
"Do you have a way out of here?" Chakotay said.
"Yes. Our scuzzlebat is parked across the square."
"Good. Melai, tell me where to go and the rest of you get the hell away from here."
"No," Janeway said. "You're not doing this alone."
"Fine. Then I'll go with him," I said before I could change my mind.
Without giving Janeway time to protest, the others took her out of the compound.
"We'll wait as long as we can. Hurry!" B'Elanna called.
"This way," I directed Chakotay to an adjacent hallway.
To be continued.
Please review. I've worked really hard on this.