He Who Fights With Monsters
By Thalia Drogna
And T'Pol screamed with the ships. She had never experienced anything like it. She knew that being on the Rel Sevanne surrounded by the empaths had effected her in subtle ways that she hadn't quite understood at the time. It had faded when she returned to Enterprise so she had thought no more about it. The screams of the dying were in her head and it hurt her. She was no longer aware of her surroundings. She didn't realise that she was on the bridge at her science station, clutching her head in her hands as if it would break if she let go. She let out a primal yell and fell to the floor, trying desperately to control the pain.
One scream was making itself heard above the others. "Trip," she said clearly, between taking breaths to control the pain.
"What about Trip?" asked Archer of his Science Officer who now lay underneath her station on the bridge. He had already told Hoshi to send for Phlox and hoped that he would arrive soon, this was way out of his experience with Vulcans.
"So much pain," she said. "You have to help him. He is part of the ship." She shook her head and tried to curl in on herself. She gasped for breath trying to make sense of the emotions that were bombarding her.
Phlox was suddenly at her side, sitting her up.
"T'Pol, tell me what's going on," said Phlox.
"I can hear them all," said T'Pol. "It's too much. It hurts!"
Phlox prepared a hypospray.
"No," said T'Pol, summoning up all her self-control. "No drugs. We have to find Commander Tucker."
"At least let me give you something for the pain," said Phlox.
T'Pol closed her eyes, took a deep breath and nodded her assent. Phlox took a moment to load another hypospray before he injected T'Pol. Her face changed immediately from the pain wracked mask it had been to her usual calm visage.
"What happened?" asked Archer.
"I heard the death cries and pain of hundreds of Tien and Kriel," said T'Pol, completely logical once more.
"I don't understand," said Archer. "I thought Vulcans were only touch telepaths. You have to be in contact with someone to be able to read their thoughts."
"If the telepathic broadcast is strong enough then there have been instances where Vulcans have detected thoughts over a great distance. There are several examples in our history where a large natural disaster has precipitated a telepathic contact such as what I have just experienced. The Tien are empaths and their ability in conjunction with my own caused me to sense their emotions rather than thoughts. There are many casualties."
"Hoshi, see if you can raise the Rel Sevanne," said Archer.
"Yes, sir," said Hoshi. "Enterprise to the Rel Sevanne," said Hoshi. "Enterprise to the Rel Sevanne," she tried again. "I'm not getting any answer, sir," said Hoshi.
"Keep trying," said Archer.
"Yes, sir," replied Hoshi. "Enterprise to Rel Sevanne, come in Rel Sevanne." Her hail was met with static.
"We won't be able to reach him," said T'Pol. "He's injured." Archer assumed that she was talking about Trip and he felt a cold feeling settle into the pit of his stomach.
"Rel Sevanne to Enterprise," said a voice, crackled with static. It wasn't Trip. "This is Shar Jen."
"Rel Sevanne, what is your status?" asked Archer.
"I haven't been able to raise anyone forward of section 3," replied the voice. "The emergency bulk heads are holding, we have atmosphere in the aft sections of the ship but I don't know how long that will hold. The atrium is open to space. Engines are off line. Life support is erratic and I can't raise Trip En. We tried to reach the computer room but there's too much debris in the way. A lot of Tien are wounded, at least as many are dead, I don't have exact numbers. I think I'm the last one left of the Senior Council."
"And the Vor Devrees?" asked Archer.
"I don't know," said Shar Jen. "They look dead, I haven't seen any movement. Most of the Vor fighters were destroyed in the impact, and those which weren't committed suicide by ramming themselves into our hull. We are fortunate that we have a ship at all. If Trip En hadn't moved us when he did..."
"We're coming over," said Archer, curtly. "We'll be bringing a medical team with us and a rescue crew. Is there somewhere we can dock?"
"Docking bay seven escaped the worst of the damage, but I can't guarantee what state it's in. I suggest you bring EVA suits," said Shar Jen.
"Acknowledged, we'll be with you as soon as we can. Enterprise out," said Archer. "T'Pol, are you well enough to go over to the Rel Sevanne?"
"Yes, Captain," replied the Vulcan.
"I beg to differ, Sub-commander. You had a very intense neurological episode according to my scans and I think you should stay on Enterprise," said Phlox.
"Doctor, I believe my interception of the emotions of the Rel Sevanne could help us in our search for Tien survivors. I need to go with the boarding party," said T'Pol.
"Sometimes I wonder why I waste my breath on this crew," said Phlox as he headed for the turbo lift. "I'll get together the supplies that I need and meet you in the shuttle bay. I'll also need to immunise you all against the virus that we deployed against the Vor Devrees. It will undoubtedly have spread to the Rel Sevanne's organic circuitry. It's unlikely that you'll come into contact with it but best be on the safe side. It wasn't designed to kill the Vor Devrees, just disable, but who knows what effect it could have on human biology."
"Understood, Doctor. T'Pol, tell Hayes to get his men together for a rescue and relief mission," said Archer. "We'll meet in the shuttle bay in ten minutes."
"Yes, Captain," she replied and followed Phlox from the bridge.
"Hoshi, see if you can get hold of Lieutenant Reed, we haven't heard anything from him since Third Squadron lost contact. Lieutenant Hess, you have the bridge," said Archer. "It's time we got our Chief Engineer back."
"Aye, sir," replied Hess, and Archer wasn't quite sure which part of what he had said she was agreeing with.
Trip had very little awareness of what had happened after the Vor Devrees had impacted with the Rel Sevanne. The pain had been too great, it was almost as if his arms had been amputated in some terrible accident, he couldn't feel any part of the ship forward of section three. The pain was unbearable and had driven him into unconsciousness. This was true oblivion and not the waking dream that he had been experiencing ever since he'd been connected to the Rel Sevanne. He didn't realise that his mind screamed out and that scream was heard by T'Pol on Enterprise.
He had seen the ship coming towards them and sounded the collision alert, ordering as many people as possible to the back of the ship. Still, many Tien had died and he had heard them all, felt them all. And the ones that had been injured, he had felt their emotions too and when the Vor Devrees was close enough he found snatches of their emotions working his way into his mind as well.
For a second before the two ship had impacted he had found Corvas' mind and the two conjoined minds had conversed, exchanged data. Her mind was not a place that he had liked, it was dark like a spider's web of thoughts. It pulled him in, though, and he explored, watching Corvas' childhood play out in front of him, if it could be called a childhood.
"I thought you might like to visit with your father today," said a figure beside Corvas.
"No, I don't want to," said a very young girl's voice that he knew belonged to Corvas. She had been taken by her minder to the computer room anyway. Her pleas to turn round and go back to her room went unheeded and then she had been shown into the computer room. The black cylinder scared her. And when it was opened to reveal her father inside, connected to the machine, she turned away and ran from the room. Later, safe in her room, her minder told her that it was because of the Tien that her father was this way. Trip felt a small part of Corvas' mind break at the incident. There were other similar occasions when she was told the Tien were responsible for the bad things which befell the Vor Devrees. So this is what they did to turn you into who you are now, he thought.
She had been taught how to fight. Trip watched her training hard to defeat the enemy that she hated so much but had never encountered. Her brother was supposed to be the one to be conjoined when their father died, but events didn't happen that way. Her brother was killed while working on some modifications to the hull plating and suddenly she was the matriarch-elect. She already knew that the Tien had killed him, even without firing a shot. Becoming matriarch was an honour that she neither wanted nor expected. She often cursed her lineage, but there was no one else, it was her duty.
Trip probed deeper hoping for something that would help him. It was later and there she was again. This time she was part of the Vor Devrees' computer. She plotted to destroy the Rel Sevanne. Sharien brought her the specifications of the inter-reality cannon. To Corvas it was a thing of beauty, a way to rid the universe of the vermin that they were chasing. She ran through the specifications and suddenly Trip realised something was very wrong with the design. He thought that Sharien had probably spotted it but had hidden it. He knew Corvas didn't know, she had barely completed school before they strapped her into the computer of the Vor Devrees. The computer could help her with knowledge but it couldn't draw conclusions for her.
His last thought, as he was driven into the blackness of unconsciousness was that he had to warn someone. But by that point it was already too late, all his connections to the real world had been cut and he could feel the virus approaching. He knew that he was dying, the cold of space had finally decided to claim him.
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed lay on the floor of the computer room of the Vor Devrees. He knew that logically he should be dead. The behemoth of a ship that he was currently on had just rammed itself full tilt into another ship of equal size and he had no right to even still be breathing. He guessed that if he'd been in any other part of the ship then he may well have been joining the choir eternal. He was glad he hadn't because he was pretty sure the choir wouldn't want a tone deaf Englishman in their ranks. Which once again led him to wonder just how bad his head wound was, his thoughts were definitely a little bit strange at the moment.
He could smell smoke, the animal instinct in him told his brain that fire wasn't good, and kicked him into full consciousness. He prised his eyes open to find that the chair he had been sitting on had broken, so his arms, although still bound, were now freer than they had been. He started to look around for something sharp that he could use to cut through the bonds around his wrist. He found a piece of sharp metal jutting out from a computer casing and used that to saw through the ties.
As soon as his wrists were no longer tied behind his back, his right arm began to remind him that it was injured. Definitely broken, thought Reed, it hurt too much to be merely dislocated. His stomach was becoming increasingly painful too. More time that he'd be spending in sick bay he thought ruefully. He coughed as smoke hit the back of his throat and he realised that it was time to leave.
The room around him was in complete disarray, fallen fragments of the ceiling littered the floor. Small fires flickered around the room and electricity sparked with loud cracks around exposed wiring. Reed made his way to the black cylinder in the centre of the room. He pulled back the cover and exposed the Matriarch of the Vor Devrees in all her fearsome glory. Corvas was a child, probably not even fifteen. Reed didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All this time, they'd seen the Kriel as an unbeatable evil, when the Vor Devrees was being governed by a child. And then he realised he was looking into the face of Crin Ad Var Surian, except a little younger and a little thinner. It figured that if Shar Jen had a counterpart on the Vor Devrees then others of the Tien would as well but he hadn't expected Corvas to be Crin Ad. Everything was twisted here, he had to remind himself that these weren't the people that he thought they were. He wasn't staring into the still face of his fighter squadron's second-in- command, it wasn't Crin Ad, it was Corvas. Corvas, who had just ordered the deaths of hundreds of people.
He looked around him for something to smash the glass of the cylinder with and found a piece of metal tubing that had come from the ceiling. He put as much force as he could behind his swing and shattered the glass. He reached a hand through the hole he had made and felt for a pulse on Corvas' neck. Her skin was still warm but she wasn't breathing and Reed felt no movement in her veins. She looked fine outwardly, there were no wounds on her body, but perhaps the shock of the impact had simply been too much for her young body to cope with. He doubted he could have done anything for her in any case, he had no idea if he could even save himself yet.
Suddenly he was worried. He was worried about Trip. If Corvas was dead what state would he be in, was he dead too? He knew that Trip had felt everything that had happened to the Rel Sevanne and could only imagine how much pain the crash could have caused him. He had to get to him.
Pieces of the ceiling had come down and one had struck the Kriel Weapons Master. Reed checked her for a pulse but found none, her body had been covered by rubble. Sharien was dead and Reed relieved her of her phase pistol, he knew that having a weapon would improve his chances of getting off the Vor Devrees immensely.
He moved towards the computer banks wondering if he could find the com unit, but everything was so mangled he gave up looking for anything that might be working. He went to the door and used the same piece of metal that he had smashed the glass cylinder with to prise it open and wedge it there so that he could climb through. The corridor outside the computer room was in a similarly poor state. The lights had mostly failed with a couple of exceptions so the illumination was mainly provided by the fires that had broken out up and down the hall. Pieces of fallen debris were strewn across the corridor and smoke hung in the air.
His best option was to try to make his way to the Rel Sevanne. Now that the two ships were locked together he might be able to find some way to cross between them. How he was going to do that, he had no idea but he had to keep moving, he was on board an enemy ship. Reed was glad that he had Sharien's phase pistol, his own was probably still in his destroyed Rel fighter and he certainly didn't have time to go get it. He had managed to dodge death twice today, and he didn't want to make it a third time, but he still had to get to Trip.
Reed began to make his way down the corridor, moving obstructions out of the way as he went. If the two ships had collided in the way he thought they had, then the Vor Devrees was side on to the Rel Sevanne embedded in the Rel Sevanne's forward section. He should be able to move towards the port side of the ship and then perhaps he could find a way to get over to the Rel Sevanne. If his estimations were right, he didn't have very far to go to reach the computer room once he was on the Rel Sevanne.
The going was tough though. Every time he rounded a new corner he was met by more fallen pieces of ceiling or, in some cases, missing sections of floor plating. Disturbingly often he found the bodies of dead Kriel under rubble but so far he had only come across very few live Kriel. None of them paid him much attention, they were mostly dazed by the impact or too caught up in their own problems to care about him. He thought that being in the computer room when the two ships collided had probably saved his life. Trip had told him that the computer room on the Rel Sevanne was the most well shielded and protected part of the ship and he could only assume that the computer room of the Vor Devrees shared those characteristics. Sharien and Corvas had been extremely unlucky, by rights they should have survived the crash too. He didn't know whether he should be unhappy that they had not or pleased that his enemies were dead, at the moment he was too focused on making progress through the ship to analyse his emotions.
Every time he had to stop to move debris or find a route around an impassable area he knew he was losing time that he didn't have. For all he knew Trip might be dying and he had to reach him as soon as possible.
It took him about half an hour in all to reach the port side of the Vor Devrees and then a few more minutes to find a hatch to the outside. He then set about searching the rooms nearby the airlock for an EVA suit. It had been logical to assume that he would find equipment for a space walk nearby the airlock, but he hadn't been sure so he was very relieved when he located a locker full of space suits. The only problem was that these space suits were built for Kriel, not humans. No one could call Malcolm Reed fat, but compared to the Kriel whose slim build mirrored the waif-like bone structure of the Tien, he was positively chubby. He pulled out the biggest suit he could find and squeezed himself into it. It wasn't comfortable, especially with his broken arm, but he would be okay for a short journey to the Rel Sevanne. He pulled the helmet over his head, checked his air and sealed the suit tight.
He went to the airlock and levered the door open. He closed it behind him and searched the walls for the airlock controls. He didn't read Kriel so he had to guess which buttons to press but he worked it out and heard the air begin to evacuate. He pressed the door release and nothing happened. Doesn't anything work on this bloody ship, he thought to himself. He pulled off the panel, using his frustration to give him the extra strength that he needed, and short circuited the door controls. The door jerked open and stopped halfway, so he pushed it the rest of the way and climbed out on to the hull.
He had been right, the Vor Devrees was side on to the Rel Sevanne. He pushed off from the side of the Vor Devrees and hung weightless in the atrium of the Tien ship. The artificial gravity was offline throughout the atrium and anything that wasn't bolted down was floating free. This included a couple of cars from the transit system which now spun on their axes, orbiting each other. His breathing was loud in his ears as he pressed the soles of his feet against the hull of the Vor Devrees and kicked himself forward. He had an EVA pack mounted on his back that was built into the suit he was wearing but he didn't want to use fuel up unnecessarily.
The suit also had a com unit in it so he had a couple of tries at contacting Enterprise but either the com wasn't working or the Rel Sevanne was blocking the signal. He tried to contact Trip as well but he wasn't answering either. Another worry to add to his list.
He floated his way carefully across the open void of the atrium. Shining bubbles of water floated in places as he passed them by. He had also caught sight of a few dead bodies and uprooted trees spinning in the weightless conditions. He was aiming for the far end of the atrium, where he hoped to find a door that he could break through to get to the parts of the ship that still had air. As he passed another floating lake he caught a glimpse of something moving reflected in the bubble of water. Just as he was about to turn, a beam of light shot past his right shoulder, close enough that he could almost feel the heat of the beam.
"Next time I won't miss," said a voice over the suit communicator.
"Sharien," said Reed in reply with complete certainty as to who was chasing him. "I thought you were dead." He swiftly used the jet pack to move himself behind one of the floating transit cars.
"No, you just wished I was," said Sharien, who had disappeared behind a bubble of water and some other floating debris.
Reed reminded himself that not all aliens had pulses in the same place as humans and when he had checked Sharien for a pulse he had probably been checking in the wrong place. "And Corvas?" he asked, expecting to hear that she too was still breathing. He saw Sharien again and snapped off a shot at her, but she had already moved on to hide behind another piece of floating debris.
"Not as lucky. The pain of impact probably fried her neural pathways. You'd have to ask our doctor for the exact details. Makes me wonder what has happened to your Patriarch," she added. "Probably dead too." She fired at Reed hitting a spot directly in front of where he was hiding with frightening accuracy, something Reed was having difficulty achieving.
"Your Matriarch never stood a chance, she was only a child," said Reed. "Another senseless casualty in this senseless war."
"She was old enough to fight for her people," replied Sharien as she scanned the sky for her prey.
Reed remained hidden and waited for Sharien to show herself again, while he prayed silently, to any gods that would listen, that Sharien was wrong about Trip. He caught sight of her once more and fired in her direction, hitting the trunk of a tree beside her which burst into flames, sucking up the last gasps of oxygen out of the rarefied air around them before spluttering out. The smoke from the fire now blocked both their lines of sight. However, Sharien still managed to aim a shot roughly in his direction which he had to dodge rapidly.
How is she doing this, he asked himself urgently, she couldn't see him yet her aim was consistently better than his. He refused to believe that she was any better a shot than he was. Perhaps his emotions were giving him away again and once more he fought desperately to keep them under control.
He spotted a flicker of movement and then he saw Sharien flying towards him at full power. She was keeping her profile small by making sure she was head on to him, but at the same time dodging between the floating junk that now littered the sky of the atrium. Reed hadn't found his target yet and her speed and swift changes of course were making it difficult for him to adjust. He ducked behind another sphere of water and waited for Sharien to come to him.
"I have to say that your security arrangements on the Vor Devrees rely far too much on your main guns. I was able to wander around your craft and borrow this space suit without anyone challenging me, until you arrived," said Reed, hoping that the insult to her professional pride might put her off her game slightly.
"I guarantee that had we not just hit the Rel Sevanne, your exit would have been much more difficult," replied Sharien as she hit the bubble of water in front of Reed.
That was what Reed had been waiting for, the sphere broke into lots of smaller bubbles and Reed fired his phaser at a couple of the larger ones turning them into steam and causing Sharien to lose her momentum, as well as disorientating her. After that she was an easy target for his phase pistol and Reed fired once again, putting a hole the size of his phase beam in the right arm of her suit. He heard a startled cry as her suit started to decompress and she dropped her phase pistol in an attempt to stop the flow of air out of her suit. Reed could see her start to lose consciousness as the air escaped. He grabbed hold of the back of her suit, switched his thrusters to full power and headed for one of the doors at the end of the atrium.
It only took him minutes to reach a door, which being so far into the ship was mostly undamaged but had automatically sealed shut when the atrium pressure had dropped. He quickly ripped open the door mechanism and rewired it so that he could open it. He made the final connection and the door slid open venting the atmosphere behind it as it did so. Reed pulled himself and Sharien through the door with all the strength he could muster and then thumbed the close button on the panel beside the door. The door slid shut and he breathed a sigh of relief.
He dragged Sharien across the floor with his good arm and dumped her unceremoniously against a wall. He pulled off his own helmet and then hers. She was still breathing but the lack of air had caused her to become groggy and dazed. She also had a very nasty wound on her right arm, but the phaser had already cauterised it so it wasn't bleeding much. Reed didn't have time to waste, he went to find something to tie Sharien up with. Whilst he had no wish to kill her if he could avoid it, he also couldn't leave her to cause trouble on the ship. He found some loose wiring, and made use of that to tie Sharien's hands behind her back. "That should hold you," he said. He pulled her to her feet once more and pushed her in front of him in the direction of the computer room.
He took two steps forward and then the lights dimmed around him, before returning to full brightness. Only half the lights were still working so full brightness wasn't much better than the darkness illuminated by his suit lights. Reed was more concerned about what the dimming of the lights meant though.
"Hold on, Trip," he told the walls hoping that the intended target of his words heard them. "Just hold on a bit longer. I'll be with you as soon as I can."