"So you finally figured it out."
Saavik didn't need overwhelming light, like that in her Arongotu quarters, to see the mocking smile in Ajeya's eyes and curving her mouth. The widened section of corridor where they stared each other down was lit with only small pools of illumination from overhead, almost Klingon in its darkness.
"Or did Spock finally tell you?"
Ajeya's smile soured as she said that name, as if it held a concealed razor that had cut her tongue. Then the grin came back, even more taunting.
"But no, why would he say something now after hiding it for so long? You do know that he's kept this a secret from you all this time? Makes me wonder why, what's he afraid of? Coward."
Saavik ignored these jeers, including the insult against Spock. Everything in her focused on one thing: her Romulan parent suddenly had gender, a name and a face. After all these years... Every act and moment of cruelty on Hellguard, the reason for all the times she bled and starved and lived her hellish childhood was Ajeya.
"Is it true?"
The question took Ajeya offguard, but only for a second and it deepened her smile. She began circling Saavik who, for her own protection, mirrored the action so they sketched an orbit that mimicked the one their ships made around the planet.
"You're barely armed. Not very smart." Ajeya's one hand rested on her disruptor, but she tapped her Honor Blade leaving no doubt which weapon she wanted to use.
"Is it true?"
Saavik had been heading for the transporter room to beam up to the Contact and retrieve a dagger from her weapons collection when she found Ajeya. Her hand moved, when Ajeya's hands moved, to the phaser fixed at her side.
"Of course it's true. Would I go through this trouble if it wasn't? To think you actually believed that story about my old orders."
At least she looked nothing like Ajeya. I am not her.
"Then why tell me it at all?"
Ajeya's smirk revealed teeth like bared fangs. "Advantage. I'm fueled by knowing what you are. I denied you that."
So many times Saavik pictured this moment, but those times grew less and less until she thought she'd left it behind. Now Ajeya proved right; seeing her and knowing who she was brought everything back and made it worse. When Saavik had turned from Spock, the thing inside boiled as an erupting core, a sun with solar flares. Face to face with Ajeya, it changed, burning white hot, stable, more dangerous.
"Then you have lost your advantage."
"And gained others."
They moved through the spots of overhead light, one moment passing through the soft brightness that still cast their eyes into shadow, the next hugging darkness. Their eyes fought to quickly adjust from dark to light so they could watch the other.
Something in the feral smile across from her seemed familiar, but Saavik grasped that by making her circle, Ajeya maneuvered her unprotected back in the direction from which the Romulan came. That danger overrode thinking about familiar smiles. If Ajeya had allies waiting to spring, Saavik wouldn't know it until too late.
She cut back and forced Ajeya backwards as well so they once more stood on their own sides. One part of her mind focused on her enemy -- my oldest enemy -- watching for any warning sign, while a second part now concentrated on the Romulan corridor and a third calculated How many steps behind me is Spock? How long before he figured out which of the different mazes she had taken?
They stopped their relentless circling.
"Look at you. So tamed, a pet Starfleet keeps on a leash."
The fire burning inside stayed controlled under the discipline of her will, but it still burned, wanting release. It felt ancient and right, from the deep places in the two cultures that conceived her, and it fed on Hellguard's memories.
"Your hands are too clean, and your heart too soft," Ajeya scoffed.
No deep space officer escaped being dashed against the universe's jagged edges, and Saavik felt the urge to fling the insult back at the Romulan by reminding her where she had been abandoned.
She would not allow such a lapse of her control. "Your tactic is not working. Insults will not cause me to lose my ability to think clearly. You will not have that advantage."
The tension thrummed between them, a taut wire connecting them both and straining as it stretched tighter with each second they waited, ready to snap. The air vibrated with it, pulsing into them both and pulling them towards each other. They stood against it, waiting one nanosecond more, and further strained the line of tension. When it snapped...
"So you're here to punish me?"
It is my right. Saavik didn't say this either. She would not be distracted.
Until a sigh escaped Ajeya, the sound of an old soldier seeing the end of the war. "It will be such a relief when you're dead."
And Saavik could only think the same thing for the same reason.
Ajeya's hand slipped around the hilt of her Honor Blade and held. Saavik's hand stayed as it was on her phaser, steady. The invisible wire strained more, pulling them together...
"I should have killed you at birth." Merely a statement of fact. Ajeya drew her knife, held it in her right hand, with the disruptor ready at her side in the other.
...pulling...
"Honor Blade?" Only an observation. The desire to destroy each other banked to a simmering. This became yet another battle a higher Command deemed they fight, so they settled, ready, two veterans in the calm before the strike.
Saavik drew her phaser, and held it down at her side. Ajeya planned to use that knife; that was why she kept it in the hand she had proven in her first attack was her dominant one. The disruptor was meant to stun Saavik and leave her without the chance to keep the blade from slicing her to death.
...pulling...
A lighter shadow moved in one corner to their left, and a small, pale form edged into a bit of light.
T'Pren!
Discipline clamped down, keeping Saavik in her stance and turning her face to stone. Reveal nothing to Ajeya!
The girl stared at Saavik with wide, black eyes that sat in stark contrast to her colorless face. Her mouth parted but didn't breathe. Cold, in a wave that was painful, twisted Saavik when she saw herself in her daughter's expression: not Vulcan, not Starfleet...
Ajeya. T'Pren's expression reflected like a mirror the Ajeya in Saavik.
T'Pren...
No time. She didn't need her officer's training or experience to tell her to get the innocent away from the battlefield. Her maternal alarms electrified her and the battle changed again: disable the Romulan long enough to get the child away.
T'Pren looked from Saavik to Ajeya with the same expression for different reasons.
She knows. The girl had heard what Ajeya last said or perhaps something in what she saw between the two women... she knew.
No time for that either. Make Ajeya circle again. Put her back to T'Pren before she sees--
T'Pren's eyes narrowed and fired, and her jaw set into new lines Saavik never saw before in the girl. Her breath came now, slow and hard rises in her chest and between teeth revealed by slightly pulled back lips. The same expression her mother made at the same approximate age of ten years old.
The same expression both Saavik and Ajeya made in their brief, first battle before Armstrong made its rescue and capture.
Not T'Pren! She never showed signs before of inheriting anything of Hellguard, and Saavik thought one of her children, at least, was free.
As her eyes locked on Ajeya's, trying to discern if the Romulan noticed what had happened in the last two quick seconds, it penetrated that they were blue. A stormy blue flecked with black, but definitely blue.
Setik, Saavik's first born, had blue eyes, a different shade but still proving she carried the recessive gene for it. Now she stood face to face with its origin.
Ajeya's expression narrowed -- seeing something in Saavik's? -- and she tapped her Honor Blade against her leg. Saavik caught the slight motion, the gesture she used to make when she struggled with hard emotion before learning her controls...
.. the same way T'Kel, T'Pren's twin, had.
Ajeya and her crime was in all of them. They never would be free of her.
Get T'Pren to safety. But would T'Pren ever be safe as long as Ajeya was alive? And if Saavik killed Ajeya, didn't she become her?
Questions for your meditations! Do not be distracted.
The invisible wire hummed and pulled. Ajeya's muscles bunched and Saavik made ready. She had to fire her phaser before Ajeya's disruptor brought her down.
T'Pren slipped between them.
No!
Ajeya hung in the poised step before the lunge she had been about to make, looking like a wolf stopping in mid-spring. She took an unconscious half-step back from the tight figure that glared up at her from a height that just reached the top of her ribs.
A snarl came out from between her clenched teeth. "You don't belong here."
Saavik's one hand moved slowly, sheltered from view behind T'Pren. She would grab the girl and fling her to safety if need be.
"I do belong here." T'Pren switched from foot to foot in a more controlled version of her mother stomping defiance on Hellguard. Something else to haunt Saavik's meditations later, if they survived this. "My place is with my mother. A true Romulan will understand this."
What is she doing!
Ajeya's face dropped to fully stare into the one lifted up to her. Her dark hair, lighter than T'Pren's ebony, fell around her, further blocking her from Saavik's view. Saavik didn't see the small swallow go down her throat.
"I am T'Pren, daughter of Saavik."
It hung in the tension, the usual familial litany seemingly cut off.
"I am not your equal," T'Pren went on, no falter in her position despite those words. "I will not, however, be driven away by intimidation. I faced a le-matya during my maturity test. I did not show it fear, and I will not show it to you."
Ajeya's lips twitched, still hidden from Saavik. "Do you think I make war on children?"
Yes. If she didn't, she and Saavik wouldn't be standing here.
Ajeya lifted her Honor Blade to tap that small, defiant chin in a gesture similar to ruffling the child's hair. Her eyes lit with laughter that T'Pren could see, but Saavik couldn't. She should have noticed the slight easing in the way Ajeya moved, or perhaps even recognized the tilt to the head. But she didn't. She saw that blade raised to T'Pren's throat.
The wire snapped.
It made Saavik attack. In one motion, she snaked the arm with the phaser around T'Pren's chest and swept the girl behind her. At the same time, her free hand snatched at Ajeya's fingers holding the knife, and pressed the nerve junction in the ball of the thumb. The Romulan's hand sprang open, and Saavik stole the knife.
She made the two motions fast, taking advantage of catching Ajeya offguard, but she couldn't get out of the way in time. The disruptor struck backhanded across her face, the front sight cutting her high on the cheekbone to the eyebrow. Blood spurted into her eye, but her pain controls kept her head clear and steady. She slashed at the hand that tried for her wrist, and shoved Ajeya back, trying to bring the phaser up.
But the Romulan was a second ahead, her disruptor almost ready. Saavik rolled her shoulder under it, following through with the motion of her phaser so the two weapons struck and their arc pushed their aim overhead. The contact jarred tight trigger fingers and both fired into the air, the phaser shot slicing through the disruptor, destroying it.
She stabbed at Ajeya's abdomen, causing the other to jump back instead of getting the butt of her ruined disruptor down against Saavik's head. Saavik had her phaser aimed and almost fired when Ajeya charged.
She hit Saavik with her shoulder under the rib cage and drove her full force into the hard wall. Air exploded out of her lungs, giving Ajeya the chance to shove her off and kick Saavik's wrist hard with her boot heel. The crack of bone reverberated off the walls. The phaser dropped from the useless hand, and the Romulan took the opportunity to rain blows on the body. But Saavik blocked the blows, and Ajeya wanted that knife.
She tore at Saavik's hand with both of hers, but Saavik had her wind back and the pain from her ruined wrist shut off. She drove her forearm, above the broken wrist, under Ajeya's hands, and, with her other hand locked around the Romulan Honor Blade, drove them up high above her head.
Their faces glared into each other, both pairs of eyes seething, Ajeya's clenched teeth hissing with her breathing and the blood now congealing in Saavik's eye. It ran down her face into her mouth where it mixed with the metallic tang already there from when T'Pren first appeared in the corridor. They stayed locked until Saavik rose to her extra bit of height. With her longer reach and her arm pushing against those wrists, Ajeya's tearing grip at the knife slackened.
It left her body open again.
Ajeya hit her ribs and stomach hard, then went for Saavik's legs, striking at the knees, but Saavik expected it and twisted her body, pulling the other off balance. She drove her elbow into Ajeya's face, earning a second's respite before the Romulan charged again. This time, she kept Saavik's knife hand low and trapped between their bodies. She butted her head into Saavik's jaw, once, twice, until Saavik blinked against the growing darkness, forcing it away. She felt the other's nails digging into her skin until blood flowed over the knife's hilt, loosening it. Then it came home to Ajeya's hand.
The Romulan shoved away, giving herself room to use the dagger. Saavik knew how to fight with and against a knife, but she also knew that it was Ajeya's Honor Blade. It was part of her body, part of her everyday survival in the Romulan fleet.
The blade went for her heart, and she leapt from it, her boot landing on something. Not her phaser; she knew, without moving her eyes from Ajeya, where it lay out of reach on the floor. Just as she knew exactly where T'Pren stayed under cover, watching with the same pale face.
She kicked the thing under her boot forward to get it in her peripheral vision, and seeing what it was, rolled under Ajeya's next feint and came up with the ruined disruptor.
Ajeya was on top of her, bringing the knife down into her shoulder. Saavik could only lean forward, shoving against the other to make the blade miss. It still bit down along the shoulder blade, slicing through sleeveless top to the bone.
But she struck with the still hot, broken end of the disruptor, swiping it along thigh and hip, drawing her first blood. Ajeya stumbled back and Saavik came up. The Romulan recovered, showing her own deadly control, and proved the Honor Blade was hers with fast series of sweeps and stabs that were all one movement. But Saavik was no novice. And as much Ajeya wanted her, she wanted Ajeya, not to mention her fighting for the daughter at her back. It gave her an edge the other didn't have, and matched the Romulan's daily combat for survival.
For a moment, they met equally. She countered every attack, and blocked every blow as they moved in and out of light. They met against each other as if they gave an exhibition of advanced skill, fencing in something as beautiful and deadly as a sword dance.
But Saavik fought against a well crafted knife with the stump of a disruptor, handicapped by the loss of her dominant hand, and Ajeya lost more blood through her deeper wounds than Saavik did. Her uniform was soaked through, and her leg didn't move as it should, just as Saavik's one arm didn't from broken bones and cut shoulder. Their pace began faltering, and their reactions slowed. Smaller cuts showed on both of them and blows made it through their defenses.
They came at each other once more and locked again.
"Father!"
The sound of hard running feet seeped through a second before hands reached in and tore them apart. Ajeya shouted with fury, and even Saavik strained to break free from the hands that she knew were Spock's.
She suddenly looked down the muzzle of a fresh disruptor and Diartr's narrowed eyes behind it. His finger tightened on the trigger. He had ended his marriage to his wife, but clearly, Ajeya was still his and Saavik had attacked her.
"Diartr, kill her!" Ajeya shouted.
Some perverse notion made Saavik mirror her slapping her thigh. He caught it, as she meant him to do. She didn't know her head leaned to the side as she glared back at him, unflinching. It took him a beat, then the disruptor pulled away, almost forgotten in his hand. He stared at her as if seeing a ghost.
"Diartr!" Ajeya lunged for his disruptor, but he grabbed her and held on, even though he obviously was still unsure. She almost broke free of his hold, but someone else came to Saavik's side: Nachson with a phaser, held out and aimed at the Romulans. And Seprix stood guard over T'Pren where she had picked up Saavik's phaser and had started aiming it at Ajeya when Spock had arrived.
Above it all came numerous tick-tick-tick sounds, layering over each other in a riot of nervous clamor. The Arongotu, drawn by the earlier shots fired or Ajeya's shout or the noise of their fighting. The sound drove home the rest of their situation: the ships they commanded, and the governments that commanded them.
They had to get out of here before their personal battle ruined their standing on the planet or sparked the powder keg between the Empire and the Federation.
Diartr pulled at Ajeya, even as Spock pulled at Saavik, but she only backed away one step at a time. As long as Ajeya kept her eyes on her, she wouldn't turn her back.
Tick-tick-tick...
It was the only thing that made Ajeya go with Diartr. They disappeared the way they came, Ajeya unwilling to turn away from Saavik, until the last possible moment.
Saavik did the same, making sure the Romulan didn't come after them, until she had to retreat with everyone else. She pulled out of Spock's grasp, keeping on her feet until they reached a lift and slipped away.