Part Three
The chair. The chair definitely felt familiar.
Even though it couldn't possibly feel familiar, because he was pretty sure he'd never seen it before.
It was an ungainly piece of furniture that seemed perversely out of place compared to the precise angles and proper order that existed throughout the rest of the meticulous office. A chair that possessed a palpable level of incongruity that he'd never forget seeing. Unless he'd never seen it. Which he didn't think he had.
The chair itself consisted of a rough, well worn dark grey fabric base with a metallic back and armrests, complete with thick fabric straps and restraints. He had definitely sat in it before. Even though he almost certainly hadn't.
"Tell me," Doctor Sevik said to him as he sat in the confines of the chair, "Do you believe we will require full restraints during today's treatment?"
He felt his body, which may not actually have been his body now he started to think about it, tense up involuntarily. His head, or at least the head attached to the body might not be his, shook quickly from side to side. Whether that was an appropriate response or not didn't even cross his mind. He just knew that he didn't want the restraints.
Doctor Sevik considered his silent response for a moment from the other side of the room, then raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Intriguing," he admitted, seemingly to himself, "A particularly rapid response. But perhaps not an accurate one. Given the pattern of your treatments so far, I recommend that we follow our usual practice for the time being-"
"No," he cried out, even though it wasn't really him talking, unless it was, "Please."
His throat, or whoever's throat it was, felt as arid as Mount Seleya in the dry season.
"An emotional reply," Sevik replied simply, as he began to prepare the restraints.
Doctor Sevik was an aging Vulcan, his severe trademark haircut flecked with grey and his features ravaged with signs of age. His face was impassive, bereft of emotion. He stepped forwards and began to fasten his patient's wrists down with the thick fabric ties attached to the chair.
He may or may not have been here before, but something inside told him that resistance, at this point in the treatment, was futile.
Instead, he found himself focusing his attention on the vast mirror that dominated the far wall of the room. The two-way mirror behind which he knew his father (who wasn't actually his father) would be standing and watching on. Just as he had for all of his past treatments.
He knew that staring through the mirror wouldn't accomplish anything, whether his father or not his father was there or not there. If his intention was to try and somehow provoke a sense of guilt for what was about to happen, he knew such a reaction was impossible in one so stoic.
Still, he had no other possible recourse against what was happening. Nowhere else to turn, no other escape route available. So he stared, in silent protest. Against the man who was forcing him to once again go through the procedure he was pretty sure he'd never gone through.
Or at least, that was what it felt like was happening, or possibly wasn't happening. Or did it?
Doctor Sevik completed his work on the restraints, rendering him completely immobile.
"The process will be the same as before," he explained with measured calm, "I believe we are making good progress, and I intend to continue. If you are willing to assist me, it will make the operation significantly smoother."
He requested the assistance of his bound and captive subject without a hint of irony. Because as far as Doctor Sevik was concerned, everything he was doing was completely logical.
As far as the doctor was concerned, the patient was suffering from an affliction. An overdose even. The fact that this was an overdose of emotions, rather than some form of toxin or invasive microbe or other substance, didn't have any rational impact on the best course of action. Which was to purge the overdose from the body.
In the chair, he felt the room that he might not have been in tilt around him as Doctor Sevik tapped a set of controls to tilt the chair back. Once it was in an optimal position, he felt the doctor's hands touch each side of his head. Or whoever's head this was. He squirmed and writhed instinctively, scratching on the worn fabric of the seat, somehow keenly aware of what he was about to experience. Even if he had never experienced it before.
As far as Doctor Sevik was concerned, this reaction was simply a symptom of the wider affliction, an emotional response born from an overspill of feelings. Therefore, the doctor dismissed it as an irrelevant observation, and calmly sought out the correct pressure points.
And then he felt the pain. There was no doubt about that.
Raw agony that pulsed through his flesh, but also a deeper, more transcendental torment. A biting, scalding pain that seemed to violently stab its way into his very subconscious.
A pain that he knew was going to continue to grow ever stronger, festering and smouldering and blazing inside of him, until Doctor Sevik reached the point where he decided that the treatment was over for today.
On the other side of the meld, Doctor Sevik calmly and rationally continued his purge, just as he had done countless times before.
On the other side of the two-way mirror, his father watched on disapassionaly.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Sunek was still screaming.
So intense were the emotions he was feeling that it took him a while to realise that Sokar had broken the meld. That he was back in reality, onboard the Tolaris.
He had no idea how long he had been back for, but he was pretty sure it hadn't been long. His brow glistened with sweat, and he felt his breathing had quickened. The music had stopped, and the room was momentarily silent. Sokar had stepped back and was standing in front of him, while T'Len sat next to him, her arm now wrapped around him supportively.
His head was a confused flurry of conflicting thoughts, all moving at warp speed as he tried to process them.
"Now you can begin to understand," Sokar said simply, breaking the silence.
Sunek scratched around for some sort of response. He couldn't be sure, but he felt like he might be crying. He felt T'Len's arm squeezing him tighter.
"The first time is always the most difficult," she whispered to him, "But you will recover. Sokar has shown us all the same thing. We all know how much he suffered."
Sunek took a gulp of air. His mouth felt dry. Just as it had in the meld.
"And now," Sokar said darkly, as Sunek opened his eyes again, "You will help."
Not a question. Because Sokar apparently already knew the answer. It didn't need to be said. And, for reasons that Sunek couldn't quite fathom at this point in time, he found himself going along with him entirely, almost on auto-pilot.
He opened his mouth, and managed to croak out a reply. "Wh-What...are we going to do?"
Sokar stepped over to him and looked deep into his eyes with dark determination.
"As we speak," he explained, "The Tolaris is cloaked, and at warp. Six hours ago, we crossed into Federation space. In eight more hours, we'll have reached Vulcan. Still completely undetected. And then...well, I suspect that the authorities won't be expecting a fully armed Romulan Warbird to decloak in orbit."
He leaned in closer, staring Sunek down and hissing his final words. "And then, we will have our revenge against those Vulcans who have wronged us."
Sunek listened. But his mind was still a minefield of emotional turmoil and conflicting information. He still couldn't entirely focus. But he was pretty sure that no Vulcans had wronged him, specifically, as far as he could remember. Or had they?
He tried to remember who he was. He was Sunek. Sunek the joker. Sunek the clown.
He also knew right from wrong. Or at least he was pretty sure he did. And everything Sokar was saying definitely seemed wrong to him. But then, so did everything that he had just been shown. The torment and agony of Doctor Sevik's meld. The pain that he still felt pulsing inside his mind.
"So, my friend," Sokar continued, "The one that was so passionate and determined in his youth, you are now ready to join us."
Again, not a question.
Sunek's mind swirled. He felt lost, adrift, confused. The pain he had experienced, the torture was still fresh in his mind. It had definitely been wrong.
In the distance, he heard the sound of the raging winds and the crashing waves of the Voroth Sea.
And as he stared back at Sokar, he felt something new, something powerful. A single, clear emotion emerging from his inner tumult.
He felt angry.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"Well, I didn't think you'd actually do what I said!"
Jirel sighed in exasperation as he looked down at the injured Klingon lying on the bed of their new accommodation aboard the Tolaris.
It had been roughly an hour since they had all been reunited, but it wasn't a happy reunion. Instead, they had been marched into the same holding cell in the same brig and simply left there.
The cell was one of several around the hexagonal brig layout, a gently shimmering forcefield enough to separate them from the outside world. The lights were dimmed, but there was clearly still plenty of power to keep the forcefield running. And that was where they had been left. A Trill, an Orion, a human and a very injured Klingon, locked away on a ship of laughing Vulcans.
"You said no weapons," Klath managed weakly, as Natasha continued to tend to her reluctant patient's arm as best she could.
"You did definitely say that," she said to the Trill as she worked.
"I know what I said!" Jirel snapped back at the pair of them as he quickly paced up and down in front of the forcefield, "But you know how it is. Sometimes, when I say 'no weapons', I mean...some weapons!"
"In future," Klath coughed, "You should make that clearer."
Jirel balled his fists up in frustration, now entirely sure that the Klingon was winding him up on purpose, even as he lay injured on the cell's sole small bed.
"But-You're Klath!" he shot back, "You never have no weapons! Even when I specifically say not to bring anything, you've got seven unpronounceable knives and a disruptor on you somewhere!"
"Do you think if I was armed, I would have allowed myself to be captured?"
Jirel paused in his pacing. He couldn't find a hole in that bit of Klingon logic.
"Also, can you please stop harassing my patient?" Natasha chimed in, as she tore another strip of fabric from the sleeve of her top to soak up the excess blood from the improvised bandage she had managed to apply to the wound, having still not been given a proper medkit.
"I am not a patient," Klath grunted, in a manner that meant she couldn't tell if he had been attempting a pun or not.
"Should have thought about that before you let that Vulcan shoot a hole through your arm," she countered.
Klath went to retort, but thought better of it, and allowed her to continue. That's some progress at least, she thought to herself, even if she definitely couldn't call it a friendship just yet.
"Damnit!"
Denella's sudden scream filled the confines of the holding cell, and was accompanied by the sound of her head impacting on the underside of the metal bed that Klath was lying on. She clambered out from under the bed and rubbed her head with an annoyed grimace.
"Any luck?" Jirel asked with a mirthless grin.
"Oh yeah," she replied sarcastically, "That's the noise I always make when I've just broken out of a jail cell."
She batted away Natasha's instinctive efforts to check her head for any injury and sighed deeply, calming herself down. "I found an air circulation vent down there," she continued, "Got the hatch off, but there's nothing there that's gonna help us. And it's too narrow for any sort of escape."
Jirel leaned back on the wall and looked over at the forcefield. "Any chance you can short that thing out?"
"Sure, piece of cake," the Orion woman replied, "I just need access to a supply junction, isolate the power flow and trip the connectors."
"Great, now we're talking!"
"Course, the Romulans who designed this brig probably realised that's all I'd need, which is why they built all that stuff on the other side of the big impenetrable forcefield."
Jirel stared back at her with a withering glare, not appreciating her roundabout piece of mockery. "Next time, just 'no' is fine."
Natasha looked up from her work and gestured at the flickering forcefield. "You know, even by our standards, we're crap out of luck. Half the ship's falling apart, but that thing's working like a charm."
"I do not believe that is luck," Klath murmured, "From what we have been told about this ship, it appears that they have been prioritising tactical, offensive and security systems. I suspect that the brig falls into those categories."
"I hate to say it, but I got the same feeling," Denella nodded, "Essential systems, indeed. Kinda like they're not so much building themselves a flagship as they are a warship."
Natasha suppressed a shudder at this. She'd spent too long in the presence of warships over the last few years.
"Well," Jirel mused drily, "That sort of thing always ends well, right?"
As they considered the situation, and how they had still made precisely zero progress with their escape plans, the door to the brig opened. T'Prin walked in, along with a burly Vulcan they hadn't seen before. Both were armed, while T'Prin carried a simple tray of food.
"Hey Klath, good news," Jirel quipped, "More Vulcan food."
"Actually," T'Prin replied curtly, "I am yet to reprogram the replicators on this level. This is Romulan cuisine."
Jirel didn't bother to look around, but he definitely heard a low growl emanating from the direction of the Klingon.
T'Prin looked over at her colleague and nodded. The burly Vulcan holstered his own disruptor and walked over to the forcefield controls.
"So, what now?" Jirel asked through the forcefield, "This the part where you talk us through your whole dastardly plan?"
T'Prin raised an eyebrow at this, keeping her weapon raised. "In a manner of speaking," she replied.
It all happened very fast. As the burly Vulcan tapped the appropriate combination into the controls, the forcefield briefly shimmered and died. At the same time, T'Prin dropped the food tray and shot her hand out to the neck of the other Vulcan next to her, administering a deft nerve pinch that rendered him unconscious in an instant.
As the residents of the brig watched on in surprise, the Vulcan slumped to the ground. T'Prin quickly grabbed the disruptor from his belt and offered it to Jirel.
"That was unfortunate," she said simply, "But I did not know the code for the forcefield."
She looked up, realising that nobody had taken the disruptor. Most of the Bounty's crew still stared at her in shock. The only one that was immediately eager to take the weapon was Klath, and his prone state meant that he couldn't get up to grab it.
"You should take this," she offered, not realising she would have to spell it out quite so clearly, "And hurry. We do not have much time."
Jirel noted the change in T'Prin's demeanor. Her smile had gone. In fact, all of her emotions seemed to have gone. She suddenly seemed a lot more, for want of a better word, Vulcan.
"Um, what the hell?" Denella managed, as Jirel finally took the disruptor.
"I am not T'Prin," the Vulcan woman explained, "My name is...classified, for these purposes. But I work for the V'Shar."
"The who?"
"The Vulcan Spooks," Jirel replied with a wry smile as he checked the disruptor's power settings.
Not T'Prin raised an eyebrow at this.
"An illogical aphorism. The V'Shar are an internal intelligence branch of the Vulcan government. For the last four months I have been involved in infiltrating Sokar and his followers. Unfortunately, things have escalated faster than I was anticipating and I require your...assistance."
"Yeah, sorry, but we're not the heroes you ordered," Jirel said with a shake of his head, "You want those other guys. Annoyingly friendly? Matching uniforms? Pin badges on their nipples? Way too smug about having evolved beyond the concept of pension plans for a group of people who live in a galaxy that still mostly uses currency?"
He idly gestured to Natasha, who was giving him her best unimpressed ex-Starfleet glare.
"She knows what I'm talking about."
"It is vital that you cooperate," Not T'Prin persisted, calmly.
"Not really. Whatever's going on here, we're not-"
"Oh crap," Denella piped up, putting the pieces of the puzzle together in her mind, "It's a warship. And we're on our way to Vulcan."
"We are?" Natasha asked.
"We are," Not T'Prin confirmed, "Sokar's intention is to launch an attack from orbit. They cannot be allowed to succeed. There are eighty-six of Sokar's loyal followers onboard. I cannot call for backup while the ship is cloaked. Communications are completely locked down. We must get to the cloaking device and disable it immediately."
Jirel maintained his unconvinced expression, despite the seriousness of the situation.
"We must assist," Klath managed with a groan.
He tried to stand up from the bed, but fell back down in pain, angrily waving away Natasha's attempt to help him. Jirel gestured from Not T'Prin to the Klingon.
"As you can see," he remarked, "We're not exactly in fighting shape. Plus, this isn't our fight."
"They have made it our fight, Jirel," Klath countered, "Only a coward leaves a battle halfway through."
The Trill turned and looked at the faces of the rest of his crew, all of whom seemed equally as committed as the Klingon. "What? Are you all ganging up on me now?"
"Klath makes a good point," Denella shrugged, "Plus we need to find Sunek."
"Your pilot," Not T'Prin nodded, "It is possible that he is part of this now as well. Sokar is quite skilled at manipulation. That is the reason that the V'Shar have been monitoring him for so long."
"What sort of manipulation?" Natasha asked.
"He is in great emotional turmoil," Not T'Prin continued, "But he has found a way to channel that into others by melding with them. I was able to resist and remain undercover only thanks to my mental training. But members of the V'tosh ka'tur are not as disciplined. Their minds are already in disarray, and Sokar has been able to use that to great effect."
"Mind control," Natasha muttered with a shudder.
"Not entirely accurate," the Vulcan woman said with a raised eyebrow, "But an acceptable simplification."
"And only the mentally strong can resist," Klath muttered, a serious look on his face, "Sunek is in great danger."
Jirel smiled despite himself, then sighed as he realised he didn't have a choice.
"Ok, so, in summary: You're saying we need to get out of here, fight our way through dozens of angry Vulcan terrorists, rescue our idiot pilot, destroy a Romulan cloaking device and prevent a mentally unstable guy with mind controlling powers from carpet bombing Vulcan, armed with two disruptors and half a Klingon?"
Natasha shrugged. Not T'Prin raised a second eyebrow. Klath stifled a grimace. Denella just smiled in acceptance.
"One of our quieter deliveries," she replied.
'*'*'
'*'*'
The storm continued to rage.
The tempest of the Voroth Sea surrounded him, as he stood on the deck of the ship. A saline taste hung in the air from the frothing cauldron of a sea below.
Sunek was no nearer finding balance in this scene than he had been before. But to some extent, that no longer seemed to matter. Because he now found himself embracing the fury.
To an extent, this was a little bit troubling. While Sunek didn't have a lot of time for meditation these days, he knew enough about it from his youth to know that fury wasn't really supposed to be a big part of any sort of meditation. And yet, here he was.
Another wave crashed into the ship, sending the deck under his feet pitching upwards. He struggled to keep himself from toppling over, never mind any thoughts of perfect harmony. It was a terrifying experience. But it was also exhilarating. He may have felt angry, but he felt all the stronger for it.
And yet, as he embraced the chaos all around him, he still found part of himself questioning what he was doing. Deep down, part of him knew that this was wrong. That this wasn't who he was. Or at least, this wasn't who he thought he was. Or was it? Sunek decided to push those questions to the back of his mind.
The deck pitched again. He felt himself falling.
And then he was back in T'Len's quarters on the Tolaris. His session of angry meditation brought to an abrupt end.
"Are you ok?" he heard her ask him from where she sat at the table.
He didn't answer immediately. Because he didn't know the answer. In the end, as he turned around to her, he decided to stick to what he did know.
"I fell over," he said simply.
She smiled gently and gestured for him to join him. A selection of Romulan food lay on the table in front of her. He didn't recognise any of it, but he sat down and ate a spoonful of something that was either a surprisingly sweet soup or a surprisingly savoury pudding.
"It happens," she offered, "But it's such a potent feeling, isn't it? To really channel the true nature of the Voroth Sea? The power of the storm? The strength of the thunder?"
Sunek smirked. It wasn't like his old smirk. This one was more like the one that the rest of the Tolaris crew favoured. A crueller, darker smirk. "Yeah," he nodded, "Makes me feel…alive."
"And you are only at the start of your journey," T'Len said wistfully, "The feeling only grows and grows the more that Sokar melds with you."
Sunek considered this for a moment.
At the back of his mind, where he had pushed all those questions, there was a tiny voice. A tiny voice that he had decided to christen Old Sunek, but who Old Sunek just knew as Sunek. Whoever the tiny voice was, it was starting to become a serious irritant. Because Old Sunek really didn't like what was happening.
But Sunek himself, who Old Sunek had decided to christen New Sunek, but who Sunek now just knew as Sunek, just wanted more. He revelled in the anger, he wanted the rage, he craved the violence.
"Do you want that?" T'Len asked gently from the other side of the table, as she idly chewed on a piece of Romulan fruit, "Do you want those feelings to grow?"
Old Sunek didn't want that, and he made that very clear. Or, at least, he would have made it clear if he could have. But he couldn't. Because now he lived in the back of his mind.
New Sunek was in control now. A Sunek born of his first meld with Sokar. A version of himself that was stronger than Old Sunek, thanks to the pain that he had been shown and the anger that he had been given.
And it was this Sunek, rather than Old Sunek, who stared back at T'Len and nodded.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"I do not like this."
Jirel had a feeling that Klath was going to say something like that. The Klingon was nothing if not predictable.
"I am a warrior," he continued, "I do not run away."
"Hey, Klath, don't think of it as running away," Jirel offered, "Think of it as running...towards...our way out of here."
"That is just another form of running away."
"Ok, fine. But look at you," he said, gesturing to the Klingon's limp, blood-soaked arm, "You need to get that sorted."
"I have my other arm."
Jirel sighed. They had only made it as far as the corridor outside the brig, where the intention had been to split up. Except Klath wasn't a fan of the fact that he was being asked to get back to the Bounty with Natasha, rather than join the assault on the cloaking device.
"Klath," Denella chimed in, trying to look more understanding and coming at the debate from a more Klingon perspective, "This is the best battle plan. You need medical treatment, and we need someone back on the Bounty to help with our escape."
"I do not require medical-" Klath got that far before he growled in pain.
"Yes you do," Natasha said from next to the Klingon, "It's a bad wound, and it's probably already infected. I've done what I can for now, but either we get you treated asap or that other arm of yours is all you'll have left."
Klath stared daggers at her, but she stayed firm, staring back at him. This might set the friendship thing back a few steps, she admitted to herself, but she didn't flinch.
"We need to proceed on our mission," Not T'Prin reminded them, the Vulcan woman growing tired of observing the odd behaviour that was on display in front of her.
Klath and Natasha continued to stare each other down for a few more moments, before the Klingon finally and reluctantly nodded.
"Good enough for me," Natasha said, "We'll see the rest of you back at the hangar bay."
Jirel looked over at Denella and Not T'Prin. The Vulcan woman gestured for them to move down the corridor, then took one final moment to look back at the unhappy Klingon.
"I believe I should apologise," she admitted, "I needed to maintain my cover while we were in the hangar bay, but it was not my intention to shoot you."
Klath looked down at his injured arm, then back up at the Vulcan.
"That was not my intention either," he admitted.
With that, he turned away, and walked as quickly as he could with Natasha down the corridor. Not T'Prin turned back and led the others in the opposite direction, each of them now holding a disruptor pistol that they had liberated from a nearby weapons locker.
"The cloaking device is this way," she said as they moved, "If we can disable it, they will be exposed within Federation space and Sokar will be arrested."
"Who knew Sunek's little cult could be so unfriendly," Jirel offered as they moved.
"The V'tosh ka'tur are mostly harmless," Not T'Prin explained as they turned a corner and proceeded down the next corridor, "Unfortunately, Sokar and his followers are not strictly part of that collective any more. He has taken them down a more...radical path."
"You don't say."
"That is why the V'Shar have been monitoring him. But over the last year or so, he has been growing more unhinged, his emotional manipulations have become stronger and more violent, and attracted more and more followers to his group."
"There's something I don't get," Denella shot back as they reached another intersection, "Why the hell is he doing any of this?"
Not T'Prin didn't reply immediately, which unsettled the Orion woman all over again.
"There is something else you should know," the Vulcan woman eventually said instead, "About your friend."
"Yeah," Jirel nodded, "We still need to rescue him while we're-"
"It may not be that simple," she said, interrupting him, "By now it is likely that Sokar has had time to meld with him. If so, it is likely that your friend is under his control."
"What are you saying?" Denella pressed.
"I am saying," Not T'Prin replied with a tone of complete sincerity, "That if we meet him, he will likely be working for them. It may be necessary to subdue him in order to complete the mission."
Jirel and Denella looked at each other grimly. Jirel gestured to the disruptor in his hands. "Take it these things don't have a stun setting?"
Denella shook her head.
But they didn't have any time for what Not T'Prin was saying to sink in.
Because then the shooting started.
'*'*'
'*'*'
His mind was flooded with fresh visions of horror.
He was back in the same chair that he had never seen, in the same office where he had never been, with the same doctor he had never met. The restraints he had never encountered before were tightly secured around his wrists and ankles, that weren't his.
After a moment, he felt the familiar touch of Doctor Sevik's fingers on his face as he was prepared for another purge.
He tried to brace himself this time, having already had some experience of the procedure, but it didn't help. At all. And deep down, he knew it wouldn't. After all, how do you brace yourself against an emotional purge?
The pain slammed into him like a sledgehammer. There was no controlling it. Every fibre of his body, from his toes to the tips of his fingers felt like they were ablaze.
It was an impossible sensation to describe, to have his emotions purged.
The closest he could have managed would be to imagine what a forest must feel like as a wildfire rips through it, indiscriminately immolating everything in its path and leaving behind nothing but scorched earth.
Except this was happening to his entire mind. One by one, he felt the emotions burned off from his very soul.
First agitation, then fear, then frustration, then delight, joy and love. Each of them in turn were turned to ash by the virtual inferno that coursed through his mind.
And all that was left behind was pain.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Sunek lay on the bed of the quarters, panting deeply to recover from the latest meld. He couldn't remember how many there had been now. Three, or possibly four.
As with the others, the pain had been excruciating, but it was worth it for him to feel stronger.
Or at least, New Sunek felt stronger. Old Sunek felt weaker than he had ever been, displaced further to the back of his thoughts, sent into exile along with all the questions that New Sunek didn't want to answer.
Instead, the anger and torment grew and festered inside of him, powering him up like a full hit of stimulants.
He felt T'Len's presence next to him, standing over him as he lay and recovered. He could sense Sokar still in the room as well.
"Is he ok?" he heard T'Len say.
No, Old Sunek said. No, I'm not ok! Something's very wrong! Help me!
But, of course, nobody could hear Old Sunek.
"I'm way beyond ok," Sunek said, as he opened his eyes and looked at the two figures in the room with him, "Actually, I've never felt better."
Liar, said Old Sunek. To nobody.
He sat up on the bed and breathed in deeply, embracing the swirling emotions in his mind. It didn't bother New Sunek that said emotions only seemed to be negative ones. There was no happiness left behind by a meld with Sokar, it seemed.
It didn't bother New Sunek, but it was definitely bothering Old Sunek.
"I'm sorry that you have to go through all this," T'Len said gently, reaching out and taking his hand, "But it is necessary."
In the back of his mind, Old Sunek still felt the comforting crackle of electricity as her hand touched his. But New Sunek didn't feel anything. He wrenched his hand away from hers and jumped out of the bed, smiling his new-found cruel grin.
"Ugh. You sound like my mom," he scoffed, without warmth, "Like I said, I feel great."
He turned to Sokar, who had taken a seat in order to recover after breaking the meld. "You really went through all that?" he asked. Not a question born of concern, or worry for the trauma that Sokar had apparently suffered. More simple morbid curiosity.
"Every time I went to see Doctor Sevik," Sokar replied with a tight nod, "Everyone on the Tolaris has now seen the evil that was done to me, and to the others. And you can clearly see why we must have our vengeance."
No, Old Sunek screamed from somewhere, this is all wrong!
Old Sunek tried to convey this to New Sunek. Tried to help him remember the crew of the Bounty, his old demeanour, anything. But New Sunek wasn't listening. There was something in the way. An impenetrable wall of anger.
"Yep," he nodded, "I definitely understand."
Sokar's strained face creased into a dark grin of his own. One of satisfaction at his impending victory. He knew that they were now less than five hours from Vulcan, still under cloak.
His moment of contentment was rudely interrupted by the chirp of the comms panel on the wall of T'Len's quarters. He tried not to let any sign of irritation show as he walked over and tapped the panel.
"What?" he barked, "I asked for no interruptions!"
"My apologies," the voice of Tepal came back over the link, sounding distinctly more angry than apologetic, "But we have a problem…"
'*'*'
'*'*'
"We need to go down."
"I'm telling you, we need to go up!"
The conversation, such that it was, had been going around in circles for some time now, with neither party willing to back down.
Klath and Natasha stood in a corridor of the Tolaris, either side of a detailed display of the ship's deck layout on a wall in front of them.
Tasked with returning to the Bounty, they had stumbled into their challenge, with Natasha paying more attention to supporting the injured Klingon than she had been to where they were going, while Klath bullishly continued to walk without stopping to check his bearings. Because Klingons don't ask for directions.
It was only when they found themselves outside the brig they had just broken out of, having done nothing but completed a circuitous route back to where they started that they had both reluctantly admitted it might be a good idea to figure out where they were supposed to be going.
And that was when the argument had started.
"Look," Natasha said in frustration, pointing at the deck diagram, "We're here, and we need to get to the hangar bay here, so we need to go up!"
"Why would you think we are here?" Klath asked, gesturing to where she was pointing.
"Because that's the brig!"
The burly Klingon shook his head and used his one good arm to point to an entirely different part of the diagram on the front section of the Warbird. "No," he boomed out, "This is the brig."
"Why would you think that's the brig?" Natasha scoffed, "There's clearly no way that's the-"
She paused mid-rant, as she actually saw where the Klingon's thick finger was pointing.
"Oh. That's the brig."
"I am aware of that," Klath replied, with a note of smugness in his tone, "Deck 6. So, we go down."
Natasha shook her head and pointed back to where she had first indicated, determined that she was still right.
"Ok, but...this is also the brig. On deck 47."
She quickly scanned around the rest of the diagram, pointing around as she did so.
"And...here's another brig on deck 14. And there's another one on deck 25-What the hell? What kind of stupid ship has four brigs?"
"A Romulan one," Klath grunted darkly.
Natasha forced a smile and looked back at the map, seeing what she was pretty sure was a fifth brig nestled on deck 59 and considering their options.
"Ok, so, we need to look around for deck markings, signs, anything to figure out what deck we're on, then we can narrow down which brig this is, and-"
Klath silenced her with a raised finger. He pointed back down the corridor.
The sound of footsteps. And they were getting closer.
She grabbed Klath's good arm and tried to drag him away, in the opposite direction to the footfalls. Although Klath resisted for a moment, presumably wanting to take on whoever was approaching rather than beat a retreat, he reluctantly acquiesced to her move.
As they reached the next intersection, they spied a turbolift door and raced over to it, calling the lift as the footsteps got nearer. They stepped inside the lift as it arrived and Natasha allowed herself a sigh of relief as the doors closed.
"Ok," she said eventually, "Now we just need to go up-"
"Down!" Klath growled.
They stared each other down for a moment, preparing to launch back into their endless argument. It was Natasha who realised first, smiling in mild embarrassment.
"Main hangar bay," she called out, as Klath's face dawned in his own moment of realisation. A second later, the machinery whirred into life, as the lift whisked them to their chosen destination.
Natasha looked over at the Klingon.
"I won't tell anyone if you don't."
'*'*'
'*'*'
"Why the hell did we split up?"
The latest volley of disruptor fire whizzed past Jirel's head as the three figures raced down the corridor, leaving a series of gently smoking streaks on the wall behind him, and adding an extra few items to the Tolaris's repair schedule in the process.
"I'm serious," the Trill continued as he fired off a few shots of his own, "That's, like, the first rule of how to get everyone killed!"
They reached the cover of the next intersection and paused for breath, as Not T'Prin and Denella blindly fired back at their pursuers.
They had made little progress, with destroying the cloaking device having quickly become a secondary priority to simply staying alive. Their journey through the Tolaris was being dictated more in terms of evading disruptor blasts than getting to their intended destination.
"There are five of them," Not T'Prin calmly reported as another burst of weapons fire skimmed past them, "But this disturbance will definitely attract more."
She ducked out from behind the cover of the intersection to return fire, as Jirel grimaced and glanced over at Denella.
"See, this is why I didn't want us to be the heroes."
"I believe there is currently no danger of that," Not T'Prin offered as a retort as she returned to the temporary sanctity of their cover to check her disruptor's power levels.
Jirel managed a full-on double take, as Denella smirked. Was the emotionless Vulcan actually joking with him? He forced himself back into the here and now, and gestured further back down the corridor, shouting above further incoming fire.
"Feels like it might be a good idea to keep our tactical retreat going."
"No arguments here," Denella shouted back.
"That may not be possible," Not T'Prin offered, her voice remaining impassive despite the situation, "I can detect the sound of others approaching from that direction."
Jirel couldn't see or hear anything apart from the ongoing disruptor blasts. But he opted to trust in her more carefully attuned Vulcan hearing.
"Huh," he managed, "Crap."
"So we're surrounded," Denella groaned, "At this point, I'd just like to say: This plan sucked."
"Indeed," Not T'Prin nodded.
Jirel scanned their immediate vicinity, and suppressed a satisfied smile as he spied a doorway a few paces behind them. Why had nobody else thought of that?
"New plan," he announced with confidence, firing off a few covering shots and then making for the doorway, "Follow me!"
"That serves no logical purpose-"
He ignored the Vulcan's comment, as a further flurry of weapons blasts fizzed by. He ducked into a roll and dived through the doors just as they parted, mentally congratulating himself on that fancy little maneuver as he jumped back to his feet. Denella and Not T'Prin followed in an altogether more traditional manner moments later, so he opted not to make too much of a public show about his duck and roll. Still, it had been pretty cool.
"Ok," he said, as he looked around the room they had entered for the first time, "Now we need to-"
He paused, as he took in the expanse around him. It was a huge room, filled with bulky metal housings and structures that presumably contained a litany of shipboard systems. The ceiling stretched way above them, the whole area must have spanned at least four decks vertically. And, most importantly, there were no obvious exit points, beyond the door they had just entered through.
"As I was attempting to tell you," Not T'Prin patiently continued, "I do not see the rational purpose in electing to run into a dead end such as this."
Jirel saw Denella give him a slightly smug look at the same time, amused by the Trill's clear tactical failure despite their situation.
"Yeah, well," he replied eventually, trying to save at least some face, "If it was such a bad idea, why did you follow me, hmm?"
Not T'Prin considered this for a moment, then raised an eyebrow, apparently having failed to locate an answer. Instead, she moved to the control panel next to the door and tapped the controls.
"I have locked the door with a secure encryption. It will take them some time to decode it."
The three figures watched as the bottom right section of the door began to glow and smoke, as the Vulcans on the other side began to cut through the metal.
"Doesn't look like they're interested in decoding it," Denella muttered mirthlessly.
"Ok, there's gotta be something we can use in here," Jirel said, looking around the expanse of the room, "Some other access point."
Not T'Prin assessed the room they had entered. "This is a maintenance section for the Warbird's lower decks," she explained, gesturing to the metal structures around them, "Air circulation, environmental controls, gravity generators…"
"No transporter pads then," Jirel sighed as he looked around.
"It would not be logical to locate a transporter pad in such a facility."
Even as the smell of burnt metal began to fill the room, Jirel looked over at Denella and forced a smile. "See how annoying it'd be if our Vulcan was like that all the time?"
If Not T'Prin was offended, she disguised it well. Denella gave the room another scan. Then, she pointed at something above their heads. Well above their heads. The others followed her finger to see a long tube running diagonally across the high ceiling of the room, and an access hatch visible where it met the far wall. An accompanying ladder ran down the wall to ground level.
"Intriguing," Not T'Prin mused, "That is an access conduit traversing the room. However, it is unlikely that we would be able to climb all the way up there before our pursuers gain access to the room-"
"Way ahead of you," Jirel grinned, recalling the items the Vulcan had listed in the room they were in.
"You can't be serious," Denella said with a slightly sickly look, as she came to the same conclusion moments later.
"Oh, I'm totally serious," the Trill smiled, pointing his disruptor at a nearby metal structure, "Hold onto your lunch everyone, we're gonna-"
"What is your intention behind destroying the air circulator for this deck?" Not T'Prin asked with an entirely logical innocence.
Denella's sickly look gave way to one of amusement, as she saw the Trill's heroic stance wilt a tad. "Um," Jirel managed, gesturing around with his disruptor, "Which one's the gravity generator?"
"Ah," Not T'Prin nodded, "I see."
She levelled her weapon at one of the other metal structures. And fired.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Sokar's mood was dark enough when they got to the bridge, a combination of the report Tepal had given him and the fact that it had taken him three attempts to summon a turbolift car.
He burst through the lift doors and stalked over to the tactical console where Tepal was still working, followed by Sunek and T'Len.
"Report!" he snapped at his equally irritated second in command.
"I have teams scouring the whole ship for them," Tepal replied, trying to keep his anger under control in the presence of his leader, "Nothing yet."
Sokar growled in frustration, looking past the forward helm station being manned by Ronek to see the stars streaking past. The ship was still cloaked, still at warp, and still on course. At least for now. He tried to use that fact to calm himself down. They were so close, three hours away from Vulcan, if that.
"And you're sure T'Prin was behind it?" he asked.
"Yes," Tepal nodded, "She attacked Levok in the brig, and she has not reported back since."
Sokar didn't reply immediately. But he did make his feelings known by slamming his fist down onto the side of the command chair. Tepal couldn't resist the opportunity to twist the knife a little.
"I told you I didn't trust her."
Sokar's eyes flamed with rage. Tepal had indeed talked to him about T'Prin before. She had been one of his later recruits to the cause, and one of the few he didn't know from the V'tosh ka'tur. As a result, he had quietly had some concerns of his own. Though apparently not enough.
"And I cannot pinpoint them on internal sensors," Tepal continued to twist the knife, "Because you didn't feel such a system was essential."
"Nice operation you've got here," he heard Sunek chime in from behind him, "So glad to be a part of something so professional."
It was a joke from Sunek, but not a playful one, like he usually aimed for. This one was far more cruel, designed to annoy and humiliate rather than gently entertain. This was very much a New Sunek joke. Not an Old Sunek joke.
Sokar's eyes narrowed further. He forced himself not to rise to that particular bit of bait. "Time to Vulcan," he barked out in the direction of Ronek, who so far had elected against joining in the spirit of minor mutiny being aimed in his leader's direction.
"Two hours, fifty three minutes, present speed," the younger Vulcan replied.
He whirled back to Tepal, a steely focus back on his face. "Are the weapons calibrations complete?"
"All disruptor arrays are charged and calibrated, torpedo bays are loaded, targeting controls have-"
Tepal paused in the middle of his smug report, as an alarm chirped out from his console. He checked the details with practiced haste.
"We have just lost artificial gravity on deck 47!" he reported with urgency, "There are reports of weapons fire in that vicinity."
Sokar aimed a second, less well timed punch at the side of the command chair. He was so close to his glory that he could practically taste it. And yet now, it was threatening to fall apart. He whirled around to Sunek, who merely stared back with a twisted sneer.
"This is all because of your friends?" Sokar spat, ignoring her comment.
Sunek shrugged, his confident air not shifting despite the palpable tension in the conversation. Old Sunek might have backed off, or tried another joke to disarm the situation. But New Sunek wasn't that much of a coward.
"Probably," he replied, "They've broken out of your brig, now you've got gunfire and chaos down there. Certainly sounds like them. I assume they're trying to stop what you're doing."
"They can't stop me!" Sokar spat out at him with irritation.
"They probably can," Sunek retorted, "They're annoying like that."
Sokar stared back at him, but declined to reply. Instead, he stalked over to a storage locker at the rear of the bridge, throwing Tepal a glare as he walked past. "Get the backup gravity generators back online down there, now!"
Tepal looked back defiantly for a moment, not appreciating his tone. But he eventually nodded and started to work.
Sokar reached the storage locker and opened it, retrieving three disruptor pistols. "I will not allow them to ruin everything I have planned here," he hissed, "You know so much about your friends, Sunek? You will help me find them."
He holstered one of the weapons on his belt and proffered the others out to them. T'Len took one without question. Sunek stared at the other one.
What the hell are you doing, Old Sunek called out. Don't you dare pick that thing up!
But Old Sunek was still behind the wall of anger that had grown inside himself. New Sunek looked down at the stubby green pistol being held out to him. For a second, he closed his eyes, and pictured the Voroth Sea. He felt the intensity of the storm, and the pounding waves on the helpless ship. It energised him.
"Are you going to help me?" Sokar repeated, more urgently.
No, Old Sunek screamed without being heard, Of course I'm not gonna help you, you psycho!
Sunek opened his eyes, his dark leer as wide as it had ever been.
"I thought you'd never ask," he replied with relish.
He reached out and took the disruptor pistol, looked at T'Len and nodded. She nodded back. The three of them walked quickly over to the turbolift doors. Sunek's leer didn't slip once as he marched on.
To hunt down his friends.