Chapter 4: Downward Spiral

Even as he spoke, Lorca realised he was still doing this all wrong. The emotion in his tale was raw, but it was so only to him. A show of emotion, no matter how sincere, was unlikely to sway Sennai either way. At best, she would simply ignore their display, at worst, she would conclude he was too mentally unstable to trust.

He pushed himself from the wall he'd been leaning into, telling himself it had been a childish moment of weakness to even use it as support in the first place. For a brief moment, he was glad Sennai was the only one who had been witness to it.

As he continued to speak, he picked his words carefully, voice levelled to leech it of the underlying feelings the memories roused. He laid it all out to Sennai in a way he hoped would make it easier for her to accept his proposal. Though even without any sign showing on her face, his gut feeling told him he wasn't making much headway.

The truth was, Sennai was utterly terrified. Had to be, all things considered. She was a member of a slave race. For a time, she had been allowed to live and work in a place which would have been seen as above her station by herself as well as everyone she came into contact with. Even if the scientist Straal had valued her input, it was the value given to property. And having overreached, she had been left scrambling for safety in the anonymity of a cancerous hive within Yemuro's never-ending sprawl of factories and refineries. Most telling of all, however, was that she had sought out this place. With her skill-set and knowledge, she could have easily found a place among the rebellion, she could have made a difference, perhaps even a decisive one and she had chosen not to.

If the offer of helping to save her entire species from subjugation hadn't got her to leave her hiding spot, he had nothing to offer that would sway her.

He didn't let these thoughts detract him too much. He still had to try. So he told her in measured words of his universe and his vulcan CMO, his deltan first officer and all the other aliens of his crew, each an equal to the other, pretending the nauseating sense of heartbreak didn't threaten to close his throat down.

He told her about his imprisonment and Tarsus, how he had made himself captain of the Defiant, it was no small feat, surely. It had impressed even Landry, enough to make an ill-thought-out and poorly timed attempt at his life. I can protect you, was what he was saying, putting it in front of her as the only logical conclusion to be drawn. He didn't spell that out to her, no point in accidentally insulting her.

"So," he finished, arched his brows at her, challenging her perception. "I just want to go home. You worked on the spores, you know it's possible."

Sennai didn't immediately respond, when she did, her voice held little inflexion. "Yes, it's possible," she said, but it was barely more than an acknowledgement of his statement.

"So it must be possible for me to get back."

A little animation appeared on her face even if it didn't quite make it to an actual show of amusement. "I doubt you understand the scope of what you are asking."

"Trust me, I do," he said, for a moment feeling the weight of all the time he had already spent in this damned place pressing against him.

She made a noise in her throat and said, "That's not what I meant. But the spore drive, as you refer to it, it took years of research just to have a working concept. You don't know how many prototypes we discarded because they wouldn't work. And we had the resources of the Emperor herself to support us for much of that time."

She tilted her head in challenge, "You have one ship, it's not enough."

"But you won't have to start from scratch, you already did it."

"It's an advantage, that's true. But I don't have access to our old research results, or the materials or even the generator blueprints. That's not to mention the finished engines. You don't even have any spores, do you?"

It was true, but it didn't matter. He took a slow step towards her and spread his arms out, he smiled a little, reminding himself that the rules of this universe didn't apply to him and he was a pirate now. There was nothing out there in space which he couldn't just take.

"Whatever you need, I'll get it for you," he said. "Besides, you have most of that knowledge saved up in your head, you just need the tools."

"You want me to waste the rest of my life on a foolish pursuit," she said. She had edged back a scant few centimetres as he'd stood up, but he wasn't entirely sure if she felt threatened by him or not.

"Well," he gave a mannered shrug. "You're wasting away here, too. When I go home, you could come along. Be a scientist there, where you'll be fully accepted."

She did not outright reject his proposal or dismiss the idea, which might be a win, but he could tell thought the idea even more foolish, no matter how appealing it might be to her. Indeed, her expression softened ever so slightly, "I'd like to see it," she said. "Truly. But the chances of success are minuscule. I cannot help you."

"Well, without your help, it does look pretty bad," Lorca agreed. Perhaps there had been more scathing distaste in his voice than he had meant to put there or maybe it simply didn't require an inherent understanding of emotions for Sennai to respond the way she did.

She said, "I know your situation is desperate. If you'd take my advice, let it go. There is no way back to your universe from here. You should make the best of it, let this be your home."

He pressed the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth to keep the venom in. Home meant a place where he could let his guard down. Home meant a place of safety and dignity.

He merely shook his head in answer, unable to lie to her face and take her advice seriously.

After a moment, he said, "There's another problem."

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as her mind processed his implication. She said, "You're worried about secrecy."

He had set himself up for it by his rash actions, of course, but it changed nothing.

"I'm worried about secrecy," he agreed.

For a split second, her expression looked like it was about to break into a smile and it was her turn to shake her head.

"I have nothing to gain by revealing your offer to my superiors," Sennai said. "They do not themselves know about my past work and have no clearance to. All I ask is that you leave my life and we pretend this conversation has never happened."

It rang true enough, at least for the short time he was going to let her have the run of it. He nodded, turned as if to go, then stopped himself to give her a long look.

"Still," he started and told her the communicator frequency. "If you change your mind, I'll be on Yemuro for a few more days. Call."

She said nothing to his last-ditch attempt to sway her but didn't repeat her rejection either. To her, it would seem superfluous to say it again.

In the short time it took for Lorca to turn towards the door, he contemplated abducting her right there and then. He could simply overpower her, tie her up and drag her back to the hotel with him. He doubted a terran patrol would do much more than show mild curiosity at his behaviour. Once he got her on the Defiant, she would come around, logic alone would convince her to make the best of her predicament.

In truth, of course, the logistics of abducting her were not quite as simple. He swallowed his anger down, felt it like bile in his throat and showed nothing of it while she could still see it.

Once back outside in the cold twilight glow of the hallway, he stopped. He listened to the audible click of the cheap locking mechanism as Sennai made sure he couldn't ambush her again in her own home. He had rattled, but probably not enough to make her throw her lot in with his.

Come to think of it, no one around here had ever freely chosen to follow him, he had made them, by tearing their world apart around them. In darker moments, it seemed only fair, because it was exactly what had been done to him.

He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth before he kicked himself back into motion, focussed on the sickly coiling anger in his throat and let it carry him down and out into the street. Turning the conversation over in his head only fuelled his anger. Some of it directed at Sennai and her cowardice, but most of it aimed at himself and his ill-advised actions. The only consolation he found, if it counted at all, was that she likely would have rejected a more diplomatic approach just the same.

He thought about calling Kodos, but he didn't have anything important to share. Certainly not how this part of his plan had spectacularly failed to yield the desired results and how he hoped the other part ended more favourably. No spore drive scientist was one issue to deal with, no dilithium was a wholly different and far more immediate concern.

What crowds there had been earlier had thinned to just the occasional vulcan here and there, making the few terran patrols stand out like a sore thumb and thus easy to avoid. Lorca had technically no reason to avoid them, but with military, he preferred not to get to close, because there was always the issue of recognition. Tyler had told him how widespread the hunt for Lorca had been after his treason was revealed, it was unlikely there was a soldier anywhere in the galaxy who wouldn't know him by sight. Especially because Lorca hadn't been declared dead alongside everybody else on the Charon. He was itching for a fight and taking it out on a terran was just the kind of pointless outlet he wanted, but the risk was too great to take.

While the patrols didn't bother him, at some point, he had picked up a tail. It had to be vulcans and at first, he had dismissed it, but the pattern continued and developed sharp edges. Vulcans, at least four of them, maybe more, were shadowing him, dipping in and out of side-streets, smoothly coordinated with each other so he was always in sight of at least one of them.

Sennai had certainly not wasted any time ratting him out. Such a clever little vulcan, he thought, sneering. Of course, she hadn't told her superiors, her reasoning was perfectly sound, but he should have known that vulcans could be narrow-mindedly literal if it suited them. Left the question of what these people wanted. Make sure he left? Intimidate him so he didn't come back?

Take him out for good?

He took a turn away from a terran patrol heading straight at him and into a street leading between two housing towers and followed the narrow street along the outside of the tower. Once he was out of sight from the main street and the passing patrol, he stopped.

He stepped so his back faced the wall and surveyed the branching off junctions between other housing towers, waiting for movement. He casually tucked his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, sliding his fingers around the hilt of a switchblade before he settled one foot back against the wall. A fight without consequences was just what he needed to clear his head.

He didn't have to wait long. Vulcans sauntered into view from every direction, advancing on him like a pack of hunting coyotes, five of them he could see, blocking off all escape routes. Which was fine by him, he wasn't planning to run away.

The vulcans were young, adolescents, dressed in an unfashionable assortment of common terran clothes and traditional vulcan robes, refined with clearly scavenged pieces of damaged combat armour.

"You are clearly lost," one of them said, untempered youthful arrogance coupled with natural vulcan poise. All of it bravado, but it would almost be a heartwarming moment to see an unbroken spirit challenging a terran like this. Lorca would have enjoyed it more if he hadn't been on the receiving end of it.

"We could show you the way," another young vulcan offered, sliding closer by one step, gloved fingers flexing by her side in preparation.

"I'll find my own way," Lorca said. He was a good step away from the wall now, far enough to allow for freedom of movement without exposing his back. He slid the handle of the switchblade into the palm of his hand. "Just move aside."

He didn't expect them to. Enamoured with their own composure, these young vulcans didn't indulge in mocking laughter or meaningful glances at each other, but their body language was unmistakable.

"No," the first vulcan said and Lorca pecked him as the ringleader of this little street-gang. "You'll need help finding this way."

"Terrans get lost so easily," a third one said, half-wedged in the shadows next to a neat stack of discarded furniture. Lorca only glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, memorising his position.

"We always like to help," the ringleader said, allowing himself a faint sneer. He pranced forward another step, fast enough to tease an attack, when it was just a feint to make Lorca twitch the wrong way.

The attack came, instead, from the female vulcan who had spoken second, lunging low and forward. Over her hand, the four-pronged spikes of a wun-sehlat — a pair of spiked, vulcan brass knuckles — caught the light just so. Lorca saw her coming, though perhaps underestimated her speed enough to let the tips get caught in the width of his sleeves as he drew his hand free. With his fingers wrapped around the handle of the switchblade, he punched her into the side of her face, then, releasing the blade, he snapped his hand back to hit the vulcan coming at him from the shadows. The blade punctured his cheek.

The female had collided with the wall, lost the balance of her attack, but came back. The wun-sehlat sliced smoothly, but uselessly through the wide sleeve of his coat, unable to connect with flesh while he kept moving.

Unlike Sennai, these vulcans were younger and faster, but also unlike her, they had never been properly trained. What they had was merely a basic understanding of the concept behind most vulcan combat styles, but they were executed viciously, but sloppily and broke itself against Lorca's experience.

He took the time to bash one of their heads into the wall until the wiry body went limp in his hand, then twisted just in time for their wun-sehlat to graze over his neck, barely deflected by the reinforced edge of his collar. The vulcan got his elbow in the face for his trouble. Lorca threw himself around, his blade caught the edge of a badly-fitting armour-piece and sliced alongside it until it found soft tissue to bury into to spill bright green blood over his fingers. The vulcan gave a strangled hiss of pain, stumbling back and holding his side.

The ringleader held his own the longest, holding back to let his companions test out Lorca's abilities. The young vulcan sneered and jumped, twisted in the air as Lorca moved to adapt. The vulcan's boot hit his wrist and knocked the switchblade from his grip. Lorca followed the move downward and used the motion to slide another from his other pocket. He levered himself back up, released the blade and would have cut the vulcan's side wide open. The vulcan made a snarling sound, twisted to the side and stepped a boot into Lorca's leg, making him buckle.

It had been almost a game to him, the assurance of his skill habitual as it had grown these past few months and something icy spiked through his mind as his knee hit the pavement, hard enough to jar back up along his spine. Stupid to forget. Stupid to think this was a game. Stupid not to finish this right when it had started.

He snapped the phaser from its holster and brought it, never bothering to aim before he fired and the energy beam cut bright and sharp up inside the vulcan's thigh, shearing into his hip and almost severing his arm. Whatever amateurish discipline had carried the vulcan this far, it failed him, dragged a high-pitched scream from him and he toppled back.

Terran standard phasers didn't have a stun setting. The Defiant had the means to replicate the components to assemble one. Lorca had never got around to it.

He hissed and pulled himself up to his feet, took a step away from the wailing vulcan to check for the others.

The one with the bashed-in head was out cold, though probably too tough to die so easily. The other two, one with his face cut open and the female with the wun-sehlat edged away from him, looking between him and the two others, their expressions only displayed vague bewilderment in place of sheer panic. Still, their inner struggle was completely transparent, caught between the instinctual urge to flee and the desire to help their friends.

Before they could get any further, the choice was made for them.

The commotion had alerted one of the terran patrols and the two of them had arrived just in time to see the tail end of the fight. They had originally held back to watch, but when the show as over, they approached, casually stabbing a baton into each vulcans' back to make them crumple in pain to eye Lorca over the strewn, still wriggling bodies.

"Thought I heard trouble," one of the terrans said, then grinned at his fellow soldier. "But I could be mistaken."

"I was just showing them the way," Lorca replied casually and squared his shoulders under the coat. He made no attempt to holster the phaser but was keeping it aimed downward. He arched his brows over the vulcans, found his disdain and put it into his voice as he glanced them over. "Vulcans get lost so easily."

The two terrans laughed, but there was an edge to it which Lorca knew would transform into suspicion any moment.

Forestalling them, Lorca put on a lopsided, slightly awkward smile and said, "But… uh, I actually could use directions out of this shithole. Too many pointy ears around here, gives me the creeps."

He stilled his finger when he realised he was subconsciously stroking it over the trigger of the phaser.

Still, he seemed to have managed to deflect their instinctual distrust, earning him another laugh, although one at his expense. Chuckling, he joined in at their amusement and let them point him towards the exit gates of the quarters.

"Just for future reference," one of them said as he was already leaving. "We gotta investigate a phaser discharge. One hell of a hassle, you know. Puts everyone in a bad mood."

Lorca nodded graciously at the warning.

He didn't look back at the vulcans as he left, but his thoughts lingered. Had he just ran afoul of some street gang? Certainly, the living conditions in the vulcan quarter would foster the development of these even among a people like the vulcans. Or Sennai had betrayed him and wasted little time to do so. Without the terrans present, he could have stuck around and questioned the vulcans at phaser-point once they got back up. He considered doubling back, but that was asking for trouble from too many directions. The vulcans might be able to organise backup and come at him with more than he could easily handle. If the terrans had to interfere again, they weren't going to just let him walk away a second time.

As he approached the exit, he tucked the collar tight around his neck, where the wun-sehlat had nicked his skin. It didn't bleed, but he wasn't going to risk it having damaged the transparent seal Culber had put over the scratch marks. The day had been long enough without having to contend with his doppelganger's infamy.

Faint strain made itself known in his muscles by the time he arrived back at the hotel. Nothing severe, the vulcans hadn't been hitting him hard enough for that, but it still gave him a slightly perverse sense of relief to feel that sting throughout his body.

Look at you, he thought wryly, enjoying the pain, going native. It wasn't even pain, though, so it hardly counted.

He stepped into the lobby of the hotel. It was mostly empty and thoroughly inhospitable. Check-in terminals set facing the door and an uninviting row of benches with worn-out cushioning on the right. On the left, a set of bar tables accompanied a food replicator.

When Lorca stepped in, a young man glanced up from the replicator and gave him an assessing, but otherwise disinterested look before he turned back to the replicator, muttered something and then punched the side of the panel.

Lorca considered only for a moment. He had barely eaten anything since his arrival on Yemuro and while the food replicator was unlikely to produce anything even remotely tasty, he could get behind the concept of not eating for pleasure when necessary.

He stopped at a polite distance from the other man to wait his turn. The young man finally retrieved a noodle bowl from the slot and took it with him to the nearest table. Lorca caught a whiff of hot water and old garlic.

"Just you know," he said. "The fucker is a dirty liar. Whatever you want, it'll give you soggy noodles."

Lorca gave him a slight smile, "Thanks for the warning."

He tried ordering something else anyway, but as predicted the replicator produced another noodle bowl, identical to the one the young man was currently slurping from.

Sighing inwardly, Lorca picked it up. The bowl itself was made from some synthetic fibre, so thin his fingers left little dents in it and the bowl reshaped as he carried it. The only positive aspect of the entire meal was that it was hot.

"There used to be a proper restaurant just down the street," the young man said after a time. "Used to serve real food, all fresh and made on the spot."

"Used to?" Lorca asked, giving the young man a slightly longer look than before.

The young man shrugged. "Yeah, the owner got into an accident or something and the place closed up soon after. I don't really know the story. Pity, though."

The young man was lanky, blond with pale, freckled skin. He was dressed not dissimilar to Lorca himself, though with a tighter fitting coat and fewer visible weapons, which probably didn't count for much around these parts.

"Are there any other places like that?" Lorca asked. On second look, something was off with the young man's eyes. They had a distinctly yellow tint and the white was a dirtied grey. He looked human otherwise, so Lorca wasn't entirely sure if he was just suffering some odd condition or if he was an alien, or possibly only half-human.

"Fresh food is hard to come by around here, you need the right connections," the young man smiled, finished his noodles and wiped his mouth. "But there's a great bar now where that restaurant used to be. Not so big on the food, but the drinks make up for it and the music's good."

His strange eyes brushed over Lorca's face and he added, "Why don't you join me tonight? Grab a drink, have some fun? I'm Emm, by the way."

"I'm not looking for fun."

"Doesn't mean you can't have some," the young man smiled.

When Lorca just met his gaze levelly, the smile faded somewhat and Emm shrugged. "Oh well, your loss. You change your mind, I won't be far."

With a final smile he turned away and headed for the elevator.

Lorca watched him go, then stared back down at his food and decided he'd had enough of it.

He knew from experience the elevator was agonisingly slow, so he passed it by and took the stairs. It was only the fifth floor, something far more doable than Sennai's tower.

As he stepped past the elevator door on his floor, he heard it rattle, then open. He glanced over his shoulder to see the young man exit and step into the corridor behind him. They walked a few steps before Lorca glanced over his shoulder again, frowning.

The young man threw up his hands, "Hey, I'm not following you, my room's just that way."

Lorca took one more step to get past a doorway, then stopped and put his back to the wall.

"After you, then," he said.

Emm rolled his eyes. "Suspicious fuck," he muttered as he passed Lorca by.

"What was that?"

The young man stopped, just past Lorca, squared his shoulders and dropped his head back rather than look around. "You," he said. "I mean, all I wanted was a good time." He shrugged. "Could be true, couldn't it?"

The shift in tone was blatantly obvious, immediately changing the nature of the exchange in the span of a handful of seconds. Lorca tensed, immediately closing his hand around the switchblade in his coat, but before he could pull it out, the young man had twisted around and fired the phaser held close to his chest.

The beam washed over Lorca, he was immediately braced for agony, but instead, his limbs just turned to rubber and he collapsed in an inelegant heap. His knee, shoulder and the side of his head his the ground as he went down, but there was no pain. He was completely paralysed, yet his breathing and heartbeat seemed unhindered, so he guessed the workings of his inner organs were untouched by the blast. It was certainly not Starfleet issue phaser. His consciousness stuttered, but it seemed more caused by a lack of feedback from his body than from the stun beam itself. His eyelids ad drooped closed and he couldn't open them and even his hearing was suppressed and distant.

"Well, shit," the young man hissed. Footsteps could be heard running the length of the corridor. "Zralisss! Come help me! Fucker's too heavy for me."

A door opened and a second pair of footsteps returned. Lorca tried to blink, but he couldn't get his eyes to open. He didn't feel the grip on his arm, only had a vague sense of being moved effortlessly and carried away.

"I love hotel rooms like this," the young man's voice said. Lorca was dropped and his senses couldn't quite make sense of it, but he seemed to be lying on his back. Metal hissed close to his head, but he couldn't identify the source.

"Lock the door," Emm said. He breathed a sigh of relief, presumably when the order was followed.

"What did you do?"

Kodos. Lorca snarled inwardly when he recognised his voice and the calm, submissive tone. Betrayal or just stupidity? What had he done? The surge of anger at the thought broke itself on the paralysation.

"Knocked him out," this was a new voice, deep, but distinctively female. "He'll come around in a few minutes."

The voice moved closer to Lorca as she spoke until she seemed to be standing right next to him.

"You know," she said. "I did wonder why he would keep his face, it's an obvious liability."

Lorca's skin tingled when it was touched and his head turned to the side so the left side of his face, the one without the eyepatch, was visible. He tried to strain the muscles in his neck to resist, but it made no difference.

"But, I think, I'd keep it, too."

Somewhere else in the room, a chittering growl could be heard which even the universal translator managed to translate into laughter only after a short delay. The female chuckled and moved away.

"Mr… Karidian," she said, intonation full of sarcasm. "How long do you intend to keep up the farce?"

"I told you the truth, it's just a case of mistaken identity," Kodos said. "I'm a free agent. I have been hired to buy dilithium crystals for an independent spaceship. Mr Basora is my bodyguard. He's not who you think he is."

So just run of the mill stupidity, Lorca concluded, unless Kodos was lying for Lorca's benefit, which seemed unlikely since he probably wouldn't know how the stun blast worked. The tingling in his skin spread out to his limbs slowly and intensified until it was a maddening itch he couldn't alleviate.

The female made a noise in her throat, full of complete disbelief. "Oh well, we'll just wait, then."

Lorca tried to relax — a mental state rather than a physical one, currently — and wait it out. He wouldn't have minded if the occupants of the room had kept talking. He was especially interested in how Kodos would conduct himself in his role. Lorca suspected the people who had attacked them were part of the underground network, dealing in dilithium. How they already knew of their presence on the planet was a different question. Maybe Kodos had made inquiries, despite Lorca's explicit order, and he had fumbled it. This entire mission on Yemuro was shaping up spectacularly. He should have paid more attention to Tyler's rescue planning and not dismissed it as unnecessary.

Time-keeping was impossible for Lorca, but at the roughest possible guess, he doubted he'd been lying there for more than ten or so minutes. Strangely enough, the tingling of actual sensation started in his chest, danced tickling along his collarbone and into his shoulder, up along his arm before it started to spread like warmth down the side of his torso and into his legs.

Experimentally, he tried to turn his head and while it felt too heavy to, he did move it. Opening his eyes took effort. He blinked the eye-patch back on, though it functioned as nothing more than a window to his surroundings. The phaser must have scrambled its system.

He was lying on a bed, tied spread-eagled in chain resting tight, but softly on his skin. He figured the hotel catered to all sorts and manacles could come in handy in more than one situation.

He'd been pulled free of his overcoat and as far as he could tell, he'd been stripped of all weapons.

"Finally," the female voice said. "I was beginning to think you were faking it."

Lorca wiped his mouth against his shoulder and raised his head to get a slightly better look of the room.

The eye-catcher, no doubt, was a towering reptilian alien, standing quietly threatening behind Kodos, who was seated at the table, his PADD and communicator pointedly just out of reach. The alien was dressed in a simple jumpsuit, green scales with iridescent black patterns. Even though the snout was closed, the slight outlines of teeth could be seen the length of it. Lorca didn't recognise the species at all and he was quite sure he would have remembered one of that description.

Facing Kodos across the table, the female had turned in her chair as Lorca began to move and regarded him with sparkling yellow eyes. She had the facial features of a strikingly beautiful woman; dark-skinned, with a long-limbed athletic body.

"Phaser — discharge," Lorca said, finding his tongue thick and ungainly in his mouth, slurring the words.

The female chuckled. "This one doesn't set off any alarms," she said. "Don't worry."

That was one concern dealt with, Lorca dropped his head back into the pillow.

"Untie me," he said.

The female got to her feet and stalked to his bedside, leaning in over him. In place of hair, she had feathers, one of the long strands fell over her shoulder as she leaned in.

"I wanted some fun," she said, baring white teeth with pointed canines.

"I want dilithium crystals."

Lorca tilted his head against the pillow, frowned when it clicked through his mind. "You're a chameloid."

Emm snorted and pulled away from him. She looked over at the reptilian, considering.

"How about we talk?" Lorca offered when her thoughts didn't seem to be going anywhere. "This is unnecessary, you have nothing to fear from me."

"Well," she said doubtfully, "That entirely depends on which story you plan to tell. Your partner, he insists your not Gabriel Lorca, but everyone knows that's a lie. And as long as there's lies, there's something to fear."

"It's not a lie, it's just complicated," Lorca said with a sigh. He pulled a little on his restraints. They were not meant to hold someone captive who didn't enjoy it. He suspected he could get out of the binds eventually. "This is annoying me," he added.

Emm chuckled, but the levity didn't last. She nodded at the reptilian, then pointed her phaser at Lorca. Without taking her eyes off him, she groped for the release button. The binds on his hands and feet opened and withdrew into the frame of the bed.

He sat up slowly, as unthreatening as he could possibly do it. She stepped back from him to give him space and he swung his legs around and to the floor, he remained sitting at the edge of the bed.

"Now explain to me how you're not Gabriel Lorca," she challenged.

"Easy, I'm a clone," he said. "The emperor liked to keep us around for entertainment. Executions, sex, torture, sometimes all three at the same time, for special occasions. Some of us escaped in the chaos, stole a shuttle and survived while the Charon blew up."

"I don't believe you."

He shook his head a little, laughing to himself.

"Well, actually," he said. "I am Gabriel Lorca, but I'm from a parallel universe, your Lorca and I switched places and all I want is to go home."

If she had been looking at Kodos instead of focussing on Lorca, she might have believed him. Instead, she only snorted a laugh. "I'm not nearly drunk enough."

He joined her laughter and for a moment, they almost appeared to be on the same level. Lorca broke the moment, as the humour drained from his expression and he changed his posture, causing a ripple in her, raising the phaser slightly.

"All right, you got me," he said, low voiced, still full of wry humour. "I underestimated the emperor, but let's call it a mutual mistake or we wouldn't have that machine on the throne. But it's not over, I'm coming for her, but I'm not going to repeat my errors. So yeah, you got me on the back-foot here and I need your help."

He slid to his feet smoothly, glad his paralysed muscled had recovered enough to let him do it. It gave him the chance to observe the dynamic between the two aliens. Despite the phaser, Emm back a step, nearly backing into the chair she had vacated earlier, while the reptilian took two very swift steps forward, bring them level with the chameloid, able to intercept an attack by Lorca should he attempt any.

Lorca ignored them, kept his gaze resting on Emm.

"I'll remember my friends," he said, just a little milder. "I don't care what breed they are."

She bared her teeth, the flare of anger in her gaze painting the insults in her mind, "You're full of shit."

According to the reptilian's posture, Lorca was expected to retaliate and perhaps, his counterpart would have. But Lorca waved dismissively with one hand, the gesture slow enough not to trigger any reflex.

"Rhetoric," Lorca said. "Is just rhetoric."

"You," she said through the barrier of her teeth. "Are. Full. Of. Bull. Shit."

Lorca laughed, shaking his head to himself. "I don't need you to believe me. I need you to give me the dilithium and I need a way off of Yemuro to rendezvous with my ship. That's all. You have nothing to lose by looking at what we have to offer in exchange."

"I have everything to lose," Emm countered, sounding offended. "There's not one person in this entire galaxy who has not suffered because of you. If I make any kind of deal with you, my career is over. My life is over. You have nothing to offer."

Lorca wished he could tell her just how much he shared these exact feelings for the man she was talking about, but it wasn't what would sway this situation in his favour. She wasn't ready to believe or trust him, so fear would have to do.

He took a careful, slow step forward, just enough to bring himself into lunging distance before the reptilian and Emm had a chance to react. He jumped, knocked the phaser from her hand and caught it with his other. He threw himself around, phaser extended and it collided hard with the unyielding body of the reptilian as they advanced.

Lorca fired the phaser right into their chest, realised the weapon didn't discharge continuously and kept hitting the trigger. It had taken one blast to down Lorca earlier, but a handful of them had only managed to make the reptilian stop. Several more finally made them collapse in a heap, though still able to move.

He stepped to the side, bringing some distance between them. He looked up to see Kodos, for once, hadn't been entirely useless. He had jumped to his feet the moment Lorca had moved, the dropped chair prove of his speed. He'd rounded the table and come at Emm from behind, pressing a small knife to her neck.

Lorca gave Kodos a nod and he withdrew, circled back around the table until he reached the reptilian. He sheathed his knife and bent down to grip one of the reptilian's massive arms, hauled it back to the bed and shackled it to the foot of it. No doubt, the reptilian would be able to simply rip it off once they got back around.

Lorca advanced on Emm slowly and she took a step back from him, visibly rattled.

"How about we start again from the beginning?" Lorca said quietly. He picked up the chair and set it back against the table. When she didn't move, he added, "Sit."

Blinking between him and the chair and her downed companion, she still hesitated, looking for an out he knew he couldn't let her have. This day had gone south in too many ways already, he was in no mood to let it go any further.

He scowled and she must have conculuded it would be unwise to make him repeat his order. She carefully stepped forward and sat down by the table. He gave her some space as he retreated towards the other end of the room and made eye-contact with Kodos. They were not done, either, but what Kodos had done to bring this one, it would have to be dealt with later. Lorca nodded at the table and Kodos took the pointer, taking his place and retrieving his PADD.

"Make the deal, hash out the details," Lorca said, holstering Emm's phaser and crossing his arms over his chest.

Emm looked at him blankly, the sparks of playfulness and anger dimmed in her alien eyes. For a moment, Lorca was surprised how difficult it was to stand under that look, knowing the centuries of blood-trenched history it had taken to bring it on.

He met her gaze steadily and said, "I bet you'll end up liking it. They all do."

End of Chapter 4: Downward Spiral