Star Trek Hunter
Episode 27: The Sword of Destiny
Scene 6: vub
.

27.6
vub*
.

Captain Geordi LaForge and Commander Reginald Barclay were the lucky ones, along with Subcommander Cireeka. Reg and Cireeka had suffered broken bones, but their lives had been spared and while they did not receive the instant restorative surgery they might have expected from romulan or federation doctors, at least their broken bones had been set and casts and splints applied.

Their lives had been spared and their wounds treated because they had been the most senior officers at the engineering conference in Safagreer on Saketh when klingon shock troops had taken the city. The room was dark.

.

Geordi had been hit so hard in the face that his prosthetic eyes were on the fritz. Most of what he could see was static. But he had been blind all of his life and in spite of the remarkable, superior vision made available to him first by his visor, then by his ocular implants, he had always considered himself a blind man. He had deliberately spent several hours a day first with his visor removed and later with his eyes turned off. He turned them off now. The static was distracting him.

"Reg… Is that you?" LaForge asked.

His query provoked a vague moan.

"Yeah, I would recognize that moan anywhere. You didn't, by chance, catch the registry number of the starship that ran us over?"

Commander Barclay replied with two moans - the first ascending in pitch, the second descending.

"You weren't hit, Captain," came a female voice. "You were slapped. I think the soldier who captured us was initiating a mating ritual."

LaForge made a coughing, painful laugh, then took a deep breath and said, "I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Cireeka. But please, no more jokes for now. You're literally killing me…" He followed this with a painful cough.

"What led you to believe I was joking?" the romulan officer asked.

Reginald Barclay managed to speak very softly. "Be nice to her, Captain. I think she might have saved you from a fate worse than death." He followed this with a moan.

"We're… aboard a ship…" Geordi said.

"Yes," Barclay responded, "We aren't."

"That's what I thought, Reg. You hear that?"

"No, and neither do you."

"What are you two talking about?" Cireeka asked.

Geordi aimed his broken prosthetic eyes at her. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"Less than nothing," Barclay added.

Cireeka started to say something, but stopped just as Geordi made the slightest hushing sound.

.

"So, the pretty human is awake…" The female klingon's voice was syrupy. It was evident she was not alone. Someone else was unlocking a door while she was speaking. "Who knew he would be so fragile? Just the slightest love-tap and he's out for a week."

"Just tell them everything," said Reg, weakly. "Don't… don't fight this."

Geordi could hear the terror and pain in his chief engineer's voice. Barclay had always been a little cowardly. But the man had an odd reserve of courage that had brought him and the Enterprise through a surprising number of close calls. If that courage was still there, there was no evidence of it at the moment. Geordi could smell the man's fear - hear it in his ragged breath. He wished for all the world he could touch his friend - provide some comfort. But the chains, while allowing him some freedom of movement, were too short to allow him to reach his fellow prisoners.

"How you humans manage to live with yourselves. At least the romulan has shown some courage. Come, Mr. LaForge, I am not here to question you, or to torment you. That comes later. I just want a little fun…"

Geordi struggled into a sitting position, ignoring the four-alarm headache this brought on. Lying down had been so much better.

It wasn't the woman who was talking who unlocked his cuffs. The keys were wielded by a male klingon, if smell and size were any guide, which Geordi was able to approximate by the sound of his breathing, the sound of his footfalls. A pair of large, gloved hands gripped LaForge roughly under the arms and his head exploded in pain as he was brought to his feet. Geordi staggared backward and leaned heavily against a cold metal wall. It was vibrating - but not the vibration of space travel - it was the vibration of a shielded facility.

"Why do you want us to believe we are on a ship?" Geordi asked.

"You are a clever one! Your cowardly friend and the romulan woman also figured that out. I do not know. Someone thought it would be a good idea. Why do you not look me in the eye when you are talking?"

"My prosthetic eyes have been damaged. I'm blind." Geordi aimed his eyes toward his approximation of where his questioner's eyes might be. From her voice and her footfalls, he guessed that she was significantly taller than him - and that her boots probably gave her a few more inches in height. He felt a large, gloved hand run across his hair, firmly gripping the back his head. This was her hand. The glove did not cover her fingers. The pressure actually provided him some relief from the pounding headache.

"You do have some courage to you, human." The syurpy sound was gone. She was no longer putting on an act. A sign of respect.

"Thank you," he responded.

"I almost wish you didn't. For your sake. This will make things much more difficult for you than…"

.
WHAM! BOOM!
.

The force of the explosion threw Geordi and his klingon interlocutor to the floor as a huge chunk of white-hot metal shot like a molten cannonball through one of the walls. Cireeka and Reg both screamed as small pieces of hot metal lanced their skin, burning them. The other klingon in the room - the one with the keys - was not so fortunate. He was hit squarely in the chest by this molten missile, melting the center of his body and killing him instantly.

The klingon female quickly removed her ablative plastic armor as a spray of molten metal was rapidly burning holes into it. The room shook again with two more explosions.

.

"My arm!" screamed Reg.

"Please! Let me help him!" Geordi shouted.

"There was a cloaked federation starship in the area. Star Fleet must be attempting a rescue!" she responded. "The keys are melted - hold on, human." She grasped the chain that bound Barclay's wrist to the wall and tugged hard.

"Pitch was too high," Geordi responded. "Those were romulan munitions."

"They won't try to rescue us," Cireeka managed, pain evident in her voice. "They know you have high ranking prisoners here - prisoners who might have valuable information. They're going to level this facility and keep bombing it until they're certain we're all dead."

"We've got to get out of here," said Geordi, feeling the damage to the cast on Barclay's arm. He poured water on Barclay's wounded arm. "You're lucky your arm was in a cast, Reg. You might have lost it. As it is, I think you just have a nasty burn. We'll have to treat it, but we have to get out of here first. Can you walk?" he asked as the klingon pulled Barclay's chain free.

"I think so," he said as Geordi helped him to his feet.

"My leg is broken," Cireeka said. "You'll have to leave me."

"Not a chance," Geordi responded. He turned toward their klingon captor. "Can you get her free?"

"I already am," Cireeka replied. "That missile burned through my chain."

Geordi spoke to the klingon woman. "Help us!"

"I cannot disobey my orders!"

"We're still your prisoners," LaForge responded. "You'll be saving a valuable asset for the empire."

.

*vub (thlingn Hol - captive)

27.6