Author's Note/Warning: All sorts of warnings apply for this chapter, but if you've made it this far, there's nothing you can't handle.
Chapter 9: The Knowledge of Kings
The reception had been dragging on for barely an hour, but Lorca found himself already drifting to the edge of the hall, tired of mingling and unhappy with his one drink in hand, which he couldn't down because then he'd get another. And another. Wasn't there supposed to be a speech? And a buffet, he distinctively remembered joking with his team about that. It wouldn't do for the only representative of Starfleet far and wide to get completely shit-faced, though.
He sighed inwardly, shifted his weight from one foot to another and set his glass to his mouth without more than dipping his lip in.
"You know," Balayna said, coming up behind him, sliding both arms around his waist. "What I like more than you in dress uniform?"
He swayed a little in her embrace, half-turned, but she stopped him with a quick reach for his arm. She raised herself on her toes to bring her face closer to his and from the corner of his eyes he could see her smirk.
"You out of dress uniform," she chuckled.
And didn't that sound promising right about now. He let his shoulders hang and muttered, "We could've just stayed home."
She laughed, let go of his waist and took a step back, sliding her hand into his and gripping tight. She tucked him along through a side door and into the dimly lit, deserted hallways of the colonial offices building. He couldn't be bothered to put up even token resistance, though he vaguely hoped no one was going to catch the only representative of Starfleet far and wide with his pants down.
Balayna made a beeline for a small, clearly unused office with a couch set against one wall and — thankfully — had the presence of mind to engage the lock behind her.
"So you planned this?" he asked, pulling her into his arms tightly and walking her slowly backwards until they hit a desk. The hand she had wound around his neck tightened, fingers and nails leaving tiny pinpricks of sensation on his sensitive skin. Following her unspoken demand, he slanted his head over her and met her hungry kiss.
"You need to go out more. Thought I'd reward both of us for the effort," she laughed and settled her other hand to the clasps of his uniform jacket over his collarbone, slim fingers making short work of the clasps.
Lorca screamed in pain.
The sound of his own voice brought him back, followed by a wave of pain so intense it caused a wave of nausea to crash over him. His body tensed, some confused fight or flight instinct unsure what to do next, but single-minded that he had to do something.
He was bathed in light, washed out shapes all around him, making him float, isolated, just him and the pain and the inability to move his body.
Then something cold pressed against the side of his neck and there was a low hiss just before his body lost all weight, senses drawing back from the surface of his skin and from his suffering flesh. He took a breath, shaking all the way through. Blinking in the hopes to clear his vision, but when he closed his eyes, they just stayed closed
"He doesn't deserve anaesthesia," a man said with spite and repressed fury dripping from his tone, easily crossing the little distance he was standing away.
"I agree, Captain," a woman said from right next to him, sneer thick in her voice. He couldn't turn his head and his eyelids were too heavy to lift. "But it would be unprofessional to perform surgery without proper precautions. The shock alone would kill him."
There was a tiny pause while Lorca sunk deeper into himself and the bright light dimmed.
The angry man's voice came from very far away, unable to hide his displeasure. "Agony booths are ten times worse than this."
"Agony booths are specifically designed to keep the subject alive," the woman said. "As you well know. Sir. You can torture him after I've saved him. I have a few ideas myself, but I suspect it'll have to wait until the Emperor is done with him. Not that I expect there to be much left after that."
The man growled in impotent frustration. The sound followed Lorca under, a thin line anchoring his fading mind to the present and the inexplicable pain it held. But somewhere, deeper in his unconsciousness, there was the memory of Balayna to hurl himself towards. At least it was a familiar and welcome suffering.
Patched up, with a generous layer of painkillers and dressed in a fresh, terran uniform, Tyler sat uncomfortably on one side of a large couch, sinking deep into its cushioning despite trying to maintain some sort of upright posture. On the other side of the couch, with too much meaningful space between them, Cadet Moreau looked young and doe-eyed.
They were in Captain Maddox's private quarters, though Tyler didn't understand the divergence from procedure and couldn't quite bring himself to consider it a good sign.
Maddox had offered fresh food and drinks for both of them and Tyler was doing his best to enjoy the rich, textured bourbon he'd been given.
Across from them, perched like a wildcat on the edge of a glass desk, Maddox watched them with hungry eyes and amiably barely skin-deep. In the shadows behind him, his first officer, Ina Grife, stood with her arms crossed over her chest, silently watching them all.
"I know how this looks," Tyler said, voice hard and meeting Maddox's probing gaze without flinching. "And… I have to confess… I did suspect treacherous activity on Tarsus, but before you showed up, I didn't realise the extent of it."
He gave Moreau a short glance and said, "I knew some of my subordinates were funnelling information the wrong way, but you know how it is," he said to Maddox, looking for some commonality. "A commanding officer stands out like a sore thumb in certain place. Cadet Moreau can go where I can't and ask all sorts of suspicious questions. She helped me infiltrate what turned out to be a network of deep cover agents, all serving the traitor Lorca."
Maddox's expression barely changed and Tyler didn't like his silence. He was clearly not as riveted by Tyler's narrative as he had hoped. However, Tyler noted that Grife had shifted forward, listening closely.
"The Empire needed to know," Maddox only said, no indication at all he was the one frothing at the mouth at the promise of Lorca's blood.
"I know," Tyler said but didn't cast his gaze down. "I know now. But then, things had already gotten out of hand and moving too quickly. All I could do was improvise and hope I'd get an opening."
Maddox only nodded, thoughtfully looked over at Moreau while Tyler continued to spin his story. Tyler resisted the urge to check up on Moreau himself. It wouldn't do to advertise his anxiety in a situation like this, especially if too much of his story hinged on Moreau eventually backing it up.
Tyler thrust his chin forward proudly and said, "I got my opening and I delivered Lorca to you."
Maddox made a low sound in his throat. He said, "Yes, you did. But before that, we lost two imperial starship and their crews, many terran lives were lost in New Anchorage."
He made a small gesture with his hand. "Even my own Defiant has suffered extensive damage. Who should I blame for that?"
This, at least, was easy to answer. "You have him in the brig, now," Tyler said, pointedly. "I'm sure the Emperor will punish him as he deserves."
The glimmer of an emotion stole itself on Maddox's face then, possibly slowly coming to the realisation he really did have his hands on the one man he had wanted to. Except, of course, Tyler had also reminded him that he owed allegiance to someone else and nothing of this was his to do with as he pleased.
"He killed my sister," Maddox said unexpectedly, looking at Moreau again. "Or worse, he sent her to her death and didn't even care. He'll pay."
"Aye," Tyler agreed. "He'll pay."
Maddox tilted his head. "Cadet," he said. "Is this how it happened?"
"Sir," Moreau said and shifted, the movement transferring through the plush and Tyler looked at her, watching her profile and for once she seemed serious and deferential in ways she'd never bothered towards Tyler.
"Forgive me, maybe I'm too young," she said with a slight smile. "But I always thought ambition was no crime in the Empire. Commander Tyler has always served the Emperor. I'm proud of what we did. And what we achieved."
Demurely, she cast her gaze down and letting her voice go a little thin when she added, "And forgive me for speaking so freely, sir."
Maddox gave a gracious shrug and said, "Youth has its privileges, cadet."
He swung himself upright, standing tall over the two of them and despite the warmth he still couldn't help but show towards Moreau, he wasn't completely convinced of the story, partially almost certainly because he didn't like it. If this was the story he relayed to the Emperor, if this was the triumph that would spread through the Empire far and wide, he wasn't going to be the hero of it.
"The Emperor has the last word," he said. "But you will be treated as guests on my ship until the matter has been resolved, I trust you will conduct yourself appropriately."
The dismissal hung in the air, almost too long, when Tyler stood up and saluted. Following his lead, Moreau did the same.
"One last thing," Maddox said. "What is Lieutenant Leighton's role in all of this?"
"I wish I knew," Moreau snorted, then gave Tyler a quick look as if to assure herself her speaking out of turn wouldn't be punished by him. In fact, of course, she was doing it to reassure Tyler he could trust her with this.
Moreau said, "Tommy — Lieutenant Leighton — was strange from the start, you know? I think he's a little weird in the head, he was on Tarsus during the famine ten years ago. I… that is, Commander Tyler thought he was up to something, so I befriended him, but… I'm not sure what's really on his mind most of the time."
Maddox nodded, took a step forward, prompting Tyler and Moreau to walk to the door. The sensor picked them up and slid open silently. Tyler met Grife's gaze, the gloom in which she stood making her expression hard to read.
In parting, Maddox said, "We'll see what he says when it's his turn in interrogation."
Carefully schooling his features, Tyler left the Captain's Quarters with Moreau. The door closed behind them and Tyler allowed himself a moment of relief.
Only to freeze again instantly, with Moreau's hand on his arm drawing his attention back to her. The little girl of a moment before was gone, replaced by the kitten with a mouse between her teeth.
"You owe me now," she mouthed with a smirk, then left him standing there.
When Lorca woke up next, the bright light was back and his body's ache was stark proof that command of it had been returned to him. His reflexes kicked in, long delayed and useless and even dangerous, but that pulled him up, told his primal survival instinct that it was never too late to get into the fight.
He sat up and the pain shot through him and he toppled sideways, off the narrow bed he'd been placed on, tangled in a thin blanket.
He groaned, his reasoning abilities telling him belatedly that this hadn't been a very good idea and it would be better to stay put until he figured out where he was and what exactly had happened.
So he forced himself to keep still and open his eyes slowly, giving them time to adjust to the brightness, get a sense of his surroundings.
He was back in a cell, a small, smooth cubicle with a narrow slab protruding from the wall. The bed he'd fallen from and now was leaning against. He'd dislodged the blanket, tangled it around himself and something soft and lumpy was pressing against his thigh underneath it.
Across from him, a similar slab was occupied by Lieutenant Leighton, who was watching him attentively, sitting up straight, visibly uncertain if he should offer help or not. Dressed in shapeless prison-garb, he was squinting in the bright light, one hand raised to shield himself at least a little.
Lorca groaned again, rubbed his hands down his face then finally glanced down to his chest. A line cut down across it, freshly closed and unnaturally smooth. Over his collarbone and chest, it was just a narrow cut and the skin pulled uncomfortably tight when he moved his shoulder. Below his sternum, the cut suddenly widened to a deep gash square across his stomach. Even after being treated, the edge of the injury was blurry and angry, spreading out across his stomach. He traced his fingers over it, carefully applying pressure as if it would allow him to gauge the depth of the wound. He was surprised he didn't immediately scream again, the pain sat deep inside him, but it wasn't unbearable. A wave of nausea rushed into his throat at the wrong move. He supposed it was his intestines settling back where they belonged.
Letting his hand fall away from the wound, he took a few deep breaths to steady himself and waited for the nausea to go down.
"Got to hand it to your doctors," Lorca said. His voice was rougher than he had expected, throat hurting from the effort. "They know what they're doing."
He took another breath and let his hands fall idly by his side and looked at Leighton. He tilted his head at the young man and when he had his attention, said, "What happened?"
"I'm not sure," Leighton said. "We left the bunker and planned to head to the transporters, but we got ambushed on the way."
He paused, considered, then added, "I don't know what happened to you. Communication was lost. But I can guess the phaser battery was destroyed."
"Yeah," Lorca confirmed, although the memory of it was distant and out of focus. He looked around the cell, same design as the one on the ISS Buran had been, same as on the asteroid base. Terran design, nothing to fight with, no creature comfort at all. Just the thought of being stuck in one of these again made him feel worse than any injury.
"I take it we're on the Defiant?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many of us are up here?"
"Hard to say," Leighton answered. "But it's standard procedure to keep prisoners isolated when possible."
How many holding cells did the Constitution class of ships have? They were deep space exploration ships, they had to be prepared for all sorts of events, even a full-scale mutiny or being boarded which could result in a large number of prisoners. There was no telling what alterations the terrans had done, but he suspected they had a much greater need for holding cells.
Well, Lorca thought, he had wanted to get his soldiers onto the Defiant and Captain Maddox had done exactly that. He had done a good job at containing them, though, at least for now.
"Where's Commander Tyler?"
"I haven't seen him."
Lorca nodded to himself, considering the implications of Tyler's absence.
Setting his hand up on the bed, Lorca pulled himself to his feet, disentangled himself from the blanket and carefully tried stretching his body. Still very little discomfort from the injury, but the trauma preceding it had left his muscles tense enough it felt like they would just snap at the slightest pressure. He thought of Mirak, his CMO on the Buran and the vulcan's arched-eyebrow advice that he needed to take better care of his body. Pushing to his limits as a matter of habit wasn't something he could sustain indefinitely. It won't have to last that long anyway, had been his dismissal.
"How long was I out?"
"About twenty hours."
Lorca scowled at the thought of all the things that could've gone down in that span of time, all the things that could've changed. All the pieces he had managed to get into place could be displaced, leaving him with less than what he'd started out with.
He picked up the blanket and shook it out, only for a pile of clothes to fall back to the floor. He slipped on the trousers, but when he picked up the shirt, something heavy stuck to the front caught his attention. He sat down on the bed to inspect it. The device was the size of a large button. When he brushed his fingers over the inside part of it, soft barbs tried to hold on to him.
He gave Leighton a questioning look.
"Personal agonisers, sir," Leighton explained. "It's a captain's decision if he demands his crew to wear them and how they're worn. The fibres burrow into the skin. It's painless unless the agoniser is activated."
Lorca stared at Leighton and at the button resting on his chest. He hadn't seen this on the other Lorca's people, so either his counterpart thought he didn't need it or he preferred to attach it somewhere less obvious.
He refrained from asking Leighton why he had put the shirt on, knowing what it would mean down the line, but balled his own up in his fists and tossed it into a corner. If they wanted him to wear this, they would have to come down and force it on him, there was nothing he could really do to stop them, but he certainly wasn't going to hamstring himself.
Mindful of the injury, he moved slowly as he sat down on the narrow bed, then swivelled around so he could lay down. He tucked his arm under his neck and wrapped the thin blanket over his torso, though it hardly seemed to make a difference.
He would've dozed off, but it was still uncomfortably bright in the cell. He tried laying his arm across his eyes and it helped somewhat. He couldn't imagine what Leighton would be going through, though. If even he found it too bright, it would be torture for a terran.
It would be quite the point, he thought.
When he took his hand away from his eyes and turned his head towards the younger man, he found Leighton hadn't moved at all. He was still huddled together, head down and a hand pressed over his eyes with so much pressure, the sinews stood out sharply all the way down his arm.
"Lieutenant Leighton," Lorca said. The young man's response to the voice of his superior was immediate. He didn't take the hand away, but he lifted his head and sat up straighter.
"Sir?"
"You did a good job down there," Lorca said. "You took the public transporters and you held the second phaser battery."
"But it's the result that counts."
Lorca felt a smile tug on the corners of his mouth. "That's what they say when they don't understand how the galaxy works. Everyone fails. Today… well, yesterday, I suppose, there was barely a chance we'd make it this far at all. Everything we've achieved we achieved against the odds."
Leighton looked like he wanted to argue, but didn't quite dare to and so kept silent.
Lorca sighed inwardly. A Federation officer would've simply asked to speak freely to get everything off their chest. Lorca had always taken it as a necessary step to clear the air, especially after a failure.
He let a few moments pass before he said, "I lost the same ship twice."
Leighton made a small movement, indicating he was listening but didn't know what to say or even if he was supposed to say anything.
"My Buran in my universe and the one here," Lorca added.
Leighton made a small sound in his throat as if he wanted to speak, so Lorca kept still to not interrupt him.
"It's hard to imagine," Leighton finally said. "A different universe…? What's it like?"
Despite the situation, despite the memory of the Buran burning up, despite everything, Lorca had to laugh. It hurt, but it felt surprisingly good.
"You're the first person to actually ask that," he said. It wasn't quite true, Irsa had asked how slavery worked where he was from and had been unable to comprehend that there wasn't any, but this was a question of a much larger scope.
"Peaceful," Lorca said. It had never quite seemed like that to him, there had always been some fresh chaos waiting to break loose somewhere. Some disaster, some diplomatic fallout, some hitherto unknown pathogen discovered which threatened to wreak havoc on a planetary colony. He'd come from a war with the klingons, of all things. But he realised now that peace wasn't necessarily the surrounding circumstances but a state of mind. And he hadn't understood just how much at peace with himself he had been, baggage and all.
"But you're a war leader," Leighton said, genuinely puzzled.
"The difference is that I don't want to be," Lorca said. He'd spent his entire career burying any negative urges under layers of duty and protocol, wrapping himself in Federation principles and Starfleet guidelines. Every moment he spent in this universe was stripping away another piece of it, laying bare the anachronistic savage underneath. It was a lie. He wanted to be that war leader, he excelled at it, he even enjoyed it far more than he would ever admit to.
"Here's the thing, lieutenant," Lorca said. "I don't give a shit about your, or anyone's, past failures. You get up, and you keep going. It's all it takes, you just keep going longer than your enemy. That's what victory is."
He lifted his hand and rapped his knuckled against the wall of the cell. "We needed to get on board the Defiant. There's no other ship and here we are."
Leighton lowered his hand just enough he could really look at Lorca.
Lorca said, "The next step is taking her."
By the time Tyler finally got the opening he needed, the residue of painkillers had left his system and he felt sore and tired, painfully reminded at each step he took of the damage his hip had suffered. Still, the moment he stepped out of his quarters, he refused to let it show and allowed the wave of pain to rush through him as he walked.
Damage to the Defiant was much more extensive than Tyler had expected from just the sensor readings he had seen. Lorca's aim had caused damage to nearly all systems, most of them non-essential to the immediate survival of the crew, but they needed to be fixed if the Defiant was to function. Early on, Tyler had learned that showers were among these non-essential systems. Heating was patchy and off in my crew quarters, many computer consoles had been taken offline to prevent overstrain on the mainframe. Repair crews were almost everywhere, to the point that their numbers had been bolstered by security and combat personnel, just to get everything fixed.
Tyler couldn't have wished for better conditions. Even if they wanted to, it would've been nearly impossible to keep Tyler under surveillance without outright confining him to his quarters. He was free to move and generally, he wasn't paid much attention.
It didn't mean he could simply waltz into the brig without opposition, though. Here, repairs had been a priority to house all of Lorca's people who had been picked up from the surface. They were all currently in holding cells because the chief engineer had vetoed the use of agony booths, due to the fragility of the power distribution.
None of which would help Lieutenant Leighton much when he was led out of the cell to be taken into interrogation. They wouldn't be too rough to him, but without an option to brief him on the story Tyler and Moreau had concocted, there was no telling how the interrogators would proceed when they realised he wasn't saying what they expected him to. Moreau had done her best to offer an obvious explanation: Leighton wasn't mentally sound. But if the interrogators would leave it at that was anyone's guess.
Tyler used a break in the guards' routines and their thinned out ranks to steal himself into the brig just after Leighton had been taken away.
He made his way to the cell, where Lorca was now alone.
Lorca was lying on the narrow bed, arm thrown across his eyes against the ever-present glare. He seemed to be trying to sleep, but the tension carved into his face betrayed he wasn't getting anywhere. His injury had been far more severe than Tyler's, even with the best treatment, he'd be suffering and while the Defiant's doctor had been strict about procedures, neither she nor the other medical staff would've been inclined to give Lorca more than the absolute minimum in painkillers.
Tyler deactivated the forcefield and stepped into the cell.
The sound alone made Lorca sit up, a flicker of pain crossing his face as he did, swiftly replaced by calmly-controlled fury. Tyler guessed Lorca was withholding judgment on Tyler's loyalties until he knew something tangible, but he was distinctively leaning more towards betrayal.
Tyler didn't say anything, keeping his gaze fixed on Lorca while covertly judging the angles the surveillance would have and how to best circumvent them. Lorca had, apparently, disdained the shirt and — Tyler supposed — the personal agoniser. That it hadn't been remedied was a clear indicator of just how much chaos engulfed the Defiant.
With a scowl at his own pain, visibly annoyed at looking up at Tyler from his seated position, Lorca stood up. Standing so close already in the small cell, he still had to look up at Tyler, though the tilt of his head was challenging.
Tyler couldn't give him any warning, if he had, he could just not have done anything at all. He charged forward, picked up Lorca's shoulder — on the uninjured side — and pushed him into the wall before the other man had a chance to defend himself. Surprise and momentary confusion flared in Lorca's eyes. With his mind still on the monitoring devices, Tyler leaned down and brushed his lips over Lorca's, dry and passively pliant and Tyler was surprised at the sudden, involuntary sharp inhale down his body.
"Play along," Tyler hissed in Lorca's ear. "Listen."
For a split second, nothing else happened. Tyler took another breath to say what he needed to say as quickly as he possibly could before someone saw what was going on and intervened, or even worse, got suspicious of them just standing there, barely touching, barely doing anything despite Tyler's aggressive opening move.
Something flashed in Lorca's eyes and it was neither surprise nor confusion the very moment he punched his fist into Tyler's side, right where his freshly healed ribs were. With Tyler already toppling, wheezing, Lorca stepped into his knee and then swiped the feet away from under him, dropping Tyler prone on his back on the floor.
"You still think this is a game to me?" Lorca snarled, taking a careful step around Tyler, eyeing him like a wildcat, deciding to toy with its prey some more. "You still think I'm playing?"
He followed it up with a kick in Tyler's side, making the terran curl in against the pain. Lorca took another step, close past Tyler, heedless of the way it exposed him to a counter-attack. Pushing through the fresh discomfort, Tyler tried to gain some distance and lever himself back to his feet. A rush of fury overwrote his every intention. If Lorca wanted to fight, Tyler would give him a fight.
Lorca didn't let him get up. He dropped down over Tyler, his full weight on his chest and straining ribs, one knee on Tyler's arm and the other caught in an iron grip and pinned to the floor next to him. Lorca leaned over him, much closer than before, expression unreadable beyond untethering fury, piercing gaze skewering him. Delicately, Lorca closed his hand over Tyler's throat, fingers digging into the sides of his neck and Tyler was already getting lightheaded, but found himself leaning into the touch.
"You better have a plan," Lorca whispered, his tone only slightly milder than before and his teeth following the outline of Tyler's cheek.
Tyler barely noticed the fight going out of him as quickly as it had come, didn't even realise that his hand had been freed before Lorca's other hand clamped down over his jaw, fingers digging painfully into the joint, forcing Tyler's mouth open to slip a finger inside.
Something scratched itself into Tyler's awareness, though, made him flinch back instead of forward even before his mind actually registered the shadow behind Lorca's shoulder. He wanted to give some warning, but by then it was already too late.
A security guard stabbed a baton into Lorca's back, delivering its charge and Lorca choked on a scream as his body locked up. The guard reached for him and hauled him off Tyler, kept the baton in skin contact to immobilise Lorca as he pummelled him into the corner next to his bed.
Tyler rolled back to his feet under the sardonic gaze of a second guard, standing closer to the door, baton ready in case she needed to interfere, but otherwise content to watch.
She looked at Tyler, "Are we saving you or was he giving you exactly what you wanted?"
Tyler squared his shoulders and gave her a disdainful look, refusing to be baited. Under even remotely normal circumstances, she would never have dared speak to him like this. Under normal circumstances, if she had been stupid enough, he would've taken that baton from her and given her a taste of it.
He glanced back at Lorca, who had struggled back to his feet, leaning into the wall and glaring at the guard. His stance and quick, sweeping look betrayed he was gauging his chances if he made a break for it. The guard remained unimpressed, though. He reached out with the baton, place its tip underneath Lorca's chin, pressing into his throat.
The guard kept it there, daring Lorca to try anything.
"Hey," the second guard called. "We got places to be."
Her companion made a derisive snort, dropped the baton down a little and pressed its tip into the angry red line of the fresh scar, just below the collar-bone as he activated it.
Lorca made a strangled sound, clearly trying to keep himself from screaming as his eyes went wide and his face blanched. He kept his teeth clamped shut so tightly, Tyler wouldn't have been surprised to hear them break.
The guard put pressure on the baton, slowly forcing Lorca to slide down in the corner. Only when he was huddled on the floor did the guard take the baton away. His face was set in a self-satisfied grin as he turned back. The second guard rolled her eyes, stepped outside and motioned Tyler to follow.
The two guards took Tyler between them, respectful enough not to touch him or even threaten him with the agoniser, but it was still clear he wasn't going to go anywhere they didn't want him to.
He heard the energy field coming back on as they left. He didn't dare steal another look at Lorca, in case he was under closer scrutiny than he knew.
Commander Grife was alone in the captain's ready room with her back to the door when Tyler was ushered in. The door slid closed behind him and he focussed on what was holding Grife's attention.
The recording from Lorca's cell played on a large screen in front of her, the slight top-down view confirming that Tyler's judge of angles had, at least, been correct.
Watching it played back like this, Tyler was shocked to observe his own lack of reaction, the pathetic way he had allowed Lorca to manhandle him, offering barely even token resistance. He knew why, but he also knew how it would look to Grife. At the same time, Lorca's attack looked much more vicious than it had actually felt. There was some minor relief in that. Lorca had understood what was going on and his loud protestation notwithstanding, he had been playing alone. Just not in the way Tyler had expected.
"I served as navigator on the Buran, senior staff," Grife mused, more to herself than to Tyler. "Did you know that?"
"No, sir," Tyler answered dutifully.
"I transferred out," she said. "Before Lorca turned traitor. There wasn't any room to advance on the Buran back then. There was just Landry above me and everyone knew she was off-limits. Lorca would snap everyone's neck who dared lay a finger on her. And to get to him, I would've had to go through her. Close partnerships like this, they're difficult to break up."
She turned around to face him and smiled, though Tyler didn't know what it meant.
She said, "Well-placed trust can be just as powerful as misplaced trust. Don't you think?"
The recording came to an end and Grife dismissed the display with a wave of her hand, never taking her gaze off Tyler.
"Captain Maddox is in conversation with the Emperor," she said, offering an explanation he never would have dared demand. "I wouldn't interrupt them if we found a cardassian armada hiding under a crop field down there. I hope you know what he's doing?"
Tyler allowed himself a frown. This wasn't the conversation he had expected to be having after the incident in the cell. He suspected now she had been meaning to speak to him before she even knew what was going on. Coincidence, not suspicion. He allowed himself to relax a fraction.
She didn't wait for his answer and continued, "He's undermining you, of course. Think of it. Lorca has been his single goal for years since his sister died, but he couldn't go after the Emperor's right-hand man, no one's that stupid. But when Lorca turned traitor, he was suddenly fair game, but Captain Maddox never got even close. This is the first time Lorca is right under his nose and he can barely think straight anymore. And here you are."
She made a wave with her hand. "The commander of a backwater planet nobody cares about. You have barely a handful of people under you, a bunch of farmers to monitor. You are nothing and no one."
She smiled to mitigate some of the sting of her assessment. It was all true, too, Tyler couldn't find it in him to bristle.
"And yet, here you are," Grife said. "Who do you think will be celebrated for this triumph? Well, I can tell you who Captain Maddox is seeing in his nightmares and it drives him mad."
Tyler cleared his throat and said, "His shortcomings are not my problem."
"I would agree, but who knows what he's saying to the Emperor right now? You could be a hero of the Empire and the Captain is singing your praises right now. Or you're a turncoat and a coward. Which one do you think is more likely?"
"I know what I did," Tyler said, amused despite the uncertainty of his situation at the complete truth of the utterly ambiguous statement. "I trust the Emperor won't be so easily deceived."
"Oh that's cute," Grife shook her head, impatience tinging her voice. "Are you really just such a schoolboy? So naive? So blind?"
She threw her head back and turned away to walk around to sit behind the desk, stretching out her legs casually.
"Do you have a better idea?" Tyler asked.
Instantly, her mood changed again and she grinned, leaning forward and folding her fingers in front of her, resting her chin in them.
"You need allies," she said simply. "Supporters. People who back your version of the story. Someone who'll stand with you until the dust settles and you can reap the rewards of your achievement."
"You would help me?"
"Sweet fucking mercy," she snorted. "Don't they teach you subtlety in this forsaken corner of the galaxy?"
"There's a time and a place," Tyler pointed out, unfazed. "You just spent ten minutes telling me how fucked I am, as if I didn't know it already. What's subtlety got to do with that?"
She removed her head from her hand and sat up straight.
"Let's not argue," she said with fake mildness. "I can make sure the reports sent home to the Charon are as accurate as possible. Not so clouded by Captain Maddox's passion, if you know what I mean. And when it's over and these just rewards are coming your way, I expect to be in your thoughts."
"Just that?"
"A captaincy would be nice. Maybe if the chair on the Defiant were to suddenly become vacant."
Tyler allowed himself a smile of his own, reassuring her. "I'll think of you fondly, commander."
"Good," she said. Her expression changed again and she said, "So, Lorca."
She glanced in the direction of the newly dark display as if it were just a conversation piece. "You want a go at him?"
Tyler was just glad she seemed to be completely convinced by the mere surface appearance of what had been going on in that cell. Tyler leered at her, "It's the least I should get out of this."
"Well, he's always been very generous with certain favours, I suppose it barely counts as a violation. I'll arrange something for you, just don't kill him. Or disfigure him too much, he's gotta look good for his public execution. And don't get yourself killed, either. I don't care what you do other than that."
Tyler smiled at her, the pretence of a commonality only she thought they shared.
"I wouldn't want to ruin your day like that," Tyler assured her.
"Good," she said, smiled but with too many teeth. "Because you need me more than I need you."
"Right now," he added, just to see what she would do if he started to push back.
"Fortunes change," she shrugged, letting the barb brush past her. "You should return to your quarters, I have work to do."
He saluted and retreated out of the ready room, surprised at the relief washing over him. Not only had his — possibly ill-advised — attempt to approach Lorca not backfired, it had actually given him an opening and the opportunity for a much less rushed meeting. Things had certainly looked a lot bleaker mere minutes before. Fortunes changed indeed.
"Did Maddox speak to you?" Tyler asked. The lights were dimmed in his assigned quarters and he sat next to the door with his legs extended on top of the nearby computer console. It was basically all it was good for because the Defiant's systems were completely closed to him, less because he was a suspected traitor and more simply because he wasn't an actual crew member.
Poised with her legs crossed under her on the other side of the door, Moreau chuckled.
"Not yet," she said. "But I got a message asking if I would join him for dinner tonight. I said yes, naturally."
Tyler weighed her words and her tone, tried out where to place her in this great, ever-shifting equation. Her closeness to Maddox, especially because he was the one seeking it out, was a definite advantage. But there was just no prediction what someone like Moreau would do with such access.
"It'll be good to figure out his mood," Tyler said. "Learn what he's said to the Emperor. And the results of Leighton's interrogation."
She only hummed in agreement and they fell into a silence which might almost have been comfortable.
In truth, if Leighton's interrogation had gone as badly as it could've, Tyler doubted the two of them would still be sitting there, unimpeded. It was too early to be sure, though. Leighton, like any member of Starfleet worth their salt, would be able to hold out under pressure and even torture for a while. Tyler would prefer him to be in fighting condition, but if they lost him, he wouldn't be sorry.
"Did you hear anything else interesting?" Tyler asked.
"A lot of chitchat," she said and he sensed her shrug, though he didn't turn to look at her. In the gloom of the room, she wouldn't have been much more than a dark outline anyway.
"We landed a lot of needle-stings, takes a ton of effort to repair anything and everyone's annoyed over it. I find that pretty interesting," she said. "They would've handled a catastrophic failure of their ship much better, but these inconveniences put everyone on edge. Was that the plan?"
"Sort of," Tyler said. "The plan was to strip the Defiant's shields, let them beam down their shock troops and beam up ourselves at the same time. We didn't want to really damage the ship, it's the only way out of the system before the Empire sends reinforcements."
"I heard Maddox is trying to stall the deployment of reinforcement," she said.
"Afraid he'll have to share the glory with even more people?"
She laughed. "It's pretty obvious. Maybe I should ask him over dinner."
No faint resemblance to his sister would save her from his anger if she did. But many things had changed in the last few days, and the one thing he had least expected was to find some common ground with Cadet Moreau to laugh, even if only a little at a less than funny joke.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake," Tyler said. Without half the terran fleet breathing down their necks in a few days, this situation might still swing their way.
The door sensor chirped, and Tyler arched a disinterested brow when he said, "Enter."
The door opened and Lorca stepped inside with two security guards right behind him. His step didn't stutter despite the darkness as he walked further into the room. Starlight from the porthole was just bright enough to trace his outline. His hands were cuffed in front of him. On his bare back, low between his shoulder-blades, the small protrusion of the agoniser sat right over his spine. There was some medical concern over the placement of an agoniser right next to the spinal cord. Its attachment tendril could burrow deep enough, which not only caused the pain inflicted by the device to exceed normal parameters — they were disciplinary tools, not meant to cause total incapacitation and a trip to sickbay — the fibres had proven difficult to remove without causing nerve damage.
The guard startled at Tyler when he noticed him by the door, but caught himself when he said, "With Commander Grife's best wishes. We'll be back in an hour, sir."
"Thank you," Tyler said, leaning his head back into the wall to look up at them without otherwise changing his position. "And tell Commander Grife I won't forget her assistance."
"She'll be glad to hear that," the guard said. As he turned back to leave, he spotted Moreau and gave a dirty little laugh. "Have fun," he added and left, exchanging a meaningful look with the other guard.
When the door had closed behind the guards, Moreau said, "Now that everyone's reputation is completely ruined, what do we do next?"
At the centre of the room, Lorca turned on his heel, eyes narrowed at them. The time might not have been enough to allow his sight to adapt. Tyler had noticed he took longer to handle the gloom, probably a drawback of his lack of light sensitivity. Even so, he seemed to be digging his gaze right through Tyler's head after flicking his gaze over Moreau.
He lifted his cuffed hands and said, "Let's start by getting rid of these."
Although Lorca's tone seemed neutral, there was a low rasp in his voice, as if he was hiding a growl. Tyler supposed it was from screaming, but it triggered some instinctive, reptilian response deep in the recesses of his mind. He truly didn't know anything about Lorca, barely served with him for a day. All he had, really, was the gossip and hearsay about the reputation of a completely different man.
There was no telling if this Lorca would take Tyler's decision to hand him over to the very enemy they had been fighting with pragmatism, or if he perceived it as a betrayal that deserved retaliation. What if the invasion of his privacy that Tyler had enacted went too far for him and was too intimate?
Not so long ago, Lorca had mocked Tyler's proclamation of never being afraid, and now everything had changed. The posting on this planet had made him soft and complacent. He'd convinced himself he was in charge of his life, willing and able to fight it out to the end, but in truth, he had simply been pampered and protected from the harsh realities holding sway elsewhere.
Tyler took his feet from the console and stood up, walked over to Lorca and the handcuffs he was still holding out. He keyed in the code and the cuffs snapped open. They would've rattled to the floor when Lorca brushed them off, but Tyler caught them.
Free of them, Lorca sucked in a deep breath and exhaled in a sigh.
"Thank you," he said and his scratched-up voice was barely audible. He let his shoulders hang as he stepped away from Tyler, found a chair and lowered himself into it slowly, looking suddenly small and tired.
"Do you think I could get a coffee?" he asked.
"The quarter doesn't have a replicator," Tyler said.
"I could take a trip to the mess and get you some," Moreau said, getting up.
Lorca must look really pathetic if even Moreau felt the urge to do something nice.
"No, don't," Lorca said immediately, though clearly frustrated at his own decision. "Let's not ruin their fantasies just yet."
He turned his gaze on Tyler and his voice regained some of its natural command. "You had a plan," he said.
"Not a very good one, I'm afraid," Tyler confessed. "We've got fifty-two soldiers in the cells. If we spring them and move quickly, we might be able to take the ship."
Lorca made a sound which took a moment for Tyler to identify as a chuckle.
"I'll do you one better," he said. "You told me this is a Constitution class ship. One of mine, you said."
He looked around the room. "And underneath all that paint, it's still a Federation ship and lucky for us, I'm a Federation captain."
"What are saying?" Moreau asked and earned herself a feral little smile.
"There's an override command hardcoded into the core system of every Federation ship. The only way to remove it would be to completely replace the computer hardware, which I bet you didn't bother with. If I get to the mainframe, I can take command of the entire ship."
He leaned a little towards Tyler and the angle of light changed just enough to make out the edge of his teeth in his smile.
"You see," he said. "Your double-dealing didn't just save my life, it got us almost exactly where we needed to be."
End of Chapter 9: The Knowledge of Kings
Reference: "Deception is the knowledge of kings." - Cardinal Richelieu
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - atributed to Napoleon Bonaparte
Author's Note: I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to write a character who's canonically "a bit boring". You'd think that'd be just my type, but I'm really at a loss.
Also, when I made that note on the last chapter, I swear I didn't yet know that Lorca would see the agoniser shirt and go "nope, I'm going shirtless for the rest of this." THAT WAS NOT THE PLAN!
Last revised on 02/February/2019