Chapter Eleven
Passions and Plots

"Captain's Log, supplemental, 2217 hours. It has been a day since the 'sterilization' procedure at Dartmouth Station, and Starfleet reports that replacement crews, having departed early, are already halfway to the Station. Dartmouth is scheduled to resume full service before the end of the week. Yet another glowing example of Imperial efficiency."

Forrest cut off the recording, saying nothing more lest his thoughts intrude into his voice. The Empire had ways of assessing the strength of its leadership, and a lack of strength was something to be avoided.

"Penny for your thoughts?" A seductive voice behind him offered. He turned to see Hoshi Sato approaching, having already changed for bed. She wore a black negligee which tinted her body no more than mist would.

"My thoughts aren't worth that much."

"Aren't they?" she asked, moving very close to him, knowing he could feel the heat of her body. "It was a great victory."

"Victory?" he asked, surprised. "Victory? We took a civilian installation by surprise. Did you hear the body counts?"

"I gave them to you," she reminded him, leaning upon him, letting him feel her body through his uniform, her voice still low in attempted seduction. Her breasts rubbed against him, her nipples hardening in response, coming alive in erotic points of lust. She'd soon get him out of this mood.

"Fourteen hundred eighty seven! Among them were twenty children, thirteen on the station, seven on the planet." He pushed her off, turned away, unable to look at her any longer. He picked up a bottle and a glass, but did not pour one into the other. "I'm a soldier – and I've been one all my life. But what soldier gives the order to make war on children? What kind of soldier kills children?" He put the bottle down hard, the glass even harder.

"You were following the orders of the Empire."

"Yes, 'clean sweep' they wanted. Clean sweep they got. But at what cost? Have I sunk so low that I make war on the helpless, on those who …? What's happened to me?"

"You did what had to be done, to preserve the Empi–" Forrest whirled on her, his hand cracked against her cheek before he could think.

x

She fell back a step, stunned by his thoughtless reaction. He felt the stinging in his hand as she looked up at him, clearly equally stunned by his violence, her hand pressed to her reddening cheek. "Well, I suppose you have your answer."

"I'm sorry." He flexed his hand, shocked by his own thoughtless violence. He hadn't realized how badly these orders had affected him. "I don't know what made me do that."

"No, don't apologize," she insisted, coming back to him, still not lowering her hand. "Never apologize for strength."

"Strength," he repeated bitterly. "The strength to slap a woman around?"

She grasped his wrist. "The strength to control what you own. The strength to command," she insisted, pressing her body close to his. "I was out of line, and you were right to slap me down. I deserved it." She pressed even closer, lowering her hand, letting him see the red imprint of his palm on her cheek. "Let me make it up to you."

"What?"

She reached up to him, coming up on her toes, straining for his lips. "You're angry. I know. You've so much to be angry about. So much." She kissed him, leaning her whole body into him. "But let me make you feel better," she whispered into the kiss and pressed as close to him as she could. "I can make you feel so much better," she whispered into his lips.

A moment later his hands closed on her and she felt the filmy negligee start to slip.

xxx

The following morning at 1115 hours, 3+ hours into the doomed Alpha Shift, Vist and Leena walked down the corridor on D deck, invisible to most by their very natures as submissive, subservient slaves. Vist, knowing that anyone who looked at them would be more attentive to the attractive jade Orion woman than to a bald blue Bolian, carried in the pocket of his open vest the six inch wide melankite disk.

They approached a junction; half turned the corner, and fell back again as quickly as possible, praying they'd avoided notice.

"That's not in the plan!" Vist whispered quietly, referring to the MACO guard standing eight meters down the corridor.

"What the pliq is he doing there?" Leena whispered back sharply before getting hold of herself. It was a question Vist couldn't possibly answer. This corridor was supposed to be unoccupied at this hour, all the Alpha shift personnel being on duty and the Betas and Gammas either soon wakening or retiring.

Vist peered cautiously around the corner, just far enough to see the man in the dim light. He leaned back again. "It's one of Commander Archer's men."

"That means Archer's here. But why? This is crew quarters for the enlisted and lower ranks," the Orion protested.

"If I'm not mistaken, that one is Crew woman Ann Anderson's. She's a rather comely female from Tactical."

"Yes, I know her. Keirsh, what a time for a dalliance!"

Vlis stopped, a thoughtful look on his face. "Maybe it's a perfect time for one. Listen..."

x

Corporal Anopoli had been standing in the corridor this morning for over thirty-five minutes, ever since Commander Archer had led him to this door and had gone in alone. He had no doubt what the Commander wanted, and didn't begrudge him the diversion. The only thing he didn't care for was being left outside. Of course, to voice any complaint was to request to take a stroll out an airlock, so he held his tongue while he still kept it.

Of course, given the choice and chance, he'd much rather keep his tongue in–.

A movement to his right attracted his attention, and he hefted his phase rifle, ready to challenge any intruder. But he stopped when he saw that the approaching figure was only one of the female slaves in her short sleeveless shift, the green Orion woman. What was her name, Leeta? Lana? Lara? Who the hell cared?

He watched her carefully as she approached, wholly aware that she had no business here at this time. Of course, though he ostensibly watched her to see if she posed a threat, he was really watching the whole of her. In what she wore she was not hiding any threat – or anything else.

She stepped slowly toward him... and stopped. He stopped frisking her with his eyes, the thought of doing so with his hands coming up hard. "Hello, Corporal," she breathed warmly. He nodded in greeting. "Pretty warm morning, isn't it?"

Temperatures on the ship were carefully controlled, but at that moment he couldn't disagree with her. He was indeed starting to find things very warm. "Aren't you lonely out here all alone by yourself?"

As a seductive technique, her methods were almost laughable and she knew it. On a Terran ship where the female slaves were often compelled to render services, seduction was a useless art. If she had to depend upon those skills she was dead already, as not even an idiot would fall for their obvious artifice. Fortunately, as an Orion, she didn't have to depend upon seduction alone; all she had to do was get close to a man and let the powerful pheromones her body produced do all the work.

x

"Got to be," he admitted with a noticeable lack of restraint. "The Commander's inside with a woman." She was so close he could look down her dress between her breasts virtually to her navel.

"And left you behind?" she cooed, her voice growing hotter as she traced a jade finger over his chest. "Doesn't seem very fair to me."

"No. He's been in there for over a half hour, and is probably good for another half," he told her breasts, staring at the slowly heaving mounds. She took a very slow, very deep breath and he nearly forgot what he was talking about. "Sometimes he likes to doze off, and I'm left standing here for three or four hours."

"Wouldn't you love to have some of the same thing he's enjoying?" Leena asked, running her fingers over his chest while at the same time biting her tongue to keep from laughing. It was the first thing she could think of to say, and she knew then that she really had to brush up on her technique, in case her pheromones didn't work and she came up across someone with a brain in his head instead of within his pants.

"Can't. Wish I could – but if I leave my post and he catches me gone…."

Realizing he was about to get away from her, she reached out, deciding it was time to apply some direct attention to his brain.

Vist, watching from down the corridor, watched the close encounter and waited. He could already see the foregone end of this engagement a long minute before she led the MACO across the corridor and got him to punch in the security override, opening the door to the unoccupied quarters.

As soon as they were inside, Vist headed past, down the corridor to an access port, behind which was a tube that led to several backup electrical circuits.

xx

Ann Anderson cried out over and over, loudly and louder still under Jonathan Archer, her body straining to meet his, her passionate cries reflecting their wild coupling. She clung to him, not wanting the wild ride to end, trying her best to thrill him as he did her, trying to make the moment last forever.

But like all things it had to end. And its ending was a particularly sad one for, as usual, when finished with passion his scheming mind eventually turned to duty, or at least plans and conspiracies, and she had little progress to show for her assignment.

When, a few minutes later, they lay together, pressed to one another in her thin bunk, she tried what she could to get his mind back on further exertions, but he would have none of it. "What of Tucker?" he asked her in a deceptively gentle tone. Deceptive because she had known him to change from gentle to forceful when the mood hit him, and those sudden shifts frightened her.

He wasn't brutal, but terrifying though thrilling in his own way, for she never knew what he would do. There was forever a depth of anger, of frustration, within him that she always had to be careful not to allow to surface.

It wasn't like Tucker; he was always brutal and hurtful. A woman who fell under his mercy knew what she was doomed to; but Archer was different. His moods were unpredictable, but always charged with that underlying feeling of resentment and anger; Archer against the universe, even in bed. For all his skill as a lover, all his wild passion, he could be as dangerous as a pile of antimatter.

x

Ann shook her head, biting the bullet and hoping that what she said pleased him. Of course, since she was never privy to his plans, she never knew what would make him happy or angry. "As you saw yesterday, he returned to Engineering where he was a positive terror to his crew. Whatever the Captain said to him, he made his people's lives a living hell. He did isolate and rape Mary Sherman; then left her where she lay." She tries, once again, to bury her feelings about this. Sherman couldn't have been helped, couldn't be saved, but to fulfill her task of keeping Tucker under surveillance, Ann had had to watch. At one point, midway through, Mary had gained a bit of fire, had tried to fight back – and she'd paid the price.

"It was past end of shift before she came down, a surprise to Beta shift who hadn't known she was up there. She, of course, told them nothing, but I could see no one had to ask.

"For the past day Tucker's has been a model officer, doing nothing out of type for him – though the rape wasn't out of type either. He's been a consummate Officer and Engineer, it's almost like he knows, or suspects, that he's being watched. Possibly not by sensors, but just in general. Maybe, considering how he was after talking to Captain Forrest, he may suspect the Captain's watching him."

"Probably is."

"Probably. He has his own crew cowed, I doubt any of them would raise a hand to stop or get rid of him. No one will mourn his passing, but no one will hasten it either. Nonetheless, he doesn't strike me as secure. He's king in his own domain, yet he's a king who constantly fears danger from without - or within."

"No idea what that meeting with Forrest was all about?"

"No. The firewalls in the Captain's Ready Room, it's not smart to try to break them unless you're ready to declare Mutiny then and there. He hasn't said anything about it to anyone, and I've had him under constant surveillance every minute. Engineering, Mess Hall, his Quarters, I set the computer to constant trace with a secure code. He spent the night alone. I dare say, after the time he gave Mary, he's going to be spending a lot of nights alone." Ann looked up, but the expression in Archer's eyes made her pull away. "No, please don't!" But Archer shook his head.

"No, I'm not going to ask you to do any 'up close and personal' research. You're too valuable a resource to risk on him, even if I felt inclined to share."

x

Ann pressed her face to his chest, turned toward the bed, not wanting him to see her face, nor her too-expressive eyes. A 'valuable resource' he'd called her. Not 'inclined to share' he'd said. The passion of minutes before was nowhere in his voice. Nowhere in his words was there anything for her; any feeling, any desire, any caring. He wasn't willing to share, but his tone made it clear that it wasn't because he cared for her and wanted her for himself.

His tone matched his words. He was an ambitious man, she'd always known this, but suddenly she knew what she was. She was not a beloved person to him. She wasn't a future 'Captain's Woman'. She wasn't even a woman when he wasn't inside her; she was a 'resource' for his use in his ambitious rise to the Captaincy.

x

Last evening they had had a wild, passionate night in his quarters. Now he was here in hers. She'd given him everything she had, everything she was. She had held nothing back. She never did. She'd given him her mind, her body, everything. She'd given him her love. When she kissed him it was from within, a fire that consumed her very being. She'd taken him into herself so many times; she'd given herself to him freely, passionately, lovingly.

She'd given him the gift of her body even as she enjoyed the gift of his.

And she had worked for him, secretly, against her Captain, against her Oath. She was forsworn by him, by his charms, by his plans. She had spied for him, given him Secret knowledge that even his position as First Officer didn't entitle him to. She had given him intelligence that was making his plan a reality. She could be flogged to death if she were ever found out!

But she'd done it willingly, lovingly, because she believed in him! She'd wanted him to succeed in his plans, even ignoring the promises he'd made to her if he were successful. She wasn't in this for herself – she was in it for him, the man she loved.

She'd known for months that she loved Jonathan Archer, loved him with all her heart and soul and being and she gave herself to him willingly; body, mind, soul, sex. He was the universe to her.

And he called her a 'resource', one he wasn't 'inclined to share'.