OSN Corsair
Corsair class carrier
Rela had gone selah hunting back home on Mol Rihann, earning twenty pelts in a single afternoon. Federation Marine training had prepared her for an almost infinite number of possible situations where she would face contact with the enemy, a euphemism for certain death. But none of that matched up to the thrill she got from pursuing a real-life enemy.
Whoever had boarded the carrier had drawn most of the Orion security crew to the aft end of the ship. While a part of her hoped that Alexia had caught up to her for a rescue, Rela's mind suggested that it was more logical that other Orions had boarded the ship, and that she had found herself in the midst of a Free Colony civil war. It didn't really matter in the end. She didn't have time to locate her captured wrist comm or see if the enemy of her enemy was really her friend.
She drew up to the bridge entry doors and took a knee, scanning for targets. Again, no one was visible to her Romulan eyes. In a way, Rela felt like an AhkDhael in space, invisible and ready to swoop in on her prey. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then rose in confidence.
Quickly running her way into the bridge, she shouted out for her prey. "Tetro! Get out here!"
No one responded. No answered. Rela focused herself, using all of her senses to try to find her target.
Nothing. No movement. No pheromones. No sounds. No sign of Tetro.
Rela moved ahead carefully, her disruptor up and at the ready. Nothing. The bridge was completely empty.
"Come on out! If you hate Romulans so much, here's one standing right here!" Rela shouted, hoping to use her emotions against Tetro's.
Movement left.
From the corner of her eye, Rela spotted an armoured target moving towards her. She spun and fired the disruptor, but not fast enough to kill her target.
At first Rela heard rather than felt the rush of air of an armoured fist swinging for her jaw. Then, she felt it. Getting punched in the face during training and punched in the face by an armoured fist weren't at all similar experiences, no matter how much the instructors at Sandhurst had sworn it was.
Rela sailed backwards and landed on her back hard on the deck plate. Her jaw hurt almost as much as her spine, but she fought through the pain and pulled herself back to her feet, raising the disruptor up. She fired quickly, but Rela's target moved away almost faster than the eye could track. The Human eye, anyway.
Romulans had a keenly developed, highly attuned sense of vision compared to Humans, Klingons, or Vulcans. The Rihannsu failed to match the Kinshya in terms of night vision, but technology made up for that. In front of Rela, Tetro had cladded herself in armour not unlike that deployed by the XOF Ninjas of the Federation Marine Corps. Molotok Armour equipped with opti-camo technology.
Thief, Rela's mind screamed in rage. That antom had stolen enough today.
Rela fired a dozen bursts from her disruptor towards the armoured Tetro, but the Orion Commander stubbornly dodged all dozen bursts, not only frustrating Rela but causing her pain, as Tetro charged in again and smashed the remaining part of her jaw.
Rela flew backwards and crashed hard into the deck plate. Picking herself up, she decided to change tactics.
"Antom! Take your armour off and fight me fairly!"
It worked, as Tetro's response was clearly under the skin. "Fairly?! You dare say that word here! Was what your vile little race did to my family fair?!"
Tetro screamed, but Rela planned. She rose again and charged, knocking the taller Orion to the deck. Rela deftly rolled over top of Tetro, bringing her left over in a keyhole lock and breaking the arm in armour. As Tetro screamed in pain, Rela found the switch to deactivate her armour, smiling in satisfaction listening to the sound of the collapsing metal plates. For good measure, Rela leaned over and broke one of her legs, preventing the Orion Commander from standing up.
Rela calmly stood over her and looked Tetro dead in the eyes, still carrying her disruptor in hand.
"You think you've something here today, Creature? You think this little episode a victory?"
Rela said nothing. Just kept her cold stare.
Tetro spat a wad of blood on the deck. "You can't even speak, can you Creature? Are you so afraid of me? You don't know anything about fear. I wish I could be there when we come for your family, Creature. I wish you could hear that wonderful sound when we rape, murder, and devour your family, piece by little piece…"
Rela kicked her jaw. "Stop. Talking."
"You dare strike me?! I didn't tell you to move!"
Rela lost her temper and punctuated each word with another kick. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
She got down on one knee, seized Tetro by her hair, and let her right fist fill in her words. "Stop talking! Stop talking! STOP! TALKING!"
Rela, almost panting in exhaustion, stood back up. "I hate Orions! I hate you so, so much! What makes you so special?! What gives you the right to put people into slavery?! Why do think you can take whatever you want from whoever you want?!"
"You're all thieves! Nothing else! An entire race of thieves! I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!"
Rela seize what was left of Tetro's broken face and hauled her barely inches from her own. "You think you can threaten me by threatening to hurt my family?! You already killed my family knuvk! We lost our home, and what did you do?! You tried to steal what little we had left! You killed my mom and dad! You killed hundreds of Romulans! Why?! What did we ever do to you?!"
Tetro could barely get her words out. "Y-you know what you did to me… Creature!"
Rela brought her fist across Tetro's jaw and broke it, sending the Orion flying back into the deck plate. She charged the disruptor and aimed it directly at Tetro's head.
"My name… is Rela!"
The doors to the bridge exploded open with det-packs, and Rela instantly spotted Kayla's purple coloured Molotok leading the Marines from the front, along with Eyos and party of Klingons.
Kayla reacted with equal amounts of joy and concern. "Rela! You okay?!"
"I will be in a second once I pull this trigger," Rela replied, still keeping her disruptor drawn on Tetro.
Kayla let her rifle hang loose and slowly approached her adopted Romulan sister. "Rela, you can't shoot her. We need the intel."
"She's got nothing useful to tell us. She deserves to die," Rela replied, coldly.
"She has a point, Kayla. We've got control of the ship now. We can use the computers and her logs," Eyos added.
Kayla sighed deeply. "Leftenant, lower your disruptor. We're taking Tetro into custody. That's an order."
Orders. The most powerful thing in the universe that wasn't Ginny Tatum. Rela – reluctantly – began to lower her disruptor.
Tetro smirked. "What a good little Creature you are. Help me to my fe—"
Rela cut her off. "I told you. My name is Rela."
And even with Kayla's enhanced senses and agility, she wasn't fast enough to stop her sister from raising her disruptor, taking aim, and putting a single green beam through Tetro's shattered face. As the Orion commander disintegrated, Kayla shoved her Romulan sister backwards.
"What the hell was that?! I gave you an order Rela!"
Rela simply stared back. "She couldn't use my name right."
Eyos opened her comm to keep some measure of calmness in the boarding team. "Eyos calling Alexia. Corsair is secured and Commander Tetro is dead. This fight is finished."
The relief, and shock, in Rei's voice was evident in her answer. "Copy all Eyos. I'll get some medical and Engineering teams aboard asap. Let's see about finding the cargo."
Eyos turned to the rest of the Marines and her own Warriors. "You heard Captain Rei. Search this ship and find that cargo. Dismissed."
As the boarding teams left, Eyos walked over and placed her hand gently on Rela's shoulder. "I'm just glad you're safe, little sister. But Kayla is right. You shouldn't have shot her."
"Don't you start either Eyos. Its not like our family doesn't have a history of killing our enemies!"
Again, Kayla had to sigh. "Both of you are giving me a headache. You know we have to report this. And General Marshall isn't Uncle Mark. You're going to be court martialled for executing a prisoner, Rela. I don't even think Mom can get us out of that."
"Who says she was a prisoner? I was defending myself trying to escape. That is… if you write the report that way."
Kayla stared at both of her sisters for the eternity of thirty seconds. The damnable thing was, neither of them were wrong.
"I hate both of you so, so much," said Kayla as she raised her wrist comm, "Alexia 1-9 to Actual. Three to beam back to the bridge."
─•~:~•─
Kayla, Eyos, and Rela beamed into the bridge seconds later. Logan walked over from his tactical station and looked at Rela.
"Leftenant. I'm glad you're alright. We were all really worried about you," he started to say before Rela seized him by his collar.
"Look Feanna Hevam! I just spent the last eighteen hours being tortured by a sick Orion commander, and you really think the first thing I want to deal with when I get home is your stupid, human face?!" she screamed.
But before Logan could answer, Rela drew him in and kissed him with equal amounts of relief and hate, walking both of them back before finally shoving him back into his tactical seat.
Once separated, Rela offered him a smile.
"Okay. That wasn't completely awful. You can take me on a date when we get back to Terha."
Logan was about to smile, but his console beeped in alarm, and the smile was chased away from his face with deep concern.
"Skip, we got a problem. I'm picking up one hundred and eleven Klingon warships dropping out of warp at the edge of the system. And I don't think these are friendlies."
Eyos walked over and looked at the warp signatures. Her stomach dropped.
"Captain? What do you make of them?" asked Rei.
"It's J'mpok. I'd call that a problem."
─•~:~•─
