Liar, Murderer, Smuggler: Act II
Stardate 2264.73
Personal logs: Ambassador Diana Prince, Federation Starship: NCC-1701-A: U.S.S Enterprise.
Captain Kirk and I are en route to the planet Verex III on the edge of Klingon and Orion space on a mission that could cost him his career, and yet he seems serene. Unfortunately, it is quite the journey, even at the maximum speed of warp seven that this ship can go. According to Jim, this is an Argosian vessel, confiscated just a week before Enterprise arrived in orbit around Themyscira. I am fortunate that the controls and displays all utilize a standard Federation format.
But, the Argosian people themselves are nothing like their vessel. They are quick to anger, and as Jim has told me, similar to the Klingons. After discussing Jaylah's temperament with Chief Engineer Scott, I have come to the conclusion that she would most likely be taken by one of the Klingons as a prize. While I have had woefully little time to study the Klingon culture, their mating and social cultures seem to relish violence. They may see Jaylah as alluring because she is willing to draw blood. But, if she is purchased by an Orion for being "difficult", she could become a meal on some depraved trader's table.
I cannot allow that to happen.
I have often found myself at a loss for the actions that mortal creatures take against each other. When I was young, it was all too easy to blame Ares for mankind's cruel and capricious nature. Yet, as I have now been introduced to the depravities of the Orion Syndicate, I find myself reminded once again that mankind's greatest downfall is often himself. And this affliction is not just specific to humans. It has its roots across the galaxy. I can no more blame Ares for the warmongering ways of the Klingons and Romulans any more than I can blame the hyena that scavenges the kills of other predators. He has always been, and always will be, a god of opportunity.
Which is why I am compelled to bring justice to Jim's friend, and all those who have suffered under a slaver's whip. While I know Jim is focused on the immediate retrieval of his ally, I cannot say I am as eager to leave once we arrive. Since Doctor McCoy was good enough to provide me with a full dermal pigmentation and pheromone treatment, he assures me that I could blend in with the Orion people for days, if necessary.
I do not think we will need that long.
It is said that the gods shared many similarities, and if I am truly one of them, then I must do what they have done.
I will free those the Orions have enslaved. I will protect Jim's friend and his career.
I need only be a god of opportunity.
Several hours after Diana had reported to Sickbay, she was still trying to ignore the strange itching sensation on the roof of her mouth. She had attempted to implement a number of distractions while onboard, and in the first few hours of the trip, simply monitoring systems and gaining familiarity with the cargo and ship had done enough.
Now that they were only eight hours into a twenty hour trip at warp, she had run out of menial tasks to distract her from the obvious and incessant itching.
"Does your mouth not itch?" She finally sighed in exasperation, turning to Jim in the captain's chair beside her. The ship had been completely silent save for the occasional beeping of a console.
She told herself that he was chuckling at her because she had startled him. "Bones said there might be some side effects from the pigmentation," He offered as way of explanation, but Diana simply sighed and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
"I do not think it's the pigmentation." She remarked. The silver of her bracelets looked so stark against the emerald skin. Her armor had been painted black with a polymer that Scotty promised would come off with the right solution, but even so, she had been forced to wear additional layers of clothing that could only be described as… scavenged. "Perhaps, it's the pheromones?"
Jim's eyes widened as she shifted in her seat, and before long, she realized that he was… staring. At her bosom. "It could also be the…" The way his voice trailed off suggested he was trying to find the right words and failing. "Other things he did." Diana glanced down at her bosom, then back up at him. Quickly, she dropped her arms to her sides so that she wasn't propping them up. Jim's eyes quickly darted back up to her eyes. "I am… so sorry…. " He breathed before turning to look back at the console. "Bones promised me the antidote would last longer, but maybe the dosage is wrong."
She sighed, annoyed at how uncomfortable the situation made them both. "Remind me to reprimand Leonard when we return. I have no shame in my body. My breasts are there, they do not need to be artificially increased simply to give the illusion that I am desirable."
"Well, you're absolutely right about that. There's no illusion, you're completely desirable." The flirtatious remark slipped from his lips with ease, but there was certainly tension behind it. Diana gave him a sidelong look, more because she was trying to gauge just how serious he was. The moment her eyes met his, the captain cleared his throat and looked right back at his console. "Just… an objective opinion, that's all. I thought that before the pheromones and… increases."
Diana sat up a bit, suddenly aware that she had made him a bit embarrassed. Or, if not embarrassed, acutely aware that they had still not spoken about his feelings for her. And she had not been able to adequately describe her own. She knew she loved him. The lasso had shown her what her heart had been trying to tell her for months. But, there was still a small voice that reminded her that a step towards Jim meant a step towards Steve. And that she could lose the captain just as easily.
Lois was my home… It had devastated Kal to lose Lois. Diana did not wish to carry that burden again, even her heart had already decided it was worth it.
"Anyway, there's a medical kit in the back. I can try to find something to relieve the itching." Jim rose out of his chair and stretched his arms up. The v-shape of prosthetic ridges on the bridge of his nose twitched as he yawned. With the five o'clock shadow quickly turning to wholly unprofessionally salt and pepper scruff, Jim looked nothing like the captain of a Federation starship. But, it was a look she couldn't ignore. "Besides, I need the walk. You should've said something sooner."
"It didn't bother me until I had nothing else to focus on," She replied, turning a bit to watch him. He had changed into attire more fitting of an Argosian male before they left, but she had spent little time considering it. The black pants and black shirt were a stark difference from the blues and heather gray she typically saw him in off duty, or the gold of his uniform. Of course, to call what he wore a shirt was somewhat disingenuous to shirts. His chest was quite exposed, as the shirt barely closed near his navel. For a brief moment, she was reminded - yet again - while she had seen Steve intimately, known all his scars and the lines of his muscles… she did not know Jim Kirk.
In proximity with nothing but each other and the mission to focus on…. Diana found herself wanting to close that knowledge gap.
She had spent months trying to ignore the feelings which pulled her towards him emotionally. As a result, she had told herself the physical attraction had all been because of his resemblance to Steve. After they had kissed and she'd realized that there were subtle differences that made him entirely new to her… the attraction was not because of Steve.
And now, it was acutely impossible to ignore.
When he turned and pivoted away from her, graciously going to find the medical kit, Diana realized she had been staring and quickly turned back to face the viewport. As she listened to him rustle through one of the cargo containers, she found herself idly tapping her finger on her thigh as she tried to think of everything except the fact that Leonard McCoy had determined that in order to successfully infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, Diana had to exude the same pheromones as an Orion animal woman.
"How could they call them 'animal women?'" Diana asked, loud enough for Kirk to hear in the aft section. "I don't mean the Orions themselves, I mean in the Federation databases. I've heard your own crewmen call them such things. That is incredibly demeaning."
"Well…" Jim's voice started in the other section, then as he continued, came up behind her. "In our first experiences with the Orion Syndicate in the 2150s, they referred to their own women that way. And from my admittedly limited understanding, it's kind of a badge of honor. That the women are insatiable and alluring." He came up alongside her and sat facing her, leaning against the console.
"Regardless, just because they may refer to themselves that way does not make it acceptable for Starfleet to. A name given in shackles is not a name of their choosing." She said, motioning to her bracelets. "Oppression, imperialistic conquest, dehumanization… these all leave an eternal legacy upon a people. If you truly wish to help Orion women, then stop calling them animals."
"I'm not defending it, I'm just saying I think that's why it's in the database." Jim said, although she noticed he was staring at an object in his hand as if it was steadying him. He twirled the hypospray in his fingers for a moment before he held it up. "I think this is the best we're going to do. It's a histamine blocker for allergic reactions." He motioned to her neck. "If you want, I can…"
"No, I must learn. I can push a button, just show me." She said, only slightly dissatisfied with his answer.
"You dispense with the middle button. The other two control dosage and the molecular compounds, so I wouldn't mess with those." Jim said as he held it out to her.
As she reached out to take the hypospray, she ran her fingers down the length of his hand. Curiously, she found that the itch in her mouth seemed to subside when she noticed the way his cheeks flushed at the contact.
Curse you, Aphrodite. Your son is an eternal terror.
The pheromones did not just affect Jim. They were also encouraging her to act upon the impulse she had been fighting. She would be having a very long discussion with Leonard afterwards. The doctor's analysis of Orion women had left something to be desired - or in this case, everything was to be desired.
Before Diana gave voice to that terribly awkward realization, she chose to hope that the hypospray could help. She brushed her hair from her neck, then reached up to dispense the medicine. The light hiss of air was the only indication that the medicine had entered her system, as the itch had momentarily subsided from knowing she had thrown Jim.
"Anyway, as much as I agree with you," Jim crossed his arms over his chest, still leaning against the console and within touching distance. "We cannot topple the Orion Syndicate in one day. We might never be able to."
"Why not? If we remove their trade, they no longer have currency with which to continue the practice."
"Because," Jim said with ease, even though his body language had gone a little more taut and aware. "The Orion Colonies themselves aren't necessarily bad. They have legitimate businesses, but the Syndicate has made it impossible to meet with them. And the Syndicate is spread out in moving fleets and independent outposts. You can take out one and another will take its place."
"But, those who are being forced into slavery, they will fight." She said, leaning forward. For a brief moment, she realized she had just brought herself closer to him, and the pheromones were explicitly based around proximity. "Perhaps we just need to give them the right opportunity."
"What was it Guinan said? Don't borrow trouble from tomorrow." Jim cast a roguish grin her way, a bit more…. Hungry than usual. He plucked the hypospray from her hand. "Let's worry about it when we get there. In the meantime, we have twelve hours to Verex III and no idea what situation we might find." He smiled and pushed off of the console. "Sammy was right about that, you know. Sometimes, there's nothing that can be done until tomorrow."
The poignant reminder of her old friend did just enough to throw her out of the haze of lust that had been building between them for the last few moments. She swivelled the chair to face him as he walked back to the aft section of the ship again with the hypospray. It occurred to her that since he had told her about how he remembered his "time" as Steve, she had not asked him how that felt. And as she noticed bits of Jim's personality that she had previously associated with Steve, she wasn't sure she would like the answer.
"So, then what? We sit here and wait to arrive?" Diana asked him before getting out of her seat to go find him. "After all, the ship has been set on a course. It's not as if you need to monitor it every second."
Jim reappeared in the corridor empty-handed, but nearly ran into her before he realized where she was. To his credit - and to her frustration - Jim Kirk never missed a beat when it came to playfully bantering with someone else. "Oh, really? And I suppose you know a great deal about flying Argosian shuttles? For all you know, I need to be glued to that console."
Diana scoffed at the remark. "No, that's not fair. I have asked to learn how to pilot, even as simple as a shuttle, but Lieutenant Sulu and I don't share the same schedules." She shrugged.
"I can fix that." Jim said lightly, grinning at her. "As long as I'm still captain when we get back." As she chose not to dignify the self-deprecating humor, his smile faded as his eyes began to drift down to her lips. "Of course, there are other things we could do."
"Jim…" She said in warning, even though her heart had fluttered and her blood throbbed in her veins.
"I'll teach you how to fly." Jim said, almost as if the thought surprised him. Then, he tore his gaze away from her mouth and instead focused on the console back at the front of the ship. "I think… if we're stuck on this ship for twelve hours, I should teach you how to fly. You've been wanting to know more about the systems, and…" He cleared his throat and slipped past her, his hand brushing along her waist before he pulled it away. "I need a distraction."
Diana quirked an eyebrow, watching him for a few moments as he made his way back over to the helm console. When it became clear she hadn't followed, he turned back to her and motioned to what had been his seat.
"Come on. It'll be fun."
She sighed and shook her head, walking over to him. "I'm not concerned about whether or not it will be fun." Diana slid into the seat ahead of him, looking at the console. "I'm more concerned about whether or not you will be able to focus on teaching me."
Jim scoffed from his new position directly behind her with his hands on the back of the chair. "I am a professional. If I have to just keep calling you Ambassador Prince to keep focused, I will do so."
She spared a glance up at him and could see that he was doing this as much for himself as he was for her. "All right. Teach me how to fly helm. I've flown older earth aircraft, but nothing quite like this."
"Really? What, you cruised around on a jet plane?" He asked, teasingly.
Diana smiled, recalling her time with the Justice League. "In a manner of speaking. It was more than just a jet plane." She wasn't sure she wanted to go into the details of how precisely she had let Bruce talk her into flying a stealth aircraft over Qurac. "But, this is not the same thing. There are many controls I don't know, and some that you've only shown me from my brief experience with an Ops console."
Jim took up position a bit to her right, leaning over her as he motioned to the buttons. "Okay, well, to start, here's the stellar cartography map. If you're looking to set a course, you would start here. You would select the course marker, input bearing, pitch…" He continued to rattle off the various components of the helm console.
Diana managed to keep up with him as he walked her through the basics of how to plot a course and how the sector grids were laid out. As he continued onto the navigation sub-menus, though, the roof of her mouth started to itch again. It was horrendous and certainly had no resemblance to how she actually reflected arousal and interest in a normal setting.
Nevertheless, it didn't stop her from leaning a bit more to the right against the armrest, shifting so that she found herself brushing against him. She only stopped when she could feel the solid weight of his body against her.
Neither of them addressed it, but slowly, as Jim kept talking, he leaned closer and closer, the hand that had been at the back of the chair shifting to run along her shoulders, then towards her front.
Eventually, Jim stopped talking about the console altogether, and he bent his head towards her. That itch needed to be scratched, and he could - no, he would - be the one to do it.
When the helm console beeped, a simple warning, it was just enough to make Diana realize precisely how close they were.
"Jim…" She breathed, pulling herself to her feet even as her legs threatened to buckle under the sudden warmth and need her body was feeling.
His hands were on her, an arm around her waist, and he was clearly not paying attention to her. He was just thrilled she stood to put them on even footing. "Diana…" He breathed, lips nearly to hers again.
She shakily reached up to press her hand over his mouth, then shook her head. "You are… not yourself right now. And I think I am the reason for that. Maybe it's best if we spend the rest of the trip in… separate areas."
Jim slowly opened his eyes, then realized precisely what he had been doing. The realization would have been comical if she hadn't felt that itch returning again. He pulled back so quickly he bumped into the other chair, almost mortified. "I'm gonna kill Bones," He finally said, aghast. "This is exactly why I asked for an antidote. Diana, I am so sorry - "
"There's nothing to apologize for." She quickly said. "It's just…. That's a conversation we need to have when we are both completely ourselves. Not under the influence of…" She swallowed, a bit mortified by her own heart's racing. It was making it impossible to focus. "Pheromones." She finally finished, nodding as if to help solidify the idea for both of them. "So…. one of us should be here… and the other should... " She struggled to find the right words, then settled for the easiest ones. "Should not."
"Right…" Jim said, expression still a mixture of mortification and confusion. "You are absolutely right. So I'm… I'll just…" He motioned to the aft section of the ship, then started down that way.
It took Diana a lot longer than she wanted to admit to realize the problem with that. "Jim?"
He turned to face her, clearly trying to play it off. "Mm?"
She motioned to the console. "I think it is safe to say that I…. stopped listening at some point in that lesson, so, it would be best if you were here. And I were there." She pointed to the aft section of the ship behind him.
Dumbly, Jim glanced back that way, then back to the seat and started to laugh. At least they could both find it amusing. He reached up, bracing a hand at his forehead as he tried to control himself. "Oh, I am going to find me a new chief medical officer when we get back. This is all that old lecher's fault."
As she made her way back towards him, she felt momentarily terrified that it had been intentional. "You don't think he - "
Jim shook his head. "No, but…. He is never going to let me live this down."
"Yes, well…" She sighed and slipped past him while he was momentarily distracted. "That makes two of us." Before Jim could reply, she hit the door panel to shut the corridor behind her and locked it.
She leaned against the door, desperately trying to get her thoughts in line.
They hadn't even done anything! But, it was if the anticipation itself had become part of the game. Was this natural for Orion women? If so, it made Savi's insights to their culture even more harrowing to navigate.
Diana needed a shower.
Otherwise, Jim's poor excuse for a shirt wouldn't even make it to the outpost.
For better or worse, the next twelve hours passed without any further injury to Jim's shirt or his pride. He kept his eyes on the console ahead of him and tried to ignore the nagging way that the pheromones were affecting his senses.
When he and Bones had initially discussed this plan, the idea of "You'll be attracted to Diana" seemed like any other day, and therefore, totally innocuous. But, that was not what this was. He found it nearly impossible to think. Several times in the twelve hour span, he had marched over to the door, trying to find an excuse to talk to her, to get her to open the door so he could just see her.
Thankfully, Diana had more self-control than he did. Or, at the least, it was easier for her to say no by default. He wanted to remind her that he loved her and wanted to pursue everything that meant. To hold her in his arms and show her that she didn't need to hesitate, she had exactly who she needed. She just had to ask.
Once they reached the Borderland, however, all thoughts of how badly he wanted to hold her quieted, then vanished. As he navigated into the Verex system, the sight of far too many derelicts and wreckage of ships, both Klingon and otherwise, left him only with the very real worry that Jaylah might not even be on that outpost. He had no way of knowing if they were too late other than to listen to his gut.
His gut told him they were close, but that they were running out of time.
The closer they got to the outpost, the more he found himself running through his own self-destructive pattern of blaming himself. Scotty had mentioned that he should have checked in on her more, but Jim had hardly bothered. He was so sure that Scotty had a close connection with her, he had never considered that something like this could happen.
Coupled with all the ways that it seemed like someone in Starfleet was involved with her disappearance and he felt like maybe it would have served him right to lose his command bars after this. He made a point never to leave his crew behind, and as Scotty had told her once, she was part of the crew.
And he never gave up on his crew.
Steadied, focused on the mission again, Jim flipped a toggle on the internal ship's comm and heard it whistle. "Diana, you better get up here, I'm docking at the outpost."
He received no response, but a few moments later, he heard the door unlock and Diana stepped back onto the bridge. She made her way back to her chair, then took a seat.
"I've got a couple of old smuggler codes I think should work for this - " Jim began, looking down at his console to pull them up.
He didn't get much further before Diana suddenly reached over and mimicked the same movements he had done to open a hail to the Enterprise before they left. When he balked at her, she simply smiled. "I didn't know how to fly, but Nyota has certainly taught me about her console."
Jim frowned at the implication that his chief communications officer had one-upped his entire senior staff.
Diana quickly opened the channel. "This is Falashi. I have come for lodubyal.You will grant us docking clearance so that I may purvey your exotic wares." She paused, then added as an afterthought, much to Jim's amusement. "Please."
There was a long pause before the docking control on the other end replied, "Very well. Bay 10. No weapons. You will be checked for disruptors."
Jim stared at Diana in awe before flipping the comm line closed. "I thought you didn't like lies."
"I don't." She remarked, smiling back at him even through all that green pigmentation. "But, I was a spy for some time. I quickly learned that to tell a small falsehood in search of a greater truth is, while unpleasant, sometimes rewarding and necessary. Falashi is the name of Savi's mother. She frequented several outposts as a madam. Let us hope she's not here."
As Jim went to initiate docking controls, he leaned back with a smile. "I am impressed." For a moment, he recalled their train ride from London towards the front lines. He could barely recall it now, but he did remember her jibes about Chief being a smuggler. "By the end of this, Diana, we'll both be liars and smugglers."
While he had been hoping for a smile, instead, Diana rose from her seat and pulled her shield from its compartment in the bridge storage. She set it on its hook at her back, then swept her scavenger's cloak over it. "Let us hope they give us Jaylah, or we may be murderers yet."
Twenty minutes later, Jim and Diana had successfully bluffed their way into the main processing center on Verex III. According to Starfleet's database, it had originally be the top processing center for Orion Syndicate slaves, bringing in prisoners from all over the quadrant. Since the initial blows between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, however, the center had become sloppier, less focused on quality and more on quantity.
Starfleet's last intelligence clocked the outpost at processing and auctioning off over 5000 slaves a day. Jim had no idea how that was possible… or which auction would have Jaylah.
Thankfully, Jim had learned that while Starfleet and the Federation had no need for currency, there were always scavengers and smugglers who did. So, Jim traded some of the gold-pressed latinum in their stores, piece by piece, until he could get a better idea of where the more exotic, non-Terran types of slaves would be auctioned off.
Once he and Diana had a location, the two of them made their way down to the auction floor in question. As she pushed their way through people, Jim glanced over to see Diana's expression no longer as guarded as it had been when she arrived. Whereas before, she had played the part of arrogant madam, looking for new slaves to train, her brow was knit with concern and worry over the slaves she found in pens across the floor. All of them looked a dehydrated and certainly hungry, and all of them seemed haunted by their circumstances.
He knew that look. He'd seen it before, in another life, with grief and pain no less raw and poignant. And he knew that telling her they couldn't save everyone… wouldn't work.
He just had to hope she didn't ask him to try. Because, he was fairly certain that would definitely cost him his rank.
"Next lot for sale!" A gravelly, cruel voice shouted from a podium high above the others. It wasn't Jaylah, but a Tellerite woman who seemed as though she had already died in that cage. Jim's heart twisted painfully. No sooner than she was on display, the bids started to appear on the screen. The numbers weren't out of his price range, but buying Jaylah back would then be out of the question.
"We better hope no one wants Jaylah as badly as we do." Jim said, finally turning back to Diana.
At least, it was where he had thought she was. She had slipped off into the crowd, but thankfully, he could spot her by the cloak and the telltale walk that suggested she would tear through the crowd if necessary.
"Dammit, Diana…" He hissed, making his way against the crowd to get back to her. "Diana, please, what are you doing?" Jim finally managed to shoulder past an annoyed Lurian before he managed to grab her arm and pull her back. "We need to be watching the auction block."
"No…" She shook her head, then turned to him. "No, Jim, we cannot leave here with your friend. Not at the expense of these people, I'm sorry."
Jim closed his eyes. He wished he could have said he was surprised, but he had had a feeling that if there truly were this many slaves here, she wouldn't let it go. "You're really going to make me do this, aren't you?" He said, resigned to his fate. "Our ship can hold maybe five people. Not five hundred or five thousand."
"If you arm them, they will fight for their freedom. We don't need to provide them ships, they will take them, just as my mother and Antiope took their freedom from Man's World." She looked him over, then continued, equal parts surprised and disgusted. He knew that look, it was the same one she'd given him when she realized spies lied. "You can't honestly tell me that you would prefer to leave them here to their fate, Jim."
Jim chuckled a bit bitterly, shaking his head. "Ha, that's… no, that's not it at all. I just had a feeling you were going to ask me that. But, if we do this, it could go very badly. But…." He paused, realizing what she had not told him earlier, but had clearly gotten into her head the moment Savi had spoken to her. "But, it is what you came here to do." He sighed, releasing her hand and rubbing his eyes. "Great. I guess we're freeing the slaves."
"Next lot for sale!" The Orion slaver shouted from somewhere above them.
Jim and Diana turned, expecting to find another beaten down slave. Instead, he was never happier to hear the most annoyed shouting he'd heard in months.
"Do'moya utza! Aka dora!" The very familiar white-skinned alien woman had been stripped out of her cadet uniform and into her standard Starfleet issue tank top and shorts. Judging from the slate grey stains on her clothing, along with the gray mats in her white hair, she had taken more than a couple of beatings. That should have broken her, and there she was, still kicking.
Literally, as Jim noticed. The Orion slaver took a solid kick to the knee before he lifted her up in both arms and held her aloft.
"Jaylah…" Jim said with a laugh, running a hand through his hair. "Never ceases to amaze me…"
"Aren't you going to bid on her?" Diana mentioned, motioning to the datapadd in his hand. "She will be good to have in a fight."
Jim grabbed for his datapadd, but kept his eyes on Jaylah. Who promptly caught sight of him. As their eyes met, he quickly went to motion for her to be quiet.
So, naturally, he shouldn't have been surprised when the first thing she did was scream:
"Where have you been, James T.?!"
Naturally, all eyes turned to Kirk and Diana.
He sighed. "Ah, great."