AN: Salutations and bienvenue! Lots of drama and some action in this chapter!
As always, I would like to thank MaliceUnchained and Kretolus for their phenomenal support and help.
"How is he?" Were the first words Vex said when she walked into Sick Bay, heading straight to Mrill, as she scanned a not at all conscious Zevil. "I thought you said he was awake, what happened?" Vex asked/demanded of her chief Medical officer.
"He was awake, but now he's not." Mrill replied glibly, but seeing that Vex was in full captain mode, including a very unamused glare, she quickly clarified. "He's out of his brumation cycle, but I had to put him into a medically induced comma to properly heal the damage to his brain." She tapped the screen on the wall at the head of the biobed, showing a three-D model of Zevil's brain.
"The brumation cycle was causing interference during the brain scan, so I wasn't able to properly diagnose his condition thoroughly enough till he was out of it." Mrill explained to Vex as she looked over the scans of her friend's brain, not liking what she saw.
"My god, he was one psychic push away from an aneurysm!" She whisper-shouted that was half disbelief and half rage at his stupidity. "Wait, this doesn't make sense." She said as she shook her head and turned back to look at her feline friend. "How could his condition be this bad? Dr. Citte would have picked up on this and Zevil isn't stupid enough not to go to sickbay if he was getting as bad as this."
"I don't think this is solely from his telekinetic abilities." Mrill told her as she pointed out certain areas of Zevil's brain. "These are the areas that are connected to telekinesis, and they are responsible for the lion's share of the damage, but these," she pointed at new areas with a grim look to her face, "are the area's responsible for empathic abilities."
Vex looked at Mrill confused, wondering how his ability to sense emotions could have harmed him, when the answer hit her like a tone of bricks. "It's because of us." Vex said in a small voice, her face going pale and her stomach feeling sick. "Valixian's are some of the strongest empaths in the Federation, so of course negative emotions focused right at them would have an ill effect on their system. We were practically poisoning him."
"That might be going a little extreme." Mrill soothed, trying to temper her friend and Captain's guilt. "I was finally able to get some medical information from Valix and this is actually a common problem for people in leadership positions like the Admiral, especially if they're under high amounts of stress. There are defenses that Valixians in this situation employ, meditation and the like, but it can be hard if they put themselves under increased stress." Mrill put a comforting hand on Vex's shoulder, and they both looked down at Zevil. "It's more self-inflicted than anything else, especially given what he has been put through the last few months."
"And because of the war with the Klingons, Starfleet has been lax with assigning counselors to command ships like the Hades, leaving Xavius without a healthy outlet to deal with his problems." Vex said, rubbing her forehead in frustration, before a bittersweet smile took over her features. "I'd hopped that since he got himself a girlfriend, he might be able to work out those issues with her."
"I've already seen how she's helping him." Mrill said with a knowing smile, but when Vex turned to her with a questioning look, she just shrugged. "Ask Commander Utprut, but only after she's fully rested. I've started the Admiral on a cortical analeptic, so the trauma should be healed soon."
"Good, the sooner he's healed and awake the better." Vex said with a hopeful smile directed at the sleeping Valixian, but her expression became serious as she turned back to Mrill. "There's something I need to ask you…about Ariat and the day she came on this ship." Mrill looked confused for half a second, before realization and resignation took over her features.
"Captain, we are approaching the Manek system." Dinah informed, but Vex didn't respond, her thoughts absorbed by everything she now new about Ariat and her situation with Klingon Intelligence. Apparently, there was something that Mrill didn't add in her medical report to Starfleet, even after the Cardassian's betrayal.
She was knocked out of her reverie by Zasva who repeated the question. "Activate the cloak and take us out of warp. Once we're in system, activate the view screen." Vex ordered, ignoring the quizzical look from her Number One. They arrived, cloaked, and the screen showed three planets, although one was cracked open like the skeletal remains of a animal in a desert, and a large asteroid belt that divided the two remaining planets.
"Captain, I'm detecting a Breen squadron dead ahead, but they're moving away from us at full impulse." Tynizi informed, back at her station after seeing to Tyufia. The view screen magnified on the squadron, five plesh brek frigates, and saw them heading to the other end of the system.
"They can't have detected us," Zasva observed, hand to her chin, sightless eyes squinted in thought. "but even if they did the Breen aren't afraid to fight."
"Which means that they must already have what they came for." Xrithath, who had insisted that he, Gog, and Ariat be on the bridge, growled lowly as he addressed Vex directly. "Captain Vex, we can't let them get away with a piece of the star chart."
"You'll get no argument from me, General." Vex told him as she turned back to her crew. "Commander Ejpez, prepare a full spread of quantum torpedoes and fire all cannons and phasers at will. Commander Rogers, launch the Intel drone and have it attack the lead ships systems and set up a jamming feild. Science station, prepare tachyon beam and viral matrix and target the lead ship. Lieutenant Violet, deactivate cloak once we're in range and prepare for evasive maneuvers."
The Quinzel flew into position, declocked and let loose its surprise attack, causing massive amounts of damage to the five frigates, destroying the lead ship as its systems went haywire thanks to the drone. They quickly sorted themselves out and went after the Quinzel, firing weapons at the Intel ship that was dodging and maneuvering through space, avoiding their hits and firing off counter measures.
"Drone is ready for the next ship captain." Vic told her. "And the jamming field is holding, no Breen reinforcements coming to the rescue."
"Then send the drone to the next ship and keep scrambling their systems." Vex ordered right as a tremor ran through the bridge. "Report!"
"Three of the ships concentrated fire on our starboard side, bringing down our starboard shields!" shouted Tynizi.
"Bring us about, scatter our cannon fire, and prepare a full spread of our torpedoes and release a photonic shockwave on my order." Vex told her helmsman and tactical officer before she addressed Vic. "All power to forward shields!"
The Quinzel faced the three frigates, letting loose a borage of cannon fire as it flew towards them. The three ships tried to skater, but once the Intel ship was in range Vex ordered "Fire!" and a burst of photonic energy was released from the ships external emitters seconds before dozens of torpedoes shot off from the forward launchers, bring down their shields and destroying the three ships instantly.
"Looks like the other ship is trying to get out of dodge, Cap!" Vic informed. "Probably trying to get out of the jamming field."
"Lay in a pursuit course!" Vex ordered Dinah before turning to Vic. "Tell me the drone is already on attached to that ship."
"Why bother when you've already guessed?" Asked Vic, a cheeky smirk on her face. "EMP burst?"
"You read my mind." Vex said with a smile as she turned back to face the screen. "Commander Ejpez, prepare and fire a set of high yield torpedoes at the enemy ship."
The Been ship suddenly stopped dead in space as result of the EMP and then was reduced to flames and slag as the torpedoes hammered into it and detonated, destroying the ship in a matter of seconds.
"Alright, no time to pat ourselves on the back." Vex said to her crew before they could start cheering. "Let's scan the debris and see if we can figure out if they got what we were here for."
Captains log, stardate: 86470.79
After engaging a squadron of Breen ships fleeing Manek Prime, we have intercepted a transmission from the debris of one of the Breen ships. The message was unsecured; clearly, they didn't have the time to encrypt it during the firefight. We have our joint Klingon/Starfleet Intelligence team working on it.
The Quinzel conference room was once again filled with both Starfleet and Klingon personnel. Ariat, M'kkrt, and Gog took up one side of the table, Vic, Dinah, and Zasva on the other side, with Xrithath and Vex taking the heads of the table.
"What was in the message?" Asked M'krrt eagerly, his slitted eye's practically twinkling. "Was it another fragment?"
"Oh, we found more than that, fuzzball." Vic said to the excited Frisian, unable to keep an excited smirk off her own face as she addressed the whole table. "It's definitely a fragment of the star chart! They must have retrieved it from the planet below before we arrived, but we've also figured out what they're after!"
"It would appear that at the end of this journey is a Preserver archive." Dinah informed. "The message didn't provide how the Breen learned of this archive or even what is in it, but given that it is Preserver in origin, anything within would be valuable."
"This does not bode well." Xrithath growled, his subvocals making his voice sound more beast like. "For all we know, Breen ships could already be en route to the archive!"
"I don't think so." Vex said more calmly and thoughtful. "They might have access to some of the map locations, but they would need the full map to find the archive itself. That's how it was with Admiral Picard, the Cardassians, and your predecessors. They needed each of their pieces of the map to find the recording." She turned to the rest of the table, "Vic, Dinah, M'krrt: It is imperative that you finish synthesizing the updated chart and get us our new heading." She turned to Xrithath. "Have you heard from the High Council? Are they sending a ship to relieve the Mo'kai?"
"Eager to be rid of us lover?" Ariat asked in cloyingly sweet voice, a snide sneer on her face, twitching only slightly at the growl from Xrithath sent her, but Vex still saw it.
"I have been informed that the Aj'ack is on it's way to Defera as we speak." Xrithath informed her after giving his First Officer a death glare. "Once we have the location of the next piece of the chart, I will have the Mo'kai meet us there."
"Then Dinah," Vex said to her Android officer, "I want you, Vic, and M'kkrt to begin analyzing that map fragment immediately." After receiving 'aye ma'am's from her officer and a nod of agreement from the KI science officer, Vex addressed the group. "I think that does it for now. General I will inform you of our heading when I'm told. Meeting adjourned."
As everyone got up to leave, Vex made a beeline for Ariat, grabbed her by the arm, and started walking her out of the room. "You and I need to have a talk." She said, just loud enough for Ariat to hear her.
Intrigued, the Cardassian allowed Vex to take her to the captain's cabin before wrenching her arm away and taking a few steps back. "Well, this is familiar." Ariat said as she looked about the room, trying to not show how unnerved she was. "Is it going to be like the old days where we curl up on the sofa and tell each other sweet nothings or are you going to slam me against the nearest bulkhead and-"
"You know I did a lot of digging on you after you stabbed me in the back." Vex said, cutting her off before she could keep going, walking to her desk. "Figuratively and literally." She cut a half-hearted glare Ariat's way and didn't miss the small wince. "I found out about your cell in the True Way, your crimes, known associates, and all the details about your deal with the Klingons…or at least I thought I had."
"What are you-" Ariat began to say but cut herself off as Vex pressed a key on her desk and brought up the image of a small Cardassian child, barely a toddler. Ariat looked panicked for a split second before she gave a sarcastic sneer. "He's not yours if that's what you're wondering."
"It always bugged me that the Klingons captured you and offered a deal instead of killing you." Vex said, ignoring Ariat's quip as she stared her down. "They usually kill or send your people straight to Rura Penthe, it's rare that they'd keep Cardassians alive…unless they're pregnant, cause there's no honor in killing an unborn child."
Ariat was quiet for a long time, an unreadable expression on her face, before she suddenly started to slowly clap. "Bravo, you win. Another case solved by the great detective Vex." She said, sarcasm and derision just oozing from every word as she walked over to the replicator. "Mind if I get a glass (or twelve) of kanar while you pat yourself on the back? Hearing people gloat makes me want to black out as soon as possible."
"They use him as leverage, don't they?" Vex said, not moving from her desk but her eyes still focused on Ariat. The stiffening of the other woman's shoulders was her only reply, but that was an admission in and of itself. Vex swore under her breath. "I knew K'men was a bastard, but I didn't think he would use a child against its mother."
"This is the same one-eyed asshole that has a bunch of orphans and guttersnipes in his personal black ops team?" Ariat asked as she got to the replicator and got her kanar, making sure to make the real stuff and not synthehol.
"Ariat…why didn't you tell me?" Vex asked her voice small, feeling…Vex honestly wasn't sure what she was feeling. It felt like a betrayal, but different from before. This felt more personal somehow.
"Oh yes," Ariat said though a harsh laugh before knocking back her drink and getting another one. "that would have been a delightful conversation: Hello darling, how was your day? Mine was alright considering that Klingon Intelligence is keeping my son as good as a hostage and making me seduce you to kidnap you and kill your crew."
"I could have helped you!" Vex said, suddenly angry despite herself, but surprisingly not at Ariat. By her own admission, Ariat had just confirmed a theory of Vex's: She hadn't betrayed Vex out of malice, but to protect her child.
"Are you fucking kidding?!" Ariat hissed as she whirled around rage permeating her every facial feature and words. "What do you possibly think you could have done that would have helped me and not get me or more importantly my son killed?! For that matter, what makes you think I even want your or trust your help?!"
"Because I wouldn't use a child as a bargaining chip and neither would Starfleet!" To Vex's surprise, Ariat laughed. It wasn't her usual wicked laugh, but a harsh laugh full of scorn and disbelief.
"We both know that that's not true!" Ariat sneered as she turned back to the replicator and ordered another drink. "They not only would use him to keep me in line, they would take my son away from me, saying that I was an unfit parent." Instead of drinking it at the replicator, she walked over to the large windows of Vex's quarters swirling her drink a moment, looking into its syrupy depths before knocking it back. "I might be a duplicitous bitch, but I love my son."
Vex didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to believe that Ariat was wrong, that Starfleet would never do such a thing, but the cold truth of the matter was that they probably would. Hell, Starfleet still kept people like Drake and his cronies in Section Thirty-one around to do the dirty work that Intelligence didn't want to do, and there was honestly not a lot that Intelligence wouldn't be willing to do.
So instead of defending her organization, she simply walked over to stand next to her and looked out at the stars with the woman she had loved, and thought had betrayed her, and asked "What's his name?"
Ariat didn't respond right away, and Vex thought she wouldn't get an answer, when Ariat finally said. "Tallen… his name is Tallen." There was a faint smile on her face, the smile of a parent thinking of her child before it turned into a scowl. "And he looks nothing like his father, the bastard."
"Ariat…you don't need to tell me if-" Vex started, trying to give the other woman an out, but she held up her free hand to stop her.
"You've come this far…might as well hear what not even K'men or Xrithath know." Ariat took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them and started her story. "I am a child of the True Way movement. I was raised to believe and was taught that the only way, the true way, for Cardassians to live was as a loyal cog in the military machine. When I was old enough, I joined up and was placed under the command of Gul Koroc.
"Koroc took a special interest in me and my talents in espionage and tactical strategy and he became my mentor…and later my lover, though the love was only one sided." That last part was said with so much hate and shame, Vex was worried that all the psychics on the ship would feel it. "I was naïve enough to think that because we had sex it meant he actually loved me, despite the rumors that he had done this before and the fact that he had a wife and five children waiting for him on Cardassia…I was such an idi- Fuck!"
The last word had been a yell of pain as Ariat's drinking glass, that had been slowly squeezed as Ariat told her story, broke in her hands and reduced her hands to a cut up, bleeding, mess. "Hold on, I'll get a med kit!" Vex quickly said, rushing into her room and getting the small grey case with the medical symbol on it. "Sit down on the couch there and I'll fix you up."
"Yes doctor." Ariat said sarcastically but did as she was told and held her hands out to Vex as she took a seat next to her on the couch and began the process of removing the glass and healing the other woman's hands. They were quiet as she worked, Ariat not even making a noise as the glass was removed, both dealing with their own issues because of the situation.
As Vex pulled the last shard and sprayed a disinfectant on Ariat's hand, she broke the silence as she used a dermal regenerator. "I'm guessing things didn't last too long before things got…complicated?"
Ariat let out a snort of derisive laughter. "On the contrary, things got remarkably simpler. For months, Koroc and I would slink away for our tristes and I honestly thought I was in paradise…until I found out I was pregnant." Ariat had a faraway look in her eyes, seeming to relive that moment. "I thought he would be happy…what he was was calm when he told me to 'get rid of it'. Said he had enough children and didn't need another to leech away his resources.
"Its funny how clarity hits you. One moment you're happily living a lie, and in the next moment the lie disappears, and you're now stuck in the reality that the man you love is a lecherous retch that needs to die…so he did." Vex looked up sharply at Ariat, a look of surprise and incredulity all over her face. "What? He wanted to kill my baby! And if I had said no, he would have shot me with his side arm, killing both of us."
"But killing him? Was that absolutely necessary Ariat?" Vex asked, more exasperated than appalled. She was all for men not telling women what to do with their bodies, but killing the man seemed a little extreme. "You could have just told him you were going to do it and then run from your cell."
"And risk Koroc coming after my son?" Ariat asked skeptically with a snort. "No, my way was better. Granted," She said with a considering head tilt, "I now had the whole of my cell after me and Koroc's family out for my blood, so I decided to run and seek shelter with the True Way's enemies…it was just my luck that it was a Klingon ship that found me first."
"And the rest is history." Vex said, finishing her work with the regenerator, but took Ariats hands in hers before she could take them away. Ariat looked up at Vex, a question on her lips, but was rendered speechless by the look in her eyes. It wasn't pity, which is what she thought she was going to see, but a look that conveyed sadness, respect, and something else that Ariat couldn't decipher.
Vex opened her mouth to speak, but her combadge going off stopped her. "Astormetrics to Captain Vex." Said Dinah's voice.
Vex hung her head and took a deep breath as Ariat took back her healed hands, before tapping her badge to answer. "Go ahead."
"Our analysis of the star chart is complete, Captain." Dinah informed.
"Good job Dinah, to you and the others." Vex praised as she watched Ariat get up from the couch. "What's our heading?"
"Raveh II, ma'am. I have already sent the coordinates to the bridge and to General Xrithath so he may inform the Mo'kai." The android told her. "Shall I inform them you are on your way to the bridge?"
"No, tell the bridge to engage the cloak and maximum warp to the Raveh system." Vex ordered. "The Breen are already a step ahead of us, and we can't let them get any of the fragments. We need all the pieces of the chart to find the archive." Receiving an 'Aye ma'am' Vex turned back to Ariat, only to see that she was no where in sight, clearly having slipped out while Vex was distracted. 'Like a shadow in the night… that's just like you.' Vex thought frustratedly, before getting up and heading to the bridge.
AN: I was going to have Zevil wake up in this chapter, but I think it works better and makes more sense medically for him to still be out like a light. Don't worry, our favorite purple Admiral will be back soon.
Till next time dear readers, I bid you adieu!
