Nightfall
[USS Charon, Cargo Bay Two]
The sight was enough to make even the most placid of Vulcans ponder the virtue of pacifism at any cost. Herded together like cattle, Charon’s crew was prodded and pushed, shackled by armored Gai’Shian whose faces made utterly clear they did not quite see the point of this exercise and would much prefer to be rid of those annoying creatures who glared at them, sullen and defiant.
No one knew where the Captain had been taken, or what had become of her children though it was hardly difficult to venture a guess. A good number of the crew arrived injured, dragged and tossed onto the deck with as much tender care as one might afford a pesky bug. Crates and barrels were cleared by means of some well placed disruptor shots – ah, the Klingons would fret, this had been an excellent vintage – and some of the Starfleet crew were arbitrarily picked to be transported away in swirls of sparkling green.
But even so, a pattern emerged.
Guarded warily by not only Gai’Shian but Galae security personnel, the Vulcans were subtly separated from the gaggle of angry Starfleet and outright furious Rihannsu who snarled and named the gloating Gai’Shian traitors – and worse. Was tr`Sahen not content to launch a mad, genocidal attack against his sire’s homeworld, but would his desire for revenge make him take additional delight in killing these few directly?
Somehow, Sakarra found it not at all improbable.
A bleeding, hissing Caitian was secured firmly to a heavy crate, and leaning against a bulkhead was the still, unconscious form of a tall, bearded marine. Given his hatred for the Romulans, the slender dark eyed Vulcan standing quietly amidst grim V’Ket was not surprised Nikolai had chosen to fight. What was surprising however was the fact he was still alive. More marines arrived, and each in a fairly disheveled state.
Prodded forward by a heavy disruptor rifle, Ian Lamont stumbled through the doors, briefly locking gazes with the silent Vulcan. Even under these circumstances, the good ambassador managed to maintain the air of a miffed aristocrat who was less displeased with being prisoner, but with the fact his captors had to be so … rude.
Presenting nothing but a perfectly unmoved face, a tranquil lake which keeps the secrets of it depths to itself, the raven haired Vulcan stood with hands clasped behind her back. They were alive. For now, that had to be enough.
Because boiling under the veil of calm that became more difficult to maintain by the second was a fury more scorching than Nevasa herself, a temper ready to flare and screaming for blood. Unwilling to allow this to happen, Sakarra clung to cold reason as if to a lifeline, shielding her thoughts as relentlessly as the most stern Kolinahru.
For a moment, she caught T’Pelar’s icy, teal gaze as the woman was jostled forward. What fine irony indeed that the scheming councilwoman should live to see the entropy unleashed by her own actions. What finer irony even, that it was the very being which she and her allies had manipulated and violated in such cruel, unforgivable ways was now the best hope for her … and the planet she had doomed.
Gazing silently at a bulkhead, Sakarra thought of the unique being safely ensconced in Charon’s glittering network of pathways, this lively, stimulating, beautiful creature that even now was invisibly shimmering within the ship that was her home …
Hope is far from illogical. Especially when that hope is tied to an individual as resourceful as Savant, as stubbornly clinging to her own survival as she watched over the poor hapless organics she found so interesting. And if she could find but a few allies, a handful of the crew escaping in the general mayhem … there was a chance.
All Sakarra needed do was to buy them time, while somehow keeping the rest of the crew alive.
All she needed do was not give in to the wish to tear those smugly grinning invaders to pieces and dip her hands into the emerald streams of their blood, reveling in the scent of death like the Le-Matya after the hunt.
The impulse was nothing new. The persistence with which it kept reasserting itself … was.
To all the world, the small, graceful woman herded off to be transported away was just another Vulcan. Stoic, accepting, not even raising a brow at the armored soldiers towering over her but floating through their midst as if they were clouds of dust not worthy of acknowledgement.
‘Yyaio’ – Dead one, the Rihannsu called their estranged cousins.
What the Vulcans displayed was nothing less than the lifeless surface of a desert, lying still under a merciless sun.
People tend to forget that deserts kill.
[IRW Endless Sky]
The swirl and tingle of the transporter effect faded, and the group was greeted by more disruptor rifles aimed at them. Truly, one might almost constitute it flattery that a dozen unarmed Vulcans should prompt near twice as many Gai’Shian to watch their every move.
Then again … even shielded partially behind the flowing robes of a tall scientist, Sakarra could clearly make out the familiar features of Itsak tr`Sahen and his second, Hanaj.
It was nearly enough to let the raven haired woman’s dry humor surface, commenting silently on the personal welcome. But Hanaj’s scowl was indicative of something other than his commander wishing to bask in the revenge about to take shape.
She realized what it was when the dark amethyst gaze found what it had been looking for and a predatory smile lit the sharp, aquiline features that were as clear a stamp of his heritage as the dramatically upswept ears.
“Not this one.” As the other Vulcans were prodded towards the exit, Sakarra found herself separated and brought before the Vaek’Riov whose stare had lost nothing of its intensity and conjured the memory of tropical gardens and a tense meeting in warm, dimly lit quarters.
“So we meet again, lady Vulcan.” The deep, slightly rough baritone held a timbre that struck an all too familiar chord within the young woman and she might have been tempted to answer it with something other than words, but the V’Ket already shifted and tensed, filling the air with the threat of a storm gathering over the plains.
“So we do, Vaek’Riov.” Her demeanor that of a matriarch displeased with an insolent one, Sakarra met the gaze unblinking, but she was not at all prepared for the hand reaching out with astonishing speed, gripping her tightly braided curls, pulling her closer until she was forced to look up at the face hovering over her and the triumphant, malevolent smile flickering over it.
Her hands shot up, startled at the unexpected and uninvited touch and it was by sheer instinct that she managed to land a blow. A blow that was returned tenfold when a hand impacted her face and sent her flying straight into a bulkhead, nearly completing the task of leaving the small Vulcan disoriented and blinking. Nearly.
For she was all too aware of the snarl emanating from – Voran? No, foolish, foolish …- and the distinct sound of rifles being pushed aside, Gai’Shian being tossed into walls like so many leaves scattered before the storm, disruptor blasts tearing through the air …
She turned around just in time to see the tall, violet eyed Vulcan break the ribs of a Galae officer, reaching for the honor blade the man had tried to draw. The disruptor shots which had cleanly missed the enraged Vulcan before were now focusing on the V’Ket who formed a living wall to shield the scientists, roughly ushering them out into the corridor, away, to questionable safety.
Skill and experience do not falter even under rage, but blind fury is precisely that – blind.
Emerald droplets trickling from her lips, Sakarra tensed for what might be her last, desperate attack and was still powerless to prevent the shining steel of tr`Sahen’s blade from finding its target. Surprised for a moment, he seemed almost pleased that one of the Vulcans had chosen fight after all and watched smiling as the man did not even deign to acknowledge the sword piercing his heart. The strength already seeping from the mortally wounded Voran, he still sent the dying Galae officer crashing into the transporter platform to draw a last breath into his crushed lungs, and lifted the captured blade, advancing on his foe with eyes ablaze.
It dropped from his fingers a moment before he himself collapsed at the hated enemy’s feet, his last hiss one of defiance.
And then it was silent.
Ignoring the sour look on Hanaj’s face, Itsak took in the scene – three of the Vulcans with their shimmering terracotta uniforms lay dead, as did nearly a dozen Gai’Shian and the mangled security officer. The others had been herded into the corridor, and there in the door stood only the old one, his proud face daring the surviving Rihannsu to finish their work. Every head turned when the Vaek’Riov broke into a low chuckle.
Well, well, who would have thought.
“Your lover, lady Vulcan?” Walking over to the woman who had picked herself off the floor and stared at him with something almost approaching an expression, Itsak smiled – the same dangerous, devious smile he had displayed before, only now laced with deep satisfaction. “No matter. Though I think it’s somewhat appropriate, wouldn’t you agree?”
A strand of her sable hair had come loose, tumbling over the unflattering uniform and he toyed with it, marveling once more at the unusual texture. “Is this not what your people’s women do? Force the males to fight and kill to win their mates?” She did not deign to answer, though he hadn’t expected a reply in any case.
Waving curtly towards the tall V’Ket with the graying temples, Itsak pointed his chin at the corridor “Take them away.” It did not sit well with the Rihannsu who would have loved to repay that proud old one for the havoc he had caused, but they obeyed, shoving their disruptor rifles into unresisting Vulcans. As for Shiarrael’s thaessu …
“Come.”
He nearly laughed again when she was too stubborn to understand that there was little point in her defiance and actually forced two security officers to advance menacingly before she strode past them, that exquisite little chin raised high. Yes, this would be quite … enjoyable.
Fatal Attraction ~ Part I
[IRW Endless Sky]
Although the ship’s corridors were nearly pleasant in their lighting and temperature, even and especially to a Vulcan, the room which Sakarra found herself in now was decidedly …cold. In degrees as well as in appearance, and quite likely it was meant to be so.
In fact, one might safely assume it was meant to cause apprehension – after all, why not let fear and terror help along the way, it was as effective a torture as any physical instrument.
A Vulcan with full control of her inner self would have been able to observe these facts with near clinical detachment, perhaps even ponder the philosophical implications.
General consensus held it was about as pointless to try and induce fear in a Vulcan as it was to throw rocks at a mountain. And even those who knew the pointy eared children of Nevasa somewhat better than that would have agreed – with one caveat. That should one by chance or design indeed succeed to frighten a Vulcan … one would soon find that it was not a good idea after all.
As it was, the slight, sable haired woman taking in her surroundings with a dispassionate gaze was far too busy keeping her temper in check to even scoff at the ridiculous show put on by her captors. The only thing she found worth pondering was whether the tray with glittering instruments would make a satisfactory noise if it was placed squarely on the head of a certain Vaek’Riov. And of course whether it had sufficient mass and stability to cause the harm she would rather like to inflict.
Her musings were rudely interrupted by Hanaj who was not content to merely shove her into a chair but seemed to take an undue amount of delight in removing the uniform jacket which had been at least a small shield from the room’s chill. One could hardly say the same for the light, red shirt that was left to her now, but in either case they could not be so foolish to think …
When the cold water hit her, Sakarra understood.
Well, yes, that would about do it of course.
Not even bereft of all her clothing would she have ever given the merest sign that the temperatures were rather … uncomfortable. Dripping with water that was barely above one degree Celsius … she might. Sooner or later.
She did not deign to quirk an ironic brow at the gazes resting on her now quite clearly outlined form, but the temptation was there all the same.
She did however blink when another Vulcan was led into the room, for all intent and purposes looking as tranquil as the Voroth Sea at dawn and also decidedly not … a Vulcan.
“This is the one?”
“Ie, Rekkhai.”
“Well, then.” Itsak tr`Sahen's appreciative gaze lingered on the soaked little Vulcan for a second longer before he turned to smirk at the new arrival “How boring. Another thaessu? Somehow I had hoped for something more … entertaining.” Stoic as the guards’ faces were, they managed to radiate wholehearted agreement nonetheless.
As the Vulcan who was none was pushed into another chair, Sakarra did her best to not betray even the slightest hint of puzzlement even though she was experiencing a fair amount of it. “Pretty, though. Ah, well. Ihlla’hn. What's her name?”
The guards sneered as they sheared off the black-haired Vulcan captive's uniform and strapped her down as they had Sakarra, "She won't tell us."
Hanaj smirked and sauntered forwards, momentarily forgetting about his greater prize as he grabbed the woman's square chin and yanked her head upwards, "Don't want to sing, pretty bird? What's your name?" he leered.
"Yyaio," she retorted as sharply as a measured Vulcan could without losing her cool. Their interrogator released her, only to strike a fist across her face for her insolence. Her cheek and eye immediately bruised dark green, but she remained silent. She did, however, spare a message-laden glance at Sakarra.
Her eyes were crystal-blue, polished like gems. Savant's eyes.
For a mercy, their captors were about as apt at reading the delicate subtleties of Vulcan expressions as they likely were to read the weather patterns over Sas-a-Shar. A shift in the still, scorching hot air, not worthy to be called a gust or even a breeze, only molecules of air jumbling and rearranging themselves in mysterious patterns before the deadly silence returns. But somewhere a Shavokh would be spreading its wings, staring into the void, knowing the signs.
In plain non-Vulcan, Sakarra was as bemused as ever one of her kind could be and therefore resorted to the only logic left to her. When your fighter tumbles out of control over an ice planet, don’t bother with a diagnostic. When a wall of Sandfire races towards you, don’t be a fool and wonder why there is a cave where none has been last month or appreciate the marvel of volcanic activities and earthquakes. When you are in enemy hands and a Vulcan who has not even the most basic hallmark of one – a unique telepathic signature for one – but the startling eyes of a familiar being … improvise.
“She is not able to give you information. Your bringing her here is therefore illogical.” For a species who is decidedly horrible at playacting, Sakarra thought she had pulled off the cold but displeased Vulcan rather well.
“Illogical. That is all you have to say, Vulcan? What tender love there must be between you and your own adjutant.”
Adjutant?
“You have yet to state what it is you wish me to say.”
Her dry but far from malevolent remark nonetheless almost earned Sakarra a blow as well, but a near imperceptible gesture of his commander stopped Hanaj.
“It would be a shame to ruin that exquisite face …” circling her like a predator pondering how to best bring down an interesting new prey, the Vaek’Riov almost absentmindedly let his fingertips brush over high cheekbones and an aristocratic little nose “… when there are so much better ways.”
Yyaio, as she was calling herself, sat still and stern, a rock in rough waters. Beneath the veneer was Savant, her android quickly altered to look somewhat different and her local software filled to brimming with covert operations routines. Heaven knew what compelled the AI to intervene in this interrogation instead of simply holing up with the others. Beneath the cold exterior, her shining eyes slid malevolently across the room, hostile and impassive. Her one eye was already swelling up impressively as the green-coloured lubricants and dyes clotted together, using a variant of the cupric hemoglobin molecule already prevalent in Vulcan blood. It looked like a painful shiner, and a credit to the Vulcan she was pretending to be that she didn't wince.
Of course she didn't wince, she had no nerves to feel any pain. It was a convincing enough act to fool anyone but a doctor, and that's all she needed for now. She watched the Romulan assistants fuss over their implements blankly while she worked.
Because she was here to work. Communication and computer systems here were significantly better in the local area, and Savant needed every transmission advantage she could get. The tiny transceivers she had incorporated into what would have been a Vulcan brain were sophisticated but passive and very low powered, feeding off of ambient energy for their work. Savant reached out into the surrounding data network - not invading, for she didn't understand the language. No, this was purely Intel gathering. It was unfortunate that she would have to pay for her learning time in suffering and blood.
Completely unaware of the complex thought processes churning and racing through the android and too occupied with other matters to ponder Savant’s motives, the Vulcan still had to assume there was a logical purpose to her presence. Determining that purpose was hardly possible so for the time being Sakarra had to see about not interfering at least … perhaps aid in some small way by distracting their would-be torturers.
At least in the Vaek’Riov’s case, she needn’t bother. He appeared quite content to leave the blue eyed adjutant in his people’s tender care.
There are Vulcans who are quite skilled in the art of ‘needling’ as it were, oftentimes not even on purpose. Others are capable of causing splendid irritation in other species without ever missing a beat or losing a shred of composure. Unfortunately, in the few cases Sakarra had elicited such reactions it usually was utterly unintentional and thus they were not exactly helpful instances to re-create such a scenario.
“You are of course aware that torture is quite ineffective against Vulcans, yes?”
Sometimes it helped to stubbornly point out the obvious. But tr`Sahen only chuckled – that low, menacing sound she was beginning to find rather irritating herself – and busied himself with loosening her tightly coiled braids until the dripping wet curls fell loosely over the chair’s back, nearly all the way to the floor.
“Yes. If I were to be foolish enough to go about it the usual way. There. So much prettier.”
Usual way?
Keep … needling. Somehow.
Putting on her best ‘displeased matriarch’ expression, Sakarra managed a rather impressive huff “I stand corrected. Paying such undue attention to the aesthetic appearance of your captives is unusual indeed. Though I still debate whether it has sufficient effect for your purposes.”
A long stare and a smirk was her only reply, and she was not all too surprised when a cold ring of metal was slid over her head while two nodes affixed themselves to her temples.
Reining in both a flare of temper and the desire to laugh into the Vaek’Riov’s face, Sakarra settled for another huff. It did not have quite the desired effect. Unless one counted the brief furrowing of brows before another smile emerged.
“Have no fear, lady Vulcan. My purpose … will be served.”
She dared not glance over at the person that was Savant but knew Hanaj had taken the opportunity to land another blow all the same.
“Now tell me… yyaio.” Almost thoughtful, casual, the way he pulled a knife from his belt, cold, glistening steel, the blade sharp enough for a surgeon’s tool. “And what an apt name it will be, soon enough. You must know the codes to access your superior’s files, for a bad adjutant you would be if you can’t even bring her the most mundane paperwork.”
"I am quite intimate with Charon's databases," Yyaio replied squarely, bleeding from a broken lip, her opposite eye swollen up magnificently, like a pitted olive. No doubt Savant enjoyed that brief dig at her captors, but the Vulcan face she wore showed nothing but a faint hint of distaste.
Sakarra did not watch the knife slide into her adjutant's flesh, hearing only the sharp intake of breath. It was convincing, too convincing - as if they had dragged in some favoured aide instead of a convincingly lifelike simulacrum. She could feel the waves of pain as another sentient being suffered helplessly beside her, could feel the desperate shaking of will - even though there was none. Savant had studied body language and non-verbal communication, and knew enough to suffer convincingly.
They say that time moves strangely when one is under stress - sometimes it moves in a terrific blur as adrenaline and urgency compress the minutes together into an indistinct force of will and adversity. At other times, times such as these, it slowed - each second of pain stretched thin, with every pinprick of sensation burned into one's brain. The light in the room was all wrong - high-intensity white lights in pockets from above, beyond the field of view but pooling in sharp halos about them. Their tormentors were only half there - the intense light splitting them into glowing fragments connected by man-shaped puddles of black. Beyond, shadows roiled with observers and tricks of the eye, a primordial void from which new evils would arise. The air was cold, clean, moist with humidity, and only just now filling with the untainted scent of burnt copper as her aide's blood slid down the leg of her chair in thick green rivulets.
Sakarra could not help it. She was … incensed. And on the road to furious, accelerating fast.
She did not know whether this being created by Savant – if that it was - truly suffered or merely managed a clever imitation. The scent of her blood and her motions of agony certainly were convincing enough, and hardly did it matter in the end for the intention had been to cause pain.
What she did not realize was that her pure, unfettered anger was showing clearly in her eyes and the way she tensed, testing the solidity of her restraints … until it was too late.
How …
Ah, curse them, curse them to whatever hell they believed in!
“So you are beginning to … feel it, yes?”
With the same casual elegance, an almost conversational smile on his lips, Itsak turned to see those lovely dark eyes lighting with fury. “And to think the Andorians considered the technology obsolete … when it only required some ingenuity.” Obsolete it had never been, only useless. To eat away at a Vulcan’s control, to strip layer after layer of emotional restraint … will perhaps make them wish to kill you and tell you so. It will hardly make them reveal their secrets, give you access to the rational thought you yourself have burned away.
Yet torture it was, and effective indeed.
And in her foolishness she had let her only chance of defense slip away, the conscious decision to sink into a trance, to wrap herself into an impenetrable shell and sink to the bottom of an ocean too deep for anyone to reach …
She did not flinch when the cold steel caressed her cheek like a lover, the razor fine edge tracing down to her chin, her throat. But her hands clenched into fists and she glared at the man holding the knife, just so managing not to curl her lips in a snarl.
“Yes, I do believe it’s too late for you to slip away quietly. You need better … control for that, don’t you?” The uniform shirt’s fabric parted with a sigh, revealing an elegantly rounded shoulder. Down, until her entire arm was exposed and the knife traced the veins pulsing at the Vulcan’s wrist.
“Of course I should inform you that any such attempt will only make me very … displeased. You would not wish your loyal adjutant to suffer the consequences, would you? Or that old thaessu who seems so fond of you? Oh, yes, I noticed …”
The blade’s point pricked the inside of her arm, and this time Sakarra hissed between her teeth.
“Lunikkh ta’avik! Saday’uh!”
She had noticed of course that the shade of his eyes, the line of his chin were like his cousin’s, even the casual elegance of their movements were the same. But never had this similarity been so … disconcerting. It seemed as if she were watching a shadow of Shiarrael t`Rehu, cruel, malevolent, alien and yet so familiar …
“No, I do not think so lady Vulcan.” Amused, almost flirtatious, the laugh that answered her curses and the demand to let her go. And then the blade began to cut.
She had suffered worse, much worse. From broken bones after an enthusiastic but ill advised climb in the mountains of Betazed to the day her shuttle had crashed on Charon’s deck and left her bleeding from gruesome wounds. But the goal of a knife such as this was not merely to injure, it was to cause pain. He was a master at it.
As lightly as a breeze, the blade traveled down her arm, parting skin and carving flesh as it went. Slowly, so very slowly, leaving the merest trickle of emerald in its wake.
“Fay-wakh treshak-tor! What is it you want!”
A Vulcan even without full control of herself can endure a fair measure of hurt, and not be overly disturbed by it. A Vulcan teetering among the abyss of murderous rage who feels her inhibitions, her reason, a part of her very being slowly stripped away by a soulless machine will feel it as acutely as every indrawn breath, every beat of her heart.
“In due time, lady Vulcan. In due time.”
Hot breath, as hot as her own, whispering over her neck. The low, almost playful voice, and lips brushing over the finely tapered ear for a mere instant … before the blade struck again, laying a path of agony across her collarbone.
She would kill him. With her own bare hands, she would kill him and watch as the life drained from his body.
Fatal Attraction ~ Part II
[IRW Endless Sky]
Beside her, Sakarra's artificial adjutant shuddered with agony, breathing hard and heavy through gritted teeth, but through it all her face had been a flat, expressionless mask. Savant/Yyaio had been treated far less sensitively than her true Vulcan companion - where Itsak was almost erotic in his tender administrations, Hanaj pursued his task with sadistic glee. She hissed out her breaths in an attempt to even her breathing and regain some composure,.
The pain was too great, and she needed to give it voice. Sakarra heard at first a sobbing yelp, followed by Hanaj's malevolent cackle of glee.
"The bitch can whine!" he howled, pressing his implement upon a bared nerve. Were it not actual agony, were Savant only acting, it was an impressive performance. "Give me the access codes!" he sneered angrily into the adjutant's ear, assuming that his prey would soon falter.
But Savant was either putting on a great show, or had more willpower than anyone had assumed. She angled her head back and hummed with her agonized breaths, a low even thrumming that accompanied the meditation instruction young Vulcans received. It was low, but at the pitch where it filled the room. No doubt Savant hoped to stabilize Sakarra's spiralling emotions as well as her own, if her own truly existed.
Streams of emerald trickling down her belly, her arms, and now, slowly, her thighs, Sakarra had been about to howl in fury, fight the restraints with all the unexpected strength slumbering in her slight, slender frame.
The familiar, soothing sound was like a breeze of fresh desert air in the foulest dungeon, T’Khut’s ruddy, warm light over scorched plains, the heat and shine of a copper brazier burning at night’s darkest hour. And it puzzled their captors for long enough to not immediately silence the insolent one – long enough for the other Vulcan to blink, … and laugh. Soft, quiet, like the mountain spring dancing over the rocks, clear and melodious.
Ah, what marvelous irony.
They had no idea what they had done. And even though tr`Sahen’s expression could nearly be called thoughtful, the others seemed to hover between surprise and irritation.
What little did it matter.
“Your sire was negligent, Vaek’Riov.” Her voice was velvety, almost gentle. No humor echoed in it, though there seemed traces of a melancholic smile to hover on the Vulcan’s delicate features. Leaning back in the chair, relaxed as if she were at home and enjoying the sound of a fountain singing in the gardens, she watched her tormentor out of half closed, night black eyes.
As she had observed before, the mere mention of the Vulcan who had spawned him was enough to let hatred and fury blaze in tr`Sahen’s eyes, and he tensed as if to strike her – or plunge the knife into her side at last. But he only gripped the soft curls at the back of her neck, jerking her unresisting head back until the almost dreamy gaze met his, hovering mere centimeters away.
Cold steel at her throat, traveling down at a leisurely pace.
“I will not debate that, lady Vulcan. But you did not merely say that to raise my ire and make me kill you. Because you know I won’t. Not yet.”
“Quite so.”
She was like a dozing feline in his grip, all supple, relaxed limbs and giving the impression that you might well pick her up and carry her away and she would not so much as bat an eyelash. For a moment, it seemed as if the dark eyed Vulcan might chuckle again, but then she merely exhaled softly.
There was no nerve in her body that was not in agony, no part of her that did not want to fight the pain, kill the one who inflicted it. Survival instincts clamored, urging resistance, demanding battle.
And were overruled, second by second.
“Fascinating.”
Her low murmur, uttered barely loud enough for sensitive Vulcanoid hearing to be picked up finally succeeded in drawing every eye to the scene playing out in the middle of the cold room that smelled of blood, steel and pain. “Yes indeed.” Searching the mind-reader’s unreadable dark eyes for any clue, tr`Sahen already knew he would find none. If anything, the woman seemed … pleased? Sad? Amused? All of it, and none.
“He obviously failed to convey even the fundamental … aspects of your heritage. Though it hardly matters, Vaek’Riov. I know what you want, and it is not merely Seleya and her schematics in my personal database.” There were mutters and curses, most of them involving suggestions what to do with an insolent mind-reader, but the Vulcan only shook her head lightly, another glint of humor manifesting itself and dispersing. You hardly needed telepathic talents when you had a mind and the ability to use it.
Blinded by fury, she had not seen it. Reminded of what she was – unintentional as it might have been - by poor, violated Savant … it was as clear as morning over Llangon.
“And what is it I want, lady Vulcan?”
The razor sharp edge dug between her shoulder blades, cutting deeper than before, up towards that sensitive nape of her neck, the light, elegant curve … and she merely exhaled again like a sigh, seemingly leaning into the knife.
She found it quite unnecessary to answer.
...
That supple sigh was a cascading backdrop, a sonorous cascade of pitch behind Savants' dread work. The Romulans' eyes had finally been averted from their tasks and their screens, and she could begin to unravel their prison from the inside. Her tools were meager, however - microscopic sensors and communicators had poor range and worse power. Not only that, but her local power systems were as dependent on the coppery green blood as any organics' - the plasma was loaded full of saurium krellide crystals and formed the reservoir of her endurance. While her cellular matrices also held some power on their own, they would not last long, and that lifeblood dribbled out of her as finally as any living beings.
So there was no time to waste- unlike a living being, she had no bone marrow to generate more blood when she needed it, nor did she rely on oxygen or other atmospheric gasses to survive, so every second counted as her time ticked down. She didn't concern herself with the administrations of her screaming tormentor. She had set up a simple routine to provide the right twists and yelps and screams amidst her meditative humming, and could save the bulk of her processing for more important things.
The wall. The Romulan security system was a monolith, a vast Trojan Wall with no gates or doors save those who knew the pass-codes. So she waited, and listened, and caught the transmissions as they flew by, picking them apart like a crab dissecting its prey. The secret would reveal itself soon enough. It was, after all, designed by organics, and they knew the waters of her world only in passing, by dropping in their lines and casting out their lures. They did not know how to swim in their dark waters.
.....
Yyaio screamed, her impassive resolve broken some time ago. She did not demonstrate Sakarra's ability to subsume her pain - no, it consumed her instead, engulfed her in the fiery pain that Hanaj knew how to inflict all too well. He wasn't even asking for passcodes any longer - he was simply reveling in her agony. She fed it to him in spoonfulls.
…
So this was what it was like.
She had wondered, idly as one can describe a Vulcan hypothesizing about improbable events, when first Sakarra had learned about some of the surprises that might slumber in the complex, beautiful double helices within her cells. Just as the colour of her eyes was a visible indicator that one of the beings contributing to her unique set of genes had been a Betazoid, the texture of her hair – so rare for a Vulcan, and more often than not attributed to her gentle, good humored father as well – gave any on the desert planet circling Nevasa a vital clue.
Wild stock, they had called it, in ages past. Less derogatory today, descendant of an obscure desert clan. The implications were the same. Every few generations, one would surface in the House that still carried the traits of an ally long vanquished.
Wild stock. Desert bred. Rumors, whispered during long evenings. Uncivilized creatures, running barefooted over the scorching sands, laughing like children with their tangled, matted hair. They do not know written words, but when Sandfire kills every living creature … they become one with the enraged elements and survive. Their minds emptied by the unforgiving heat endlessly hammering the Forge, most inhospitable part of an already unforgiving planet, they roam the night side by side with the Le-Matya and the predator’s poison is as mother’s milk to them.
Nonsense, most of it, exaggeration, simple survival techniques and evolution wrapped in legend and superstition. Many creatures reacted to shock and trauma with the release of hormones that would prevent the system from a fatal breakdown. Neurotransmitters flooding a body that is threatened in its survival, acting not only to counter the pain but as opiates. Nothing mysterious about it. And if by some of those quirks of evolution that had a tendency to crop up wherever cells divided and life refused to be vanquished there sprung up a group of creatures who out of necessity took that established trait one step further … it was, in the end, only logical.
Modern Vulcans understood such things. And nodding silently, they went their way. But sometimes, idly perhaps, they might wonder.
This was what it was like.
No, she did not quite lean against that blade which cut another line of fire over her skin, a curious kitten swatting at the flame which hurts a first and then makes you feel so … strange. But she did with the part of her mind that was not floating on waves akin to euphoria follow the path it took, estimated the angle of the steel, the additional blood loss this would cause. Oddly enough, none of the many injuries she had incurred in her life ever had quite produced this effect. Perhaps this was what it took, the prolonged exposure, the unceasing, ever returning bursts of agony rather than just one brief shock … did not those who survived Sandfire for long enough to tell of it that it was a slow, cruel torture that in the end would make you yearn for death?
Or was it that you needed to remember, to give in, to stop fighting?
Both?
Fascinating …
Even Savant, poor, screaming Yyaio seemed removed, sensed only through a veil of sparkling emerald, and her voice was like the howling of the storm, assaulting your ears until it becomes part of the tapestry of life, something that always has been …
“Weak.” Somewhere, a voice spat the word in disdain, but it did not belong to the being whose fingertips trailed over an upswept brow, who cupped the Vulcan’s face in his hands, playful, inquisitive.
“Look at them. One howling like a thrai in heat and the other playing dead.”
“Not quite dead yet.” Another unfamiliar voice, clear and sharp – and Sakarra realized she had indeed stretched her aching limbs, languidly as if waking from a fitful slumber.
“No, … not quite.” This voice she knew, once more hovering so close she could feel the hot breath tickling her nose. Blinking against the brightness, she opened her eyes only to find a curious, violet gaze examining her face.
He knew.
Be it reasonable deduction after observing body language, intuition, or some part of the heritage he reviled that still enabled him to sense what no non-Vulcan could easily detect … or a combination of all.
He knew very well she was far from dead, or pretending to be.
The gig, as her human colleagues liked to say, was up.
If only the being that was Savant and not, a Vulcan and none, were indeed one to whom she could reach out in silence and ask a single question. What do you need me to do … or do you already have what you came for?
Sakarra refused to believe the being’s presence was for her sake. Not even Savant, amiable, solicitous, concerned Savant would waste time and resources in such illogical manner.
Useless ponderings.
Pools of emerald mingled on the polished floor, but other than the poor, tormented creature next to her Sakarra already felt the oldest of her wounds closing, the steady trickle ceasing, leaving only thin lines of crusted blood and a dull, hollow burning.
One of those wounds was briefly reopened when fingertips brushed over her collarbone, pressed into warm skin and laid a trail of green across her chest.
“He failed to tell me many things it seems. What an interesting development.”
The knife had been preferable to … this.