<USS Avalon> Re: "Empty Promises?"

"Empty  Promises?"
 
 
Carlisle looked at her curiously, then took the PADD. "Oh,  shit," she 
whispered incredulously when she saw what was written there. She  opened her 
mouth 
to say something more, but instead suddenly grabbed her ear  piece and yanked 
it from her ear. 
 
"Dammit," she swore as the sound of the squelching filled the  air. "What the 
hell?" she asked, looking at Laney blankly. What could cause that  much 
interference out here? 

Laney had done the same, yanking out the  Marine-issue earpiece Adrian had 
handed out when it had squealed loudly.  She stopped and looked around, 
noticing 
that somehow, they had lost the others.  "I don't know," she replied 
honestly. "Definitely some kind of feedback loop.  You want me to see if I can 
get 
comms back up?"

Carlisle nodded  nervously. "Please," she asked, her eyes conveying nerves 
she wouldn't dare have  admitted to in front of the male marines. "I'm not real 
keen on being out of  touch out here, you know?" 

You should turn back, a young male  voice in their heads suggested. You'd be 
safer on your  own shuttle. No harm will come to you if you just go back now.  

Looking at her companion, Laney saw from her expression that  Carlisle, too, 
had heard the voice. "It sounds like a child---that first one did  too, but 
the mission parameters didn't say a damn thing about kids. None of the  
survivors from the Resurgence mentioned any children had survived,  either. 
Don't even 
know if there were any on that ship." 

She sighed.  "Still, if there's kids on this planet, no matter how they got 
here or how the  heck they're talking in our heads, we should find them, right?"

"They're  supposedly the weapons," Carlisle admitted, readying her weapon. 
"Supposedly,  they're gonna look like kids. I'm not sure what to make of it, to 
be honest.  They don't sound like weapons. Not when you figure they helped us 
rescue the  survivors, right?" 

She shrugged. "Nothing for it. We find them. That's  our mission."

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Laney exclaimed. "Are you seriously  telling me the 
kids are the weapons? That's crazy, children aren't  weapons, 
they're...children!" 

Why hadn't she been told about this?! Was  it more of Taggert's interference, 
part of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of  the Vega Prime facility? Laney 
fumed angrily as she busied herself trying to  re-establish a commlink with 
the rest of the away team. She was beyond outraged  that Taggert and his mad 
scientist minions had had the audacity to experiment on  helpless, innocent 
children, and she was furious that someone had informed the  Marines about this 
but not her. 

"Supposedly they were created on VP to  be weapons. At least, that's what the 
Major suspects. Don't know where he got  his intel, but he thinks that if we 
go in easy, nobody'll get hurt. Not us, and  not them. At least, that's the 
plan," Carlisle answered uneasily. "Hey, I'm not  any more comfortable with 
this 
than you are. I sure as hell didn't join up to  hunt kids, okay?" 

"Well, it would have been nice had we all be  privy to the information," 
Delaney muttered, growling in frustration when  she found she was getting 
nothing 
from her comm unit. 

Then she had an  idea. "Hand me that PADD, will you?" she asked, and when 
Carlisle had handed it  over, she set about trying to locate a comm frequency 
with the PADD---if Jorgens  had been able to talk to Taggert with the blasted 
thing across thousands of  lightyears of space, then she could at least talk to 
Adrian across a few klicks  of land. 

"In response to your comment, however, I agree. I didn't come  here to hunt 
down children. Poor things must be scared out of their minds,  though you gotta 
wonder why, if they took the time to help the Resurgence  survivors, why 
didn't they stay with them? And it beyond pisses me off that some  freak show 
thinks he can use innocent kids as lab rats. That's just wrong. If it  were up 
to 
me, I'd take them aboard Avalon and not let Vega Prime have  them back. They 
deserve to have a chance at living a normal life."

"Me  too," Carlisle admitted quietly. "Half thinking the Major maybe thinks 
the same  way, too. I'm pretty sure that Vulcan we brought along does." 

Her  mention of T'Leara gave Laney pause. She obviously knew about the 
children, too.  She might even have been the one to tell Adrian about 
them---she had 
said they  might be able to trust him. But why had neither of them told her 
about the  weapons being children? Did they honestly think that she couldn't be 
trusted to  keep a secret? 

She also wondered if, perhaps, the children were behind  T'Leara's fall from 
favor. She had said that she'd worked for Taggert once, but  that when she'd 
discovered the true nature of his work, she'd tried to put a  stop to it. She 
wanted to believe that, to believe that the Vulcan had seen the  travesty of 
the situation and, despite the consequences, done all she could to  put an end 
to the injustice.

"I don't know it for sure," Carlisle  continued. "I mean, the major said he 
guessed, but it seems a little convenient  that he just happened to guess 
something so far fetched and it turned out right,  you know? Besides, why else 
would he bring her along? She's a botanist on the  ship, right? Nothing else 
makes 
sense." 

"Quite right about that,  Carlisle," Laney said. "And if the voices we heard 
in out heads were some sort  of telepathic communication from the kids, I hope 
they're listening to us now."  

Looking around her, feeling slightly foolish, she nevertheless spoke out  
into the open air. "Hey kids, wherever you are... We didn't come here to hurt  
you. And no one is going to punish you for what happened to the ship that was  
destroyed---it wasn't your fault. You were scared, right? It was a really scary 
 situation and you just reacted. Believe me, it happens to the best of us. 
I've  even been there myself. Please, let us help you. And I promise you, I 
will 
do  whatever I can to make sure no one tries to hurt you." 

Had it been a  mistake to say that? Any of it? Laney didn't think so. No 
matter what Carlisle  or any of the others thought, she'd meant every word she 
said. After all, she  had something in common with these kids---they were all 
the 
result of a genetic  experiment. Only, unlike her case, where her mother had 
chosen to stop the tests  and just love her like a mother should, those poor 
children had been subjected  to test after test their entire lives. 

"That's right," Carlisle agreed,  hoping to God they weren't making promises 
now they couldn't keep. "I'll do what  I can to help you. I promise. Just, let 
us try, okay?"

You cannot help  us, the near-exhausted sounding voice of a young male 
answered. They  won't let you.

Though instinctually she understood the fear behind  that resigned belief, 
Laney scoffed. "Who cares what they think?  We'll do it anyway. And even if we 
fail and they take you back, at least we  tried, right? Isn't that what really 
matters? That we're willing to try to save  you?" 

Then she sighed. "No one should have to go through what you've  been 
through," she said softly, "especially not a child. And I'm sorry it  happened 
to you. 
I really do want to help you, and I don't know what else I can  say to help 
you believe that. All I can give you is my word."

Be  careful what you promise, that same tired, sad voice replied. Some among 
us are still young enough to believe  you.

"Believe this," Carlisle said, locking her weapon and making  ready to move. 
"I'll protect you as I would any other child. You have my word of  honor, as a 
Marine. You can get in my head. You know that's all I got, and it's  as good 
as it gets. You're safe from us. Promise." 


As quickly as it  went down, the com came right back up. "Duarte to teams two 
and three.  Proceed to rendezvous point. We have casualties, repeat we have 
casualties.  Proceed quickly to rendezvous site. Per Major Phillips, everything 
is  under control. No need to be tense or worried. Just get there. Thieves 
are  handled. Move in to secure weapons. Duarte out." 

"You heard her.  Let's move," Carlisle said, abruptly worried for the Major's 
well being. Setting  off a dead run, she made for the shuttle site, just 
hoping Laney could keep  up

Thieves? Laney frowned, wondering if that was a reference to the  children or 
if Adrian had meant Jorgens and Rhodes. And who were the casualties?  What 
the hell had happened? Had Adrian been hurt?

As she and Carlisle began to run toward the coordinates of the  rendezvous, 
she tried one last time to gain the trust of at least one of the  children. 
"Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, kid. I can't guarantee success.  Like I 
said, we might fail miserably at keeping Vega from taking you back. But I  can 
promise you I will do everything in my power to keep that from  happening. Even 
if it means I die trying."

She would not, if she could at  all help it, let Taggert or any of his people 
lay a finger on those children  ever again.  
_____
 

With Marine Sergeant  Candace Carlisle
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