[ussbansheec] Old Grudges
- From: Andy Maluhia <CaptainAndy@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:17:45 -0400
_Old Grudges
_by Torvan Kell and Eislin Taline with Xid Sllih and Tavor Kell
/"If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him."--William Shakespeare /
***takes place right after 'Safe with a Big Stick'
He would have liked to have been able to see. The fact that it was
pitch black and had been for who knew how long was making Torvan
claustrophobic in ways working on a space craft had never done. He
would also have liked to have been able to move but his captor had him
immobilized. Torvan couldn't even tell if they were energy restraints
or physical ones. Either way, the young Cardassian knew he was well and
truly trapped. He let out a sigh. He was tired, hurt, and hungry.
"Damned pirates..." he muttered aloud.
A shimmering sound filled the darkness and for a moment light filled the
space but was gone just as quickly. Taline groaned softly, her head
felt like someone had used it as batting practice from that game the
Emissary used to like so much. She tried to move but felt restraints on
her arms and legs, pinning her to the wall. Prophets... this hurts...
"Ugh..."
Torvan blinked, not that it mattered in the darkness. Someone else was
here? Poor bastard got high jacked just like us. "If you're
restrained, they're hard as hells to budge. I've been trying," he ventured.
The voice was male, a nice baritone and Taline moved her throbbed head
toward it. "Feel like someone bounced my head off the floor," she
groaned, trying to shift to get comfortable but finding he was right,
she was stuck. "Where am I?"
"To quote a crazy old great uncle I had, right here because wherever you
are, there you are," Torvan said dryly. A girl? Hell..."Was there a
great, stinking hulk of an Orion involved?"
"Um... All I remember is being on the DSVP Promenade and looking in shop
windows for something pretty to buy my sister. Next thing I know, my
head's about to explode, it's all gone dark and I'm hearing your voice."
Torvan hmmphed. "Our ship got boarded by pirates," he told her, trying
to bend his spines enough to turn his head. "I was trying to stow our
codes to the cargo bay and passenger manifest when some big ugly green
think punched me square in the left spine." He snorted in disgust. "It
stunk like it hadn't ever bathed in its life."
Taline sniffed slightly, scenting out the air then wrinkled her nose and
shuddered. "Kinda like this place stinks." Left spine? She wondered
if he had a right spine too then started imagining what kind of creature
had multiple backs. Something freaky, she was sure. But still, his
voice sounded nice and sure and comforting, so he couldn't be all that
bad. "You think all your crew are still alive?" she murmured.
Torvan had wondered and wondered about that for seemed to be forever
there in the dark. "I don't know," he admitted heavily. "Do pirates do
that? Kill the crew? If they do then why the hell am I here?"
Taline held in a sob as she remembered her and Somhelth laughing with
their parents about pirates and parrots. It seemed an eternity ago in
that dark, dark, stinking hole. "I don't know," she whispered, sore,
tired and now scared out of her mind.
"My father is going to be mad as hell," Torvan sighed. "At whoever did
this and at me for not taking up his idea first. Pirates are afraid if
people with bigger guns then them."
"I don't have a gun," she whispered, her head leaning back against the
wall. "My Mum's the Marine, not me. She'd be planning an escape, I
bet. I'm just..." Lost, she thought. Scared, and useless.
Marine? Huh, must not be one of us. We don't have them any more.
"Don't worry, I don't have one and never did so we're in the same
boat." He sighed audibly. "I don't very much like being kidnapped.
Why my brothers and I played this when we were kids, I'll never know."
"We played pirates too," she said, her eyes digging into the darkness as
if she could will it back, to see the face that went with her only real
contact. "My brother was Blue Beard. Me and my sister would be the
traders and we'd repel him or we'd all pretend to hide treasure..." She
bit the inside of her cheek to stop from crying, using the paid and
slight taste of blood to quell her fear as much as she could. "It's not
fun any more."
Torvan made a noise that might have been an amused sniff. "There are
six of us, all sons, and we would end up getting thrown out of the house
along with my grandfather because he encouraged us toward rough
housing. 'Boys will be boys, Arda' is what he'd say to my mother.
'What boy doesn't like playing space battles?'" Torvan snorted rudely.
Addressing the darkness, he said, "This one hates it."
"Me too," she shuddered. "I want to go home. I'm bored of adventures
now, it's too real." Right then the fear was too much and she started
to cry softly. "I want my home..."
Torvan was too truthful a man to tell the girl not to worry and that
they'd be just fine but neither was he a callous sort. "Ah, come on,
don't cry. The Orion is just trying to weaken you," he said, trying to
sound strong when all he wanted to do was the same as her: go home.
"Forget this, I'm not even going military. I'm going home and becoming
a playwright. Nobody shoots at them."
She sniffled a little but managed to hold back more tears as she stared
at the source of his voice. "Playwright? I've never met one of those
before."
"Ah well, one of my aunts writes high dramas. We're all dramatic but in
different ways. Makes my father cringe whenever I say that, though. He
thinks his own sister is a bit flaky," Torvan snickered.
"You have an Aunt?" she asked softly, still wishing she could see the
face of the man whose voice was keeping her grounded and making her feel
better. "I think we have aunts but we've never met them, even if
they're still alive. My parents moved as far away as they could before
I was born. I'm the youngest of three."
That sounded odd to Torvan. Definitely not Cardassian. "We are very
family oriented," he said simply. "Even the smallest of families is
very close."
"The five of us are close," she sighed. "Mum's going to go crazy...."
"Ah and so will mine. Father is going to be foaming at the mouth. We
all get very unpleasant when angry and interfering with one means
interfering with all," Torvan explained. He snorted. "This would make
a fine drama but I don't have any desire to be an actor."
"Maybe you can write it when we're all safe home with our families," she
mused. Just listening to his voice was calming him down. He even had a
sense of humour, even in the darkness. His voice warmed her from the
inside out. "I want a beautiful actress to play my part," she smirked,
even if he couldn't see it. "Someone striking and talented."
"Are you not then?" he wondered. No way to tell when it was so dark
that he couldn't even see shades.
She stuck her tongue out, realised he couldn't see it and sighed
dramatically. "I'm pretty in a kind of homey way. I dyed the tips of
my hair blue to stand out more because both of my siblings are so very
beautiful. Som's blue, Mum thinks an Andorian hybrid. Disir's just
gorgeous all around."
"Andorian? I don't think I ever so one of those except on screen." The
noise he made might well have been a shrug. "I've always thought their
hair makes them look very wise and that is probably because my
grandfather's hair is that white. Ours all start off dark but some of
my brothers have reddish hair. I'm blandly black haired."
"My Mum has red hair," she said, her smile warming her words. "It's
flaming and bright. She's got a few greys now, she says they're all
mine and Som's fault with a few that're all Dad. He's got white hair
though. He's older than Mum by quite a bit."
"That's alright," Torvan mused. "All that matters is that they feel the
same. I think my mother would probably blame some of her own grays on
us, too." He would have laughed but all he could manage was a chuckle.
"She's threatened to scale us all even after we were grown."
"My Mum says she'll tan our hides but we know it's just gas. She's a
strong Marine but she's really a sweetie," Taline said, her smile
wilting more than a little. In a soft, scared voice that broke at the
end, "I want to go home... I want my Mum..."
Torvan swore some of the words he knew his mother would never let him
use in the house, the ones he'd obviously learned from spending entirely
too much time with his grandfather. "Damn you, Orion," he finally
snarled into the darkness. "Are you so cowardly that you would leave us
here and do nothing? Even slaves are fed and given comfort of some
sort." In a softer voice, one meant just for Taline, he added, "My left
spine really hurts like hell."
She could just manage to draw her knees up under her chin and wiped her
tears on her trousers. "How many spines do you have?" she asked
softly. "I only have one."
"One technically but the left side of my neck ridge is aching," he said,
realizing just how whiny that sounded. "Bastard must have punched me
there."
"If I could get over there, I'd massage it for you... Dad says I have
magic hands..." She shifted to try to pull away from the wall but was
stuck solid. "I don't know if your culture is weird about names like
Romulans are but I'm Taline." She left off her family name, still
wanting to protect her parents. Who knew, maybe they were being recorded.
"Torvan," he offered. "And I'd take up that offer if I wasn't stuck on
this damned wall. Seems like something the old Obsidian Order might
have done."
"T and T," she chimed with as much cheerfulness as she could muster.
"Maybe he's collecting people by letters of the alphabet."
The laughter echoed through out the cell as the unseen captor couldn't
take it any longer. "Oh, funny, funny little children," the thick male
voice chortled. "You have made Xid laugh."
Torvan felt his restraints come free and then, before he could even
gather himself to his feet, the lights came on.
"Stupid silly children," the voice said with an oily chuckle.
She was blinded, the light so bright that it glittered in her eyes like
stars. Putting her hands up to her face, Taline scrubbed as hard as she
could to wipe away tears and loss of night-vision. "What d'you want,
you sick son of a bitch?" she snarled, still not looking up.
"Now, now, pretty daughter of a bad bad man should not insult Xid's
mother that way," the voice said a moment before the screen hiding him
was dropped. A large shave headed Orion stood there leering at them,
his jeweled teeth glittering from the light of the force field. "Maybe
I will sell you and tell your bad bad father I used you as a slave."
"You're a dead man, Orion," Torvan snarled as he got to his feet. "A
dead coward."
Blinking a few times, Taline finally managed to see but the first thing
she saw wasn't the stinking hulk of the Orion, it was the creature she'd
been in a cell with all that time. Grey scales caught the light, almost
iridescent in their sheen and she let out a strangled cry, scampering
back on all fours to the furthest corner away from the lizard-like
thing. "Cardassian," she whispered, half horror, half crushing
disappointment. "W... why did you have to be... Cardassian?"
"Because my parents are Cardassian," was the first thing that sprang
from Torvan's mouth. "Genetics work really well that way." He kept the
Orion in sight out of the corner of his eye as he stared at Taline. "I
never said I wasn't. What's wrong with being Cardassian?"
"You're the Butchers," she whispered, cringing away from everyone, her
wide, fearful eyes fixed solely on Torvan. "Your people... the things
you've done, to my people... to my parents... Why did you have to be
Cardassian?" Then she span on the Orion. "You did this on purpose!
You sick fuck!"
Xid leered at her through the force field, raking her body with his
eyes. "Xid is not a stupid man, ugly Eislin girl. He has no idea how
to find your bad bad father but he found you. Eislin is a smart man,
too, but sentimental. He will come out of hiding to save precious, ugly
daughter. Or did sneaky, bad Eislin never speak of Xid Sllih."
Torvan stared. "What the hell did I do to you?" he asked, pointedly
ignoring Taline. "She's a nice looking girl but what the hell is the
point in nabbing me?"
"He spoke of you in the same way he spoke of the Butchers: curses,"
Taline snarled. Somehow she felt cold now Torvan was ignoring her.
He'd just about admitted it was worth kidnapping her, as if that was a
normal thing to do, as if it was right. She stared at them both,
climbing to her feet, her back pressed to a wall and realised she was
trapped between two people who wanted to hurt her.
"You are bonus, ugly spoon boy. Ugly Eislin girl was right. Xid knows
how old Eislin hates Cardassians. Xid wanted entertainment," Xid
declared. "Otherwise Xid hates Cardassians. Ugly women and boring men."
"My mother is NOT ugly, you pile of excrement. Neither is she," Torvan
spat, point on long arm toward Taline. "Real tough guy picking on a
girl because you have a problem with her father."
Taline bit her lip as hard as she could, tasting blood in her mouth
again. She wasn't going to cry, she just wasn't. She was a big, strong
adventurer now, like her parents. It was time to decide what was the
better option: smelly green man who wanted to hurt her father for sure,
or scaly guy who just happened to be the wrong race. Her long legs
carried her over to Torvan and she faced Xid. "Eislin Rissa is going to
cut out your heart, bogey-boy."
"Big words from a girl in a cage," Xid snorted. "You will beg Xid to
let you go to save an old man? What about you, lizard boy?"
"I'm going to kill you just for breathing, Orion, then I am going to
make a necklace out of the jewels on your teeth," Torvan seethed.
"I don't beg," Taline annunciated clearly, spitting each word out like a
bug. "We're not the ones hiding behind a force field, snot-face. If
you're so brave, come in here and discuss it."
"Oh no, no, Xid is no fool. Xid wants quarry to come out of hiding and
he wants to be entertained while he waits. He will turn on comm so ugly
girl can call bad bad daddy and then he will leave you here with lizard
boy," Xid said with a bellowing laugh.
"Chup Ke Chut Hai, Chodu bhagat," Torvan snarled. "You will not live to
rue this day."
"I can't call home," Taline said with as much smugness as she could,
praying the guy would believe her. "They have all outside calls
blocked. And even if I could, I wouldn't. Not for you, not for anything."
Torvan smirked in approval. Granted the girl hated his guts but what
she did took nerve. Arms crossed over his broad chest, he simply stood
and said nothing.
"Then ugly girl will die or be sold and never see him again," Xid said
blithely, tossing an oddly Human wave before turning his back and leaving.
Letting out a tired groan, Taline dropped to the floor, her knees up and
her head on her arms. "Me and my big mouth..."
Torvan retreated to as far away from her as he could, not relishing the
idea of being attacked by someone who thought he was a butcher. He sat
against the wall, supposing it was safer than leaving his back
unguarded, and simply observed. He wondered if he needed his father's
and grandfather's military keenness or, instead, the wide observation
powers a writer needed. "It was a good idea," he finally offered.
She shifted, her head still on her knees but tilted so she could see
him, her soft eyes taking in all that he was. "Som will call Mum when
he realises I'm gone. I don't need to call my Dad, he'll know." She
looked him up and down the finally met his eyes. "You don't look like a
butcher," she observed softly.
"Because I'm not," Torvan said dryly. "I work on a civilian freight
liner that also does passenger duty. My father is a legate, responsible
for the rebuilding of Cardassia Prime's infrastructure, very good
friends with Minister Garak. My mother rules her sons and him with an
iron hand." He shrugged. "I'm not going to apologize for something I
didn't do."
"You... you don't have to," she whispered. Biting her lip that now had
teeth marks on it, she shuffled a little closer so she could see more of
him. Taline rolled up her sleeves, her own arms so pure and untouched.
"My Dad's arms are covered in scars," she said, drawing them on her own
skin. "His back as well. He was in the camps when the B... the
Cardassians controlled Bajor. One time, they were going to whip a boy
so my Dad took it for him. It left his scars." Rolling her sleeve back
down, she stared into Torvan's eyes. "My Mum was part of a squad in the
Marines sent to infiltrate Cardassia during the Dominion War. Someone
on our side betrayed her and her squad were all killed or taken
prisoner. The Cardassian in charge of their camp took her for a prize
and when they were done, they threw her out on the street for the
gangs. The only reason she's alive is because she's part cyborg now."
Torvan nodded. He knew what the military had done, what Cardassia had
done. He also knew what it was doing now. True, neither she nor the
people she was talking about were Cardassian but he wasn't a heartless
bastard. He'd spoken to Garak at length about a lot of things. "Then
I'm sorry for their pain," he said simply.
"Me too," she said as she carefully scuttled a little closer. As close
as she was now, she could see his scales more clearly and his spines as
he called them. One was slightly swollen, so it looked to her, and he
was holding himself, favoring that side. "You look sore."
Torvan shrugged. "I'm missing a few moments but I'm sure the stinking
hulk was not gentle with me. I'll get over it after I kill him."
"I... I offered a massage..." She shifted onto her knees so she could
see him properly. He had pretty eyes, she realised. Pretty and full of
anger, rage and something primal. She wondered if her own mirrored the
look.
Torvan stared. Hard. It wasn't in his nature to trust easily outside
the family and especially after what she'd said earlier. "Cardassian
skin and muscles are very different from Human or Bajoran," he told her.
"I can see that," she sniffed, just a touch of amusement in her eyes.
"I'm not going to kill you, you know. I'm not sure I'd know how. My
parents... as much as they're both fierce soldiers, they shielded us as
much as they could."
"Trust me, I'm paranoid enough to not let you kill me and pissed off
enough to kill that fat bastard as soon as I can. Try the massage if
you aren't repulsed," he said, the last part with a smirk. "It must be
an alien concept because my brothers and cousins, even the female ones,
were all taught to fight. I was just not fond of the idea of following
in Legate Kell's footsteps before."
Her fingers reached out and brushed the scales. They were smooth and
slightly textured but not at all slimy like she'd imagined. She touched
him as gently as she could, just feeling out the muscles, trying to work
out how to massage something she'd never even really seen before. "It's
not repulsion..." she murmured, "I've just never touched scales before."
Torvan bit back a hiss of pain. He was certainly going to kill that
Orion and anyone who worked for him, that much was certain. "I'm told
humanoids often compare us to their reptiles," he offered. "I've never
seen a Terran one but that is what I've read and what Minister Garak said."
"My Mum says that," she whispered as she rubbed as softly as she could
along the lines of muscles. "My Dad calls you the Butchers. They hate
you all so much." Her cheeks coloured deeply just thinking about it.
If this man was like that, why hadn't he just offered her up as a ticket
to freedom, or hurt her?
Torvan sighed in frustration. "There are very few species that don't
act to ensure their survival as a whole," he said, shaking his head
slightly. "It would be foolish not to. I can't say that I agree with
how my forefathers went about doing that but, not only did we pay for
that with the Dominion, we are not always right. We have begun to
change but it took hundreds, if not thousands, of years to get this
way. It won't change overnight." He shrugged yet again. "There are
many who do not even want the change but acknowledge that it needs doing."
"Don't shrug so much, you're pulling on sore muscles. I don't think
anything's badly damaged, just tender and inflamed," she told him as she
smoothed her fingers down the spine. "I don't know anything about
politics. I was born and brought up on a moon on the edge of the Alpha
quadrant, as far away from any known civilisations as my parents could
get. All I know is that my parents hate Cardassians and..." she shot a
look over her shoulder to where Xid had been, "Orions."
"That much I understood," he snorted. "Whatever your father did to that
one must have been impressive."
"Took every chance he could to screw him over, I think," Taline smirked.
"Which is either a very Ferengi or very Cardassian thing to do," Torvan
snorted. "One has to admire deeds that left such a lasting impression."
"Prophets rot him," she sighed as she sat back from Torvan. "I wonder
if he's bathed once since my Dad knew him on Rahm Izad."
Torvan's nose twitched in remembered revulsion. "Our sense of smell may
not be as sharp as other humanoids but, even so, the man stinks. It's
revolting," he grumbled. "There is apparently a Human saying that
cleanliness is next to godliness. I don't care about any deities but
the sentiment I can share."
"He's definitely one smelly, smelly man," she snorted, curling her legs
round so she was sat cross-legged. Her long brown, blue tipped hair
draped around her shoulders like a cloak and she hugged her arms around
herself to keep from shivering.
"Come closer," Torvan finally grumbled. "I don't bite and you've seen
I'm not a slimy reptile. If you're cold, I have a much higher body
temperature and it will make that Orion think things."
She bit her lip again, hissing a little with the pain of reopening the
wound but she crawled closer until there was barely a hair's breadth
between them. Her bright eyes stared into his and she nodded. "I trust
you," she said simply.
"How smart do you suppose that Orion is?" Torvan asked. "Do you suppose
the room is bugged?"
"Perhaps... but he didn't look that smart," she said with a sniff. "Why?"
"Well, the comm is still there and I somehow doubt he will have blocked
sending to anyone but your parents since he has no idea where they are,"
Torvan began, a bit of craftiness in his eyes. "so I suggest we call my
father. If he had no idea I was missing by now, this will infuriate him
to no end. Though that runs the risk of bringing the Orion's wrath on
us in the meantime."
"Okay," she said carefully. "It's not a bad idea, I don't mind getting
into trouble."
He made a noise that was a cross between an amusement snort and an
annoyed grunt. "You will if he tries to kill us because he's that
angry." His eyes were as dark as coals, seemingly more so because of
the ridges around them, and he let his gaze bore into hers. "I would
rather not die a prisoner but I won't make that choice for you."
"I don't want to be a slave," she told him, her arms hugging even
tighter around herself. "I'd rather die."
"Come on then," Torvan said in a loud staged voice, waving his arms
toward the comm panel. If the Orion was watching, he wanted it to look
good. "We should call immediately."
Taline nodded, not quite sure what was happening but at least it was
better than waiting to be sold or for someone to save them. For some
reason, she took his hand, needing the extra comfort of a warm body
sharing her fear.
"For this to work, you're going to have to stand in front of me," Torvan
said quickly. "That way, that idiot won't me able to see the screen and
he'll think you're talking to your parents. Just do us the favor and
don't become undone when you see my father. He's older than me and so
looks more...Cardassian."
"Okay..." she whispered, dropping his hand and knowing she felt so much
more scared and alone as she did. "I'm going to need your code."
Torvan leaned to whisper it in her ear then whispered, "That's his
personal code. He's understandably paranoid so it goes right to him and
not through any one else. " His smile then was a mixture of pure pride
and deviousness. "Of course he also traces everything."
"Let's hope our generous host doesn't know how to detect a trace," she
breathed back as she typed in the code she'd been given then hugged her
arms around herself again.
Legate Tavor Kell was not having a good day. Competent help was hard to
find, meaning the finishing of the main square's foundations would be
held up. The only thing that brightened his day was the distinctive
chirp of his personal line. "Ah, perhaps my dear Arda or one of the
boys," he said, his voice a deep rumbling. It was for that that he was
grinning when he flicked open the connection without looking at who it
actually was. That smile turned to an immediate scowl as some Bajoran
girl with odd colored hair appeared. A tiny part of him approved of the
blue, reminding him of the blue tinge of a Cardassian female. "Who the
hell are you?"
She wondered again as she opened her mouth to speak if Xid was
monitoring this call and chose to speak as quickly as she could.
"Eislin Taline, daughter of Eislin Rissa. Torvan's been kidnapped by
Orion pirates!"
"Father, please," Torvan said quickly, leaning over her shoulder to look
at his father. At that, he almost lost heart. Father was such a good
man. "His name is Xid Sllih and he's got an age old grudge. I do
believe he'll kill us both."
Torvan was right. His father was livid. His face flushed a dark gray
as one meaty hand slammed the desk. "He's a dead man," the older
Cardassian snarled. "Do what you can, son. I know you'll do me proud.
Watch him, girl. He's a Kell. We're good at everything we do."
"Yes, sir," she said, holding back a shiver of fear. "My Mum will come
for me... I'm sure of it..."
The legate shook his head even as his hands flew over his panel. "If
I'm coming for my boy, I'm not leaving you." He offered her a quick
smirk. "I take Bajorans as well as they take me so your mother can meet
us half way. I will call her myself in the meantime."
"Father, I think we need to cut this short. The Orion isn't bright but
he will get suspicious," Torvan said quickly.
"Of course, child," Tavor agreed with a nod. Smart, that boy of his.
"Do me proud til we meet again, Torvan." With that he clicked the
connection off.
As the screen went dead, Taline barely repressed a shudder and tightened
her grip on herself. "Now what?"
He saw the shudder and it annoyed him, annoyed him because he was
offended on his father's behalf and annoyed at himself for expecting
anything different. He stepped away and up against the wall, arms
crossed over his chest. "We wait to see what blows this place up after
we get out and, in the meantime, we plot our escape."
"I'm freezing," she murmured as she started to shake lightly. She could
feel sweat trickle down her spine but she was colder than ice and her
skin lost some of its colour. "Why is it so cold in here?" It was like
the place was suddenly sugar-coated, filled with candy floss and cotton
wool.
Annoyed as he was, Torvan was not, as many people believed of his
people, a vindictive man. With an annoyed sigh, he said, "Come back
closer to me. I'm a poor judge of what your species ought to look like
but I'm fairly sure you aren't supposed to be changing color like that.
Did the Orion hurt you?"
Shaking her head softly, her hair fanned out and she almost stumbled as
she tried to simply stand near him. "I don't know... I told you what I
remember, I don't lie..."
Torvan swore one of his grandfather's curses yet again. The girl felt
cold to him and he wished he had his old favorite cloak to wrap around
her. "I never said anything about lying," he huffed as he pulled her
closer.
It was instinct more than anything that made her put her arms around the
heat source, holding him like he was the only thing keeping her afloat.
"I'm sorry," she murmured as she felt tears gather in her eyes. "I'm so
cold... I just want to go home..."
"So do I," he admitted. "Home with my mother overly doting over me, my
grandfather annoying her with his stories, and my father agreeing that
out here is not the right choice. He's a good father, you know."
"He looked it," she said, nodding against his chest where she'd buried
her face. "And angry." In a much smaller voice, she admitted, "He
looked like a good man."
"He is." Torvan chuckled. "You wouldn't think that an important legate
would come home early now and then just to rough house with his boys
when they were younger. If I don't kill that Orion myself, Father will
do so with his bare hands." He smiled a proud smile. "Contrary to what
people may think about us, that isn't because he's Cardassian. It's
because somebody touched one of his sons."
"Like my Mum," she breathed out in a whisper. "Master spy and Marine.
When she gets here, she'll take this place apart to find us."
Torvan let out a groan that was purely mental. "You know, I hope Father
can actually find your parents to tell them and, assuming he does, I
then hope they don't shoot first and ask questions later."
"Som will call home," she said, so sure her brother would do the right
thing. "He's smart, he'll have told them already." Then what he'd said
finally sank in and she sighed heavily. "Som doesn't know it's the
Orion... They might think it was your father... I'm so sorry."
"But then I suppose he doesn't have any idea who it was," Torvan said
carefully. "I would hope somebody will not automatically assume."
"I hope so too," she sighed. "I hope they don't kill each other before
getting here. I don't want to be a slave."
"It won't happen. I trust my father to do something," Torvan told her as
staunchly as he could. It was almost enough to convince himself.
"Then why don't you sound completely sure?" she whispered.
"Because I know he thinks his boys are worth everything. I just hope he
can convince the powers that be that I am." He offered a smirk. "I am
just a civilian after all."
"Yeah but you're a good man," she told him in complete honesty as she
stared into his dark eyes. "And I think all cultures need good people.
Even Cardassians."
He pointed his chin toward the force field. "It may all be in how the
culture defines 'good' but I have yet to hear of any one ever finding a
good Orion. Most comments I ever heard dealt with wanting to kill or
imprison them. I think I know why."
"I don't think this crew is going to see another deal," she murmured,
her eyes turned to hatred as she stared at the force field. "I think
between you, my mother and your father, they're all going to die."
"I know you said your parents are both fierce fighters but that look in
your eyes doesn't seem as though it belongs there." he told her.
"Fierce, yes, but not violent. You seem..gentler. Bright and perky."
Her look softened again as she blushed and stared up into his eyes,
blinking a little. "Thank you..." She laid her head on his chest, her
eyes closed. "I've never really wanted to hurt anyone before, not even
the people who hurt my parents. It was all kind of... abstract... if
that makes sense. Like, it happened so long ago, it surely couldn't
touch us again. It never even occurred to me I'd meet a Cardassian out
here." She glanced up at him and smiled a little. "I'm glad I did."
"Thank you," he said honestly. "I hope that I make a decent
representative for my people." He hmmphed softly. "Maybe I'll tell
Father I want to pursue the diplomatic venue, if we even have one. I'd
only ever shoot Orions on sight. Ah well, and any Vorta or JemHadar."
"I've never met a Vorta or JemHadar but I agree about Orions," she
snorted. "Especially smelly ones."
"I'll buy you some of the perfume my mother likes. Our agricultural
sector is still rebuilding after the war but it's getting stroner and
one of the first non-edible successes they've had is the plants that
make the perfume. It'll make you forget that stink, trust me," Torvan
told her.
Her smile was so much softer than it had been, more genuine but still
small given the knot of fear that still sat in her stomach. "I'd like
that. Is it made from flowers? Me and my sister used to make perfume
from petals when I was little. It never smelled of much but it was fun."
"Herbs of some sort, too," he said with a nod. "She tried to tell what
they were once but it went a bit over my head. Mother likes plants and
flowers so she paid close attention to that sector of development. I
think she would be in the field if it weren't for having to run the house."
"It's a shame she can't do both," she murmured.
"It's not that she isn't allowed, Taline. It's more that there are six
of us boys, with three still in school, plus my grandfather, and my
father. I think she has referred to us a the herd at times," Torvan
snickered. "I'm the third son and I still want to go home. I would
gladly accept the accusation of mama's boy right now."
"If you're a mama's boy, I'm a papa's girl," she teased weakly. "My
Dad's the greatest, even if he's old. I hope he's okay..."
"I'd like to meet the man. He obviously raised a devoted daughter and
any one who makes such long lasting enemies must have an interesting
character," Torvan said with an odd grin.
"I'm not sure he'd be happy to meet you," she said softly, studiously
staring at the floor. "It's been a long time but he still remembers
each lash like it was yesterday. It's not logical but it's how he is."
"Logic," Torvan said with another snort, "is for Vulcans. Ah maybe some
time when the air clears. I like my ridges intact after all."
"They suit you as they are," she agreed.
He held up one scaled finger, warning her to stop speaking a moment. He
pointed toward the forcefield. "Shadows," he said softly. "Our jailer
comes."
Reaching onto her tiptoes, she whispered in his ear, "Should I move away?"
"No, let him think what he will," Torvan suggested. "I want him to come
inside."
"Okay..." She kept her arms around him but loosely so he could move if
he needed to. She still laid her head on his chest and calmed her pulse
as much as she could, despite the tattoo her heart played on her ribs.
Xid smiled as he approached. The girl was holding onto the Cardassian.
How nice. "Did ugly girl have nice goodbye with bad daddy?"
Taline offered the slug a withering look, spite and hatred filling her
eyes. "Go to hell," was all she said though. She wanted to scream that
her mother was coming to kill them all and so was Torvan's father but
she daren't. She simply glared at him and held a little tighter to Torvan.
"Xid will take that to mean yes," the Orion said with a grin, rubbing
his hands together much like a Ferengi preparing to count the cash in
his piggy bank. "So nice that Bajorans are so icky sentimental."
"Then why take me?" Torvan asked. "She's beautiful. What are you going
to do with a crippled Cardassian?"
The bright eyes narrowed. The Cardassian boy was sitting against the
wall as he held the girl. "You are not crippled. You punched Xid and
kicked him where he does not like being kicked."
"I did?" Then Torvan shrugged, making it seem painful. "Ah well,
whatever you did, you wasted the effort in taking me. You injured my
left ridge. I can't get up."
"It's true," Taline said softly. "I tried to help but he still can't
get up. You're a sick son of a bitch, Xid."
"You think Xid is stupid?" the Orion asked. He cleared his throat and
spat on the floor, which earned a cringe of revulsion from Torvan. "Xid
saw lizard boy standing up before. Saw him standing to call ugly girl's
bad daddy."
"And in great pain. We Cardassians are very stoic," Torvan told him,
"but there's only so much a man can take. Bad thing to have damaged the
legate's favorite son."
"You're disgusting," Taline growled.
Xid's eyes narrowed. He had to admit that he knew nothing about
Cardassians other than by reputation. The raid on the Cardie civilian
ship was a paid job and the taking of the hostage was done on a whim.
It could well be that he'd damaged the boy as he claimed. If that were
the case, then out the airlock the boy went. The ransom would have been
nice but not at the cost of getting his revenge taken away. "You stand
up, lizard boy," Xid growled as he dropped the field, "or Xid will throw
you to cold arms of Mother Space."
Taline pretended to hold tighter to Torvan, leaning across his chest,
turning her face just away from Xid so she could still see where his
feet were. "No! Don't leave me here!" she gasped.
Xid drooled slightly. He loved it when the women struggled. It made
them so much easier to tame later on. Meaty fists balled, he stalked
forward. As he did, Torvan flicked dark eyes toward Taline. Scared,
yes, but not stupid. She'd do the right thing. In a swift mood that
stemmed from his father's training and from tussling with five brothers,
he tucked his legs under him, pushed Taline aside, and launched himself
at Xid.
Rolling to the side smoothly, Taline came to a crouching position, her
eyes half on the struggling mass of Torvan and Xid and half on the
door. She jumped to her feet and ran round the two fighting men to
check there was a way out and make sure no one was coming. They had to
get moving quickly if they stood any chance of escape.
Xid roared. Never trust Cardassians, they said. They lie out of both
sides of their mouths. He realized he should not have discounted this
one because he was so young. But he also realized that he outweighed
the boy by a hundred pounds easily. That would help. Or not, he
thought as Torvan rammed a solid punch squarely into Xid's face. The
Orion's head hit the floor with a solid thunk.
Torvan stood up and delivered a swift kick to Xid's head. "Just for
extra reassurance," he explained, out of breath to Taline, "I doubt he's
dead. I'll save that for later." He then bent down and picked up two
small objects, sliding them into his pocket, then looked at her. "I
hadn't quite thought this far. I don't even know how big this ship is
or if there are any other people on it."
"Start by destroying that comm panel so he can't call someone?" Taline
offered.
"Fine idea," Torvan agreed. He bent and quickly looked over Xid. "What
sort of pirate doesn't carry an energy weapon? Arrogant bastard..." he
muttered as he straightened up. With yet another expressive shrug, he
strolled over to the panel, clasped his hands together, then slammed
them into the middle of it. The result threw a shower of sparks up the
made him leap backwards. He offered Taline a smirk. "Not tactical
genius on my part but it should be effective."
"We do what works," she shrugged with a quick smile before turning back
to the door. "Okay... Now I guess we run, hoping we find a way out
before they find us. Maybe a computer terminal? Something we can get
specs on the ship with?"
Many people described certain Cardassian smiles as cold and calculating
and more than creepy. That was the sort of smile that Torvan displayed
just then. "I saw him touch controls outside the cell. Why don't we
lock him in? Sound proof if we can?"
She returned the wicked smile, grabbing his hand and pulling him out
with her before turning to the controls. "Now I accept I can't fight
but I'm a mean hacker. Just sit back and watch..."
He stood close behind her, watching over her shoulder even as the
thought occurred to him that she smelled good. "Oh very nicely done,
Taline. I admire craftiness when it's well applied. Can you fly, too?"
"Any ship, anywhere," she said smugly as she put the dampening field in
place and then called up specs for the ship. "My parents are the best
pilots in the galaxy and they taught me all they know." She glanced
back at him and grinned, genuine and true for the first time.
"I am going to have to ask for more lessons when I get home then. I was
always better at the visualization of flight rather than the
practicality," Torvan mused. He reached over her shoulder to tap the
screen. "This does not seem to be a huge ship at all. It may not be
his prime base of operations. Can we tell how many others are aboard?
If any?"
"I don't know if accessing the internal scans will trigger an alarm or
alert," she mused as she started to scan over the specs. They were
quite a way from the nearest escape pod or the shuttle pad. And if the
crew was big enough, they'd capture them again with ease.
"Ah so a sneak along until we find the brain or auxiliary brain. At
least we don't smell badly enough to scent from far away," he said with
a snort. "Where would the best place to head be?"
"Auxiliary brain?" she asked, her brow furrowed. Then she pointed to
the shuttle pad, several levels up and starboard. "We need to be there."
"So we sneak like hungry voles," Torvan agreed, nodding slowly. "I
somehow doubt that fool would have been kind enough to leave any weapons
lying about in case we meet resistance. Come, we must be careful."
"I'll go first, I think I know the way," she said as she slid to the
door and waited for him. "Make sure nothing sneaks up on us?"
"I'm Cardassian and therefor paranoid," he snorted. "If anything does,
I'll hit first and ask questions later." He twisted his neck just
slightly. It definitely felt better. Whether it was from her brief
massage or just an energy burst from having hit the Orion, he had no
idea. "You keep a sharp eye out front then."
"I'll do my best," she told him as she opened the door, her eyes darting
right and left in the empty corridor. "Okay... I think we're safe for
now. We need left. You ok?"
"The scales on my fingers are itching which is merely the tension from
not killing that bastard...yet," he said in all honesty. Then he gave a
wry chuckle as he nodded for her to lead on. "This will make
spectacular scnes in a play or novel you know."
"When you write it, make me prettier," she teased softly though her eyes
were dead ahead, fixed on the next turning as she slowed their pace.
She strained her ears for any movement but it was all quiet. Pressing
herself right to the wall, she eased so she could peek round. Again, it
was empty.
"I don't think that's possible when you are really rather pleasing as
you are," he said, even as he looked back the way they came. Dark eyes
narrowed. He couldn't see the cell.
She felt colour crawl up her cheeks and she almost looked back when she
heard a door hiss up ahead. There were doors left and right off the
main corridor so she grabbed Torvan's hand and pulled him into the
nearest one, letting it close behind her. Her eyes scanned the room, it
was empty but as she looked she realised how stupid she'd been in
blindly running into the first available. "I'm sorry," she whispered as
she leaned against the wall of what appeared to be a small control office.
Torvan held one finger to her mouth, hoping it was a universal gesture
requesting silence. He knew his senses were not as sharp as hers but he
was infinitely, as he told her more paranoid. "It's alright. I believe
we are alone. It may have been an automatic sensor that let us in."
Again she was surprised by the softness of his skin as he touched her
lips but she mentally shook herself. Now was not the time to even think
about him smelling how he did, being so close and saying she was
pretty. "I panicked," she whispered. "I need to calm down."
"Calm down most certainly," he agreed but he offered her a shrug.
"Panic is occasionally a survival mechanism though so it was not
necessarily bad in this case." Those hooded dark eyes of his took in
their surroundings. "In fact, if I believed in fate or serendipity, I'd
say you did rather well. Look at this place."
It was filled with controls and screens, each showing a different view
of the ship. There was a camera inside their old cell because one of
the screens showed the unconscious Orion lump. "Not bad for a flighty
girl," she teased softly as she stepped away from him and stared at all
the screens.
Torvan grinned and rubbed his hands together. "It was more along the
line of stealthy genius. It sounds much better. Now, maybe we can see
from here whether than rank smelling pig is alone on this heap."
"True enough," she grinned as she started calling up displays. Most of
the ship appeared empty so far but who knew.
"Credit where credit is due after all," he said with a smirk. "If this
were my ship, I would have still encoded everything to be accessed by
retinal scan and hand print." He held up one of the appendages in
question. "No two sets of scales alike after all. I am willing to bet
he didn't do that and that much arrogance is just plain stupid."
"We already know he's stupid, he didn't monitor the call we made to your
father," she snorted.
"I like the way you think," Torvan said with a grin. He nodded his chin
toward the replicator. "That seems to be universal. I'll bring
something to warm you up."
"I'd like that," she said with a soft smile, her eyes watching him move,
noting still the slight stiffness but it wasn't as bad as it had been.
"Get a warm compress for your spine too. I don't know about Cardassians
but for us, any spinal injury has the potential to be bad."
"I'll live but I think you're right. I love my grandfather dearly but I
am entirely too young to walk like he does," Torvan snorted as he headed
for the replicator. He frowned as he read over the available items,
having no idea what some of the stuff was and whether any of it was safe
for either of them. Ah ha, this I recognize. "Raktajino coming up."
"My Mum drinks that sometimes," she mused. She flicked through each
camera almost lazily, her eyes drifting over each empty room until it
struck her: all of the rooms were empty. Quickly, she worked through
every other room and it was true, they were empty. "Um... Torvan... I
think... I think it's just us and him on here."
"That's..." He brought over a steaming mug of the beverage and set it
down beside her. He peered over her shoulder and shook his head. "I
think I'm offended. Did he really think he could just write either of
us off so easily? What an absolute idiot." He snorted in disgust. "He
deserves to die just to remove the stupidity genes from the galaxy."
"Yes but..." She suddenly grinned and threw her arms around him,
holding him as tightly as she dared with his sore spine. "We're free!
We can get home!"
He returned the hug by reflex at first but it occurred to him that she
felt good hugging him. "Umm...yeah, but you had better be a better
pilot than me."
"I told you, I can pilot anything," she said as she smiled softly up at
him. She liked the feel of his arms around her and for just a minute or
two, she didn't want to move. In fact, she said as much and added,
"This feels nice."
"It does," he said quietly. He was too self controlled to blush but he
had to force himself to not stutter. "Perhaps...maybe when we've set
course for wherever it is we're going, we can sit and talk. I would
like to."
"Me too," she said with a bright smile as she leaned up and kissed his
cheek before stepping back and letting him go. "I'd like that a lot.
But first we need to get to the bridge and set course. This ship isn't
so big so we should be okay."
He briefly touched his cheek where she'd kissed him. This was not how
Cardassians did things but it worked in his opinion. It worked quite
well. "That I am quite familiar with even if I am not a decent pilot by
anyone's imagination. My father used to let me play with his computer
when I was little."
"My Mum and Dad always took us up in the runabouts," she told him as she
checked on their prisoner one last time then nodded with deep
satisfaction. "We have two. One's just the everyday variety and the
other's the one my Mum and Dad souped up a little."
"I think it gave Father some sort of perverse pleasure in letting the
other legates see his children playing with expensive equipment."
Torvan managed an affronted look on his father's behalf. "As if he
would let us be careless."
Taline grinned, taking his hand so she could lead him to the Bridge.
"Sounds like he's got a cool sense of humour though. Definitely sounds
like something my Mum and Dad would do."
"I hope they realize that," Torvan said, eyes downcast slightly.
"Cardassia did a lot of bad things but we are not only still paying for
it, we are trying to makes some sort of amends."
She stopped in the corridor and turned to him, stepping in close for
just a moment. "Torvan," she said softly. "I'm really sorry about how
I reacted. You're... you're not what I thought."
His smile was only a little wistful as he squeezed her hand just
slightly. "It's alright. You were scared and angry. I was a
recognizable target."
"I'm glad I can't hold a grudge like my Mum," she said with a light
tease. "Then I'd lose out on my conversational partner later."
"Oh I am quite sure you can hold a grudge. I don't care if he dies any
time soon but I'll have a grudge against him any way," Torvan said simply.
"Yeah but he's got a face and a name, he's not a whole people, just one
man," she said with a simple shrug. They were moving again and came to
a lift up to the Bridge. "My parents hate Cardassians. All Cardassians."
Torvan still couldn't twist his neck as far as he should have been able
to but he could shake it. "Then I hope to hell they don't kill each
other because Father hates people who hate his boys. But, ah, now that
we have control of this hunk, shouldn't we call somebody?"
"How about when we get to the Bridge?" she offered just as the doors
opened to reveal the rather smelly and disgusting Bridge in question.
"Ugh... Well, it's almost exactly what we've come to expect of our host."
Other related posts:
- » [ussbansheec] Old Grudges
