From Romulus, with Love

Posted on Sat Mar 12th, 2016 @ 12:34pm by Captain Li Hawke & Commander Oralia Zeferino & IKS Ning'Tao
Edited on on Mon Mar 14th, 2016 @ 7:07pm

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Romulus

Isa had taken a few minutes to first pick the electronic lock on the door and then drag the dead guard into the hallway and down to an alcove. There, she wrapped him in a convenient curtain and stood him up in the corner of the alcove. “Stay there,” she whispered, backing out into the hallway. He did; she breathed a sigh of relief and hurried back to Kaeli’s opulent room.

Once back there, she locked herself in and replicated a sandwich for her dinner. While she ate, she mentally poured over the map Kaeli had pressed into her head. To get to the intended transmitter, she’d need to go up four floors and past a guard post. She looked for a better way, but the ‘map’ Kaeli had had wasn’t the best - mostly because it was Kaeli’s memory of the place. Isa went to the console in the room and opened it up. After a few minutes, she had something slightly better, a drawing of the building. This one had sensitive areas blurred out, but Isa needed to pass through only one of those. She stared at the diagram, a little loathe to take off on her own.

But she did. She searched Tindam’s pockets and found something like a commbadge in one. Pocketing it, she set off to locate the terminal. Several close calls and one very frustrating lock later, she was facing the console, entering the number Kaeli had given her. “If Mr. Rin-tin-tin could see me now...,” she muttered.

=^=Cardassia Imperial Starship Intira. Who is this?=^=

“It’s Isa... Isaura. Isaura Panossian. I have to speak to Jarad,” she said. The screen on the console remained black. “Or Drekkar. Immediately.” Her demand was met with silence. Just as she was getting panicky, another voice came over the comm and the console screen flickered to life.

“Isa?? Are you alright? Where are you? And what about Kae?” Even as expressionless as most Cardassian countenances were, she could see that hearing from her had him excited. “Is she alive?”

Isa touched the screen, as if wanting to touch Jarad’s face, and stifled a sob. “She is. We’re both fine; we have all our hands. We’re in the... they keep calling it the Fortress. Where are you?”

“About four hours out,” he answered, then turned to say something to Drekkar, who was attempting to unseat Jarad so he could talk to Isa. When Jarad turned back to the screen, he looked extremely relieved. “I know the Fortress. It’s where they took Kaeli after she helped me escape Cardassia.” Bitterness flooded his voice. “She lost a year of her life in that place. Where is she, Isa?”

She hedged, “Ah... she’s... having dinner with a cranky old bastard. Named Rekar. Chairman Rekar. Are Zarv and Rafe with you?”

“No, they were over a day away from 900 but are returning.” Jarad paused and frowned. “Dinner? With….Rekar? Why?”

“I don't know. I wasn’t included in those plans. She can tell you better than I can. Can you beam us out?” She knew that was a pipe dream, but wanted the possibility considered.

“Not yet. It’s going to be tricky when we reach Romulus too. Will you be able to contact me again in four hours? Will Kae be back by then?” His tone said she had better be.

She checked the time on the console. “Unless I get caught, I should be able to. Kaeli’s already been at dinner for over an hour, so she should be done by then.”

“Good. Be very careful, Isa. Trust no one there...but Kaeli. Give her my love when she gets in and I promise we’ll be there as soon as is physically possible.” Jarad smiled finally. “Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” she grumbled as the screen went dark.

Drekkar pushed at Jarad. “Unless she gets caught?! Jarad! We have to hurry and get there!”

“We're going as fast as we can,” he assured Drekkar. “There's something I need to do right now, though.”

“We need to urge the pilot to move a little faster. I can light a fire under the engineer, too.” Drekkar’s adrenaline was high and he was ready to fight.

“Alright, here's the deal. I want you to check on our passenger. She should be waking up. I need to go get rid of Farak. He has gone as far as he is going to on this trip.”

Drekkar stared at Jarad for a moment then shook his head. “No, no, he's our ticket back to Cardassia.” He realized that Jarad had gone soft and that Kaeli was to blame. He grabbed Jarad’s shirt and shook him, “We are going to go get Isaura and then Farak will take us to Cardassia. What part of that plan is difficult for you to understand?”

“We are already going to Cardassia,” Jarad responded. “He is not. Look.” He touched the terminal’s panel and a new message appeared, from Boroca. Orders for Drekkar and Jarrad to terminate Farak. “It’s a test, Drekkar. We want to be believed, we have little choice.”

Drekkar listened to the message and quietly said, “Oh. Well. Let's get on that, then.” Far more agreeable about this plan, he turned for the door.

* * *

They had stopped by the Captain’s quarters to check on Nyyar, only to find that she was gone. When the computer was asked, it informed them that Nyyar was no longer on the ship. That meant one thing - Farak.

“If that isn’t one more reason, I don’t know what is,” Jarad growled. They had tracked down Farak to his own quarters and now, he rang the chime. “Short and sweet, then you can take over the bridge,” he growled to Drekkar.

“Where the hell is Nyyar, then? You’ve gone this far to rescue the damsel in distress,” Drekkar didn’t think of either Kaeli or Isaura as ‘damsels’ who needed rescuing, so going after them was okay. “Let’s make Farak tell us where she is.” He went silent as Farak opened the door.

“You two. Here to discuss your duties once we arrive at Cardassia?”

“Oh yes, plus one other very important matter.” Jarad pushed him back and led the way inside. “Computer, lock the doors,” he ordered.

Farak stumbled back, so strong was Jarad’s push. “How--”

Drekkar’s fist to his jaw cut off Farak’s question or protest or whatever it would have been. “Shush. We’re taking over.”

“Thank you Drekkar.” The smiled Jarad turned on Farak now was chilly. “Sit down. First things first. Where the hell is Nyyar? Tell me and you’d better hope I like the answer.”

“Just where we should be: on the way to Cardassia. Boroca was tired of waiting and demanded she be put on a shuttle and sent to him,” he rubbed his jaw. “This is a fool’s errand, running after these two. We risk starting a war with Romulus.”

“Not if we are as good as I think we are, and we are.” Jarad looked to Drekkar and shook his head. “This is not going to go over well,” he muttered. “Anyway Farak, we came with some news.” He pointed to the terminal. “Show him Drekkar.”

Smiling, Drekkar turned the console around and pulled up the message. He hit play and stepped back. Boroca’s voice filled the room, condemning Farak to death. Drekkar sighed. “That’s tough, man. Really. Sucks to have done everything right and have those above you bite you in the ass like this. We’ll make it easy for you, though. Either Jarad can practice on you for a few days or you can take a walk out an airlock.”

“Since we’ll be in orbit around Romulus in four hours, I vote for the latter.” Jarad gave Farak a stern look. “If you have two brain cells to rub together, you’ll go the fast route. You really don’t want my attention.”

“And if he makes us divert to go get Nyyar, you definitely won’t want my attention, either,” Drekkar threatened.

Farak, devastated by the betrayal of his superior officer, hadn’t yet found his voice. Instead, he could only blink. Finally, he took a breath. “I don’t... Why? I did everything right!”

“I have one word for you sweetheart.” Jarad reached out with his fingertip and pressed it against a nerve in Farak’s neck. The man immediately howled in pain. “That word is ...tool. That’s what you were. Zikar needed a lackey who had ambition and was willing to screw him over for a good price. Boroca chose well. You managed to drive him over the edge as desired. Now, since you know what Boroca was up to, you have to go. Pretty simple I think.”

“You know, too!” Farak winced and dived backward to avoid another pressure point test from Jarad.

“Oh, I actually feel sorry for you, Farak. But, we have orders. We’ll carry ‘em out. What’ll it be? Actual walking or transporter?” Drekkar was still by the console. “I can have you beamed just beyond the shields. It’s a quick death. Not the most pleasant, but better than Jarad’s way.”

Swallowing hard, Farak nodded. “Easier still would be a deletion of the pattern in the buffer.” He’d done it to others; he couldn’t think of the pattern as ‘my’.

“Oh, that is. I bet that’s painless. Just the feeling of being beamed out and then... oblivion.” Drekkar liked it.

“Brilliant, Drekkar,” Jarad agreed. He turned back to Farak with a smile. “There’s a difference between you and us. We may know but we are way more useful than you. In fact, we are two of the best. Boroca is positively giddy that we are coming back. Does that answer your question?”

Looking belligerent and confused, Farak looked at Drekkar. “Get it over with.”

Drekkar nodded and, with a few keystrokes, initiated a remote site-to-site transport. Farak disappeared and he stopped the transport, holding the man’s pattern in the buffer. He looked at Jarad and said, “You know... in theory, we could download him and stash him somewhere. Pull him out when he’s necessary. If he’s ever necessary.”

Jarad laughed out loud. “We could. Keep him in stasis a while maybe? Nothing inspires loyalty like sparing someone’s life.”

“You have experience in that,” Drekkar said, moving the pattern instead of deleting it. “We have three hours and counting.”

Jarad smiled at Drekkar and nodded. “You were worth saving my friend. Not many are. Kaeli goes without saying.”

“Yes. Would you have felt the same of Isaura?” Drekkar was curious.

Jarad shrugged. “Given what I know of her now? Definitely, which is why I look after her. I would have trained her one big blind spot out of her though.”

“What blind spot?”

“You, Drekkar. But she has it and there is no explaining it, much as there is no explaining why Kaeli sees the good in me. I wasn’t aware I had any. As such, Isa sees it in you. If we don’t lose both of them in this mess, perhaps you will consider that and value her a bit more.”

“Huh. And here I thought the human was her blind spot.”
****************
Isaura Panossian
Jarad
Drekkar
Farak