by Peter David
Once Monor died—of old age, in his bed, to B’Elanna’s disgust—Ardana’s importance dimmed accordingly. Its remoteness made it an ideal research base, but without Monor’s support, it became a true backwater. The population shrank to a mere few thousand, and supervision of the base soon became a death assignment. It was the post you were given when you did something horribly wrong but you couldn’t be killed due to mitigating circumstances. In B’Elanna’s case, Cestus III went horribly wrong, and Miral’s pleading on her behalf to the Regent provided the mitigation.
Pure research made B’Elanna’s crest ache. But better here than dead. Dead warriors could not regain their honor.
And B’Elanna had quite a bit to regain.
The wheels had, of course, already been set in motion. She had several plans in place, some of which might fail, but at least one of which was bound to succeed, and then she would be back in a position of power.
Her personal comm beeped. “Supervisor, this is Vralk.”
Vralk was one of the operations officers, an imbecilic young Klingon whose only skill lay in pushing buttons. “Yes?”
“The Bak’rikan has entered the system, and Gul Evek is hailing you.”
“Put him through.” Evek had already talked to her once, saying he was on his way to Ardana with “an interesting specimen” for Monor Base, though he could not divulge specifics over subspace. B’Elanna had doubted very much that the disgraced gul could make good on that promise, but she had no justification for turning him away, either. So she gave him permission to come. At worst, it would be a distraction. At best, it could provide her with another plan.
Evek’s rectangular features appeared on the screen. She had read over his service record after he called the first time. A good career for many years, with many successful campaigns, until his first officer, a glinn named Seska, defected to the Terran Rebellion right under his nose. That was the other reason why B’Elanna was willing to listen to Evek—they had something in common.
Unbidden, she recalled the ruins of the capital city of Cestus III. The Terrans had called it Kirk City, after one of their ship captains; the Alliance had renamed it Gorkon City, after the Klingon Regent who forged the Alliance. One of the Terrans, an old woman who had been one of the biggest troublemakers in the mines, and was only alive because her quotas were always exceeded, had led B’Elanna and her guards into a trap, sacrificing herself so that the other Terrans could escape.
The old woman had survived the collapse of the administration building, as had B’Elanna, and the latter’s final act as Intendant of Cestus III was to interrogate the old woman. Typically, she didn’t break, finally dying without providing a morsel of information beyond her birth name, which B’Elanna didn’t care about and had already forgotten, and the names of her comrades who had left Cestus in a stolen planet-hopper, a list B’Elanna already had.
She was recalled to Qo’noS, then, and brought before the Regent, who demoted her from Intendant to supervisor and assigned her here, where she spent her time being bored by scientists and keeping an ear out for information on a select list of Terrans, in the hope that someday she could take revenge.
“Supervisor, we are on approach to Ardana now. We should be in orbit in three hours.”
Evek’s voice startled B’Elanna out of her reverie. “So I’ve been told.”
“With your permission, I will beam to Monor Base personally, along with my, ah, cargo. I will explain all then.”
“Very well—you will be taken to my office in three hours. I look forward to meeting you,” B’Elanna lied. Then she cut off the transmission, having no desire to talk to Evek any longer than necessary.
She rose from her chair, restless after her duel with Kurak and feeling the need to play with her favorite toy. It wouldn’t do to meet with Evek while bursting with nervous energy. If she was to use him and his “cargo,” whatever it was, she needed to be focused. Right now, her brain was going a qelI’qam a minute, thinking about Cestus III, Miral, the Regent’s penetrating stare, Moset’s whining, Kurak’s pulped face, and the taste of her blood.
One of her office doors led to the meeting room, the other to a lift that she ordered to the lower levels of Monor Base. Most of the crew of the base lived elsewhere in Stratos—there was certainly plenty of room—so B’Elanna had taken over the entire bottom three levels of the building for her own amusement.
She arrived at the seventh of nine levels. Like most of the spaces in Monor Base that hadn’t been converted to a different use, this level was all wide, twisting hallways, giant archways, and open spaces decorated with abstract art. B’Elanna went through the room with the Kang Chair, the one with the spiked slab, the one with the branding irons and the brazier, and the one with the snakepit, before arriving at her goal: the room with the rack, where her favorite was currently stretched out, asleep. Or passed out. Either way, he was unconscious, which B’Elanna found unacceptable.
For several seconds, she simply stared at his prone form, arms up over his head, legs fully extended, bound at the wrists and ankles by Vulcan ahn-woons—not the purpose they were designed for, but B’Elanna saw no need to preserve Vulcan traditions. The device itself was of Terran design, and also was being used for a contrary purpose: it had been designed as a tool for punishment and for extracting confessions. The one history on the subject B’Elanna had read—a present from Miral when she was younger—had indicated that it was meant for interrogations, but B’Elanna knew better than to think that such a device would provide truthful answers. It was used to bend the will of the victim.
In the case of the rack’s current occupant, that bending had already taken place. He was B’Elanna’s, body and soul.
As she stared at his peaceful face, B’Elanna cursed her mother. She had many reasons to resent Miral, not least being her very existence as a halfbreed in a galaxy that did not appreciate such things.
Today, though, she particularly resented her mother for passing on her proclivity for Terrans.
B’Elanna simply couldn’t help it. Ridged faces repulsed her on a physical level. With day-to-day dealings, she was fine, but when it came to her bedchamber, she could not bear to touch or kiss or bite a face unless it was smooth. That left out many of the galaxy’s species, including the two that made up the Alliance.
Just like Miral, B’Elanna found she preferred Terrans for their combination of smoothness and enthusiasm.
Her favorite was particularly energetic. He had sandy hair, a long face, and eyes as blue as the sky. She had had many lovers, of course, but she always came back to this one long after others had been discarded.
She backhanded him across the face.
“Huh—? Wha—?” He looked back and forth, straining against his bonds for a moment before realizing where he was. He looked at B’Elanna and said in Klingon, “Oh—sorry. Guess I fell asleep.” He smiled up at her, his blue eyes twinkling. “What’s on the menu for today, mistress?”
B’Elanna smiled. That was what she liked to hear. Another reason why this one was her favorite was because he was so eager to please.
She looked up and down his naked body. While she liked a smooth face, she had less concern for the rest of the body, and his was covered with scars, bruises, and many brands.
His right calf, though, was mostly untouched.
Undoing the four ahn-woons, she said, “Come with me.” He got to his feet, stumbling slightly as his legs had to adjust to supporting his weight again. “Move!” she snapped, and he hobbled through the doorway, past the snakepit, and into the next room, the one with the branding irons and brazier. The latter cast a warm glow from the rocks that were perpetually kept alight. Only one slave charged with maintaining it had been foolish enough to let the rocks cool enough to stop glowing, and she was left to lie in the brazier for three days. It had then taken two more slaves several days to scrape the melted flesh and bone off the brazier’s bowl.
To her favorite, B’Elanna said, “Heat it.”
“Which one?” There were six of them, each in the shape of a different Klingon character.
B’Elanna pondered for a moment, then said, “You told me once that you had a name when you were a boy. What was it?”
He hesitated.
She smiled. Another reason she liked this one was that he never made a mistake twice. “This once, I won’t punish you for using your name.”
“Thomas, mistress.”
“tlhomaS.” B’Elanna rolled the word around in her mouth. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry, mistress.”
“You should be.” She picked the brand that had the character for the tlh sound, which was the closest Klingon equivalent to the first sound of her favorite’s offensive name. Removing it from the metal wireframe holder, she handed it to him. “Heat this one. You will wear it on your left thigh.”
“Whatever you say,” he said, taking the brand and going to the brazier. With a practiced hand, he placed the brand into the brazier, holding it far enough up the handle to keep it from hurting his own hand. Sometimes, B’Elanna instructed him to hold it closer to the brand, but she wanted his hands unblistered today. True, they only had three hours, but her favorite was rather good with his hands, and B’Elanna decided she was in the mood to be physically handled.
She removed her gauntlets and then the rest of her clothes while the brand heated up. He finished at the same time that she did, and he calmly walked over to hand her the brand.
Taking the brand, she shivered with anticipation.
6
The rest of Chakotay’s day had not been a pleasant one. He brought the raided supplies to O’Brien, only to have to listen to Smiley complain that what he’d brought wasn’t what he needed, that it was the wrong model of plasma manifold, that the duranium was entirely the wrong thickness, and then suddenly say, “Never mind, never mind,” and casually dismiss Chakotay.
“You’re welcome,” Chakotay said snidely, and left O’Brien to his tinkering.
He checked the cell to make sure Neelix wasn’t in it—he wasn’t, but Harry and Annika were, in a position that Chakotay had been trying and failing to get Kate to try for months. To his amusement, while Annika’s face was flushed and suffused with pleasure, Harry’s face retained the same stoic, unchanging expression it always had.
Quickly taking his leave, Chakotay went to the cavern that served as a mess hall. Neelix was sitting alone, and Chakotay felt the need to check on the alien, so he sat across from him and inquired after his state of mind. Neelix immediately began pestering him with a dozen questions, all of which Chakotay felt duty-bound to answer. After all, he had offered Neelix their hospitality, and the poor bastard was marooned thousands of light-years from home, so Chakotay could hardly refuse to help him—
—at first. Chakotay considered himself a patient individual. He hadn’t made his escape from Drema IV for almost a year after Sekaya’s death because he was willing to wait for the right moment. But after enduring an hour filled with endless political questions, numerous descriptions of Kes that bordered on the hagiographic, a lengthy treatise on the Haakonian-Talaxian war, and the recipe for something called darvot fritters, his patience was at an end, and he suddenly and impolitely excused himself. He promised himself as he all but ran out of the mess hall that he would apologize later.
Retreating to the small cavern that he and Kate shared, he saw that Kate was already on their pallet, fast asleep. Not bothering to undress—one learned quickly in the mines that one may be woken up at a moment’s notice and not given sufficient time to dress, so you’d best be dressed already, and that was a hard habit to break—Chakotay clambered into the pallet next to Kate.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Kate said.
Chakotay cursed to himself—he was usually quiet enough to allow her to continue sleeping. “Sorry.” I must really be tired.
“That’s all right, I wanted to talk to you anyhow, so it’s just as well you lumbered in here like a targ.”
A response died on Chakotay’s lips. After Smiley and Neelix, he didn’t need this, and didn’t have the energy to start an argument. He lay on his side, back to Kate. “Whatever it is can wait until morning.”
“No, it can’t.”
Closing his eyes and counting to ten in his head, Chakotay said, “It’ll have to. I’m going to sleep.”
A foot collided with the small of his back. “Like hell you are. We’re going to talk, and we’re going to do it now, since you were the one who woke me up. I would’ve been happy to wait until morning, but now it’ll take me at least half an hour to get back to sleep, so I may as well get this over with.”
Surrendering to the inevitable, Chakotay rolled over to his other side so he faced Kate. Damn, she’s beautiful. Those penetrating eyes, that proud nose, that firm mouth, those sharp cheekbones. She was a perfect physical specimen.
“Are you listening to me, Chuckles? This is important.”
If only we could do something about the personality. But no, that wasn’t fair. The physical beauty was nice, but it was as much her fire that Chakotay was attracted to as her physical form. If he just wanted someone with good looks and no personality, he could make a play for that Jadzia woman that Sisko used to dally with. As it was, he was content to let that idiot Bashir have her. Chakotay preferred his women to have substance.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m listening for as long as I can keep my eyes open.”
“I was talking with Tuvok earlier.”
That surprised Chakotay. Kate had never had much use for the Vulcan in the past. “What about?”
“Neelix’s woman. He thinks we should try to rescue her, and I agree.”
Chakotay blinked. “You do? Why? For that matter, why does he think so?”
“He said she has psionic potential.”
“More than ‘potential.’ Neelix said she wiped out an entire settlement of aliens. Kizon, or something like that.”
Kate sat up about halfway, supporting herself with her right arm. “Can we really afford to let something like that fall into Alliance hands?”
“Little late for that, Kate—she’s already in Alliance hands.”
“Then we need to get her back.” She sat upright.
Chakotay sighed. “Look, I agree that the Alliance having access to a telepath is bad for us. And I admit, I feel sorry for Neelix.” Chakotay shook his head, amazed he actually said that after the way he had spent the last hour. “I can only imagine what it would be like to be stuck thousands of light-years from home—and to have your lover taken on top of that. But I don’t see what we can do about it.”
“We rescued Jennifer from Terok Nor, we can do this.”
Now Chakotay, having given up on his admittedly unlikely plan of falling asleep while Kate was haranguing him, sat up next to her. “That was different. We knew where Jennifer was, and we had that other Sisko. But we don’t know where Kes is.” He cupped Kate’s face in his hand. “I’m sorry, Kate, but until we know where she is, the whole question is moot.”
“We know where Evek probably went.”
Chakotay shook his head. “We didn’t get a solid enough fix on him when he left the Badlands. He could have gone to either of two Alliance bases—or somewhere else altogether. We just don’t know.”
Kate started to say something, then stopped. “I guess you’re right.” She let out a long breath. “But I want to do something. Raiding parties for Smiley’s toy ship are all well and good, but stealing a telepath out from under the Alliance’s nose…”
Nodding, Chakotay said, “I know, believe me. I bet Seska would especially like to take her away from Evek. But unless we find out where she is, we’re stuck.” Then he grinned. “But if you’re looking for something to do…”
At that, Kate shook her head. “You’re impossible.” But she leaned in to kiss him.
The next morning, Chakotay woke up to find the pallet empty. That was hardly unusual—Kate was an early riser, and liked to spend her mornings
guzzling coffee and tinkering with Geronimo. (Sisko had managed to find a supply of coffee—the real stuff, not that raktajino swill the Klingons preferred—and that supply line had survived the captain’s death, to Kate’s oft-expressed relief.)
After Chakotay splashed some brackish water from the basin onto his face, he flipped aside the tarp that separated his and Kate’s private area from the rest of the base. As he exited, he found Seska walking toward him holding a padd.
“Good, you’re up. I’ve put the word out.”
Confused, Chakotay asked, “What word?”
“About Kes. I still have some contacts in the Alliance, after all, so I should be able to find her.”
Chakotay fixed the Cardassian woman with an irritated glance. “I thought you’d decided Neelix was a spy.”
“I was concerned that he was a spy, but I’m convinced he isn’t now.” She started making notes on her padd.
“What convinced you?”
She shrugged. “A number of things. Tuvok and I spoke about it a bit this morning, and he feels the evidence in support of Neelix’s story is pretty strong. But mostly that Kes is too valuable a commodity for the Alliance. If we let those Klingon butchers get their hands on a telepath, it’ll all be over.”
With an effort, Chakotay restrained himself from pointing out that the Cardassians were going to make just as much use of Kes, if they could, but he had long ago realized the futility of challenging that blind spot. Seska always argued whenever they struck a Cardassian target, and felt that the primary sin of the Alliance was that Klingons were involved, and if they could just get rid of them, Cardassia would be restored to glory.
The exception was Evek, of course, for whom Seska’s animus was frighteningly extreme.
“Also,” she added, “Harry talked to him.”
Fury started to boil inside Chakotay’s gut. “I specifically said—”