M-Tri’lea Polgonz: Control Is An Illusion (Part 1)
Robin Hopper
((OOC – Hi everyone! It’s been a surprisingly busy week and an exhausting weekend. All the same I’m going to try to push a few sims out in the next few hours… Here we go!))
((Shuttlebay – USS Independence-B))
For all the evil she had conceived, the mother world – Betazed – was also a place of great beauty. Her lush forests, her crystal oceans, and her azure skies served as a reminder of what once was… what could be again. The Betazoids had learned much from the galactic oppressors, the Terrans, when they had held the whip. Too much. Aping their ways, building an empire, ruling through fear – these were contrary to the very foundations of what it meant to be a Betazoid.
And yet, that was the legacy she and her generation – and the generation before her – had inherited. An entire society flipped on its foundation, fighting against its very nature. Was it any wonder then, that they had become so divided? How bitterly those sides now fought?
Wil reached for her hand, but Tri felt no warmth inside herself to share, and tucked her arms up around herself, as if she were fighting off some chill. The sight of her mother’s killer – or whoever this was, who shared that monster’s name and spirit – had turned Tri to ice. Now she and Wil were following this Hopper on some foolhardy mission that was liable to get them all killed. There was a cruel irony at play that Tri didn’t fully comprehend, and certainly didn’t appreciate.
Hopper: ::Formal:: Commander Carter, I have, um… The other Wil and Polgonz here.
Carter – or as Tri knew him, one of the Mother Eternal’s terran attack dogs, looked their way but said nothing. Another cheery voice rang out as the other “Starfleet” officers arrived. Now that she knew each of them had some vile counterpart in her own reality, Tri began to wonder at them as she studied their faces.
Reade: Hello all!
Esma: Hello
Wong: Aloha, everyone. How are preparations coming?
M-Tri’lea: ::Coldly:: What do you need from us?
Carter: Whatever information we need to complete our mission.
Tri rolled her eyes. Terrans could be such tedious idiots. She could sense the man didn’t trust her – why would he? – and wished to keep their plans to himself. So she probed his mind and a picture of their mission began to unfold itself to her. A sketch, given his reluctance and his own obvious lack of intel. But it was enough for her to understand that if they did not succeed, they would likely be destroyed.
Wong: Guidance for one thing. We need our people back and we need your help in doing so.
Tri scowled. As if she knew anything about where their people were. Assuming they were even alive. A likelihood that shrank with every minute they wasted standing around. She turned to face the shuttle.
M-Tri’lea: Then I suggest we don’t waste anymore time talking.
Esma: She seems quite upset.
Reade: :: looking towards Esma:: Indeed.
Her scowl became a glare, directed towards the two who felt it necessary to expound on her feelings – as if it weren’t abundantly obvious why she might be upset, given the circumstances. Of course, the emotionally-stunted Vulcan, would be ‘conducting analysis’.
As they made their way towards the small craft, she began to think about how she and Wil might find their way out of this mess and back to freedom.
((OOC – Removing the tags / bits of tags below that were spoken quietly between individuals, as Tri would likely not have heard them.))
((Type 10 Shuttle “Gatineau”))
Tri found her way to a seat near the back of the shuttle. No doubt, she and Wil would be allowed nowhere near the control systems or sensors – despite the fact they’d been brought along to provide ‘guidance’. She gestured for Wil to sit across from her and, as the Starfleet personnel closed the hatch behind them and took up their positions, she tried to regain control over her feelings. A clear mind would be necessary, if they should find themselves in a position to free themselves.
Esma: All systems are reading nominal and ready, Lieutenant Reade.
Reade: Excellent, thank you Ensign Esma.
Wong: Okay. I’m ready when everyone else is. ::At Fog:: How are you doing?
M-Wil: Where exactly are we going, and what do you need us for?
Carter: You will find out soon...
Tri sensed Wil’s annoyance, and reached out to her telepathically, sharing the sketchy plans she’d ‘skimmed’ from Carter’s accessible thoughts. Something about disabling the Mother Eternal’s sensor grid. A risky proposition, if she understood it right.
The officers then began talking amongst themselves, too softly for Tri to make out all the details, so she instead returned her focus to studying the shuttlecraft’s interior – looking for options.
((OOC – The following tags take place out of M-Tri’lea and M-Wil’s earshot, to keep things consistent with John not telling the Betazoids the full plan.))
Hopper: ::Checking over her terminal, speaking softly:: We’ll be traveling to another nearby system, outside of the solar nebula. I’ve begun charting a route that should minimize our disruption of the benamite field.
Wong: So refresh me here - what is it we’re exactly doing?
Carter: We're getting back our people. Hopefully not getting vaporized in the process.
Hopper: Of course, in order to get those people back – and avoid.. ::grossed out:: ..’vaporization’, we need to be able to enter the space around “Kirilow” without being detected.
Reade: :: To Wong:: We need to destroy the early warning array that is protecting the Emperor, at least that is what Mirror Bec said. Mind you though, there is some benamite within this area.
Wong: Benamite is nasty stuff if you hit it the wrong way. It’s like dilithium turned up to 11. If we’re going to be flying through that, we’re going to need a steady hand.
Carter: It's nasty, but other ships have and are doing it. So will we.
((OOC – At this point, since the ‘top secret’ chatter is over, I’ll assume everyone raises their voices again and the Betazoids are, once again, in the conversation.))
M-Wil: ::To M-Tri'lea:: I'm beginning to think we should have stayed in the brig…
Her visual scan of the shuttle’s interior while the Federation folk were preoccupied had yielded few results. There were EV suits, but nowhere to run should they manage to incapacitate the crew and eject themselves. Floating adrift was likely a cold barren death sentence by asphyxiation. Stealing the shuttle would mean killing the lot of them and, while she was not above many things, cold-blooded murder was not Tri’s style… That was the way of the Mother Eternal, and she would not stoop to such lows.
M-Trilea: Don’t worry… If there’s one thing I know about Terrans, it’s that they can make any place feel like a prison. ::A scowl:: We’re as trapped here as we were behind the forcefield.
Hopper: Alright, everyone, we have a course plotted. I’d recommend maintaining a lower warp speed. We don’t want to set off any more anomalous reactions along the way..
Reade: I agree with Ikaia; we need to be super careful.
M-Wil: So whose steady hands are all our lives in? ::looks to Wong:: Yours?
Wong: Ah! I don’t think you’d want me flying again. It was hard to stay steady enough to collapse a warp bubble between shuttles.
Carter: I don't think you will be flying this one…
M-Tri’lea: ::Rolling her eyes:: What sort of military is this? You don’t even know who is going to pilot your shuttle? ::Scoff:: By the Four, how you people survive in your universe is beyond me…
Hopper: ::Slight scowl:: We’re explorers, not some sort of dicta–
Tri turned away. She had no time to listen to idealistic drivel from a villain like Hopper. She could sense the woman’s hurt at being snubbed.
oO Good. Oo
Reade: I can fly if no one else wants to. :looking around::
Carter: I'll do the flying, Scotty…
Wong: Good…. Just ah… let me know when you need me to step in.
Reade: Do we know how to take down the early warning array? Do we have a set idea of what can happen?
Tri sighed loudly in annoyance, but kept her gaze averted. It was bad enough that she and Wil had become captives of these people, but now they were being dragged along on whatever pathetic rescue mission they’d concocted with no real idea how they were expected to participate.
If there was one thing Tri’lea Polgonz hated, other than the barbarous Betazoid Empire itself, it was feeling useless. She was a fighter, an infiltrator, not a lapdog waiting for scraps under anyone’s table. She knew these people wouldn’t trust her – nor could she trust them – but the thought of sitting idly by drove her mad.
Carter: If we screw up, they know we are coming, we get blown to bits or captured. Neither is acceptable.
Esma: There are several methods likely to be effective: disabling the equipment by causing a power loss, blocking transmission between relays through interference, and reprogramming the sensor array to ignore the Independence and other non-Betazoid imperial vessels.
At least one of them had some sense. Ironic that she seemed to be the lowest ranking of their order. The Klingon spoke up next, and Tri looked at him, hard.
Wong: I could reprogram it to ignore us and other non-Betazoids if I can get in.
He was certainly familiar as well – but it was no doubt his light hair. The Mother Eternal kept a pet Klingon in her service – though he was a cunning and ruthless spy, broken and remolded by the Terran, Carter. There was no way she could believe that this timid spineless healer was the same man… a cousin, perhaps.
Hopper: ::Looking over her shoulder:: I can help as well – but, I’m sure it’d go a lot faster if our Betazoid, um, friends, assisted as well. They’ll be more familiar with the computer systems than we will, and we’re working against a clock here.
M-Tri’lea: You don’t act like it. The Empress performs executions faster than you lot get a shuttle started.
That comment seemed to elicit at least some sort of acknowledgement from Carter. The Terran man loomed over his captives with a presence that might have been menacing, had Tri felt any threat of violence from the man. He put on a brave and forceful front, but beneath the facade she could sense he was an emotional and scarred man.
Carter: Tell me what you know about the control node for the sensor net. Tell me what I need to know to get inside the net.
M-Wil: You're awfully bossy. Especially for a man...
M-Tri'lea: What makes you can order us around?
Carter: It's in your best interest to do so. If we die. You die.
M-Tri'lea: This isn’t a suicide mission. None of you are prepared to die – you’re not even prepared to accept the likelihood that your missing friends are almost certainly dead at the hands of the Empire or, if not, then the Alliance…
There was a tense pause as Tri’lea considered the position they were in. Death at the hands of a torpedo’s fire would no doubt be a mercy compared to whatever horrors would befall them, should they wind up captives of the Unified House… Yet, a glimmer of hope remained. These people weren’t killers… they were different. Perhaps if they helped them, they could be reasoned with.
Sighing, Tri’lea broke the silence.
M-Tri’lea: The sensor grid, like much of Keehani Ukinix’s plans, was manifested as swiftly as possible. Her paranoia would never allow a vulnerability to linger. But haste leads to cut corners. The grid’s strength is also its weakness. It is designed to detect the Empire’s enemies – but friendly ships pass entirely undetected. Not even a sensor blip.
((OOC – I’ll address the tags from Wong to Hopper in another sim.))
Carter: Scotty...how are you at spoofing their patrol ships?
Reade: It should be no issue sir.
Carter: Allright. Let's finish our pre-check and get airborne.
oO About damn time… Oo
Tri’lea looked across the cabin at her Imzadi. Of all the strange misadventures that she had survived with Wil by her side, this might just well be the most unusual… and the least survivable. At last, the frost melted – just a little – and she furrowed her brow at the thought that this may well and truly be the last thing they did together.
END
==
Tri'lea Doyoxo Polgonz (she/her)
Daughter, Twentieth Wing
of the Unified House of Betazed
V239806K11