LtCmdr T'Lea - The Gain Of Time, Part 3
doggybunbun
((OOC: Last time on Star Trek Juneau: LtCmdr T'Lea - The Gain Of Time, Part 2 (google.com) ))
((3 Days Later - Phorth Outpost))
Many millennia ago the planet Phorth had been an active Iconian outpost, but presently all that remained of their existence were their ruins. The once proud display of their power and technology resided under the powdery gray-blue silt of the planet’s barren surface. Only microbial life occupied Phorth now.
And one Vulcan-Romulan hybrid.
It had taken three days to reach Phorth at maximum warp. T’Lea had rented a civilian shuttle from one of Lightside station’s budget transport dealers in order to stay off the Juneau’s radar. The journey had been uneventful, and the only problems she had encountered were strictly personal issues from within. She’d argued the pro’s and con’s of alerting Oddas about the situation. She’d toiled with moral and ethical values. She’d struggled with the person she had been in the past, who she was now, and where this might take her. It was a quiet, but contentious trip.
Reaching Phorth hadn’t brought any semblance of calm to her stormy demeanor. In fact, it was getting worse.
This was T’Lea’s second full day alone on the planet, and it was also her second full day without agalzaprine to turn down the volume of Blood Fever. Needless to say, the tide was rolling in.
T’Lea had endured the wait for Dal Selta on the first day with minimal difficulty by investigating the ruins and considering the possibilities. The evidence had been clear – Dal Selta had stripped the outpost clean of anything valuable. Whatever Iconian spoils had been here were now in Selta’s possession. The only technology left behind was a Cardassian relay that had been modified to use the Iconian power crystal, which was currently pushing its signal into space, and calling for its master to come.
The hybridization of Cardassian technology with Iconian was a deliberate flaunting of the Dal’s ingenuity. It was a warning of how far along she was in her project, and how dangerous she was becoming. It had pissed T’Lea off, but it didn’t take much to do that lately.
Day two had crept in and T’Lea was still surrounded by nothing but the broken-bones of the Iconian way-point, and it was becoming abundantly clear that death by Blood Fever was going to be an agonizing way to go. It felt as though somebody had turned on a furnace full-blast inside her body – as if she was being cremated from the inside out. But she fought it. Then there was a terrible, boundless ache of emotions, and at the forefront was an engorged lust of desire, and anger. It was smothering all logic. But she fought it. And finally the worst part of all was the inability to do anything about it. She had no one to fight, and no one to mate with. She’d put herself in a precarious position that had the potential to totally backfire.
It was irrational. But it was also quite incredible that she was even remotely cognizant, and coherent at this point. It was a true testament of her will to survive. Or was it her will to revenge? Hate, in this case, was just as powerful as love.
So she sat, and waited on the steps leading up to the empty command platform, which once controlled a gateway. Much like her routine before a fight, T’Lea sought a balance of energy, mind, and body. Peace would sustain her until violence was required. She hoped.
For hours she writhed under the still shell of her physical being. So static was she that the gentle winds had layered a fine dust across her folded legs and hands. Slowly she was disappearing under the silt of the planet, much like the Iconian remains.
Then finally it came -- a disturbance of molecules in the air approximately twelve feet away. T’Lea opened her eyes and the fine dust fell like snowflakes from her eyelashes. Her pupils narrowed and focused. The sound she had heard was confirmed. A yellow beam of light had deposited a Bajoran woman near the rented shuttle.
Like a statue come to life, T’Lea broke form and rose from the steps. Expressionless she waited. There was an invisible tremble that ran through her body as she struggled to maintain herself. The woman was the Bajoran from the recording, the one that told her to come here and wait for the Dal.
The Bajoran, Valar Enar, moved to meet T’Lea at the steps. She was casual, but haughty in the way she walked. There was a superiority about her that could not be missed.
Valar: I kept you waiting longer than expected. Are you ill? You don’t look well.
She knew the truth. Pon Farr. But she enjoyed a good game.
T’Lea: You said Selta would come.
The Bajoran’s hand waved her comment off in a friendly way.
Valar: I did.
She stopped at the bottom of the steps and gave a crappy grin up at the sickly looking hybrid. All this time she’d been in orbit on her ship, the point behind her delay was to weaken T’Lea. It was all part of the plan. Valar had been watching and waiting for the right moment when T’Lea would be most vulnerable.
The woman reached across to her opposite arm and tapped it. The holo-emitter armband slurped-up the image of the Bajoran and revealed a Cardassian underneath. It was Dal Selta. Valar Enar was the Dal.
Selta: I have a proposition for you. ::smug frown:: Well, not me exactly but your—
The sound of “fffttt” cut the air as a throwing knife targeted her heart. In that split second the Dal raised her cybernetic arm to shield what she could only barely see as a glint of metal zipping through the air. It wasn’t until the blade embedded itself in her forearm that she knew what it was. That took exactly two seconds. In the third second she had been lifted up by her legs and driven backwards into the ground. Her upper back slammed so hard into the powder surface of the planet that the wind had been sucked out of her lungs. In the fourth second she found herself twisted about, and suffocating in a new way when she became constricted in a rear-naked choke by T’Lea.
The thrill of finally reaching the climax of satisfaction was only a few more seconds away. T’Lea’s body was surging with a chemical as potent as anti-matter. Soon her torment would end, and she would be released from the ridiculous Vulcan mating ritual. But most of all she was seconds away from avenging her mother’s death.
Voice: Peanhe, STOP!
Blind rage truly was blind. A figure emerged from the tunnel vision in T’Lea’s eyes.
Voice: I said STOP!
The female drew closer and suddenly everything became clear to the Romu-vulc. An earth shattering scream of “no” screeched out of her throat and bounced across the ruins. A shock of mind-shattering emotion ricocheted through the hybrid’s body so violently that it physically tossed her from the fight she’d most certainly won.
In that second the Dal was loosed and she rolled toward her freedom. T’Lea looked up from the dirt in vehement disbelief. A fleeting thought shot through her mind… Was she going mad?
T’Lea: You’re dead! You’re dead!
The face of her mother, Raivus softened with sympathy.
TBC in PART 4
Lieutenant Commander T’Lea
First Officer
USS Juneau
Author ID I238301T10