Lieutenant JG Amelia Semara - I Know Your Face, Part 2
Max
Their eyes met. It took everything she had to keep her mind from running headlong to her daughter, and to ask to speak telepathically the way that was proper.
Tori smiled, and the door to her mind cracked open almost instantly.
Semara: ~ I saw you. ~
It was all she could think to say.
Tori: ~ I know. I saw you too. ~
It was real then. Somehow, across time and space, they had shared an instant that defied everything she knew about reality and telepathy. Her heart was pounding, yearning for more.
Semara: ~ How? ~
Amelia’s features struggled to arrange themselves feeling the unadulterated happiness of her daughter coming back at her. Her daughter!
Tori: ~ Dunno. I’m as confused as you are. ~
For a second, the two just basked for a moment, tentatively feeling out the realness of the shared contact.
Kael: I hope you’ll hear us out Captain Shayne.
Admiral: He wouldn't have brought us here otherwise, Kael.
Shayne: Response
Kael: :indicating Ayemet: What’s her problem?
Admiral: She's not your mother. Let's focus.
Amelia spared a glance for the man named Kael. She knew Tori would be following along.
Semara: ~ :: Grinning telepathically :: Lover? ~
Tori: ~ Boyfriend. ~
Semara: ~ Cute. :: Beat :: Very cute. ~
She allowed herself a coy grin at her daughter.
Tori: ~ :: Amused exasperation. :: Really mom? Really!? ~
Ayemet: Looking at the Admiral: Why are you here? Why the hostility?
Tori started speaking seamlessly. Well - at least Amelia’s future self did a good job of teaching Tori the game of holding two conversations at once.
Tori: Not hostile. Just tired still, right my love?
The manners were fairly good, too. Not bad, little one. Not bad…
Hobart / Shayne / Any: Response
Kael: My apologies :pause: We’ve been through alot, and it’s important that you listen to us. That you give us a fair hearing.
Ayemet: Not your responsibility. You can’t just go around changing history to a version that suits you.
Her eyes went back to Tori, curious rather than scolding. It was hard enough to believe her own daughter would come back smashing through time. She would have trusted this wasn’t just a whim, even if she couldn’t smell the scar tissue of trauma under the warmth of reunion.
Semara: ~ It’s not that, is it? ~
Tori: ~ No, it’s not. ~
Ayemet: :More sympathetically: I know something of the Sheliak, but what will happen will happen. WE can’t change history to our liking. How many misguided people have tried to do that?
Tori: This isn’t about likes and dislikes. This is about lives. More than you can imagine.
There was a startling windstorm of strength to the quiet anger in Tori. Amelia’s eyes watched carefully as the conversation unfolded.
Hobart / Shayne / Any: Response
Dewitt: ::at Tori:: Have we lost the Isles?
A flicker in the connection. She knew Connor, judging from the little reaction. Probably well, if she was dating his son. Goddesses - what must he and Talia be going through? They might need to hold some sort of PTA convention after this...
Tori: Venthis, Emisa III, Theta 122… I’ve lost track. Planets they can’t even use. Simply, they hate carbon life. :: Beat :: We lost all contact with Starfleet over a year ago, and with Alliance ships crawling over the Isles, we have no reason to believe they haven’t kept pushing further.
The significance of the words seeped into the room. They weren't losing a war. They were just dying en masse. Her mind worked closer to her daughter's, sitting there with her.
So that was what had been on the stones in the dream. Names of the dead.
Semara: ~ Heavens, Tori. I’m so sorry. ~
There were no words for that kind of grief. It could only be felt, and Amelia felt the hundreds of solar masses of loss in Tori’s heart.
Any: Response
Kael: Captain It’s not just the Isles. That’s just the starting point of what happens. The Admiral and Tori :pause: They have a plan that could change all of that.
A plan?
Semara: ~ What plan? ~
Tori: ~ Just listen for a moment. ~
Amelia turned her attention to the woman who called herself the Admiral. The elder woman certainly carried Tori’s respect. She could feel the long service and trust held.
Admiral: The Lattice Alliance was, at this moment, losing. It may not feel like it to you, but they are. They were spread too thin, and cracks were forming. I saw classified reports that units were beginning to turn on each other. That's why, a week from now, they're going to raid a POW camp on Alpha Trionus II.
Richard: :: Pulling out his tricorder and opening a notes app :: POW camp, Alpha Trionus two.
Amelia shot Richard a look. Now was not the time to be talking to himself. At least he was taking notes.
Ayemet: To what purpose?
Any: Response
Admiral: They used overwhelming force, and it took six months before Starfleet figured out where they launched from. No survivors, orbital defenses completely destroyed. High ranking military official was the target, but that wasn't what mattered.
Ayemet let out a weird bark of laughter.
Ayemet: You can’t be serious.
Tori: ~ What is her problem? ~
Amelia looked at Ayemet, and then back to Tori.
Semara: ~ Bad day. ~
That was putting it mildly. Her friend had nearly puked the night before, and was clearly having trouble sorting through the tornado of emotions in the room.
Tori: ~ I knew not everyone would be happy to see us, but must she be so vocal about it? ~
It was hard not to smirk. The telepathic sidebar reminded her so keenly of the way she complained to her own mother when guests were being a pain.
Semara: ~ Hey - you came back in time, your consequences. ~
Amelia sensed the echo of thousands of times some future version of herself had a lesson for a tiny Tori. Bizarre, to have the faint impression of a version of her that didn’t exist yet. If a lifetime of memories shaping Tori wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.
Semara: ~ But I think I’m happy to see you. ~
Any: Response
Dewitt: What matters then, Ens… Gin… ::quietly:: Admiral?
Admiral: A lowly quartermaster, a Tholian. Captured at the Siege of DS33, he proved to be a… unifying and stabilizing figure. Eventually, Supreme Leader. Unified the alliance, and conquered the Quadrant within a decade.
The room seemed to come alive with the last piece of the elder’s story.
El’Heem: Great man theory? You want us to kill baby Hitler?
She watched Tori try to get a word in before Lera tagged onto the question.
Michaels: History is full of examples where a single strong leader dies and another rises up to take their place.
Richard: Even if you took the leader out before they rose to power. You haven’t done anything to stop the situations that are occurring right now to have set them up. Who is to say someone else doesn’t slot right into place. If assassination is your goal here I mean.
Assassination. Was Tori really here to kill a man?
Tori: Sorry - who’s Hitler?
Any: Response
Ayemet : Hitler was a 20th century dictator who was the leader of Germany on Earth. The war against him cost millions of lives.
Tori thanked the woman with a nod.
El’Heem: What made ::pausing:: uhh makes this…Tholian so formidable?
Something about Ras made Tori squirm. Unnoticeable, perhaps, to anyone who wasn’t currently in the woman’s brain, but Amelia could feel every turn inside her daughter.
Tori: He speaks fluent Sheliak.
Amelia’s lips started to part. That was impossible… They were notoriously unintelligible.
Tori: You have to understand that, at this time, no member of any species has ever learned the Sheliak language. Even telepaths can’t understand them. It's part of what their sense of superiority is built on. But Tholians being imprisoned side-by-side with Sheliak created a unique environment for one to learn the language. His book will be the first published in their language by an alien to their culture. He will be the first non-Sheliak to deliver addresses in the language. Factor in his radicalization during his imprisonment, and he’s going to become a force of uniting hatred the likes of which this quadrant has never seen.
Tori finished her point aimed at Lera.
Tori: Tholian and Sheliak units don’t combine outside of Federation prison. It’s possible there will never be another like him.
She needed to think. The amount of information Tori had just given was difficult to comprehend.
Any: Response
Michaels: I have a question. ::beat:: A two part question. ::beat:: I confess that I do not understand the equations and engineering around time travel or inter-multiverse travel. I will concede that your version of the Ouchita is capable of both. You could have travelled to anywhere in space and time. Why did you pick this place, in a nebula that makes detection difficult, and this time? If the quartermaster is the critical individual, why not travel to DS33 during the seige, where there were numerous dead Tholians, and kill him there?
Kael: Traveling through time ain't like dusting crops! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end our trip real quick, wouldn't it?".
That wasn’t much of an answer, and Amelia let Tori feel her inquisition.
Banks: To clarify: you’re saying that your ability to travel back in time is constrained, and there are only certain places or times you can successfully travel to?
Tori: Yes.
Her eyes narrowed. That was some answer. Then it dawned on her.
Semara: ~ You needed the Hobart Hole to time travel, didn’t you? ~
Normally telepathic communication was far faster than speaking. She knew Tori was deciding what to share by the pause that passed.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
The truth, apparently.
Admiral: Response
Connor: So what is the exact plan, then, Ginny?
Amelia could already feel the wrath in Tori’s heart. The plan was obvious, no matter how much it might hurt to think her daughter was capable of cold blooded murder.
Semara: ~ You do want him dead, don’t you? ~
The answer was utterly black.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
Amelia shuddered. What had happened to Tori to make her like this? Had Amelia erred in some way?
Admiral: Response
The “Admiral” confirmed what she already knew. It just made it worse, being unsure if it was Tori’s idea, or if she was just the brains that made it possible.
Ayemet: Admiral, I’ve had my taste of the Lattice Alliance hospitality :pause and then speaking slowly: But you can’t seriously think that by killing this individual it will somehow change everything for the better? You’ve no idea the effects their death might have.
Amelia felt the certainty in Tori. It was the same force of will she herself had inherited from her own mother. The same stubbornness Connor had pointed out in her not so long ago. Goddesses, what a mess.
Admiral/Any: Response.
Ayemet: You expect us to help you? Why would we do that?
Something monstrous took over Tori at the question. An amalgamation of memory and emotion that wove a tapestry of trauma that went on and on, and of countless people who had become merely stories.
Tori: Because if you don’t, you die.
Amelia felt the way grief had rotted away a long time ago, and now it was a peat bog fermenting toxic, flammable gasses.
Had she failed as a mother? Was she going to?
Tori: Not all of you, not all at once, but most of you soon enough. :: Beat :: Mostly pointless deaths fighting pointless battles. If you don’t like the sound of that, then open your ears.
Then it hit her, the answer to it shining through a single gap in the thunderstorm of her daughter’s feelings.
Semara: ~ I died, didn’t I? Not too long ago? ~
Maybe a year or so. She could see it. Dying in one of Starfleet’s final battles in the Isles, leaving her daughter behind.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
Admiral/Any: Response