MSNPC Aleatoranna "Tori" Semara - Come With Us If You Want To Live
Max
(( Conference Room, Deck 1, USS Khitomer ))
A sonic shower on a Starfleet ship brought back so many childhood memories. The standard-issue sheets, the standard-issue bed, the standard-issue couch and table… And, most of all, mom was there, off in some other part of the ship doing her job the way she was always doing it when she was a child. Maybe she was younger and less experienced, but she carried the same force of presence she always had. Best of all - for the first time in a long time, Tori had slept, the empathic sound of a waterfall and smell of a sunny, shaded field protecting her from her bloody dreams.
Tori knew not to expect any telepathic contact until they actually met, but that didn’t stop her from hoping for it. She could sense the way her mom’s mind was already shifting and adjusting towards her, recognizing who she was. If mom could be patient, so could she.
Still, she wished the captain and the Admiral would walk faster already. She wished she had the Admiral’s emotional duranium hull.
She was barely in the doors, and she was already searching the room.
Hobart: Oh, thank goodness. All present and accounted for, sir.
There. Her heart skipped a beat when her eyes met her mom’s deep green gaze.
Then came the knock. She smiled. Only mom could make the telepathic invitation so perfectly proper even in an insane situation like this one. Even with the obvious turmoil of emotion, it was like a calligraphy invitation to afternoon tea on perfumed paper.
Tori accepted without hesitation.
Semara: ~ I saw you. ~
She swallowed down a volcano of emotion. This wasn’t the place to start crying.
The dream.
The dream was real. Not some demented figment of her imagination. It was really her.
Tori: ~ I know. I saw you too. ~
Semara: ~ How? ~
Tori wanted to chuckle. It would weird out the rest of the room though, so she just let her mom feel the elation.
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.
Tori watched her mom’s eyes move to Kael.
Semara: ~ :: Grinning telepathically :: Lover? ~
Seriously? They just reunited and this was what she was asking?
It was just like her.
Tori: ~ Boyfriend. ~
Semara: ~ Cute. :: Beat :: Very cute. ~
Wow. Just wow. And she was grinning? Was mom being serious right now?
Some things never changed.
Tori: ~ :: Amused exasperation. :: Really, mom? Really!? ~
Tori called her mom by accident already. That was fast.
Ayemet: Looking at the Admiral: Why are you here? Why the hostility?
Her attention shifted to the verbal conversation.
Tori: Not hostile. Just tired still, right my love?
A wordless note of approval wafted over the telepathic connection. Goddesses how she missed that.
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.
Strange - they only just met, but already she could feel the groundwork of her mom’s kindness and trust under her the way it had always been. Still, of course she had questions.
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.
Properness was all well and good, but she wouldn’t stand for their goals being called misguided before they’d even laid them out.
The impact of her words echoed in the room. That was more like it.
Hobart / Shayne / Any: Response
Dewitt: ::at Tori:: Have we lost the Isles?
Good old Connor. Always coming in with the right questions. She took a long breath.
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 a while ago, and with Alliance ships crawling over the Isles, we have no reason to believe they haven’t kept pushing further.
Semara: ~ Heavens, Tori. I’m so sorry. ~
Tori cast her eyes down, unsure what to say even as she felt her mom’s warmth telepathically wrap in a little closer. She couldn’t even know why this woman who didn’t even really know her was being so kind, but then again… that was mom.
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.
Semara: ~ What plan? ~
Tori: ~ Just listen for a moment. ~
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.
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.
The chatty one laughed, and not in an especially nice way.
Ayemet: You can’t be serious.
Tori: ~ What is her problem? ~
Semara: ~ Bad day. ~
Tori: ~ I knew not everyone would be happy to see us, but must she be so vocal about it? ~
Semara: ~ Hey - you came back in time, your consequences. ~
Oh, heavens, she really was mom. Devastating truths delivered with a playful glint in the eye and a telepathic frollicking skip over a grassy hill. Not ever really angry, just educational. Worst of all, she was right.
Semara: ~ But I think I’m happy to see you. ~
And then the big warm hug that came after. It made it so hard to be seated all the way across a conference table from her, wanting nothing more than to be wrapped in that tight embrace.
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.
El’Heem: Great man theory? You want us to kill baby Hitler?
Tori took a breath to try answering the question, but more officers piled on.
Michaels: History is full of examples where a single strong leader dies and another rises up to take their place.
Right. Her scheme. Her consequences. Let them get it out.
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.
Tori: Sorry - who’s Hitler?
Earth history had never been her strong point.
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 nodded her thanks to the talkative counselor. Some useful information.
El’Heem: What made ::pausing:: uhh makes this…Tholian so formidable?
She almost smiled, but then it caught when she noticed his hand. She cleared her throat, moving on quickly.
Tori: He speaks fluent Sheliak.
Okay, maybe they needed more than that. She sensed her mom was already putting it together - that was the future intelligence officer in her, but the whole room needed to understand.
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.
She finished making her point talking to the Vulcan.
Tori: Tholian and Sheliak units don’t combine outside of Federation prison. It’s possible there will never be another like him.
Tori felt her mom turning over all the new information, examining it like a specimen. It was hard not to fret, wondering what she’d discover.
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?".
Kael was exactly right, but apparently the line of questioning wasn’t over.
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?
They had all agreed that sharing the specifics of their time travel was a complicated subject. Better to keep the answers simple.
Tori: Yes.
But that wasn’t going to be enough for her mom. The question burned.
Semara: ~ You needed the Hobart Hole to time travel, didn’t you? ~
She weighed her options. She couldn’t say no, it would be an obvious lie. She couldn’t say nothing, the evasion would speak even louder than the truth. The question was too direct to wheedle out of, and the still-vibrating tension between them said they both knew the answer already anyway.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
She never could help fessing up.
Admiral: Response
Connor: So what is the exact plan, then, Ginny?
Semara: ~ You do want him dead, don’t you? ~
Tori could feel the pain laced into the question. There was no point in lying. She’d know soon enough anyway.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
Admiral: Response
And there it was. Kill Baby Hitler, as Ras had so artfully put it. Though he wasn’t a baby.
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.
Perhaps not. But she knew what the consequences of his life was.
Admiral/Any: Response.
Ayemet: You expect us to help you? Why would we do that?
Something inside Tori flipped. She was done explaining to dead people. A bitter hard edge pressed into her voice.
Tori: Because if you don’t, you die.
The Admiral probably wanted her to wait to share this, but she didn’t care. If they wanted to play by their rules, they needed to know the consequences. It was like mom said. Her words practically vibrated with anger. Not at the crew - they were scared and angry and confused and all the other things. It was the loss. The constant, unceasing loss.
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.
A long moment passed before she realized her mom was still there, as gentle as ever in her mind. She’d seen it all.
Semara: ~ I died, didn’t I? Not too long ago? ~
Tori stared, eyes glittering as she fought with her tear ducts.
Tori: ~ Yes. ~
Admiral/Any: Response