Epilogue JP: Doctor Xal Rh'aga & Executive Director Singen Wrath - Rightsizing (PT1)

[Karrod Niac]

((Consortium Research Facility Sigma))

To describe Singen Wrath’s current mood as annoyed would be like describing the eruption of a volcano as warm & noisy, but it would suffice for the moment.  He’d already begun the shutdown procedures and was briefly pained at the loss, both in terms of equipment and personnel, the Consortium would incur, but that was a matter for the finance department to concern itself with another day. For now he had a few small duties to perform as the scrub team moved methodically through each compartment, scouring every meter of the facility for anything that could be used to harm the Consortium.  

The families of the researchers made a most agreeable racket as they were liquidated, which was one of the few balms upon his irritation at the moment.  He intended his next meeting to be another such balm and as the injured Worene was thrown at his feet by his personal security detachment, Singen looked down at the cowering being with cold unfeeling eyes.  

Wrath:  Doctor Rh’aga.

The Worene let out a meeker cough of discomfort that he would have liked given whose presence he was in at that moment. Xal was not so weak that he let fear rule him like Sratta but when tossed before Wrath as he was it was difficult to maintain a semblance of resolve. 

Rh’aga:  D..::cough:: Director Wrath. If I may be allowed to exp..

Singen reached down and wrapped a stony hand around the mans throat, easily lifting him into the air to dangle before him, desperately gripping at his fingers for purchase.  

Wrath:  To say I’m unsatisfied with your job performance is something of an understatement, Doctor.  

Rh’aga:  It. Wasn’t….my..fault. 

Singen threw the man like some would discard an empty beverage, shattering a nearby wall display and, he suspected, several of the beings' frail bones.   

Xal was certain several things were just broken when he was thrown across the room and not just the display. 

Wrath:  You were responsible for Doctor Sratta’s safety while she observed the experiment.  You were responsible for the scout vessel the Consortium provided.  Yet you returned to this facility with neither.  Explain.  

Singen walked across the small compartment and stepped down slowly on the man's exposed hand until he could feel bone crunch.

The Worene let out a snarl of pain that rolled into a reflexive hiss.

Wrath: Quickly.  My patience is…limited at the moment.  

Rh’aga:  Sratta!! That woman…was weak and let her terror of danger overrule her sense. I could not do my job while fending off that witch in her panic. I brought…the ship’s recorder so you can see, she broke the moment the Starfleeters fighters bore down on us. She flew us into the asteroids and surrendered to them. ::he coughed but quickly added:: I recovered the recorder so not all was lost. The full logs from the beacon were downloaded and I would not allow the Ronin to claim it fully. 

The physically broken Worene gestured with a claw towards one of the guards that had roughhanded him into the room since they’d confiscated everything he had in his possession upon his arrival. One of them had the recorder in hand. 

Singen stayed his hand for the moment and gestured instead towards one of the guards, holding a scorched looking data module.  

Wrath: We shall see.  

The guard stepped over to the console with the unbroken display and slipped the recorder into a receptacle. A few inputs later and the recovered data, as well as the full external and internal sensor feeds from the Exsanguinator played in full. A hiss escaped from Xal as the struggle between himself and Sratta appeared while the fighters battered at the ship. He was particularly displeased by that and made it known. 

Rh’aga: The Exsanguinator was more than capable to handle so few fighters, had that coward not driven us into the rocks. She denied me the pleasure of tearing those pilots apart! 

The delight in which the doctor took in inflicting pain upon others was well known among the Consortium. In his mind, aside from his multiple degrees, it was the reason he was certain he’d risen as far as he had within the organization. Sratta’s inept fear notwithstanding. 

Singen looked down at the simpering, indignant researcher with nothing but loathing.  His voice was low and distant, like the distant rumbling of a vast storm forming just over the horizon.  

Wrath:  Doctor Rh’aga, I find myself forced to apologize for my characterization of your failure.  When I learned what had happened I simply thought you were a coward who didn’t have the strength of character to manage a single person.  As it turns out that evaluation was too narrow and did not fully encapsulate the enormity of your failure.  Not only did you allow yourself to be overpowered and browbeaten until you committed acts of such profound stupidity that you compromised this entire facility, when you had an opportunity to at the very least prevent valuable assets from falling into the hands of the Federation, you failed yet again.  

Rh’aga:  Directorrr, the data module was returned! 

Singen glanced down with the loathing of a being who has just accidentally stepped in animal waste and ruined a favorite pair of shoes.  

Wrath:  You returned with a data module, Doctor, and allowed the Federation to seize Doctor Sratta, the far more valuable and compromising asset for the Consortium.  If you’d had even a small measure of good sense you would’ve killed her to prevent her capture.  That would have, at the very least, contained this fiasco of your making.  Instead you fled with data that is now useless to us and claimed it as some great success.  Do you understand the depth of your failure, Doctor?

The felinoid’s ears flattened onto his head and his whiskers flared purely from the tone in the Director’s voice. He wanted to kill Sratta so badly, to hear her shriek in abject terror as his claws flayed her kept skin but in his own desire to not be dragged down he inadvertently orchestrated his own nightmare. 

Rh’aga:  I understand. I underssstand. ::a soft hiss escaped him at his own fear:: I do not wish to be killed. 

[TBC]

====================================================

Singen Wrath

Executive Director, Consortium Exploitation Development Committee

V239509GT0

&

Xal Rh’aga, MD-PhD (Revoked)

Assistant Principal Researcher

Virology and Epidemiology
Surgical and Genetic Engineering

Consortium Bio-research Exploitation Group

As simmed by

Commander Toryn Raga 

First Officer

USS Ronin - NCC-34523

Writer ID: A239410TR0

https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Toryn_Raga