by Michael Blakeney
90811.0900
Immediately Following Thrust Upon
-=USS Serendipity=-
90811.0900
Immediately Following Thrust Upon
-=USS Serendipity=-
As Gem Lassiter lay frozen in her bed in Sickbay, she began to hear rumblings all around that they'd arrived in orbit of Earth at last. She couldn't see out of any viewports from her prison to confirm this, and it irritated her beyond her ability to stand for much longer. Fuming, her eyes darted around the curtained off area that she'd been condemned to confinement in since the moment she'd felt her heart breaking within her chest. Since the moment she'd realized that Nicholas was really gone.
Damn them, Gem thought. They'd failed to save her son and they'd each in their own way have to pay for that. Damn them all.
She found that the beeping sounds of the monitor attached to that newly repaired heart of hers would increase in frequency, signaling her agitation, every time she remembered the words of the Vulcan who she had just put into place as Captain of this vessel.
She couldn't understand it. She should be feeling some, even if only the slightest sense of peace now that Zanh had been put in her place, or rather, taken from it. Some deep and righteous satisfaction to replace her equally righteous outrage. Some feeling that her actions were right and justified, even if justice itself had not been fully served. But every time that sense of satisfaction began, even in the slightest to creep into her consciousness to the point where it actually formed an emotion strong enough to help quell her burning rage, Gem found that the words of the man she'd put in Zanh Liis' chair simply poured more fuel onto the fire.
“This will not bring back your son," Salvek had said, when learning of her decision to remove Zanh from command.
Maybe not, Lassiter had thought to herself. But I'll be damned if I'm going to suffer alone.
Too many years she'd spent already, suffering alone.
-=Flashback, 2357 Current Timeline=-
Gem began to slowly take small steps towards the body of the alien that had been revealed beneath the ambassador’s disguise. Michael however stayed just where he was and watched as she leant down over the corpse, feeling it was best to see what Gem did and said next before he allowed her to see his reaction.
Tentatively Gem began to raise her hand towards the face of the being before her. For a second there was contact before instinctively she drew her fingers back. Then seeing there’d been no damage she once again allowed her finger to brush against its skin.
It felt cold; much colder than the ambassador’s body had been just seconds ago. Even through the gloves its orange skin felt damp to the touch. Not quite wet, but like the world in the morning as a frost just began.
A sudden shiver seemed to charge through Gem for just a second. It wasn’t the feel of death or the shock of the change, it was the realization of just how different what was before her was from what had been there so shortly ago.
Certainly the face was different, the nose had grown and the ears had seemed to fall back along the head. That didn’t matter. A life in Starfleet taught you to see past such superficial things. However whoever this was was not simply his species’ version of the man she’d known Braylan to be. The features were softer. He, assuming this even was a he, looked far too young. She found herself considering the ambassador could possibly have been a very different man on the inside.
Mentally Gem shook herself out of it, reminding herself that judgments must be made based around actions and that appearances could quite easily lie. The man behind her she knew was not what he appeared to be.
Certain now that whatever this being was that it was definitely real, Gem stood fully upright again and took a step back away from it to best preserve the evidence. There was little more that she could learn from the body with the equipment they had on hand that wouldn’t be completely redundant when compared to what the specialists could figure out when they arrived. She considered now that someone from the agency should have shown up by this time and wondered whether Michael Blakeney hadn’t had something to do with the fact that they hadn’t.
“Do you recognize the species?” She asked curiously, never turning around.
“No, I don’t.” Michael casually replied, though from how he was watching her out of the corner of his eye instead of the body Gem knew he had to be lying. He wanted to know if she believed him. Gem said nothing. She would force him to be the one to break the silence.
“Why on Earth would someone want to pose as the ambassador?” Michael slowly asked with what could best have been called indifferent curiosity.
Now Gem really didn’t believe him. For a second she considered that he may have been a member of this same species. Much like the ambassador, he did have a noteworthy interest in human females. One thing was certain, whatever and whoever he was this game was becoming very tiresome.
“You do recognize him, don’t you?” she asked firmly, turning around to confront him and crossing her arms across her chest. "What he is, if not specifically who he is."
Michael remained calm, a smile sneaking on his face as he matched Gem’s accusing glare with one of gentle amusement. This was a man quite accustomed to dealing with women catching him out.
He began to speak but before he could protest or lie to her again they were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of someone materializing behind them.
Automatically both turned to see who it was. Gem’s phaser was lost, having been discarded in the recent struggle, but Michael quickly pulled out his own in the split second he had during the materialization as he saw that a drawn weapon was already targeted at them.
It was held by a man dressed exactly like the one who’d been attempting to kill them not so long ago; but given that he was about half a foot taller it was clearly a different person.
“How the hell many of you are there?” Michael protested, but their guest had no intention of answering him.
The man spent half a second sizing Michael up, trying to judge if he could fire before Michael had a chance to fire back. Not willing to take that risk, the man’s eyes scanned the room for what his comrade was supposed to remove before he was interrupted. Suddenly he’d located what he was looking for.
“Throw that over here and no one gets hurt!” He demanded gruffly of Michael, indicating with his weapon what it was that he wanted.
Michael couldn’t afford to avert his gaze but with her heart pounding, Gem looked back quickly over her shoulder to the desk behind them to see what it was that they were supposed to be handing over even though she had no intention of doing so.
“The data storage device?” Gem seemed to ask, but really she was making sure Michael knew what it was the man wanted. Whatever else he was or was not, since he'd mysteriously come into her life he’d always been on her side in moments of danger. So right now she was going to give him as much information as she possibly could and hope to hell that her decidedly irrational faith in him was still justified.
The intruder nodded roughly that she was right.
“I think not.” Michael scoffed. “Haven’t you noticed there are two phasers here?”
The man certainly had noticed that and it wasn’t difficult to tell that he was even now still weighing up his chances of being the one to fire first. Suddenly Gem had an idea.
“Maybe,” she suggested in a very shaky voice. “Maybe we should just give it to him.”
Michael almost turned his eyes away from the attacker to stare at Gem in disbelief.
“What?” He asked incredulously. Not only could he not believe that Gem would want to give up the evidence but he’d never have thought he’d hear her sound so scared.
“You’ll protect me, won’t you?” she asked, seeming to tremble fearfully as she stepped quickly behind him as if using him as a shield.
A second of confusion passed before Michael realized what she was doing. He then realized quickly he’d better start playing along.
“Don’t worry, baby.” Michael announced heroically, taking great delight in saying it. He drastically and dramatically lowered the pitch of his voice and exaggerated his actions as his hand swiftly reached behind him. He pulled her a step forward and his arm shot around her waist. With a decisive yank he pulled her close against his side. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Had the circumstances been even the slightest bit different then Gem would have let him known exactly what she thought about him calling her ‘baby’, not to mention how he'd clasped onto her, and especially for enjoying it so much. Now she just had to work to stop from cringing as her hand moved onto the communication’s panel behind her.
“So, you’ll hand it over?” The intruder growled, wishing he could just kill them both right now and have done with it.
Though she kept looking forward, Gem’s eyes flashed a split second of annoyance before she again made them overly wide with fear to play her part. Her hand continued to move across the panel, feeling in search of the right button.
“Well, I…wait a second.” Michael said, trailing off and not leaving the intruder looking at all happy. "What's in it for me?"
"What do you mean what's in it for you? You get to walk out of here alive!" The intruder growled, irritated at the demanding tone of his opponent's voice.
"But you see, there's the thing." Michael said, suddenly releasing his hold on Gem so he could bring his free hand to his chin to appear thoughtful, as his phaser and eyes remained trained upon his adversary. "I came in here alive. So leaving that way but with nothing else really doesn't give me much to take back to my people."
The words my people gave the intruder pause, only for an instant.
"I warn you, I'll shoot!" the man’s hand gripped so tight it seemed almost to cut into the weapon he was so dearly wanting to fire.
"I'll shoot too. Then we'll both be dead and no one gets the data cube. Who wins then?" Michael asked evenly.
Gem thought she’d found what she was looking for and the sudden vibration in her pocket told her she’d succeeded
“It's not worth dying for! I'll give it to you!” Gem said, forcing herself to cling to Michael’s side again, sounding much more nervous than she actually felt. “You can have it. Just please don’t hurt us.”
The intruder indicated with his weapon for her to get the device and she quickly picked it up, holding it in the air for his inspection.
“Bring it here.” The man demanded.
“No.” Michael answered, plucking the device from Gem’s hand. “Even if we do then we’d all just be in the exact same position we are now.”
The man almost growled at first but then began to smile beneath his mask.
“Actually, you won’t. You see I planned ahead. If I didn’t get back by a certain amount of time then some friends of mine are under instruction to come looking.” He looked at the large clock on the wall out the corner of his eye. “They should be here in exactly 10, 9, 8, 7, 6…”
This was not part of Michael and Gem’s plan. With her heart-pounding Gem tried desperately to form a plan while Michael stared into the man’s eyes looking to see if he was bluffing.
“5, 4, 3…”
Michael was sure that the man wasn’t and Gem came up with nothing.
“2.”
In a moment of zero consideration Michael made a decision and threw the device suddenly into the air.
As the man looked up to see it coming towards him Michael took full advantage of the momentary lapse to grab Gem under his arm. He rapidly activated the transponder in his jacket pocket.
The man saw what was happening and he fired, missing only by a fraction of a second as the two agents dematerialized before his eyes as his comrades materialized in front of them.
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Lt. Commander Michael Blakeney
Temporal Investigations
Lt. Commander Michael Blakeney
Temporal Investigations