By Dabin Reece
100105.1200
After Capture the Hag
-=Somewhere on Sibalt=-
100105.1200
After Capture the Hag
-=Somewhere on Sibalt=-
As he came out of the haze, the gentle warmth of a spring morning on Trill began to fade into the dark dreary dampness of… wherever the hell he was.
*Dabin, where are you?* He heard February’s voice in his head, but didn’t really realize it was her in his still half-dreaming state.
*Five more minutes, Mom.* He thought. *Just five more minutes.*
He was just beginning to focus and realize it was February thinking at him, when he got a whiff of the musty room he was in.
“Dwan, dude. Your socks smell like wet drywall and old cat food.”
Wait a minute, room? He was supposed to be in a tent, not a room. Dabin sat up and looked around. Yup, there was no doubt, this was a room, not a tent. And the musty smell was the mold growing up the walls, not Dwan’s socks.
*Dabin!* She thought again.
*I’m here. Wherever here is. Where are you?* He got up off the ground where he had been unceremoniously dumped, and starting feeling around in the extremely dim light for a door.
*It’s Jelca Rued, Dabin. She captured us. I tried to figure out what she wants but she’s not talking.*
*Well that was rude. Get it? Rude?* Dabin grinned a bit at his own joke but Bru was not laughing. *Okay. Okay. What did she say?* Dabin thought to her.
*Just that she doesn’t want money, she’s not a terrorist, and she’d by the judge of my worth to her. She also said the matter would be settled by the time the Federation ever found out about anything that happened here.* Dabin’s smiled turned into an ever increasingly long frown and Bru spilled what she knew. One thing was for sure, he needed to find a way out of here because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to help February. Dwan’s socks didn’t seem so bad now.
The door began to creak and Dabin jumped back away from it. He saw two large guards on either side of the door, and Jelca Rued in the middle.
*Bru, the guards at your cell, was one tall and blonde with a crazy ass dragon tattoo or something, and the other one even taller with dark hair and biceps like a tree trunk or steroids?*
*Yeah, that would be them.* She answered.
*Well then they might be the only two, because Jelca has them at my door now.*
The good news was it appeared the odds were even. Jelca weighed little more than a skeleton. That just left Dabin and Bru against the two mammoth guards. Maybe the odds were not as even as he thought.
“Hello, Reece.” Jelca sneered. She tried to saunter into the room in a manner that was supposed to be threatening yet seductive. She accomplished neither.
“Hi there! Look the new digs are great. I love what you’ve done with the place, but my tent mate gets grumpy if he doesn’t get his morning calf massage, so maybe I should be going.”
Dabin moved to step past her, but she grabbed him with a bony hand to stop him. He could have shrugged her off with ease but the two bruisers stuffed side by side in the doorway told him not to bother.
“You aren’t going anywhere. Ever, again.”
Dabin stepped back a few steps. “Is this about me calling you rude? Because that was pretty lame on my part. I apologize. Now lets break out the Scrabble and pretend this never happened.”
Jelca stepped up close to his face, Dabin leaned back a bit and grimaced in response. “LOOK at me Reece. Do I not look familiar to you?”
Dabin began combing through Reece’s memories. There was something about this woman, now that he thought about it. The shape of her eyes and her neck. Whatever it was, it was not a pleasant memory, because it was not easy to put his finger on. She was not one of Aramos’ conquests, or a colleague of Tulila. She wasn’t a student of Leacynth’s or a patient of Rilan’s either.
Jelca could tell he was struggling to remember. Dabin was concentrating with all his might, trying to form a background around this woman’s features, to place himself in her frame. The picture was just too hazy.
Jelca aided his memory by whispering just one word to him, the name of her homeworld. “Sveji.”
As soon as she said the name, the picture came into focus, and Dabin knew exactly who she was. “Ladron.” He whispered back.
Jelca stepped away, giving Dabin a moment to recall the deeds of one Ladron Reece. “No, wait! No. It doesn’t work like that. What Ladron did to your people was terrible, but that was another life.”
“Sellena told us about you. Told us how Ladron would live on, as Reece was passed from host to host.”
“His memories live on, but Ladron died decades ago.” Dabin answered.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Jelca boomed. “I knew you would try them! Ladron is in there, and he’s going to pay for what he did to my people!”
Dabin was impressed with just how terrifying the tiny woman could be when she was really angry.
*Are you getting all this, Bru?*
*I am. That’s not fair Dabin!*
*I don’t think she cares what fair is. We have to get you out of here, Bru. We have to find the crew.* Jelca was still going on about justice being served while Dabin was conversing with February.
As much as he wanted out, he wanted February out even more, because if this Jelca was hell bent on making him suffer, the best way of doing it was through February.
“Look, Ms. Rued, I’m very sorry for what happened to your people, a long long time ago, but Dabin is just a host, for Reece. And Reece was nothing more than an unwilling passenger in Ladron’s body. You can do whatever you want to me, and I’m hoping it involves cookies, but none of it is ever going to do any harm to Ladron, or undo anything that happened on your world. Believe me, I don’t like the guy either!”
“Don’t like the guy? Do you know what happened after he left? Economic collapse. Our planet was hit with a depression that lasted over twenty years. My family was once one of power and influence. We gave up everything for ‘Wonderland’, as did many others. My ancestors swore on that day, when Ladron abandoned us, that one day we would return to power, and have our vengeance on him, on you. The Rued family once again rose to power on Sveji, with the promise that one day we would achieve warp flight, find Reece, and make him pay for what happened.”
“Oh, so you used the promise of giving the people something they wanted to gain power. Gee, where have I heard that before?” Dabin shot back. He was answered by a slap across the face from Rued. “Hit a little close to home eh?” Dabin did his best to pretend that slap hadn’t fazed him, despite the red finger shaped bruises forming on his cheek. She slapped him again. “Ok, you can quit that now.”
“That’s the least of your worries.” Jelca said.
“You know, we aren’t alone here. People are going to come looking for us. People who love my wife are going to be very ticked off at you. Me, they can take or leave, but her? She’s like the sunshine on the ship. You take away the sunshine and people get Seasonal Affective Disorder, and that makes them…”
“SHUT UP! Your friends are all dead. I saw to that already. The last thing any of them ever heard was your name. They knew you are the reason they were dieing, just before the end.”
“I don’t believe you.” Dabin shot back. His best guess was that she was bluffing, but he had no doubt she would hurt any and all of them, especially if she thought it would hurt Dabin.
“Oh, its true. And that little ship you left behind will advance our technology hundreds of years.” Jelca grinned. “And in a few years, when we’ve had time to study and duplicate it, we’ll be back, to pay the Trill a visit, as they paid us many years ago, and we’ll make sure no one from your world ever has the chance to interfere with our planet again.”
“Oh, you really don’t want any part of the Alchemy. Pointy and Kellyn have done things to that ship that will make your head spin, just before its transported through time.”
“Time?” Jelca asked, narrowing her brow. Dabin swore he heard the sound of February’s palm slapping against her forehead over the link. One of the guards received some kind of message on a communicator on his wrist, and ducked out into the hall.
“Uh, that’s just a figure of speech.” Dabin answered.
The guard who had ducked out moments before returned to the cell. “Minister, the Serendipity crew is dispersing through the woods.” Jelca pursed her lips, and slowly turned around to glare at the guard. “Oh, right.”
“I’ll be back.” Jelca promised Dabin. With that she was gone, and Dabin was once again locked up inside his cell. As soon as the door snapped shut he began exchanging thoughts with February again.
*Any idea how to get loose?* He asked.
*Already working on it! The doors are magnetically sealed. TC showed me how to reverse it with a hair pin and the shoe lace rings on my Converse. Just keep the guard distracted.*
Dabin had to admit he was impressed. He knew how to do this in as laboratory by exposing a magnet to an electric field, but how one duplicated the electric field in a prison cell with a bobby pin and a small metal ring was what separated the scientists from the Spec Ops personnel.
“Oh! Oh my spleen!” Dabin yelled through the door. There was only silence on the other side. “Oh! Ow! Geez, I hope I don’t die before Jelca gets to execute her long planned revenge, I bet she’d be pissed!”
The door slowly cracked open, and Dabin, who was in the fetal position clutching his sides, looked up at two rather nasty looking energy weapons.
“What is the matter?” The larger one asked, skeptically.
Outside in the corridor, February had released the seal on her door, and was creeping slowly up towards Dabin’s room. She found two large heavy metal rods laying on the floor, just the right size to knock someone upside the head with. She heard Dabin’s fake moans of pain, and the aggravated guards who probably didn’t believe him, but were too afraid of receiving Jelca’s wrath if Dabin really was sick.
*Dabin, keep it up, in five seconds I’m going to toss you a rod. Take out the one on your right, I’ll take the one on the left.*
She began counting down, as Dabin rolled himself a bit closer to the door. The guards were standing over him, unsure what exactly they should do. When she reached one, Dabin leapt to his feet, just in time to catch the rod out of mid air. “Stand back, Musketeers! They shall sample my blade!” He declared, and with a single swing he and February rendered each guard unconscious.
He gathered up their weapons, giving one to Bru, and stopped just long enough to kiss her on the cheek. “Now, we just need to figure out where the heck we are, and how we get out of here. No problem right?”
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Dabin Reece
Chief Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Dabin Reece
Chief Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012