Hunting for the good guys

Posted on Fri Feb 4th, 2022 @ 5:53am by Lieutenant JG Heather De La Rosa {Kelea-Salik} & Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Lieutenant Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen [Taylor]

Mission: Tales from the other side of the Mirror
Location: Location of a Resistance base, somewhere
2923 words - 5.8 OF Standard Post Measure

{ON}

Trudging along the arid surface of a practically barren planet, Heather did her best to keep up with her Vulcan lover. She’d once been a strong inquisitor, and resistance supporter before she was found out, and made a green skinned warrior by the Empire’s Doctor Sthilg.

Thanks to Savar, Heather had been saved, her genetic modifications reversed as best as could be done given what resources they had but she was ailing due to incomplete treatment. She struggled along behind him trying to keep up before she stumbled and fell.

Savar had trudged on, an iron man, calling on his Vulcan reserves to keep moving. He knew Heather was ill. He had saved her from Sthilg's experiments. had reversed her green skin modifications but that wasn't enough she was ill and tired almost constantly. They needed to find resistance doctors to help Heather. So when she fell he was at her side in an instant. He cradled her in his arms, He held the canteen to her lips, "Drink Heather, we will rest for awhile."

Heather nodded and took a Welcome sip of the drink, she was angry at herself for being so weak. “You should go on, get help. We can find a cave, or somewhere where I can wait for you.”

Savar shook his head. "I will not leave you Heather. If need be I will carry you. For now rest and we will continue on shortly. I am confident we will find shelter ahead."

Heather nodded. “Thank you Imzadi” lying down where she was she stretched out to rest. Her body ached, her abilities were practically useless as she wasn’t strong enough to utilise them. “How...much further do you think we have to go?”

"Difficult to say Heather," Savar as he surveyed their surroundings.
I would say we should fine shelter over the next rise. I am hopeful in my prediction."

“Then we should keep going” Heather rested for a moment longer before sitting up ready to walk again.

"Agreed, I would like us to find shelter before nightfall." Savar replied. "Take my arm for support and we will begin our quest."

Heather nodded as she held onto Savar’s arm. “I hate this! Being so weak. I’ve always been a strong person.”

"please lean on me Heather, you are not heavy." He replied as the pair trudged to the top crest and looked down and froze, their mouths agape nd what they saw before them. It was a rebel bunker bae. built in to the side of the mountains with the external entrances painted to blend in with the surrounding landscape. Savar looked at Heather, "I believe our fortunes may have changed. Let us go and see."

Heather nodded. “I should be able to tell you if there’s anyone in there from here, but I’m just not strong enough.” She held onto Savar as they made their way down to it.

"Heather do not trouble yourself, your abilities will return you suffered greatly while under Sthilg's 'care.' I am greatly relieved i found you when I did and was able to stop his genetic experiments on you as well as remove your green skin pigmentation. Let us see together what the base holds."


A moments fiddling had the wheel lock pop out of the hidden door, and a wrnech with vulcan strength was enough to set it spining until the bolts popped open and the door swung open. Inside was a single corridor, dark mostly. One or two emergency lights gave off tennis ball bits of light here and there, but barely 1 in 5 in the line running deep inside was lit.

Savar turned to Heather. " We are in." He said stating the obvious." He took her by the elbow and together they moved, slowly, cautiously down the dimly lit corridor. "Let us see what we can find to use to help our situation." As his fingers remained wrapped around the wrench.

Heather kept a gentle pace, “I’m either not sensing it, or there’s no one here Savar.” She has been hoping for some help.

"That may bode in our favor." Savar replied as the pair continued their slow progress down the dimly lit corridor.

“True” Heather nodded. “I’m not sure what kind of reception we can expect to get.”

"Not a very friendly one, I am quite sure Heather." Savar replied just as they came to a locker containing food packets. The food packets had a film of dust over them.

Beyond the locker four doors opened on the corridor, thick holes of shadow. One door was stuck half closed, half opened. Opposite, another had been peeled open, the metal pulled back from the bottom right corner just enough that someone could slither underneath. Between those two and the next two door down were long windows, smeared with dirt and dust, the one of the left cracked to spider webs, the other half smashed, hanging in its frame.

“This place is so creepy” Heather looked around. “If we can find a room without smashed windows it’ll do as a place to Shelter, at least it’ll be dry and warm once we get a fire going. Maybe there’s some old supplies here, maybe blankets.”

"Let us find a room to shelter in." Savar answered even as he looked at the doors that had opened. He wished to explore them but they could wait. Heather needed to rebuild her strength.

They moved further down towards the last two doors, leaving the last of the feint lights behind with the rations locker. Glancing through the two windows they saw what looked like a mess hall on one side, tables and chairs upturned, dead wiring hanging like vines from a half collapsed ceiling

“When they left this place, they made sure to wreck it first” Heather sighed. “I guess I can’t blame them. If they were attacked it would have been assisted by an inquisitor, like me. I eventually started helping the resistance but I don’t know who in the resistance knew about me.”

We both have tried to make up for what we did in service to the Empire by secretly helping the rebels though I doubt we would be believed or welcomed."

Heather nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

"It is an excellent reason to be afraid Heather." Savar replied as they finally came to a corner room that would provide shelter for them. Upon entering they also found a few blankets they could use.

“This is much better” Heather smiled as she pulled out the blankets setting them up a cosy corner where they could rest in some semblance of comfort.

"I concur in your assessment Heather." Savar replied, "This is much better and with the food packets we found we have something to eat as well. That is a most welcomed surprise."

“Would you dig out one of those for me please? I’m starving!” Heather offered a warmer smile as they settled down to rest. “It’s a shame there’s no power for heat still we can set up a small campfire.”

Savar handed her a food packet. "Agreed Heather. In the morning when we can see better we will continue to explore. Perhaps we can find other items for our use including weapons."

In the space that Heather drew breath to reply, they were beamed up; the familier orange light, and fishimmer against he nerves was all they got for warning. When their awareness returned they found themselves in a sealed room maybe four meters wide and five long. On each long side there was an arch way. On one side the arch way had a small round window, heavily sealed, looking out into the stars beyond. On the other side the arch had no window, just flat metal, with heavily sealed windows either side, showing a sarkened room beyond.

Savar looked at their new surroundings. "We are in an airlock Heather." He stated factually.

Heather nodded. “I noticed, but I don’t have a good feeling about this!”

"I share your concern Heather." Savar replied looking bout their small prison.

A light clunked on, illuminating the room beyond the window., and the three figures within. One was a boslic woman of a certain age, lilac hair slightly faded, purple eyes dark beneath her flared brow bone, arms folded, frowning at them. On her left was another woman dark skinned, dark eyed. Shaved on the sides, the rest of her thick hair was bright bright red, dreadlocks braided in a thick ridge adown the centre of her skull. an ugly scar carved its way across the right side of her skull, and she was tapping a hyposspray in one hand.

The third was a handsome human man, bright blue eyes, and dark hair to his broad shoulders. He moved to the Boslic's right. "The transporter record." He held up the pad in his arms, but was adressing the Boslic woman. "The DNA matches Inquisitor Heather de la Rosa, late of the ISS Elysium. We don't have a record for him."

"Elysium? Small world." she murmured, then raised her voice to address the pair they had beamed up. "Inquisitor?" The Boslic woman's voice sounded flat and scratching through the intercom to the airlock. "You're a long way from home."

"I am Savar. I was a counselor on the Elysium." He offered though his gaze seemed to settle on the human male.

“I was an inquisitor” Heather looked at both in turn. “I became...loathed to serve the Empire, instead I turned to helping the resistance. I was...the one who took Taylor’s son by sending him with the Alicia from the other side.” She had to sit as her head spun. “For my trouble, I became one of Doctor Sthilg’s Orion slaves. Savar...saved me.”

"So," The Boslic woman said. "You put yourself on the losing side of some powerplay and having dodged a fitting punishment you come looking for someone else to help you avoid the consequences of being evil."

"You are gravelly mistaken." Savar answered, looking at the three. "We came to help the rebels."

Heather looked at the woman. “I can provide you with what information I was privy to. It could be invaluable to those fighting the Empire.”

There was silence for a few moments. "Do you know what else is invaluable to those fighting the empire?" The Boslic asked cooly. "Justice. All I'm seeing is a criminal, and a colloborator trying to avoid reaping what they've sewn. You're going to have to try harder if you don't want me to order that door opened." She nodded at the archway behind them.

“Fine!” Heather stood facing the woman on the other side of the airlock window. “I’ll submit to a telepathic probe! I’m sure you have other Betazoids here. Have them read my mind! You’ll see!!”

"You sure about that? I won't have your brain read, I'll have it turned inside out. Everything you’ve ever done. Every act. Every crime. "

Heather nodded. “I submit dammit!!”

Savar stepped forward, "Heather no, you do not know what they can or will do to you."

Heather looked at her companion and lover. “Imzadi...it’s the only way! It’ll show them we’re telling them the truth.”

"No, let them test me. Vulcans do not lie." Savar stated simply.

Heather shook her head. “Savar...no.”

"What would you suggest Heather? To have them turn your brain into jelly?" Savar countered.

“No I...” She shook her head. “What am I supposed to say?”

"What you already have. If their minds are closed they will never believe anything we say." Savar replied.

Heather nodded sitting down on the deck, “Why don’t you just kill us and get it over with, I’m useless to anyone like this.”

"You are not useless to me Heather." Savar answered in a firm tone. "it is the rebels who will end up losing by not availing themselves of our help."

The watching trio burst out laughing.

"Stars above," Wheezed the woman with the red undercut. "Look at them! How do you get so po-faced and righteous?"

"How do they say this shit with a straight face?" The boslic woman was laughing too as she asked the question of her male companion.

He only shook his head, and dabbed at his cheeks with his fingertips, drying of the tears of mirth that were formng. "To much time spouting propaganda and stabbing backs?" He sugested taking a glance at their prisoners. "Gives anyone an inflated sense of their own worth."

"And they mean it!" The red haired one said again, trying to get her wheezing giggles under control. "Don't even have to be dosed to tell that."

The male struck an exaggerated dramatic pose, hands on his hips, jutting out his chin, "If their minds are closed....they will never believe!" he intoned in a mock heroic voice.

The red woman presssed herself to his chest in parody of the feinting heroine, "I'm so useless to anyone" She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead melodramatically. "Just kill me"

The boslic woman had to turn away to keep a straight face. "I swear, you two are going to be the death of me. Knock it off, and lets get on with it."

The other two broke apart, and the red haired woman pressed the hypospray to her neck. The hiss of it deploying was loud across the speaker. She slapped at her neck to encourage the flow, and then adjusted the spray and handed it to the Boslic. "Give me a sec."

For a moment nothing happened. And then it was the two other pirates that felt it first, wincing and twitching as they felt the edge of a terrible unrelenting awareness, growing and swelling, and filling the room. It didn't push against their mental barriers. That would imply that they provided an iota of resistance. They didn't. The Betazoid's mind just rolled over them, sifting, filleting. Every thought, every emotion, every action, every memory: seen, sorted, catalogued and judged. Nothing could be hidden. Nothing kept secret.

The mind of the two terrans were laid open, and wrung out without mercy by a mind that did so with no effort.

But not without cost. The Betazoid woman was hugging her stomach, looking ill, looking at the two in the airlock as if she'd seen the flames of hell. She reached out blindly for her hypospray, and pressed it to her neck with shaking fingers.

"Well, Nish?" the man asked, "They legit?"

"He's a torturer. And a rapist, though he'll deny it. She's even worse. And they don't have an honest bone in their bodies, the pair of them. Liars to the core. They're lying to themselves now, about what they are, and what they've done, and what they're worth." And then she sighed. "But someone needs to hear what she has to say before she's executed."

"Fair enough." The Boslic said. "And him?"

"Him we can space right now."

“NO!!” Heather struggled to her feet in defence of Savar. “You space him and you’ll get nothing out of me!”

Savar looked at Heather, the woman he loved. "Heather, It is she who is lying." He said very slowly and deliberately. "Furthermore she knows she is lying. However I do not know what her reasons are for such."

"Really," the Betazoid asked? "Which part? The part where you ripped open the minds of prisoners, interrogated spies, shredded their minds?" Her eyes slid to Healther "Or the part where you climbed on top of a young girl and had your way? You knew the moment she lay down that she didn't really want this, but she was so desperate to prove her loyalty, desperate to escape the agony booths she'd say and do anything - anyone - if that's what it took? What's the dignity of the body to a half-mad desperate child? So yes, Rapist."

Savar stood steadfast, "I have never raped any woman let alone a child. You are mistaken." He replied coolly.

“She’s talking about me” Heather looked at Savar. “About when we were first chosen to be together. At first I went along with our pairing like a good slave would. I never expected to fall in love with you.” She looked towards the other woman. “I DO love him, you can sense that. Savar is NO rapist! I gave myself freely.”

"Did you?" The betazoid asked, sneering "Is that what you call freedom? You're both delusional. And you both deserve what-"

"That's enough." The Boslic said, with a firmness that brooked no argument. "Narira, go cool off and get some down time. You two," She turned back to the pair. "Contrary to popular belief, we're not like you. The list of people I'm prepared to shoot on sight is short, and you're not on it. So I'm going to haul you off for trial. Playing nice on the way won't win you any brownie points, but giving me shit will not go down well. Understand?"

"Yes. We understand." Savar answered simply as there was nothing more to say. He and Heather were prisoners of the very people they were looking for and now were going on trial.

{OFF}

OOC: Prior post ref: https://usselysium.com/index.php/sim/viewpost/1191