It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

Posted on 04 Apr 2015 @ 3:30am by Lieutenant JG Emmarie (E'Ma'ri)

1,788 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Galileo, Crew Quarters, 04-0904 JO
Timeline: MD -03, 0700

ON:

It was good to take a break from the USS Trinity While the Sabre-class vessel had been testing some new engines in the Bajoran wormhole, several of her crew had been granted shore leave to Deep Space 9 and Bajor. Emmarie had instantly sought out her temporary quarters, which she knew were far more spacious than her permanent ones on the tiny Sabre. She'd started removing her clothes a beat before the automatic door had shut behind her, as she felt hot and restrained... and not in the good ways.

By the time she caught her reflection in the mirror behind the living area couch, she was clad only in a delicate silver necklace. The low lighting in the room struck her face in a way that cast shadows on her features, making her appear older than she was. I wonder if that's what mother looked like, Emmarie mused silently. Her hand drifted down to the necklace's pendant, which was an opalescent stone set in silver, ringed by a small row of diamonds. She caught it with one hand, running her thumb over the inscription it bore on the back. Though the material looked silver, it was something that Federation scientists had never come across before, and her cursory scans had found it to be far harder than silver, and resistant to tarnish. In fact, it still looked brand new, and she had had it... well...

She removed it from her neck, flipping it over to the back side; the side that no one had seen before, save herself and her adoptive parents. The inscription on the reverse contained two languages, Orion and Standard. She couldn't read the first, but the latter read E'Ma'ri.. Though no one was certain that it was her name, that is what her adoptive parents had called her.

Though it was unidentified, it was also clearly valuable. It had given her hope when she was a child, hope that she was more than just an unwanted product of a slave's unconsenting union. It was not the sort of thing one gave to the daughter of a whore. She still wasn't entirely convinced herself that she was anything more than an Orion animal woman. After some of the urges that she'd had in her time aboard USS Trinity, she was really beginning to wonder.

Shaking her head, she sat the necklace down, trying to clear her thoughts of all the negativity. Emmarie had achieved a lot, far more than what an animal woman would have been capable of. She just needed to take one day at a time, focus on the small stuff. She heard a sound in the other room, and she jumped slightly, but then Sadie came scurrying out. Emmarie picked up the feline, and hugged her for a moment, before sitting him back down.

"Let's see what trouble you're getting into," she said, walking over into the bedroom. Sitting on the bed was a small giftwrapped box. She cocked her head to the side. Such gestures weren't something that she was used to from Hayden. Still... they'd both been through a lot. She practically skipped towards the bed, eager to see what was inside.

She never got there, though.

Strong arms wrapped around her body, pinning her arms to her sides. She could only let out a brief shriek before a hand clapped over her mouth. She felt lips near her ear as gooseflesh formed on her body. "Quiet," the unfamiliar masculine voice said.

"If you just do what we ask, we won't hurt you," the man holding her said. Emmarie's mind raced as she tried to identify who her attacker was. Who have I upset recently? she wondered. She did have enemies. She'd stolen her boyfriend Hayden from his former fiance, but she was a Starfleet officer and wouldn't stoop to such lows. She had enemies from the Academy, other students who she'd out-achieved. Again, not the sort that she could pull something like this.

There was a noise from the living area, followed by footsteps. Was it Hayden? Please...

"Emm," he called from the other room. Her heart raced.

"Who the..." the man holding her muttered. Emmarie's mind raced. She was torn; was it better for Hayden to be there to potentially rescue her? If he didn't succeed, he could end up losing his life for her. All he needed to do was keep his wits around him for long enough to call for security. Hayden, unfortunately, possessed more intelligence than wits, though.

Another man stepped out from within the bathroom, which distracted Emmarie from her train of thought. As she looked at the newcomer, Emmarie's eyes widened with shock.

Standing in the bedroom as though he owned the place was a large Orion brute.

His biceps were as large around as Emmarie's head, and she suddenly wished that Hayden weren't around. She wriggled within the grasp of the man holding her, but made no progress towards freeing herself. From the fell of his hard body pressed up against hers, she was relatively sure he was Orion as well.

Why now? Why after all these years? she wondered. Why try and kidnap me after I'd joined Starfleet? If Command ever found out they'd abducted a Starfleet officer, the Orions would lose all of the minor reputation gains that had been made in recent years.

The man who had been in the bathroom walked out towards the living area, and the man holding Emmarie followed after; picking her up and carrying her with impressive ease. "Don't move!" he said when they'd gotten to the living area. "You call security and she gets it."

Hayden shrugged. "What do I care what you do to her?"


Emmarie's eyes widened. Of all the things she expected Hayden to say, that was the absolute last. Was he just trying to buy time to better take advantage of the situation? Or had he been pushed over the edge, convinced she wasn't worth the trouble? He was a brilliant scientist, and she was some delusional Orion who presumed to think she could be more than just a slave.

"I'm done with her."

Tears sprung to her eyes once again. Words she knew she'd eventually hear, yet at the same time, hadn't yet prepared herself for. He was joking. He had to be joking... didn't he? She took a deep breath, which was difficult given the hand over her face and the arm coiled tightly around her body. One-on-one, Emmarie could beat most human men in a fight, given her Starfleet training and her superior strength. But she couldn't even wiggle in the Orion brute's grasp.

"Crazy, broken," Hayden continued.

He was bluffing, she realized suddenly. Yes, she was constantly at war with herself, pushing to be better than what others perceived her to be. Emmarie blinked fast, forcing the tears away. Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken... Her heart swelled a bit with pride. Still, it was disconcerting; the same voice that other men used while dismissing her, so easily espoused by the man she loved...

"I expect to be compensated," Hayden said, making a gesture used to reference strips of latinum.

The man holding her began to shake, and Emmarie was momentarily puzzled. She looked over to his peer, and noticed a smirk forming on the Orion's face. Why is this so funny? she thought, her blood running cold. They don't take him seriously? This had the potential to go south quickly...

"Want me to show you her trigger spots before you go?" Again Hayden's words burned her to her soul.

The other Orion was outwardly chuckling at this point, and the one holding Emmarie seemed determined to avoid following suit. Emmarie tried desperately to make sense of the situation. Why was it so funny? Was it because they knew they had the upper hand?

"I'm sure you can coax some kind of reaction from her," Hayden continued. To his credit, he continued the act as though he was unfazed by their response.

"She is Orion," the laughing man finally said. "Do not think that you have some special technique that works well with her. Only a fool fails to please an Orion."

Emmarie closed her eyes briefly, remembering what her rapist had done to her, and how her body had betrayed her. She could feel the man holding her nod, before speaking. "You are wrong, though, if you think she's just some animal woman, or a vixen."

"Humans always assume all our women are slaves," the laughing man said. "Are all human women constrained to a life of harlotry?" He shook his head. "Not all Orion sects are like that."

"E'Ma'ri," the man holding her said, and she noticed an interesting lilt to the pronunciation that she'd never heard before, "is the daughter of a Matron. She is the last female who remains of her line. Her family has thought her dead since shortly after her birth, until one of our associates provided us with her DNA. We have come to return her to her to her rightful position as Matron."

------------

Emmarie awoke with a start, her sheets drenched in sweat and her breath coming in deep heaving sobs. Though she hadn't admitted it to anyone, she'd experienced these nightmares every night for the 6 months since the Orion brutes had tried to capture her. This one was particularly bad because she'd been transferred to Galileo and awoke in a room that was not yet familiar.

Once she had grasped where she was and that she was safe, she'd wandered into the sonic shower. Days like this she wished she had a water shower, as the heat and the beating water would soothe her. You need to see someone about this... she chided herself. She couldn't bring herself to voluntarily discuss it, though. She didn't want them to relieve her of duty or think she wasn't deserving of her recent promotion. So for now, she worked at pushing the unwanted thoughts away, and distracting herself as much as possible.

On Trinity she would have found one of her friends and sit together gossiping. On Galileo she had no friends, and no clue what to do. She remembered the PADD that the CMO aboard Trinity gave her on coping skills, and she grabbed it quickly. There had to be something in there that would help her overcome these nightmares on her own.

OFF:
Lieutenant JG Emmarie
Assistant Chief of Operations
USS Galileo

RSS Feed