No one expects...

Posted on 13 May 2017 @ 5:13pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Aren Ban & Ensign Miraj Derani
Edited on on 13 May 2017 @ 6:10pm

2,664 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: IRW Ganelax - Brig
Timeline: MD -45, 0330

[ON]

Miraj lay on her side on the brig bed, knees curled up, staring at everything and nothing. The face issue was nothing. She could cope with that, even if she never recognised anyone again. That was an embuggerance, and mosquito bite. What was gnawing at her was the possibility of serious damage. Not being able to process spatial relationships? Getting angles wrong? She'd never be able to fly again. The horror of it left a sucking hole in her guts. She needed to get in a simulator and test it. But there was no such thing here. And who knew if she'd get such a privilege once they transferred to a Starfleet vessel. She had been part of a mutiny after all.

The double-doors to the warbird's detention center gruffly parted, and in stepped a new version of Saalm. It was amazing how much of a different three hours could make -- in that time, she'd showered, napped, ate, and cleaned herself up into a presentable semblance of her former self. Her hair was combed and clean, and neatly tied back into a short ponytail, and her olive skin looked vibrant and refreshed. Most importantly, however, she now wore a freshly-replicated present-day Starfleet uniform complete with traditional rear-admiral rank pips adorning her red collar.

The questioning of St. James several hours prior had been difficult, but eventually the woman had been released free of charge for her conduct. During the interrogation, Saalm had learned a great deal more about the attempted mutiny on DuJa'Q from the young ensign, but unfortunately it had led to even more questions and possible consequences.

Approaching the brig cell with Ban in tow, Saalm slowed then came to a halt in front of the force field. It was good to see Derani out of sickbay which she took as a sign that her ailments had been at least partially treated for the time being. But as much as she cared for the young conn officer's well-being, the recent revelations of her involvement in Chorag's coup cast a somber aura over her visit.

"Ensign Derani," Saalm began. "Are you feeling better?"

Miraj looked round. Two people she didn't recognise, so went through the process of dismantling what she was seeing into a list of other features. Male, trill spots, commander's pips. Orion, female, fancy pips. "Admiral Saalm?" she guessed. "And Commander Ban?"

Aren nodded, a concerned look touching his eyes. "That is correct. We wanted to see how you were doing. How are you feeling right now? What is the last thing that you remember?" Aren asked, not wanting to press her too hard. He knew of Wyatt's and hers relationship, and part of him wondered whether he should try and grab Luke, though at his present Luke may not be in the best of conditions.

Miraj forced herself into a sitting position, despite only wanting to lie there and wither away. "My memory is fine sir. I just can't seem to recognise people. Not by their faces, anyway." The pilot didn't mention the rest of it. If she had to admit there was even only a possibility she couldn't sit at helm again, she'd start screaming and not stop.

"Do you remember the events on DuJa'Q's bridge before you were rendered unconscious?" Saalm asked. "Do you remember...Chorag? And what you told me he had ordered you to do? And a supposed 'note' that you wrote and gave to Lieutenant Commander Wyatt?"

Of course she did. It was burned onto her memory with a crystal clarity. "All of it, ma'am. Chorag was planning a mutiny, and made me go along with it. He wanted me to kill you. " She couldn't look at the woman. "It would be the signal to all the others." She looked at the floor. "I was going to warn people. I just couldn't figure out how to do it." She showed them her pale arm, with the reddened flesh where the bug had been injected and she had rubbed it raw, and the ring of bruises, finger sized and finger spaced, just above it, where Chorag had held her still. It was still in there. In all the terror over brain damage to her angle processing and spatial relationship centre, and the possibility of never flying again, it had slipped her mind completely.

"He said he would know if I tried to warn anyone. Could hear me, and know where I was, and would kill me if I did. I'm sorry. I couldn't think of a way round it. Not until the last minute. That's when I figured out I could write. So I wrote on my pyjamas with Rokehg blood. Silk stains well and can pack down real small. That's how I got it to him. To Luke"

The sudden revelation was shocking to Saalm. Not that the ensign had been coerced by Chorag or that she'd been implanted with a tracking device; no, what was alarming was that she'd never told her CO or XO about the mutiny until was essentially underway. Lirha struggled to find the words to express her dismay.

"Ensign, how long did you know about this before you approached me on the bridge?" she asked, her green hands slowly balling up.

"About twenty four hours." Miraj was shame faced. She hated that she had been so slow to see the obvious answer of writing, and too cowardly to try and go to her CO direct. "I couldn't figure out how to warn anyone with him listening. He would have killed me and whoever I told. I chose Luke because I couldn't think of anyone else I could talk to without making Chorag suspicious."

Twenty-four hours, Lirha repeated in her head incredulously. In all that time while pondering how to handle the situation, and with the life of her commanding officer on the line...she hadn't even told her. Or the Trill first officer. Turning away from Derani to hide a face of pure anger, Saalm looked at Ban with piercing eyes that betrayed her thoughts and feelings. Although the two of them had only just begun to serve together in the same chain of command, her expression of anger was clear enough for anyone to decipher.

The revelation that the Ensign had known for nearly twenty-four hours prior to the attempted mutiny stung. Not just emotionally, but also made his stab wound throb. Aren could only nod to Derani, just before he made eye contact with Lirha. He could feel the same pain and frustration that she felt, the sense of betrayal. “Ensign Derani, I don’t fault you for what you did,” He shot a quick look to Lirha, “that still doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have told us. Even if it meant that it could potentially have caused you or anyone harm. Not only were people injured, but two Federation personnel died because of the mutiny, because they were unprepared. What is the Earth saying? Hindsight is always 20/20?” Aren let out a heavy sigh. “At least you did find a way to notify someone, without tipping your hand, and were able to at least give us a few precious moments to prevent the takeover of the bridge. I am proud of you for that.” Aren finished trying to add a positive note to ugliness that was the last couple of hours.

Ban was diplomatic. Perhaps too diplomatic, Saalm briefly wondered, but then forced herself to take a breath and listen to the contents of his message. Someway, somehow, he'd managed to convey the same message she probably would have albeit with a sense of understanding and compassion that was strangely absent from the Orion. Lirha struggled to push her memories of the chaotic bridge battle from her thoughts while battling her anger at the confrontation which had almost left three -- and possibly countless more of them -- dead. "You should have told us, ensign," Lirha reinforced. "We, and you, were almost killed. And many of us have not been given second chances recently."

"I wanted to." Miraj said, still unable to look at them. "It ate at me. Its was all I could think about. But he knew where I was, could hear everything I said. I wouldn't have got anywhere near you. We were surrounded by Klingons and I had no idea who was in on it or not. I didn't know what to do. I'm sorry."

"When Chorag told you he would be monitoring you...what did that mean?" Saalm asked. "That mark on your arm was -- is -- a tracking device, yes?" She wondered how much technology it shared with Medara's implants.

"Yes." Miraj nodded, and started rubbing at her arm again. She was sure she could feel it, sitting in her muscle, like Chorag was still watching her, from Davy Jones' Locker. "He said it was based off what they had on Kreanus. Only tweaked. I don't know how. But he said he could hear everything I did, and constantly checked the channel. He was watching me."

It was an understandable yet ill-advised caution to not tell her CO of the implant, but then it begged the question of why she hadn't recursed herself to sickbay. "And Commander Warraquim? You didn't think to approach her to remove the device? Or warn her that your body had been compromised?" Out of all the officers present aboard the Klingon battlecruiser, the doctor had been the one most able to assist.

Miraj's draw dropped. It had never occurred to her that the doctor might have been able to assist. She had just assumed that Chorag could and would kill anyone who tried. With the benefit of safety, she could see that slaughtering the doctor and herself in the middle of sickbay wouldn't have been possible. Damn, but she was stupid. "I didn't think of that. I wasn't thinking very straight at all. I should have figured it out sooner."

"Miss Derani, this..." Saalm's voice trailed off while she shook her head in dismay. "This, what you've just done by collaborating with Chorag and not warning us that you'd been compromised...it's the same as being complicit in a mutiny." There was no other way around it or to phrase the damage that the ensign's lack of action had done.

"I know," Miraj's voice was quiet. "I didn't know what to do. I was just so scared." She raised her head, looked up at the stranger she just had to trust was her commanding officer. "But I did warn Luke. And if I had thought it wouldn't have got anyone killed I would have told everyone I could have found. I spent that entire day terrified that if I looked at someone wrong, or spoke to someone one wrong, some Klingon would shank them in a corner. I didn't want anyone to die."

Saalm began to think back upon her private encounter with the young Boslic hybrid. They had kissed each other in the most passionate and private manner inside the Orion's quarters, well before Chorag had approached her according to the timeline Derani had just explained. And then Lirha had expressed her feelings to Miraj afterwards when they'd both been stuck in the turbolift together. It seemed that none of that counted for much aside from Derani's refusal at the final moment to kill her. It hurt Lirha to think about it that way but she couldn't help it.

"You didn't trust me?" Lirha asked. "You played Chorag's game because you didn't think I could protect you from him?" she wondered out loud, hoping it wasn't true.

"No!" Miraj protested. "I played his game because I thought it was the best way to protect you from him!"

Silence ensued. A very awkward one that lasted for close to twenty seconds while Saalm engaged in internal debate with herself. Finally she looked up back at Derani. "Did he threaten you? With death? Or...worse?" She knew of the ensign's dealings with Ko'raH and the humiliation she'd been subjected to. Spirits, every Klingon on Kreanus had seen her walking out of the general's quarters bruised and naked. The gossip had flowed like hot lava on a Class A planet. Whether or not she'd been violated had never been confirmed, but Lirha'd always assumed the worst. And if Chorag had threatened her with similar treatment, then it might help explain her motives.

"Yes. And not just me. All of us. He said our fates had all been arranged. Death, or...servitude." She hadn't known then if he'd meant actual slavery, or the other thing, but it hadn't mattered then, and it didn't matter now. The threat had been enough.

Aren had listened quietly, it didn't take a telepath to feel the pain and anguish that had be-fallen his junior officer. There seemed to be much that was being unsaid between Lirha and Miraj which lead him to briefly consider the kind of relationship the two had; whether it was a mother-daughter, mentor-mentee, or something else, he didn't want to interrupt the conversation. Both women seemed to be in emotional pain. "Luckily for us, that wasn't entirely true." He looked over to Lirha for a moment before continuing. "You shouldn't have anything to fear from Chorag anymore. I promise you that." He said with a nod.

Miraj looked at the man she did not recognise, but believed him. "Thank you sir." She looked down at the floor, swallowed, then steeled herself to look up again. "Will I get cashiered?"

Aren watched Miraj for a moment, collecting his thoughts and how to respond. "As of this moment? I don't know. If this was a normal instance, than it would be a possibility. But there are a lot of extenuating circumstances, as well as the instance of this being highly unusual to say to the least." He made a motion with hand encompass the Romulan ship.

It was too early for Saalm to determine the full extent of Derani's oversight let alone the others who would have to be interviewed in order to get the complete picture of the incident. Without testimony from Wyatt and Galan, it would be a violation of proper protocol to administer any definitive punitive actions. There would be time for that eventually. Perhaps when the crew returned to Earth, but now wasn't the place or the circumstance as Ban had just touched on. "Right now, ensign, you are still in need of medical treatment. Your health should come first... Hopefully by the time you've healed, we will have gotten to pit of this," the Orion added. "In the meantime, I hope you will understand our need to keep you under guard."

She nodded. It felt horrible, but she knew for now it couldn't be any other way. "I'm sorry ma'am." she said again. There wasn't anything else she could say.

"If you ever need medical attention or are in distress, inform me. I've instructed Commander Warraquim to tend to you as best she can until we return to Earth," said Saalm as she began to walk away from the forcefield. "You do remember her, yes?"

"Like everyone else, Ma'am. I remember her. I just don't recognise her." Miraj replied. "She's already helped a lot. But I'll be glad to get home."

Aren nodded. "We will get this resolved as soon as we are able to Ensign Derani. I will be back to check up on you soon. I have been told that Wyatt would like to see you just let me know when you are ready for the visitors." Aren finished.

"Thank you for answering our questions," Lirha added before departing the room. "And for being honest about your involvement in this...matter."

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
IKS DuJa'Q

Commander Aren Ban
Executive Officer
IKS Du'Jaq

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
IKS Du'Jaq

RSS Feed