SD242012.25 | [PLOT LOG] Com Ivanova, Emperor Tr'Bak | "Where Stars Were For Shining" pt 3
Posted on Sun Feb 19th, 2023 @ 3:32am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Commander James Archer
1,568 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission: Genesis
December 25th
0100 PST
Camelback Springs, Arizona - EARTH
Tucked several miles away from the crash site, a small three room hunting cabin was warm and rich with light and life where there should have been cold, desolation, and death. It smelled of smoke and sage, sandalwood, leather and cedar with the remnants of disinfectant steadily departing the heated air. It was obvious that it had been carefully selected and procured as much for its space as its desolate location. So close to the hub of activity and yet far enough to be right under their nose but of no true consequence.
It had taken hours of careful, tedious work to put Rochelle back together again. Wounds required debridement and cleaning. Bones required setting. Nerves had to be carefully networked back together. Much of it felt primitive, Tr’Bak unable to bring her to his ship or the vast amount of technology from his ship to her. The only thing he could do - and had done - was bring in a clandestine team from the heart of Phoenix to do what was necessary to not only stabilize but save the human woman from certain death.
Several of her vertebrae had fractured and dislocated in the crash, nearly completely severing her spinal column between lumbar vertebrae three and four. Not one, but three ribs had broken and dug pieces of themselves into her left lung. Both of her legs had broken at various points of their tibial and fibular structures. A deep, gaping hole had been dug into the middle of her abdomen just north of her navel and the piece of metal retrieved from within was nearly four inches long and had wickedly embedded itself in her pancreas.
By the time they had arrived, it had been blatantly obvious that the woman was in hypovolemic shock and dying from extreme blood loss as much as she was critically and mortally wounded in a full buffet of other ways.
And that was before taking her various lacerations, bumps, and bruises into consideration.
Hours they toiled. Hours they spent carefully working to heal ruptured arteries, knit bone, and meld nerves. Hours they spent putting back together what they believed was an inferior creature that should have been shot and put out of its misery. Hours they worked while their master sat in a corner, watching, stroking his lower lip and chin as he brooded and seemed lost in thought. Critical of their every move, daring them to make a singular mistake, they knew that in his eyes her death would only be due to their failure regardless of the archaic nature of the environment they practiced within or the tools they were subject to use.
At the end, they removed her blood soaked linens and carefully wrapped her healing body with fine, white, raw silk and left clean and carefully laid upon a bed with monitors placed carefully about. She was breathing easily on her own. So much so that Tr’Bak had steeled himself for the moment, watching her peaceful expression as if she were only taking a brief nap. As if soon she'd wake and scowl to catch him staring at her.
The team, skilled as they were, now lay as the ashy remnants of a smoldering burn pile. They, like the soiled linens, had become a liability and source of potential infection.
“Dii es mrei hraen anhelae, Praetor…” he is close to your location, Emperor… A voice crackled to life from a nearby piece of a equipment. It broke Tr’Bak’s train of thought but for an instant as he scowled and shook his head in dismissal of the words spoken.
"Do not trifle me with idiocy." He snapped back in response.
It had been several hours since he’d pulled the woman from the wreck of the Liberty. Of course he would come. Had it been any other time with circumstances of any different sort, the nearness of Landon Neyes would have lit the Romulan's rich emerald eyes with a particular brand of smoldering mirth best reserved for those who toyed routinely with fire. This, any of it, wasn't about continuing his cat and mouse game with the former Captain of the Vindicator.
It wasn't about playing matador with that particularly dangerous and clever bull. It was about something far more exploitive of all the players that stood on their intergalactic chess board and preserving the integrity of the game at large.
My God, she's so young. He thought as he returned his eyes to the most indomitable piece of all.
Her delicate, freckled face was free of makeup and dirt, her hair a tangle behind her on the pillow her head rested upon. Her wide, intelligent eyes were closed and unseeing and it was painfully obvious just how young she truly was, just now standing on the herald of her thirty-third birthday.
Each breath, by all rights, should have been a countdown to her last. These were stolen seconds granted back to her by the marvels of modern medicine and the stubborn instability and inequity of a man she vehemently hated. He scoffed at the thought as one of his olivine hands found the disheveled mass of her hair, still so very alive and fiery with it's bright hues of copper and bronze stubbornly shining in the fluorescent lighting. It struck him as being particularly pitiful that she should lie potentially dying with her beautiful hair matted. She always had such lovely hair, dancing gently around her face like a banner, a warning of her ability to incinerate those who dared come too close.
For nearly a decade he had been surrounded by Rochelle's life force, the energy that radiated from her slender form and keen mind. At first he’d doubted her for her youth, her gender, her race and alleged inexperience in life. He’d expected her to be an easy target, manipulated by the vestiges of youthful folly and the desire for the ‘happy ending’ that so many Human females were prone to want. When the plan failed, when the impostor Trill, filled with the memories of Landon Neyes, had broken from convention and perished in a bid to save her mortal soul… Well… It taught Tr’Bak a lesson he had never quite thought to previously grasp.
What made her worth dying for.
What made her crew rally to her call.
What was it that had been galvanized by heartache and misery that would normally have crushed the spirit of most?
The putty limp and pale body on the bed before him certainly belonged to Rochelle Ivanova, but he knew that her spirited mind and soul were somewhere far away. It was her mind that he prized and valued most, even when the shell it was enshrouded in was undeniably exquisite - and that was the answer to his questions…
Her spirit.
Forged in fire, Rochelle’s spirit was unlike any other. She had been bred for greatness and had rapidly succeeded where so many had failed. Her prowess as a warrior had only been gilded by her sharp and cunning mind and ability to plot, plan, and see each step of the dance at least ten steps ahead. She would not bend. She would not break. She would not align with anything that ground against her ideals or morals or integrity and that was why she now lay in the predicament she was in.
The Romulan smirked. Aksel Ravnsson must have feared her as much as Tr’Bak and others revered her or else he wouldn’t have skulked about through subterfuge in an attempt to rob her of her life. “Coward,” He hissed, finally taking a seat on the bed beside his charge, “Gutless, spineless coward.” He continued, tutting his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he set about brushing the snarls and coarse tangles from her radiant mane.
Of course Landon would come for her. Hot on his heels would be the Cardassian, no doubt, and the Intelligence boy. Only a fool wouldn’t come for her, or at least for answers regarding her sudden demise. Ravnsson would be counting on it, knowing that their devotion to her was critical to his coup. They would have to mourn and weep along with the rest of the Federation - the perfect act of distraction… The perfect way to offer himself as tribute and rise as a hero and leader.
The Romulan’s jaw set as he eased the brush through the worst of her snarls, watching as the strands seemed to flicker and dance like flame with every pass of the bristles. This was not the way the Federation was meant to fall. Not into the despotic hands of a conman. If ever the Federation fell, it would be in the midst of a firefight and to a worthy foe that was unafraid to show their face.
Yes… They would come for their Phoenix, though it wasn’t time yet for her to rise from the ashes of this latest fall. But rise she would, burning brighter than ever, and down would fall the Raven’s son.
All she needed to do now was pull through this most unkind cut to her life force.
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To Be Continued…
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Emperor Vrith Tr’Bak
Praetor
Romulan Star Empire
Commodore Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NX-78213-F
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