PLOT - JL | Cmdr Neyes, Mei'zha Ilex - "Live Wire"

Posted on Sun Aug 23rd, 2015 @ 6:31am by Commander Tristan Neyes PhD.

2,081 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Agua Mala

Darkness should have been a grand deterrent when it came to plotting escape, or at least it would have been to any other number of humanoid creatures whose eyes failed to adapt to the dark. Unlike the Vorta, the Stenellis were creatures that, much like the human race, had failed to acquire the ability to see in the dark – at least in the conventional sense. The bright glow of their irises allowed for some light to filter in, illuminating that which was right in front of their faces in a blurry, swimming map of what hazards there may have been – and contrary to what seemed to be popular belief, their bio-luminescent spotting offered nothing in the way of help.
Hardly a worthy adaptation aside from peer identification in the murky black.

Mei’zha, however, seemed far from uncomfortable as she navigated the inken depths of the Trill’s quarters. She slowly moved about the general living area, pausing every once in a while to study an object or another, before passing on to the next trinket.

Hardly the most hurried of escape plans.

Only the occasional ‘clink’ or ‘clunk’ was heard as she redeposited her items of interest back into their spaces, and those were soon followed up by what could only be described as the soft zipping and bubble-like popping clicking noises of her echolocation. The picture the reverberating sounds painted in her frontal lobe were clear as day, bright, crisp, but lacking color. She didn’t need color to navigate or identify her chosen paths, though she likely would have admitted to finding color a necessary evil when it came to investigating those pre-mentioned targets.

Pausing at another table, Mei’zha stooped to retrieve a carelessly discarded stuffed toy when the sound of rustling fabric caught her attention and sent her head darting to the right, tilted, and straining for another clue as to the state of the man’s slumber. ‘Federation’ had parked himself on the couch after tending to her injuries, repairing her while pretending not to hear, or understand, her demands for him to stop – and now the monster he’d brought back from the brink of death wandered freely through his quarters as he slumbered, still propped in a semi-sitting position.

She knew she could kill him, he’d never feel it or know it was even happening; but that seemed so wasteful of a life, however arrogant, that seemed to be positioned around serving others. Instead the star-smattered alien found herself drifting across the deck plates towards his position, her head still tilted as she strained to make out the details of his masculine form. Mei’s sensitive ears could easily make out the soft sounds of air filling his lungs, the thrum of his four-chambered heart as it beat in his chest, the rush of blood pulsing through the line of his jugular vein – she could hear the orchestra of his life force as if it were one of Mozart’s most beautiful sonatas, blissfully unaware of its potentially lethal audience. The star-child’s lips thinned into a sardonic smile as her forward motion failed to cease at the feet of the Trill’s prone flesh; the realization that if the audible proof of his life was a song, she was the conductor, filtered through her dragon-like mind.

Nose to nose, face to face, the Stenellis held her breath as she carefully crept to straddle his lap. The inkling that she was still so very weak, and far from completely healed, whispered across the back burners of the young warrior’s brain – but fear wasn’t an option. She couldn’t fear the Trill, not when he was unarmed and so precariously poised beneath her. “You should be more careful,” Her heavily accented Standard whispered along the lobe of his left ear, “Federation. Were I not in debt to you, you’d be dead.”

It was more of a shock at his inability to respond than anything. Tristan's eyes snapped open, seeing the woman he'd helped back from the edge of her own demise. Her legs pressed against his sides, holding him in a fragile pin. His heart beat faster as he realized she had been awake and moving through his quarters unattended. He didn't expect her to wake up after her surgery, let alone be threatening his life. Had he thought she was dangerous there would have all manner of different steps he would have taken to avoid this very kind of incident.

Tristan scolded himself for being so thoughtlessly caring, and letting himself be blinded by her weak facade. Maybe if he were still joined to the symbiont, something, anything would have tipped him off. He was duller without Neyes, and now this...

He blinked, reigning in the building rush of disappointment and anger at her betrayal. "What do you think you're doing." His voice was quiet, collected. He shuffled slightly to gauge her hold on him.

“No no.” Mei’zha tutted sternly, pressing the palm of one dangerous hand down against the center of his chest to keep him steady and still beneath her. “We’re going to play this idaraya (game) my way, now, Federation. You had your fun. Don’t be selfish.” She added, levying her weight against him. “You owe me answers, I have questions. Only questions.”

Neyes closed his eyes, "Saving your life is a game. I see. Ask away." His thoughts trailed off to Zed. He wouldn't die here at the hands of a woman he thought he'd helped protect. Not if it meant his son lived a life without his only remaining parent.

Beneath her hand and, admittedly, feeble weight, Mei’zha could feel his pulse quicken. She could hear his pulse quicken and the strange static electrical sound the hair on the back of his neck made as it stood on end. Her own eyes widened, their glowing turquoise depths registering his fear the way the black voids of a shark’s would register the scent of blood in the water. His fear, the strength of it, gave her all the power she could ever have possibly wanted – and yet she felt the pang of guilt associated with the rising pitch of his vitals. “Why would you do that, Federation?” She asked, pushing back to rest flatly against the convenient seat of his thighs and folding her hands across her chest. Each of her motions sent the star-chart pattern of glowing iridescent freckles to life as they followed her movements, doing little to disguise even the most imperceptible of actions as she barely held him down in the dark. “You stood nothing to gain. I have no influence over the crown’s choices about their binding to your government.” Her head canted again, this time in the opposite direction, “Wasteful.”

"My job," he said calmly, "is to preserve life and to give my help to people who need it. Not letting you die was hardly a political maneuver." As he addressed her he felt a little for her situation. On the surface she nothing but a wall of distrust, trying desperately to head-off the deceptions and tactical movements of her culture. To a certain degree he could identify, but then he knew literally nothing of her situation other than she was disliked by the peacekeepers they encountered.

"What I see as wasteful, is the potential I see in a young woman who doesn't know how to pick her battles. I saw what you did for the child on the surface. There's little difference." His muscles tensed and his words hardened. "Your problem is you keep picking battles you can't win."

"Can't win?" Mei'zha bristled with a scoff and a haughty sniff. "Oh Federation..." Her head shook as she chuckled, "I wouldn't say I can't win the battles I pick. You're alive because I owe you a debt whether I agree with your motives or not." She added, leaning forward as the man's muscles flexed beneath her. Again her hand reached to press against the Trill's chest, reminding him that she was the boss. It may have very well been the drugs he'd used to help save her life as they continued to course through her system, but she found herself loose lipped and practically giddy as she continued on, "He was stupid, thought he could seduce the Princess and elevate the family from Makta to Royal." She guffawed with a breathy laugh, "Do you know what happens when you fail? Dishonor. The whole house of Ilex unseated and thrown in the trash. We run the gutters now. I commanded that legion you saw..." Mei sniffed, ignoring the quivering sensation of fatigue as it started to rip at the muscles of her legs, arms, and back. "It's over. I command nothing. Pal'Maar is working, foolishly kissing their asses as a servant to try and regain their favor while the rest of us struggle."

Tristan listened to her pained recollection, and he did his best to put forward his listener's face.

"But you, Federation, you don't know what that's like. Utopian societies..." Her head shook as she began to wilt, "You've only seen what they want you to see. If they knew you saw this? The Empress would probably exterminate all of us like she's wanted to. Like we're rodents. Maybe..." She stifled a yawn, "Maybe you being so... Stupid... Yeah... Stupid... Is a good thing. Maybe you can open your eyes and help your leaders see through the Empress, yes? I have..." Mei'zha was trembling now, her teeth practically chattering as she spoke. She felt as if she were freezing and burning at the same time; physically spent from doing too much too soon after being the living version of a broken porcelain doll the Trill had pieced back together. "I have things..." Her forehead touched the top of his left shoulder, and she was powerless to move it and hopelessly stuck in his care until she could muster enough power to plot her next escape. "Things I can show you... Federation."

"Not yet, though." He said, waiting out her inevitable loss of consciousness. If she hadn't torn one of her derma-sutures, then she was likely still recovering from the anesthetics he gave her just hours before. "Remember when I told you to rest? That wasn't a suggestion given to you by a stupid weak child of a utopian society. It was given to you by a doctor, who performed surgery on you in his quarters, and who lost everyone he ever cared about before being forced to raise his son in hiding and in fear." He watcher her eyes flutter and waver, and his voice grew a little softer, but cold. "If you threaten me again. I will respond."

He gently began to raise up, and his powerful core effortlessly lifted his torso up to a sitting position. She slid back and he guided her back into a resting position on the couch, swapping positions.

For a second she drew breath to banter with him, likely to snort and scoff and huff and puff in her usual haughtily brazen matter, but found her tongue falling still against the back of her teeth as he moved her like the little doll she'd become yet again. He was the stupid child of a Utopian society, but she knew, and could feel, that he was more than capable of rising to the challenge a creature, even of her expertise, could present. Her eyes, though heavily lidded by a thick veil of dark cobalt lashes, did their best to focus on the barely there glimmer of his. She wanted to touch him, this strange spotted being that seemed so dull compared to the exotic glowing beauty of the Stenellis race, but simply couldn't muster the strength necessary to do so. The tides had turned with her now being the prone, weak, easily destroyed one; and like her, he wouldn't bring himself to end her life. "I hope so..." She whispered in a tired, smiled sigh, "Federation." The smile faded as sleep won over and drug her effortlessly into the fathoms of a blackened dream world, leaving him once more to play protector to the little glowing turquoise bolt of lightning he'd trapped in a great, big, giant bottle labeled USS Vindicator.

---

Commander Tristan Neyes
Chief Counselor
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

&

Mei'zha Ilex
Former Head of the Makta Caste
Stenellian Ascendancy

 

RSS Feed