The Unthinkable Maje

Posted on Fri Aug 22nd, 2025 @ 8:40pm by Kaldri & The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross & Lieutenant Cassian Maritz & Lieutenant Tork & Ensign Noah Balsam & Ensign Mei Ratthi & Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: Seven Souls
Location: Kordra-Lisrit
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 2005

[Throne Room]
[Kordra-Lisrit]
[MD 1: 2005 Hours]

They circled each other like beasts. Not in the way Subrek liked to think of himself—like some snarling predator at the top of the chain—but in the real, brutal way that two cornered animals did: bleeding, ragged, desperate to finish what they’d started.

Kaldri’s head throbbed where his fist had connected, reopening the split along her scalp. Blood trickled into her eye, and she blinked it away, refusing to let it slow her. Subrek was worse. The gash across his chest seeped freely, dark red pooling along the edge of his breastplate where her dagger had kissed skin. And every time he shifted, his leg betrayed him—the knee Mei had wrecked before this challenge began stuttered, caught, made him half-stumble. She’d seen it again and again.

Mei had given her that gift before the challenge had even been made, meaning the advantage Kaldri had now was a fair one. Had the move been a result of the sparring practice she’d engaged in with Mei aboard the Sojo? Kaldri did not know but, regardless of the opening’s origin, she was fiercely proud of her friend. No, she thought. More than friend. Klon-thera, the Kazon term for ‘sister’ swam affectionately across her foggy brain.

Evading another swipe from Subrek’s knife—earning a frustrated hiss from the First Maje’s lips—Kaldri reflected that, while Mei had provided an essential physical advantage in the duel, it had been Cross who suggested the duel in the first place. A woman challenging a First Maje—especially one who’d unified several sects and amassed immense power and wealth as a result— was unheard of. But Cross’ boldness had sparked the beginnings of the idea she now hoped could help them.

Kaldri flowed into another evasion, this time side-stepping left to cause Subrek to overextend his knee, and swiped backwards with her klon’thek dagger. She felt the blade slice across the Maje’s chest and grinned wildly at the sight of his blood beginning to flow even as her mind fixated on what would happen at the duel’s end. She tried to think it through without distracting herself from the fight.

The moment she won—if she won—Kaldri knew she’d have minutes, maybe, before one of the other commanders stepped forward to issue a challenge of their own. She wasn’t naive. A woman wouldn’t be accepted as Maje, not even for a heartbeat, and as injured as she was now and likely would be at the battle’s end, the Kazon knew the next challenge would be easy for whoever stepped up. But if the guards hesitated long enough, if Subrek’s men fell into enough disarray… it might be just enough time for Cross and Mei to pull Andrew down from the torture rack and run.

Kaldri adjusted her grip on her blade, focusing her full attention again on the fight at hand, muscles coiled as she feinted left, then darted right, sweeping in low—targeting Subrek’s knee again, making him twist hard to defend. He snarled as he turned, overcompensating, driving the hilt of his blade toward her collarbone. It clipped her shoulder instead. Pain flared, but she stayed low, using the momentum to strike at his ribs, though the Maje somehow leaned back far enough for her knife to miss.

They broke apart again, breathing hard, bleeding freely. The guards—honor-bound not to interfere by the Ritual of Ascent’s rules—watched with interest. Some cheered their Maje on, spitting epithets like “Murderous whore!” and “Filthy slave” Kaldri’s way, while others mentally calculated their odds of winning a follow up challenge if Subrek fell. No one moved to intercede in the battle, though those close to Ratthi and Cross still trained disruptors on them. They meant to ensure the Starfleeters did not interfere as well.

Victoria kept the gun trained on the man who had a gun trained on her. The ol' impasse. Adrenaline was starting to wear free from her, now that time had passed, and the pain of her head wound was screeching through her senses, a sharp, wave of pain on her gashed forehead. She remained stoic, casting a blue eye towards Andrew, before back to the Kazon soldier.

"Oi! Sheila. Subrek here's not gonna win this one. In less than two minutes, all hell is going to break loose when the cunt dies, and then what are you gonna do? Shoot me? Shoot Kaldri? If you shoot her, I kill you. I see your hand twitch on that trigger, I kill you. But I don't want to kill you, mate. I just want to grab my man off the rack and see to him. You have enough problems coming your way, you don't need me on top of it. What say you?"

It was a risky gamble, Vic knew, but Andrew was in rough shape. Victoria had no idea how the Kazon man would think, would react, but she knew when Subrek died- And he most certainly was going to die, given how fierce Kaldri was - it was just a matter of time before someone dropped a chunk of sodium into the swimming pool. Chaos. Noise. Beams of light shooting across the air. Time bomb go boom.

Focus. Fight through the pain. Focus on how you can help.

Mei had kept her disruptor trained on one of the guards– she hoped– that Cross wasn't aiming for. She did her best to keep her breathing even and deep, trying to convince the Kazon guards and her own body that she had all this under control, though even the slightest scratch beneath the surface would show she was on the razor's edge of panic.There was so much going on, so many raw emotions that she wasn't sure where to keep her focus. On Kaldri's fright? On what Cross was doing?

She chose Cross. Kaldri had her own battle to fight, and Mei couldn't interfere. But Cross was slowly moving toward Andrew, and the guards hadn't fired on her yet. Mei kept her disruptor up and tried to remember everything Kaldri had taught her to keep her aim true.

The guards did not lower their weapons.

Subrek’s duel with Kaldri continued behind them—violent and ugly, all fangs and fury and flashing blades—but the guards’ attention was split. A few still watched the fight with barely concealed hunger, waiting for the blood to flow. Others trained their disruptors squarely on the two Starfleet women, fingers curled a little too tightly around their triggers. One wrong move. One breath too fast. That was all it would take.

Victoria’s warning had hung in the air like the ozone crackle before a lightning strike. For a long moment, the guard facing her didn’t respond. His face was unreadable, his body tense, but his weapon didn’t fire. Instead, his eyes darted toward the duel… and then toward Andrew.

Still hanging. Still bloody. Still breathing.

It wasn’t compassion on the guard’s face. Not even empathy. But something had shifted in his expression. A flicker of calculation. He was weighing odds. Weighing his own chances in whatever came next. If Subrek fell—when he fell—who would rise? Would there be order or chaos? Would there be time to kill the prisoners before someone else gave a new order? Would anyone even be in charge? He decided he did not wish to deal with guarding Andrew while also trying to challenge the likely victor.

“Take him,” the guard sneered. “But if you interfere in this,” he head-nodded to the duel in-progress, “I will kill you.”

The one facing Mei was younger; edgy in a different way. His jaw worked, but his hands were steady, unnervingly so. He didn’t speak, didn’t threaten. Just watched her through the sights of his weapon like a puzzle he hadn’t quite solved. If he was surprised a scientist could hold her aim that long, he didn’t show it. But there was no mocking in his expression either. Just tension. Just that careful, coiled stillness that came when instinct and training collided.

He did not lower his weapon but neither did he fire at Mei. “You are tough for one so…small,” the guard spit in the scientist’s direction.

Taking his cue from the guard in front of Cross, he offered no further challenge to the Starfleet women. Instead, he prepared himself to challenge the duel’s winner. It would be a fray to determine who would next lead the Kazon-Lidrum and he did not wish to risk his own chances on women who mattered so little in the grand scheme of it all.

Behind them, the wet scrape of blades and the animal growls of combat filled the throne room. Kaldri and Subrek continued their dance, each taking on more slashes across their skin, more thudded impacts across faces and against stomachs. Both combatants were showing their weariness to the extreme, breathing heavily and trying to conserve energy for calculated moves. But with each attack and step back, the battle edged closer and closer in the concubine’s favor.

Meanwhile, Andrew Munro swayed slightly where he hung—unconscious and utterly vulnerable—as the seconds ticked down toward a conclusion that would unleash hell to resolve.

Victoria wasted no time, hurrying over to Andrew's side. Lowering her rifle to the floor, she grasped him around the waist, and using her upper body strength, strained and strained to get him off the torture rack. Come on, bout of adrenaline, come on! Munro, what in blazes have you been eating?! With a deep breath and final effort, she hoisted him upwards and away from the rack. One arm, then the other, and finally, set the man down on the ground. She checked his pulse, then to see his breathing, ear against his sternum.

Victoria fumed, clenching her fists. This was supposed to be a mission of peace, of understanding. The tragedy of war and bloodshed was barbarism, and what Andrew had undergone was one in the same. Her anger had her threaten to kill the Kazon guarding him. Was she any better than the chest thumping brutes that had captured them? Subrek saw the diplomacy and open hand of the Federation as soft, as weakness. Victoria saw it as a personal failing to strike out in anger- But she would do it a thousand times to protect her crewmates. She turned to the duel between Kaldri and the tyrant for a moment, and then to Mei.

"Mei, Andrew is alive. His injuries need a medical bay. We have to get out of here as soon as possible. Less time for words. This situation is going to get worse. We need to find an exit."

"Right. The exit's right over there, but I don't think we're going to get anywhere until this plays out. Unless these fine gentlemen," Mei nodded toward the guards, "let us go. Or at least escort us to whatever passes for their medbay." She glanced at each of the Kazon men in turn, eyebrows rising like she was asking a question. When they failed to reply, she shrugged. "Worth a shot. They're not going to take us up on it. I'm shocked. Really shocked," she said blandly. She was altogether too calm for the situation, but whether it was a result of endorphins or a trauma response, only a doctor would be able to tell if they made it through all this.

All around them, time seemed to hold its breath. The fight at the throne’s base had pulled every eye, even those still nervously watching the Starfleet women with disruptors clutched tight in their hands. But still, no one fired. No one moved. The honor challenge had been issued and accepted. And since honor was in play, so long as neither Starfleet outsider interfered, even the most bloodthirsty among Subrek’s loyalists obeyed the unspoken rules.

From the circle of warriors to the guards on the periphery, every gaze was fixed on the center of the room—on the blur of limbs and blades as Kaldri and Subrek tore into each other like predators fighting for the right to breathe. Grunts and snarls echoed off the curving walls. The scent of sweat and blood clung to the air, thick as mist. With each passing heartbeat, it became clear: the moment of reckoning was near.

The final blow didn’t land with precision. It wasn’t clean or elegant or delivered with the grace of some formalized ritual. It came like a landslide. Like a dam bursting under the weight of decades.

Kaldri roared—raw and soul-shredding—as she drove Subrek to the ground. The clatter of his weapon skittered across the metal floor, and she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause to breathe or think or even look for witnesses. She just straddled him with a feral snarl, her hands slick with blood, her jaw clenched so tightly it looked like it might shatter. And then she stabbed him. Once. Twice. Then a third time. Her dagger—stolen hours ago but now reclaimed—punched through Subrek’s chest and belly again and again, each impact driving a ragged exhale from his lips and a guttural scream from hers.

“You butchered them!” Kaldri shrieked, blind with fury. “You burned my mother alive in her own quarters. You made me listen! You sold my sisters to sects that broke them before I ever could hold them again! You killed just as sure as their Majes. And now— Another stab. Another gurgle. Another wave of blood. “Now you bleed out for them...for all the moments we will never again share." Subrek’s body twitched once, then went slack. But Kaldri didn’t stop. She was past the point of reason; rather, she was all instinct now, all fire and scars and bone-deep grief unleashed in one last singular, damning stab. Her screams echoed off the high, curved walls of the throne room, sharp enough to make even the bravest of his guards take half a step back.

And then… stillness.

Kaldri slumped forward, bracing herself with blood-slick hands against Subrek’s chest. Her shoulders rose and fell like bellows. Her hair clung to her cheeks in matted, sweat-wet clumps. When she finally lifted her head, the ring of guards hadn’t moved. Not out of fear, not yet—but confusion. Silence. No one knew what to do now that the impossible had happened. Subrek the Uniter. Subrek the First Maje. Subrek the Unchallenged… was dead. And his former would-be concubine--who denied him in life as she now denied him life wholly--rolled off his body with a low groan and staggered to her feet, eyes flashing with the effort to stay upright. Around her, the air seemed to hold its breath.

Kaldri didn’t speak. Didn’t taunt. Didn’t declare victory. She just stood there, bathed in blood and silence, as the world waited to decide what came next. The Rite of Ascent had been completed and she was its victor. But the rite now satisfied, if could be invoked once again, this time by one of Subrek's men to challenge Kaldri for her new position as the unthinkable Maje of the Kazon-Lidrum.

But before any formal challenge could be decried, something unexpected happened. The doors to the throne room groaned open, revealing five figures cast in long shadows emanating from the light behind them. In the stark contrast of lighting, their identity could not immediately be discerned. But clearly, they were reinforcements--though whether they belong to Subrek or Starfleet still remained to be seen.

And that was when all hell finally broke loose.

[Corridor J-24]
[Kordra-Lisrit]
[Minutes prior...]

They were halfway down one of the narrower access corridors when the groaning sound of Tork stirring broke through the ambient rattle of pipes and flickering lights. The Trabe—now known as Ikade Uvari rather than just “General Technician One”—flinched at the noise, still walking but glancing back with a mix of guilt and dread. Then, with a harried breath and an anxious sweep of one hand through his blood-crusted hair, he slowed just enough to fall in beside the Ferengi, who’d had to be carried out of the engine room by Noah and Cassian even as Iry worked to rouse Tork and treat his injuries.

“Ah. You’re alive,” Ikade muttered, voice hoarse. “That’s inconvenient. I was just starting to rationalize my guilt.” He kept moving, but not before turning halfway around, walking backward for a few steps with the posture of a man about to throw himself upon a tribunal’s mercy. “For the record, I didn’t mean to hurt you so much. My little panic button,” he smiled way too pridefully for someone who felt as guilty as he actually did about Tork, “was meant for Kazon ears, not the—” he gestured frenetically and expansively toward the Ferengi’s ears, “bio-acoustic satellite dishes you have.”

Ikade’s hand dropped, smearing more grime across his tunic. “Look, your crewmates lunged at me,” he eyed Noah. “One of them,” the Trabe glared at Cassian, “punched me. I panicked,” he shrugged, offering an apologetic look to Tork. “I hit my panic button without thinking. Like anyone would, really,” he tried to play the move off. “I will carry the weight of having injured the only competent engineer on this ship for as long as I survive, which—given current projections—is somewhere between twelve minutes and eternity, depending on Subrek’s mood.”

He turned back around with a heavy, martyred sigh. “But I’m sorry…for what it’s worth. Also I have to say,” Ikade’s tone brightened with actual admiration, “this thing is surprisingly effective for something cobbled together from a dying replicator and what I’m guessing used to be a spoon. I’ve been using it to facilitate our now stress-free path to the Throne Room,” he explained, holding up Tork’s door-manipulating device. Handing it back to the engineer, the Trabe seemed proud of himself for figuring out how it worked. “Nice job with that…really,” he said with a nod.

Tork reached out and seized his key device, liberating it from the Trabe, even if he had just handed it over willingly. "Gimme that! Can't have you breaking it before we get out of here..." the Ferengi muttered grumpily while turning it over a few times to ensure that clumsy handling hadn't already done that very thing. When he was satisfied that it was still functional, even if a bit more dented than it had been when he'd fabricated it, he squirreled it away so as not to lose it again should he have to deal with another sonic assault for some reason.

“So uh…he’s going to live, right?” Ikade asked then, looking to Irynya. For her, there was affection in his gaze; even a lilt of respect in his voice. Clearly the act of her being the voice and face (and touch?) of reason had engendered trust from the man who’d secretly been masterminding and maintaining all of Subrek’s surprisingly advanced tech. “You’re pretty good with a hypospray and calming hand gestures, by the way. Sorry about the ‘gal-pal’ remark,” he winced apologetically.

The stick bug kid in the filthy torn uniform briefly looked up at Ikade, his lips in a firm line as he tried- and mostly failed- to help carry Tork. Noah was defeated as much as he had tried to pretend otherwise. His brows rose in his silence at the acknowledgment and the apology, but it seemed more flippant arrogance than a true mea culpa.

Noah’s eye had begun to truly black and blue from the whack he'd taken. It was a telling thing. He was bruised inside and out. He was ashamed of himself for wanting to take a swing at the Trabe. Noah had never really wanted to do that before. Well, one other time... but he hated thinking about that just as much. Noah knew- assuming they survived- that he'd added another cringe memory that he'd relive from time to time in the Hour of Wolf.

Two hours of adrenaline and fear of death, discovery, exhaustion, pain, worry. Anxiety. Overwrought system. Trauma. Nightmare. In his thoughts, the pressure-throb he'd endured from the Trabe's weapon brought him back: he wasn't even ten years old. Cold- so cold-and... and... dying... passing in and out of consciousness until …he heard slurred words calling code blue delta. The changes in pressure with every crunchy slide, sliding deeper into the fathoms of Enceladus. All the while listening to the sounds of death. And silence. And crying. All calls for Mom, or Dad.

Some thing- a weapon- had just unhinged those unpleasant traumas from where counseling and time had been able to un-neatly hang it away, only coming out in the occasional recurrent nightmare.

Noah looked up at this dingy corridor and then back down. He looked at the back of the Trabe. Where was this guy even leading them, and why were they letting him? Noah just wanted to go home. Not back to the Sojourner. He wanted to go home.

From her spot next to Tork with the few medical supplies that remained already exhausted and the sense that the only helpful thing she could do right now was stare at the--until recently--unconscious Ferengi, Irynya glanced up at Ikade's comment. She recognized the self conscious attempt at apology, but also recognized that it was probably as much about assuaging the broken man's guilt than as actually making amends. Traumatic experiences did that to you... And trying to bring down the temperature was as much a survival instinct as any other.

Still... she was no counselor. No doctor or nurse either. And she felt woefully ineffectual. Yes, she'd gotten him to stop in the moment, but beyond that... Her stomach twisted when she thought about the sight that met her eyes when she finally turned away from the Trabe to check on the others. She knew... knew... she needed to check for all of them equally, but she her eyes were immediately on Noah, curled in a ball on the floor. The sound had stopped, but he was whimpering and her heart hand lurched and plunged with worry. It had taken nearly all of her self control to look for Cassian and Tork before hurrying over to him in a half crouch to lay her hands on him as if doing so might magically work to stop the panic twice.

Pulling herself out of that moment and back to the present she looked from Ikade to Tork and back again. "Yeah," she said knowing full well that she did not have nearly enough medical knowledge to confirm this, "he'll live."

Even as she said it her eyes were drawn back to Noah. They all looked terrible. All of them. But Noah... maybe it's because she knew him best of all... She let her eyes wander over his features for a moment, doing a mental check of him as if that would somehow help. It wouldn't. But it calmed the worry churning in her stomach. It was his eyes, she decided, that worried her most. Where she was used to intelligence and curiosity and mischief there was only grim resignation. As if his eyes were echoing ever step he took forward.

"Can we stop a moment?" she asked them then, indicating a quick pause so they could put Tork down. To the Ferengi she asked, "Do you think you can walk?"

"Do I stink like a sock? Huh?" the Ferengi asked, his voice coming out louder than it had before his unfortunate fainting incident, "How should I know? You try going without a sonic shower for a few weeks, see if you don't get a bit pungent."

Tork shook his head as he shrugged, "Why are you asking about hygiene, anyway? We need to get moving."

The Risian frowned. If the circumstance had been any different it would be almost comical, but as it was she barely mustered a bemused head shake. "Walk," she said enunciating the words very very carefully and then mimicking a walking motion with two of her fingers against her palms. "Can. You. Walk?" Each word was given extra space in hopes that slowing down to enunciate would do the trick.

"Walk? Yes," Tork said before finally piecing together what she meant, "Ah... that would make a lot more sense to ask. As long as you don't ask me to run, I should be alright... probably."

As they came to a stop to just breathe for a moment, Cassian managed to get himself into a crouch and squeezed his eyes shut to try and clear his vision. Even though the noise of the alarm had faded in his mind, it was the black spots at the front of his eyes caused by the pressure behind them and already pre-existing conditions that were concerning him because they were still there and that hadn't happened before.

"Uh, guys?" he said to no one in particular as he stood back up and stretched out one of the aches in his shoulder. "I'm still having trouble seeing anything, so I don't know how much use I'm going to be in the event we have to face off against anyone." He turned in Ikade's general direction, "I'm also sorry for punching you, I didn't know you would help us."

"Um." Noah's eyes lifted as Tork had stirred enough to movement that Noah didn't feel like he needed to hover over the Ferengi in such a vulturesque manner. "How... or..." Noah twisted his mouth in a knot. "How can we help?" He lilted his voice up, just totally uncertain.

Cassian shrugged in Noah's general direction, "I don't think you can at the moment, if I'm being totally honest." He had a feeling that if things got any worse with his vision until they got back to the Sojourner, Medical might not clear him for duty and he'd be sidelined from duty until it was fixed. "I need to see Medical when we get back."

Ikade’s mouth opened, then shut again like he was about to launch into some blistering retort and thought better of it. He glanced at Cassian, then away, then back again, a flicker of something that might have been guilt crossing his sharp features. “Well. That’s… not great,” he said finally, tone clipped but lacking its usual venom. “The vision thing, I mean. I was aiming for a few minutes of disorientation, not… whatever this is. My sonic toys aren’t exactly calibrated for Starfleet retinas.”

He ran a hand through his hair, smearing the already half-dried blood across his temple. “Could be temporary neural overload from the sonic resonance. Could be retinal strain from the pressure surge. Either way, I didn't exactly have a lot of alternatives in the moment. You came at me, I panicked, and…that happened. Though to be fair," his tone doubled down on acerbic, "my head is still ringing from your punch so...” His lips twisted like he was trying for a smirk but couldn’t quite pull it off.

“I am sorry, though,” Ikade added quickly after, quieter now, though the words still sounded like they had to be pried out of him with a crowbar. “If I could undo it, I would. For now," he half-shrugged, "blink a lot and try not to walk into walls. We still need you upright. And if this doesn’t clear up… fine, you can stand behind me when the shooting starts. Deal?" He looked--for a second--as if he might actually be waiting for a confirmation on that but then apparently decided otherwise on staying quiet.

"Look, if it makes you feel any better," the Trabe engineer groused, "I’ve also just guaranteed that Subrek will be angrier with me than with all of you combined. Which, given the kill switch in my head, should make for a very short attempt at getting off this ship for me. But you know," he gestured to all of himself, "if you need to use my body as a disruptor meat shield, I suppose I won't be in a position to complain. So there's that, hmm?"

"You seem to think so highly of us," Noah muttered, giving him a glance with his good eye. Every time this Ikade fellow opened his mouth, Noah liked him less. Nothing about him suggested he was remorseful or particularly empathetic.

He flicked his gaze to Irynya and Noah then, his tone sharpening back toward business. “Your Ferengi’s moving, your security man’s upright enough to complain, and I assume the two of you still have that rescue-and-escape-plan in mind. That means we should get moving before the next patrol comes popping in from the intersection up ahead. Unless, of course," Ikade shrugged, "you don't want Ears here," he chucked a thumb towards Tork, "to proactively seal them out?"

Turning down the hall again, he waved a hand forward in a ‘let’s go’ gesture. “Come on. Throne room’s this way. Any ideas on what you're going to do about the half dozen guards probably lining the approach corridor?"

Noah glared one-eyed at the back of this Trabe engineer. "I'm-I'm sorry but do you think we're soldiers? L-let alone in any shape to take out seven guards? Partly because of-of you..." There was this feeling that Noah could not dislodge- that they were doing this Trabe's dirty work. The Trabe had said, 'how you plan to deal with the guards-' not 'how we are going to deal with the guards.'

Irynya had been quiet through the whole exchange, fighting back the urge to... to... she didn't know what. Something. It was like pressure at the back of her throat and in her chest. Ikade, she had noticed felt most comfortable when carrying on a one sided dialogue. Maybe he was uncomfortable with the quiet or maybe he just felt that guilty, but his ongoing talk was making it hard for her to focus.

All the same, two things stuck as she fell into step with the Trabe, glancing back once to make sure the other three were with them before pushing her own worry about their party to the back of her head. She needed to think, and she couldn't afford the well of concern that was threatening to bubble over alongside the urgency she felt. "I assume the guards will be armed?" she asked. "And augments?" It seemed like a silly question, but she had to be sure. "We used our one trick for taking out the augmented ones in engineering... surely there's another way to... to... do something about those augmentations."

Despite herself she glanced back over her shoulder again, eyes catching on Noah as a fresh spike of worry settled in her. "And what do you mean kill switch?" she asked Ikade, swinging her gaze back to the front again.

Noah met her eyes and he tried to smile. But it just wasn't there beyond their usual connection. "Hope they're coming..." He murmured to her.

"Of course I don't think you're soldiers," Ikade mumbled back sarcastically to Noah. "Well, except for Blind-o over there," the Trabe gestured to Maritz. "But as we've established...not much help there, hmm?" He kept walking forward for a few moments before giving Irynya a sidelong glance.

“Subrek's elite guards are augmented, yes. Sadly, also my designs," Ikade admitted with weariness and irritation. "Sadly even sadly-er, I couldn't build in any failsafes for those without Subrek and his own engineers figuring it out. Hence my panic button," he said, patting the breast pocket he'd tucked his device into. "And there's another problem. That shiny, weirdly-oily armor they wear? The stuff's coated with a mineral-infused gunk Subrek's War Master came up with. The mineral's from one of the First Maje's pet moons," he went on to explain. "It deflects and dissipates energy fire. Stun’s useless against it. Kill setting’s your only real option if you want to drop them before they’re on you, but even then...sometimes it takes a couple of shots to do the trick."

His gaze flicked briefly to Cassian and Tork. “At least you had the sense to collect disruptors from the workers you dropped in Engineering. That helps...but only a little," Ikade chewed at the inside of his left cheek, feeling naked in the wake of being denied a disruptor of his own given how poorly their first meeting had gone. “Unfortunately, the approach to the throne room is one long, narrow choke point. If you lean out far enough to take a shot, you’ll be giving them a clear one in return. So unless one of you can jump out into the hallway and survive a whole bunch of disruptor fire as a distraction, we're still pretty screwed."

"And yep," Ikade looked back at Iry, subconsciously reaching back to rub at the spot where his neck met his spine, "kill switch. How else do you think he's kept me in line these past few years? The threat of instant death is a pretty powerful motivator." The Trabe licked at all-too-dry lips covered in white patches of old, dead skin. "He'd already killed my husband, so there wasn't much else left to lean on except my cowardly will to live, apparently."

They'd reached the intersection at this point, which was blessedly free of guards. But it wouldn't stay that way. "Can you? With the, you know...thing?" Ikade tried to make helpful gestures to the hard-of-hearing Tork, hoping to communicate the need to seal the hatchway with the Ferengi's inventive device. "The lift's that way," Ikade then gestured down the opposite corridor. "But I'm afraid it lets out right into throne room's approach. Close...but remember the chokepoint thing, hmm?"

The Ferengi nodded, fishing out his key and shorting out the hatch, a mechanical clunk filling the space for a brief moment afterward. "There we are."

"So either way, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, right?" Cassian queried. As he listened to Ikade talking, there was a sense of remorse for the way he'd treated the guy, but still. "And surrender isn't an option, even if that's a distraction to getting us off this damned ship. So forgive me for not listening properly, but was there some sort of a plan in all of what you just said?"

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ikade rumbled back at Cassian, “I was just coming back to engineering for some parts I needed to fabricate. I didn’t know I’d be stumbling into your already half-baked escape plan,” he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t realize I’m responsible for solving all of your problems by myself. But by all means,” the Trabe huffed, “let’s have the guy who doesn’t even get his own weapon perfect your plan for you.”

Iry was inclined to agree with the security chief, but... as he'd said... surrender wasn't an option. At least, she didn't think it was. They'd slowed again so that they didn't get too far ahead of Tork and the only device that seemed to stand any chance at keeping them from being caught immediately. For the first time in what felt like a very very long time Irynya wondered if much of the criticism levied at pilots was actually true. Great for getting from here to there. Need to dodge an asteroid... she could do that in her sleep. But when it came to this...

She waited another moment for Tork to rejoin them and then drew to a stop just before the lift. "Ok, we can't get on this lift without a plan," she said evenly, painfully aware that she was stating the obvious. "And we have a few things working against us."

She looked at Ikade, tempering the intensity of the eye contact in hopes that it would encourage his cooperation. "Is there a way for us to disable to killswitch? And if not... how does it work? It's surely something that Subrek controls?"

“Is there a way to dis—“ Ikade’s fervor sparked at being asked such a ridiculous question. As if he hadn’t spent years trying to figure that out with his own incredible grasp of engineering and gadgetry… But his mind flashed back to Irynya slowly holding out a hand to him, trying to connect and calm even as her own brain was screaming inside her cranium from sonic assault. That stopped the rant before it ever really, truly began.

With a hard swallow, Ikade’s face blanked and then fell fallow. “No,” he said quietly, tone heavy with resigned disappointment. “Not that I’ve been able to figure out, anyway. And I’ve spent a long time trying, believe me. But I appreciate,” and the brown eyes that flicked to make contact with Iry’s underscored the sentiment, “you asking if there’s a way. The only one I know involves killing Subrek before he can use his handy, dandy little Kill Ikade remote. And getting to that remote presents the same problem as getting to Subrek himself.”

The Risian's expression turned grim. "That's not good," she said more to herself than the group. "Someone needs to take point on getting that device. Getting it... not destroying it." She watched Ikade as she spoke. "I assume you don't know what will happen if it's destroyed, but if we can simply destroy it to stop him from using it then now is the time to say so. Otherwise... a quick description would help."

"Oh, you know," Ikade measured out the approximate size of the remote with his hands, "about this long and that wide...typical size for a 'Kill the Annoying Trabe' button." The engineer drew a very long sigh before dropping the snark. "Small, golden with black scale-lines, and a rather large, acid-green button on the front face. I don't know what destroying the remote would do, so better to somehow get it away from him. I'll have time to tackle the rest once we're off the Kordra-Lisrit," he grumbled.

Irynya nodded, then looked to Noah and Cassian. She tugged the bottom of her lip between her teeth a moment, worrying it absently as she worked out how best to voice her thought. "Moon dust..." she finally said, giving in to thinking out loud. "We first met Subrek... and Kaldri... on a moon covered with some weird dust. And... and..." She desperately wished Mei had managed to escape with them at that moment. And her chest tightened with worry at the thought of her friend. "There was something about it that deflected things. It was on Kaldri's shuttle, I think. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to look at it... but... isn't that right Noah?"

The look she gave the lanky stick bug engineer was encouragement and hope and a bit of desperation all rolled into one. She simply wasn't as confident in her memory on this as she wanted to be. But Noah, with his mind for these types of details, might remember more than she could.

"I-I wasn't on the analysis team." Noah attested. His good eye narrowed. "But I... uh... I think so? Or something like that?"

"And we know that the augments can be slowed or knocked out... Noah did it with our tablets in engineering. They're not impervious." An image of the unconscious Kazon augments in engineering flashed through her head. "Wait..." she said as another thought hit her... this one the oily feel of a not-quite-right-transporter beam. "Can't you just beam us into the throne room?" Her eyes locked back on Ikade again.

Ikade’s eyes actually sparkled at Irynya. “You’re so much smarter than I gave you credit for back there. And again, I’m sorry about that,” he said, sounding incredibly genuine. “We’ve tried…well, I tried to replicate your transporter tech. We have all the schematics and data from when Kullah and that Seska woman stole Voyager a few decades back. Guessing that’s all in your history books, yeah?”

Ikade didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, I’ve done the best I can with what we have available but the tech and resources,” he gestured all around them, “out here are lacking. My transporter’s fine, but it’s not as fine-tuned or as clean as yours. And Subrek made sure his throne room, quarters, and command center are well protected by transporter scramblers. That includes our persnickety hallway approach, sadly.”

“Err—“ the Trabe’s eyes suddenly narrowed, “was that there before?”

Ikade pointed at something behind the group. Having turned to answer Irynya’s questions, he hadn’t been looking back the way they’d come. None of them had been. But in the few moments he’d been facing the other direction, clearly something had happened. Either someone else had run through and dropped it without notice or they’d all just walked by it, equally without noticing.

Because there, sitting against the wall resting on the floor, was a rather large, gray case. Its handle was at the top, as if the case were meant to be carried like a briefcase, but this one definitely wasn’t designed for PADDs. It looked perfectly-sized for tools, maybe, or a couple changes of clothes? It was hard to tell but the most curious thing about the case was the symbol emblazoned on its face.

It was angular and sharp-edged, a stylized face made entirely from jagged geometric shapes. Twin points jutted up like the tips of a war helm, while slanted eyes glared from beneath a ridged brow. The whole thing was done in a deep, metallic violet that caught the corridor’s flickering light, giving it a faint, almost predatory gleam. It wasn’t the kind of emblem that said “friendly.” It was the kind that implied that whatever was inside clearly meant business. Whatever that business was, anyway…

Noah... beamed for the first time in hours. His good eye aligh,t he sort of toddled a couple of steps toward the case in disbelief. "No. Way...." He squatted down and touched it, feeling the cold smooth metal. It felt like the first cool and smooth thing he'd touched in days. His fingers pushed at something with a hiss. And then Noah looked back at their gathering. "We're getting ou-out of here," he said with a dangerous and definitive raise of his eyebrows.

Noah showed what he'd retrieved from the case: it looked like a tube with emitters on one side. "Phaser Beak, transform! Shields up! Arm phasers." He flicked his wrist with the cylinder: it sprung to life with the glowing amber edges of LCARS emitting along the long edge. And from the case there was a soft hiss- it sprung open as something launched from it...

The case gave a soft pneumatic hiss as the narrow panel on its side folded open. A thick, rectangular cartridge popped free, propelled by a sharp burst of air that sent it spinning once through the stale corridor light. Before it had even completed the arc of its tumble, the object snapped into motion, folding and twisting in a series of precise mechanical contortions. Hinged plates unfurled like the petals of some industrial flower, each movement punctuated by the crisp hiss of locked joints. Wings shot outward with a sharp shhkt and a narrow, angular head jutted forward, the beak tipped with the unmistakably repurposed muzzle of a Type-II phaser. Twin tailfins locked into place along its back, and as the transformation completed, a shimmer of light rippled across its surface, signaling the activation of the drone's shields.

"PhaserBeak" hovered in the air like a predator caught mid-flight, every surface sharp with menace and precision, the gleam of its hull nearly a perfect match for the violet war-mask emblem stamped on the case.

With a low, modulated trill, the little machine then swept forward in a smooth, banking pass, darting past Ikade, Tork, and Martiz before circling Noah and Irynya, coming to a controlled hover in front of the group. Its plating was a layered blend of gray, red, and black, each panel catching the flickering corridor lights. And clamped in its beak was something jarringly out of place: a slip of actual paper. The drone angled closer, releasing the note into Noah’s hand before folding its wings and settling lightly on his shoulder, talons gripping without breaking the fabric.

The handwriting across the paper would be instantly familiar to Noah and Irynya: they'd seen its like on old-fashioned birthday cards and holiday packages they'd received over the last several months. But the message itself was short, the letters stark against the white:

"Shuttle bay, ASAP. Miss you, friends. – Shelly."

"I'm g-gonna kiss him when I see him next..." Noah turned to the group with a cockeyed smile, his head tilted enough to give the drone room on his shoulder, "The cavalry's here..." He made a twist of the wrist and then tapped at several keys. It appeared the LCARS were laid out like a HUD. He set its phaser-like beak weapon setting. "I'll draw their attention. You fire from here." Noah suggested.

Unlike Noah, Irynya didn't recognize the box. Or the markings on its outside. Or the complicated dance of moving parts that had turned into a device that resembled a bird. But she did recognize the handwriting. Even before her eyes settled on the writer's name, she was grinning too. Her heart, which had so many times in the last hours squeezed in fear suddenly felt full to bursting--wild desperate hope consuming her so fully that it was nearly painful. She wanted to drag Noah into a hug and squeeze him until he protested. And Cassian. And even Tork and Ikade. She wanted to yell her excitement. Still, even with an advantage... even with a likely way off the ship... they were missing one last thing.

"Before you do that," Iry said, laying a lightly trembling hand on Noah's forearm. Adrenaline felt like it was suffusing her every pore and she could feel her heart race with the sudden urgency of ASAP. There wasn't going to be much time. "Once we get our people how do we get to the shuttle bay?" she asked. "We've sealed a lot of doors." This question was directed not just to Ikade, but also to Tork who had already mentioned his plan to go that direction. "I don't know how long we'll have before our people are found."

"There's a large bulkhead 'void' running down the center-line of the ship that dumps out into the shuttlebay. As long as someone can dislodge the paneling, it's a quick ticket out of here. Big enough for even this big guy to walk through... I think..." the Ferengi replied, "We'd have to dodge cabling and conduit casings, but nothing too crazy."

The sense of something imminent pressed down on the pilot seemingly punctuated by the sharp nod she gave Tork to confirm her understanding. With three engineers in their group they could surely figure out how to dislodge the paneling. The thought that it may not be the case that all three engineers would make it that far tried to worm its way to the front of her brain and she clamped down on it savagely, mouth forming into a grim line before she said. "Ok, let's get up there then," and took the few steps down the hall and into the lift that Ikade had directed them to.

It was a short and quiet ride to the next floor--one that felt as if it was over before it even began. Even Ikade, whose penchant for filling blank space with words had grated on Irynya, was quiet. Calm before a storm. The words flashed through her head. Storms of any magnitude were rare on Risa now, but how to safely navigate one had always been part of the teaching of school children--safety preparation in the guise of a history lesson. The thought seemed oddly appropriate now as the doors opened, the telltale hiss of their movement loud enough that surely any guards near enough would hear it.

She took one look at each of their group, meeting their eyes, but saying nothing now that they could be overheard. The time for talk was done anyway. She kept Noah for last, holding his eyes a moment longer than the rest as if that extra moment of connection was a necessary fortification. And then she mouthed Go! and they hurried from the lift and took their places.

Noah swallowed. "I, uh, guess here goes nothing." He said to Irynya. First battle. He flicked the rod-like device that displayed Phaser Beak's controls like a stiff flag from the pole. His thumb shifted. In golden amber the word, "Execute Routine?" Noah thumb-tapped in, "Defend, divert." Then he tapped, "Preserve life." A flashing message followed. Noah touched it- Execute. Phaser Beak's wing-like structure pulsed with an anti-gravity field and the raptoresque bot surged and rounded toward the hall.

As the drone flew forward, the corridor to the throne room had become a crucible, Ikade’s earlier warning about guards made real in the half-dozen warriors who stood braced with disruptors raised. They looked every bit the wall of muscle and armor Subrek would have demanded, their dust-coated plating gleaming faintly violet as if mocking the idea of energy fire piercing it. For a beat the guards stared at the flying...thing coming at them, thrown off by the approach of a machine rather than people. But then the air split with a shriek of modulated tones and a hiss of static--PhaserBeak's shrill voice--as the drone began to fire.

PhaserBeak's azure shield bubble flared to life as disruptor bolts spattered against the sparkling barrier. Undeterred, the drone swooped like a predator, loosing strafing bursts from its phaser-muzzle maw that chewed at the deck and bulkheads, sending sparks and smoke rolling through the corridor. The Kazon flinched and broke their formation, weapons tracking wildly as they tried to hit the darting shape that always seemed to be just out of reach. They swung and they swung their disruptors, loose bolts flashing across the distance but half-seconds too late to further hit the bot.

That chaos was all the opening the Starfleet intruders (plus one grizzled Trabe) needed. Irynya and the others surged forward as planned, disruptors blazing in short bursts. Even with their dust-coated armor, the Kazon began to fall in the wake of multiple blasts against their plating. PhaserBeak whirled low, washing two of the guards with the push of its shield bubble, knocking them off balance long enough for the others to then finish them. The last of the warriors toppled in a hiss of armor and curses, their bodies left smoking against the walls. In the silence that ensued, the soft hum of the drone's thrusters was almost unbearably loud. Almost.

Ahead, the great--and now unguarded--doors to the throne room loomed, their carved faces like jagged scars in the bulkhead. Together the group pressed on, opening the doors to spill light from the hallway behind them into the seat of Subrek's power.

The throne room before them was vast and curved, its every surface echoing with silence. Not the tense quiet of waiting guards, but the aftermath of something bloody and final. The smell hit first—iron and sweat, thick enough to cling to the back of the throat—and then the realization of what the group was seeing hit: Subrek lay in a crumpled heap, his life spilled across the floor in dark rivulets. And standing over him, drenched in blood and breathing like a beast unchained, was Kaldri. Her blade still dripped as the circle of warriors around her stood motionless, trapped between awe and calculation, every eye fixed on her and the shift in power her victory represented.

Cross and Mei were on the periphery, disruptors leveled at the gathered guards, their expressions set in grim vigilance. Andrew’s unconscious body hung limp from Victoria's shoulder, held at her side by a curving arm, evidence of Subrek’s cruelty still fresh on his bared chest in the form of some angry bruising. The two Starfleet women seemed to be waiting for Kaldri to join them; to hopefully run out of this place and find escape somehow.

The entire scene was a tableau of ruin, frozen in the breath between what had just ended and what came next.

And what came next was hellish indeed. Eyes that had turned to spy the Starfleet reinforcements' arrival now flicked back to Kaldri and the calls began to go up:

"I challenge for rule of the Kazon-Lidrum!"

"No, it is I who challenge first!"

"The leadership will be mine!"

"I will slay you for what you've done, concubine!"

The Kazon warriors began to approach, closing in as they drew their own ritual blades in favor of their disruptors, and in the confusion of who challenged first vs. who was ordained and who would be dead, a cloud of chaotic fighting broke out, with Kaldri and the bloodied, beaten body of Subrek at the epicenter.

Things had, at last, snarled into one blood-soaked knot. Whether the seven souls of the Sojourner — and their new tagalongs — could cut themselves free, however, remained to be seen…

TO BE CONTINUED...


=/\= A joint post by... =/\=

Lt. Cmdr. Victoria Cross
2XO / Chief Operations Officer

Ensign Mei Ratthi
Science Officer

Kaldri
Kazon Assassin

Subrek and His Guards
Kazon Asshats

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Flight Controller

Lieutenant Cassian Martiz
Chief Tactical and Security Officer

Ensign Noah Balsam
Computer Specialist

Lieutenant Tork
Engineering Officer

Ikade Uvari
Snide Trabe Engineer