It's Been A Long Road...

Posted on Wed Sep 7th, 2022 @ 6:15am by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis
Location: Shuttle en-route to Athena
Timeline: Prior to leaving Spacedock.
4466 words - 8.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Finn still sat at the main shuttle console in silence. She replayed every single move she'd made since being captured and thought through everything she could have done differently so that Silnan would still be alive. Her throat was parched with thirst and her stomach growled, making noises as if imitating the monster that she felt she had become. The replicators on the shuttle were operational, but Finn didn't feel as though she deserved to partake in a luxury such as food or drink. Not after having let Silnan die, alone.

"I've located Athena..." P"rel informed Keating. She glanced back at Admiral White in the rear compartment, a long section of ODN cabling doing a good job as a makeshift restraint was wrapped around him. "...They're docked at the orbital station around Toram VII...shore leave no doubt..." she concluded aloud. She turned her chair around to look at Keating, the woman was obviously devastated and looked exhausted. It was all P'rel could muster, to suppress the images of Silnan laying there on the floor in amongst the walkway debris, unable to reach him. "I've also changed the transponder frequency to SSC-34, the quarantine protocol...that should automatically register with all vessels that we are not to be approached. Hopefully we can get toward the Athena before being intercepted."

Finn nodded but remained silent. 'Shore leave'. God, the last thing she wanted was to piddle around on shore leave after what they had just been through. She wanted to drown herself in engineering work.

"Here..." P'rel handed Keating a PADD. "I've coded a message for the Captain, but I'm sure you can better operate the systems to ensure the message properly encrypts and reaches only him. P'rel could have very well done this herself, but felt it important and necessary to engage the Lieutenant and give her something to do. "It's a series of alphanumeric data points, hopefully he understands; the star date I came aboard, and yourself....and the star dates we began our various missions...along with his self destruct code...." she added nonchalantly. Pre-empting a reaction, P'rel had a hand up quickly; "It's useless without his voiceprint and bio-verification, don't worry...it should all just be enough to alert him..."

It was as if the Vulcan had read her mind. Work. A distraction. Finn accepted the padd and looked at what P'rel had already pieced together. It was good, but there were obvious holes. Gaps left on purpose? She wondered for a moment until she realized this was P'rels way of trying to help. The intelligence officer had been through as much as she had. Even more, she had lost someone very close to her and even though it was Finn's fault, she was still reaching out. And what am I doing? Sitting here, sulking like a child.

Finn sat up a little taller, fixed the gaps, and added a few more encryption protocols. "Thanks," she said with a small smile as she handed the padd back to P'rel. "And I'm sorry, about Silnan." Her eyes were watery and her tone conveyed obvious remorse.

Placing the PADD on the blank receiving panel on the console, P'rel activated the uplink and transmission procedures. It shouldn't take long for it to reach the Captain, she mused, even this far our the relays would probably uplink it within a few minutes. Returning to the more emotional matter at hand, the Vulcan stoically looked to Keating; "There were no actions of your own which predicated this outcome, nor any omitted actions which could have predicated another, Lieutenant..." she said, in as much as reassuring voice as she could manage.

That wasn't true, Finn thought. She had replayed the scenario back through her mind multiple times. There were at least a handful of actions she could have done, or tried, to save Silnan. P'rel just didn't know, she wasn't there. Finn's mind flashed back to their cell when Silnan begged for her to end his torture and, as their Cardassian interrogator had said, she was too much of a coward to have gone through with it. The interrogator. Her mind summoned a clear picture of the man that cut off her fingers. 'My face will fill your nightmares until the day you die and your final thought will be: was the uniform worth it?'. Was it? Had it been worth all of this pain?

Finn shook her head as if it would help to rid her of the awful memories and then looked back to P'rel. "You two seemed very close," she said, offering an opening to talk about Silnan if she wished to do so.

Beyond her control, P'rel found herself physically wincing away from the question and looking around, as if recoiling from a physical blow. A medkit on the wall gave her a brief moment of focus to regather herself, as she stood and unclipped it, pulling out some of the tools she would need. "Yes" she answered reservedly, trying not to make eye contact with Keating as she gently moved the woman's damaged hand onto her own lap, a small array of fairly basic field tools sat on the console edge in the order she would need them. Injecting the hand with a local anaesthetic, P'rel began to slowly unwrap the now sticking uniform she had used to contain the wound.

It was no real surprise to Finn that P'rel hadn't wanted to talk further about Silnan. The subject alone seemed to cause her physical pain. Instead of digging further, Finn let the silence fester as she watched P'rel with her hand. The anesthetic was a welcome relief from the pain that had slowly started to set in as the adrenaline waned. The full realization of the fact that she would be returning with fewer fingers than she had left with hadn't really hit her until that moment. A tear embarrassingly fell from her face onto her wrist and Finn internally kicked herself for allowing it to happen. Silnan died and you only lost a few fingers. You should be grateful, not crying in self-pity, she told herself.

The PADD lit up, flashing urgently with an incoming message to break Finn out of her own head.
///
"Lieutenants..." Kane was practically stunned, his face appearing on the small monitor nearby. "Keating? What are you doing on that shuttle? You're meant to be in Engineering..." He frowned, turning away from the monitor to bark an order for security to jump to action immediately. "Report to Dr Ki immediately. If that's really the two of you..." He shook his head, at a loss.
///

"I take it he got the message," Finn said. "Hopefully they catch my clone before it can do too much damage."

P’rel nodded once as she worked to seal Keating’s finger wounds a bit better. It wasn’t a pennant fix but it would do until she could be seen by a surgeon. “I believe you and Silnan worked together on the shuttle…?”.

"Yes," Finn replied, simply leaving it at that. She remembered the first time they met. He could barely pronounce her name, but he was kind and intelligent.
She had quite enjoyed working on that alien shuttle together. Talking about Silnan now just felt like a sharp knife ripping through her gut. "How did you two meet?" She asked, unsure of whether or not P'rel would actually answer.

Passing Keating's hand back to her, she offered a meek and barely attempted smile. "I was part of the Starfleet relief force in the Cardassia system during the Dominion surrender and withdrawal..." she began to pack away the medkit and activated the sterilisation function on the container. "The day after the surrender, when Cardassia still burned, I was seeking and treating survivors. Searching through a collapsed building, a small hand poked through the rubble searching for something to grab..." she remembered the dusty hand, tiny, writing around to find the source of the voice above. "I grabbed the hand, and we set to work freeing him from the debris...from then on he was my responsibility...of sorts...".

"So he's been with you all these years? You two must've gotten close," Finn replied, feeling even more guilty for all that she allowed Silnan to go through. P'rel didn't even know the extent of it. She didn't know that Finn could have saved him from the torture in the cell with only a few words and if Finn had spilled those words, perhaps he'd have made it out alive. For a moment, she thought about telling the intelligence officer everything but ultimately decided not to add to her pain. She wouldn't keep the information from her forever but now didn't seem the right time with the emotional loss so fresh.

Thinking back to the early years, P'rel suppressed the intense pain gnawing at her stomach. Her facade was entirely calm, though her internal dialogue was screaming at her things she might have done differently over the past day. "Mostly he was..." she responded, sitting back and holding her own side and allowing the painful twinge to settle. "He attended his formal schooling as a boarded student, not uncommon in Cardassian society, and I sponsored his entry into the military under the various inter-service partnerships established after the war". She sighed unintentionally, the sharp pain from the movement bringing her attention to the involuntary and momentary loss of composure. "Perhaps had I not, things would be different...". She looked over to the still unconscious Admiral White, pondering how it would feel to just open the aft section to space and watch him float away....She briefly smiled. "I make it sound as though I was his keeper. He was his own person, a distinct being who attended to his own ambitions and wishes accordingly..."

Ambitions and wishes that were extinguished by her own hand, Finn thought. She noticed P'rel holding her side and remembered she'd been stabbed. The engineer internally berated herself for forgetting, having been too caught in wallowing in her own guilt. "What can I do to help?" She motioned towards the injury. "I all but skipped the basic med course at the Academy, but you can walk me through whatever you need."

Waving a dismissive hand, P'rel shook her head. "Nothing. It's been cauterised, at least partially. There is some pain, though without there being an immediate need it is best to leave wounds alone when in the field. The adequate is not the enemy of the perfect..." she said, reciting an instructor's interpretation of an old saying. Though the wound was weeping and it was painful, it wasn't significantly compromised and would likely hold up until she could get to Doctor Ki or a duty surgeon. "Vulcans, even V'Tosh followers, are known to be able to functionally cope with great pains. May I ask you something...?" she probed.

"Sure," Finn replied. It was the least she could do for the woman who she had now bonded with. If someone had told her a year ago that she'd find common ground with the 'prick of a Vulcan' that once irritated every nerve in her body with her mere presence, Finn wouldn't have believed it. Yet, here they were.

"How are you coping with your experience on Rondac?" she bluntly asked, with no awareness of how it might affect Keating. Though V'tosh Vulcans were comfortable in combining emotion and logic, they rarely had the sort of emotional intelligence nor the awareness which benefitted other emotionally operable species.

"I'll be better when I get some new digits," she held up her now three fingered appendage with a small smile before looking back at the ground. "I just wish we had brought him home."

Nodding solemnly the Vulcan limited her reply to the gesture. "A simple surgery" she said, trying to reassure the engineer. "And of your experience as a prisoner...?" P'rel enquired, probing but not fully articulating what she wanted to know. "Please. Allow me to be blunt....what happened with Silnan...?".

The words felt like ice and her stomach churned as the question was asked. "He..." Finn started but paused to gulp down the tears and emotions that threatened to emerge as she debated just how much to tell. "He was tortured....for information..." She trailed off, finding it too difficult to continue, and turned her chair back to face the shuttle console.

Both eyebrows raising in surprise, P'rel noted verbally "Unfortunate. He held very little information. However, it is indeed fortunate you escaped comparatively unharmed, Lieutenant".

It took everything she had to merely nod and not break down completely. 'Fortunate'. She didn't feel fortunate, she felt like a wretched human being. What was it Silnan had called her? Monster. That's what she felt like, a monster.

"Lieutenant...?" P'rel enquired, checking over the navigation display and confirming they were due to reach Athena in little more than a day. She rose from her chair to check on the Admiral; he had begun to make some stirring noises and she was keen to keep him sedated as long as possible. "...Miss Keating..." she added, venturing into using the woman's name. It was an open secret on board that the two were practically butting horns at every opportunity, but P'rel was now seeing an entirely new aspect to the young human. She could not possibly yet know her well enough to like nor dislike her personally, though the Vulcan was developing a growing respect for her.

"Huh? What?" The Vulcan's voice broke Finn out of her daze. "Oh, fortunate, right," she absent-mindedly nodded before focusing on the Admiral. "Do you think he's the real one or a clone?"

Sharing a long gaze at the Admiral, P'rel conceded that the thought hadn't occurred to her. "There is a way to find out, if perhaps you would assist me..." she straightened the Admiral in his chair from a slumped position, and aligned his head so that it sat atop his neck more rigidly than before. "...how familiar are you with different types of Vulcan Mind Melds? I assume like many, you are under the impression that a mind meld is simply one process - a 'one size fits all' if you'll pardon the human phrase?".

"Yes, but since you asked the question, I'm guessing it's not as simple as that?" Finn replied as moved from the front of the shuttle to where P'rel and the Admiral were. She looked curiously at the Admiral and then at the intelligence officer. "What do you need me to help with?" She asked, thinking surely a mind meld was only a two-person process.

"Very much not..." P'rel said, a little cryptically though unintentionally. She beckoned for Keating to come closer and slid one of the chairs closer for her to sit on, close to the Admiral. "Are you aware that on Vulcan, I was bestowed the rank of Priestess. Not that I sought it, nor permitted the conferring of the same...".

"I wasn't. That must be quite the honor and must have taken a lot of dedication. I guess that also means you're skilled in a variety of mind meld methods?" Finn asked, taking a seat in the chair and looking between the Adirmal and intelligence officer. This was new territory for the engineer and she was curious, if not a little apprehensive, about what was to come next.

"It was not an honour..." P'rel replied softly, closing her eyes and trying to find the peaceful place in her thoughts. "A rank I did not seek not accept, rather what one might call a consolation prize. Vulcan spiritual structures being what they are, remain quite patriarchal you know. Were I simply in possession of a penis, I would be called Master...a fitting title, when one masters a skill...". She found it, the subterranean meadow on Andor, a strange expanse of brilliant purple grass dotted with the most delicate, fragile flowers filled with liquids which intermittently crystallised in the cold. A soft flow emanated from the ice, a combination of the distant sun and geothermal gases trapped in the ice, excited during the daytime by those distantly emanating solar rays. "But yes..." she exhaled deeply, "...I am exceptionally proficient in a range of mind meld techniques...may I invite you to join me in this one...?".

Finn shifted nervously. "Uh, do you need me to join? How exactly does this work? Will you see my memories too?" She asked, unsure if she was ready for such an intrusion. Though she was curious to know if the Admiral was a clone, the thought of exposing her own experiences didn't seem right at the moment. Not when the pain of losing Silnan was so fresh.

"Remain still, and relax as much as you are able..." P'rel replied. "I will simply be a bridge between your minds. Whilst I will be aware of your experiences as they happen, this is not a mind meld where you and I will directly share thoughts. It is likely you will visualise yourself as a physical presence within the Admiral's memories, as an observer....you will be unable to interact with the memories, though viewing them will likely be illuminating. Are you ready?".

Finn nodded, not entirely sure she understood what was about to happen or the consequences, but understanding that they did need answers. She did her best, which wasn't much in this instance, to relax and focus as she moved closer to P'rel. The Vulcan made contact with the Admiral first before also pulling in Finn. At first, everything was jumbled. Almost like a television swapping between channels too quickly. "I can't make sense of it, it's all a whirl. Can you pull out the information you need?" She asked, grimacing from the onslaught of mental images.

P'rel tried hard to focus, as much as both Admiral White and Lieutenant Keating were experiencing, the Vulcan was experiencing both simultaneously. She returned to her preferred method, adjusting her grip on Keating's face and then White's, she imagined two shimmering balls of plasma, one red and one blue. Into the blue, she placed Keating's mind, and into the red, White's. There. The images were separate again. Calm.

Moving the two balls of plasma together, their outermost tendrils flared flirted seductively with each other until they entwined; both great balls of plasma containing the minds of the other two overlapping now like an old Earth-style Venn diagram with the centre a deep and alluring purple. Focusing on the purple, she watched as the overlapping balls drew closer, bigger, hotter. The oval shaped central overlap of the two balls, shimmering in electric purple, passed over her own body in a warm embrace.

As the purple cloud moved over her, the mist dissipated into a corridor; a distinctly Starfleet corridor, that much was certain. But where? In front of her stood Keating, uninjured. "Focus on my voice" P'rel instructed. Like a dream, where the tangible substance is just out of reach, beyond the black, P'rel heard "Admiral:; a man's voice, not gruff as such but certainly firm and weathered. Keating remained still, but at the same time stepped forward as Admiral White - as if the Admiral had stepped out of a Keating-suit. He strode forward and stretched out a hand to the dark, shaking hands with...someone. "Who is it?" she probed, concentrating hard to penetrate the dark. Keating turned around and both and P'rel steadied themselves as the bridge shook violently, the remaining red alert lights throwing soft pulses across the destroyed bridge and broken bodies. 'Abandon Ship...' the computer said, as the bird flew overhead, momentarily blocking the warm sun and casting a flowing shadow across the rolling green fields.

"Find a moment" P'rel urged, wincing in concentration as the enormous Galaxy Class starship passed by the windows of the shuttlecraft. 'We need you a voice echoed, itself overlapped by a further statement as a Klingon woman in ceremonial robes stepped through the large doorway ahead of them; It can be only you she said, thumping her arm to her chest as he took White's hand, the Romulan General decanting a glass of blue liquid in drab and unmistakably Romulan residential surroundings. "Any single moment. Grab hold of it." she urged finally, unable to control the kaleidoscope of images and memories on her own.

Finn took a deep breath and zoned in on the Klingon woman, in the dream-like state the engineer's figure pressed towards her. It was like wading through a mist with lead-filled shoes, but as soon as she drew in closer the other scenes faded away and a weight felt as though it were lifted. Did the clone make some sort of alliance? Finn wondered as she watched White shake the Klingon's hand.

"What will you do with the real White?" The Romulan General posed to the Admiral as he handed the man a glass of ale. "So this is the clone," Finn said, assuming P'rel could hear her.

Having settled into a moment in time, P'rel was able to relax a little whilst maintaining the meld. "Evidently..." she replied, noting the usual auditory oddity of both hers and her two mind meld partners both vocalising her words at the same time as herself involuntarily. P'rel recognised the Romulan from her intelligence research into operation midnight; General Rokal, a prominent member of the Tal Shiar and not a particularly surprising image to have uncovered. 'Disposed of' the three melded partners all vocalised at once as the Romulan answered from White's memories. "Deeper..." P"rel intoned telepathically to Keating, "you must press harder...future plans....personnel..." she pushed the images into Keating's mind, hoping to trigger something in White's.

Everything went foggy once more as if a million memories blurred together, then the scene reappeared. This time, White sat on a couch opposite the Romulan, and a third figure hovered in the corner of the room. "We'll have to replace key staff, slowly over time. We can't move too quickly or we'll risk raising suspicion and being discovered," the mysterious figure hissed through the shadows.

"If we move too slowly we also risk someone finding one of the clones as we wait forever for the plan to slip into place," White responded somewhat adamantly.

The Romulan raised his hand as if to halt the discussion. "The pace at which we move is somewhat irrelevant until we finalize our plans of who we're going to clone and in what order."

P"rel winced as psychic barriers came up, Admiral White - or possibly just his clone - had clearly had quite advanced training on resisting mental incursions. "Lieutenant..." she whispered, and directed the attention of both women to the reflective surface of a large window on the far side of the room which looked out to space. As if reflecting an image, the window flickered with images of Starfleet Command, New Romulus, Vulcan, Cardassia Prime, a number of starships belonging to the major powers, P'rel was sure the Athena had been among them, and finally settling on an uninterrupted view back out into space. The resistance in White was strong, but his thoughts were becoming chaotic, he was panicking, they were close. "Who is it..." P'rel urged, readjusting her grip on Keating and White's faces, trying desperately to retain the overlapping circles of colour and see who the figure in the corner was.

"Besides the few that are already incubating, I suggest we start looking to replace some personnel deployed to ships," the shadowy figure spoke once more. "We'll need to select key personnel, ideally captains, first officers, and department heads. Those that are less outspoken. Loners. The less social, the less likely they are to be discovered." The mysterious man stepped forward and Finn gasped in horror. "How is that possible?" She whispered, unable to believe her eyes as the light revealed a Cardassian bearing a striking resemblance to Silnan.

Keating's gasp channeled through P'rel, whose own gasp similarly reverberated back to Keating. The shared simultaneous emotion was intensely powerful. "Iltar..." the three linked partners spoke aloud with confusion. "Ja-Gul Iltar Bronin....". P'rel struggled hard to keep the link. White was panicking and his mind was becoming more and more chaotic. Harder to organise and control. Harder to remain within. "Silnan's father..." she spoke, confused. It was now too much, the link was untenable, White's panic had elevated his cortisol levels to the point where she could no longer contain the levels of surging emotions. With a sharp stab of pain in her temples, the link was broken. Taking a moment to gather her composure, P'rel looked at Keating who appeared somewhat worse for the experience.

"Iltar..." P'rel said, her own brow furrowed deep in confusion as she recounted the story, probing her memories for something she had missed. "...Iltar had been killed on Cardassia Prime in the final hours of the war, he was fiercely loyal to the Dominion and had been one of the view flag officers to have potentially succeeded Legate Damar..." she sighed, rubbing her head. "He was defending a command and control facility when the Klingon ground troops swept through the capital..." she shook her head; "I saw the body....it was well noted....he was highly prominent...." her voice trailed off, desperately confused.

Finn still looked as though she had seen a ghost. "He looked so much like Silnan..." Her voice trailed off and she sank from her knees to the floor. "So we know this White is a clone," she motioned towards the Admiral. "We never did see what their end goal was." She looked at the ground as her mind fluttered towards images of Silnan and his father. "What does it all mean?"

A deep pang hit her stomach as P'rel acknowledged Keating's words, Iltar was indeed the absolute spitting image of Silnan; he had grown into his father's mould so much it was almost as if he was....a clone....? P'rel stowed the thought for another day, it was unlikely but something still worth looking at, if it was possible, down the line. Shaking her head, she looked at White as he stirred, his eyes beginning to long blink as he came around. "I do not know..." she conceded. "I know someone who can hopefully get more out of him when we are back..." she said, thinking of how she would broach this with Captain Bennett. "In the mean time I recommend he remains sedated...: she said, taking the single step closer to the Admiral and landing a swift punch to the side of his head, sending his eyes rolling back as he passed out once again.