Night Birds III

Posted on 27 May 2013 @ 4:36pm by
Edited on on 27 May 2013 @ 6:03pm

3,982 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: LTjg Maenad Panne's quarters
Timeline: MD9 2230 Hours

ON:

Maenad sighed. "It bothers me that you think this is okay." And it really did.

Separating his hands in a shrug, Liyar laid his head down on the arm of the couch behind him. "I cannot imagine that we will agree on everything. I do not see an issue with harvesting this system. It belongs to no one and there are people who need these resources. I have lists of recipients in my office right now. Those names are not corporate beneficiaries. They are people, who are struggling. I simply cannot justify leaving this system untouched when it could benefit others."

"Liyar, I don't know if you paid attention during our mission briefing but this system isn't being harvested for charity. It's being harvested for specific benefit to the Federation. Why do you think it's being kept so secret?" she demanded. "The FNN isn't allowed to report on any of our mineral discoveries because the Federation wants to keep the minerals for itself. Your heart is in the right place, theirs isn't."

"I recognize that you think I am ineffectual," he said mildly. "That benefit is to people who need it. It is not being kept secret for some nefarious reason. It is because we are a small vessel without substantial ability to protect ourselves in an uncharted, open system that has seen piracy in the past. If word got out that this system contained as many resource deposits as we suspect, we would be overrun. Do you know how many people are dying on MS1, who could potentially benefit from even a single deposit of dilithium in this system? Nyx, or Nara XI? Rigel V? These are Federation citizens."

Maenad sighed angrily. "Liyar," she snapped, "you aren't listening to me!" She took his arms off of her and rolled over so she could see him. "If you think I think you're useless, you're wrong. I'm saying that the admiralty doesn't care what you think about MS1 or Rigel V. The Federation will harvest these minerals, that it doesn't need, and it will undoubtedly sell them to win favour with non-Federation races. They've done it before. Look at what was going to happen with the Ba'ku," she reminded him. "Not a single dilithium crystal will ever go to MS1, even though it should, because they don't care."

"And you believe that I am merely going to send in a list and hope they listen," Liyar realized wryly. "I am well aware of what Starfleet admiralty think, and I have no intention of sitting back and relying on the power of my word. I have been in politics my entire life, Maenad. I know how the game is played."

She exhaled through her nostrils and pressed her forehead against his chest. "We saw the ruins. This system doesn't belong to us," she said into his body. "We don't know where they are or what happened to them. They might be hiding, for all we know. It's wrong."

"The Rojarians are dead, Maenad. We have found evidence that proves they were assimilated. There are no biosigns, no lifesigns. There is no one here. If there were, we would know. They would have come forward. I find it difficult to show sympathy for a group of people who may exist, when I see real pain and real suffering in front of me. Quantifiable suffering that I do not need to wonder or guess about. It is there. It is here." He tapped his head. "If this system were inhabited, then yes, it would be wrong. But it is not."

"What are you talking about?" Maenad asked him. Her frustration was getting stronger. "Assimilated?"

"Assimilated," Liyar repeated, sitting up to rest on his elbow. "By the Borg. Evidence was collected at R02's metropolis area. Borg corpses and technology were recovered. The Borg were here. The Rojarians are not."

Maenad sat up quickly, the blanket falling down. She felt a chill from the escape of body heat but ignored it. The small of her back was against his stomach. "What?" she almost yelled at him. Nobody told her anything. The captain was negligent once in informing her of her danger, and now the Borg being present seemed to be no matter, either. She was the chief science officer and a member of the senior staff, yet she was constantly ignored. "Liyar, if this is a joke you had better tell me right now. Why was I not informed of this?" she blinked several times, thinking of the meeting she had had with Pendleton and Cho. Pendleton was on that mission and he didn't find it pertinent to tell her about it? The science personnel that were on that mission reported to Kiri, who, like Pendleton, neglected to tell her about the Borg presence. "This is outrageous."

Liyar sat up, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I do not make jokes," he reminded her, meeting her eyes. "I read a report by Crewman Athlen, who also discussed it with me at my request. That same report was filed to the science department. I do not know why you were not informed, but you should have been. It was likely an oversight by Lieutenant Cho." Liyar looked up and flipped the PADD in his hand against his opposite wrist. "To be perfectly honest with you, I am not certain Lieutenant Cho is well," Liyar finally said quietly. "She has been under extreme duress lately. She has been distracted and disoriented."

Maenad closed her eyes and pressed her thumb and forefinger against her eyes. Very slowly, she exhaled through clenched teeth. Her job. The people she worked with. Well, tried to work with... it was reaching a tipping point. Liyar was right about Kiri, but what did he want her to about it? "I know," she muttered plaintively. "But why did we not have a briefing about something like this? Why are we still here? The Borg always return for their dead. Isn't this important? Isn't this something we should be briefed about?" The whole situation was insanity. "I didn't know you talked to Kiri much," she commented, lowering her hand. She stared at shadows against the wall. "I had a meeting a few days ago in which she was very estranged," Maenad shook her head. "I think she's been given too much responsibility too soon. She hasn't even been out of the academy for two months," she sighed. "I don't know what to do about it. I have never heard of or encountered a lieutenant junior grade as young as she is."

"The reports indicate that this happened many hundreds of years ago, and these drones were severed from the collective. The chances of them returning with the transwarp conduits disabled by Voyager are approximately less than one in one million. Nevertheless, I do not know why a briefing was not held. I have been attempting to mentor Lieutenant Cho in her development of telepathy."

"Telepathic abilities..." Maenad balked under her breath. Kiri had mentioned that before, but she didn't take her seriously, nor did she now.

Liyar didn't think the sessions were going to lead anywhere. Kiri Cho didn't seem to have a firm enough grasp on her inner Core, but he wasn't one to judge. The idea of bringing it up in violation of Kiri's privacy bothered him, but as a fellow crewmember, he felt it was his duty to suggest, "Perhaps you should recommend Lieutenant Cho for counseling."

Still shaking her head, Maenad got up from the couch and marched over to the kitchen. "Maybe I should recommend myself for counselling," she dripped with sarcasm. Maenad opened her wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of merlot from the top rack. In almost the same fluid motion, like she had done this a thousand times, she whipped a wineglass from the cupboard and slammed it onto the counter. She could see Liyar's shadowy figure in the light of the paused PADD on the couch. She looked away, pulled out the cork and poured herself a glass, which she drank in one go. She refilled it and took another generous sip, topped it off, and replaced the cork without putting the bottle back in the cabinet.

"Do you believe it would help?" asked Liyar, straightening and setting the PADD aside on the table.

She ignored him, drank until her glass was gone, then leaned against the counter with her arms crossed over her breasts. "No," she said.

"You are obviously quite distressed. If your department is not functioning cohesively, then perhaps you need to lay out clearer boundaries with regards to how items shall be handled," Liyar suggested, resting his chin on his fingertips.

He was beginning to make her angry. "The department is cohesive. What isn't cohesive is the top-down filtration of information on this damned ship," she spat. "Don't tell Maenad Panne that Borg have been found, don't tell Maenad Panne there is a giant beetle on the surface that just ate a member of the senior staff, don't trust Maenad Panne when she follows recommendations by her shuttle crew." She eyed the bottle of wine, but left it alone. Her head was swimming.

"There is no need to become angry with me," Liyar said, watching her from across the room. "If I had known you were unaware of the away team's discovery, I would have informed you of it myself. Lieutenant Cho is your assistant chief department head. Lieutenant Pendleton is your-" he squinted vaguely, "-whatever he is. It is their responsibility to ensure that information is effectively distributed throughout your department. They should be aware that it is unacceptable to limit dissemination. You recall when Lieutenant Pendleton came aboard, when we spoke of him. I will reiterate again that it is important for you to let your colleagues know how you wish to be treated. On top of this, I understand Captain Saalm has also demonstrated she is guided by obvious personal feeling in her behavior toward you. Have you spoken to Captain Saalm about your concerns?" Liyar asked. He had advised her to do so once before.

"There's no point," she tried to calm herself. "Last time I talked to her she put her hands on me and kissed me, right after she tried to incriminate me for trusting Lamar Darius' judgement that he could fly the shuttle lower. It was his idea. Part of being a commander is trusting your subordinates." Maenad closed her eyes for a moment, looking pouty. Then she pushed herself away from the counter and returned to Liyar's side. She sat on the edge of the coffee table. "I hate this," she growled. "She says she still loves me. How?" her voice shook. "How is that even possible? We didn't even--" she stopped herself, trying to level with him. "She is the captain. Why is she making this so difficult for me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore," she sounded like she could cry.

"You have stated to me that it would not be appropriate for you to tell her not to approach you again." Liyar arched an eyebrow pointedly at her this time. "In this way, she has power over you, not as a superior officer, but as an individual. You need to let her know where you stand in regards to how she is treating you. Otherwise, you are accepting it, and enabling it. You are well aware that your actions were perfectly acceptable. You need to be confident in this, Maenad." He reached over and wrapped his hands over hers. "You continue to blame yourself for an event that has always entirely been in Lirha Saalm's control. This has prevented you from seeing the issue as it really is, and reacting from your true core. You know that you are a capable scientist and you know you are good at your job. You know that you have the power to say no and that you deserve to be treated respectfully. She is making it difficult because she is incapable of recognizing that her emotional attachments are unhealthy. As an Orion, it is likely she has never had to face such a rejection in her life. As a result, she is lashing out at you and blaming you for a problem that exists only in her mind."

She knew of all that, but hearing it from someone else assembled it into something solid. He validated her, which rose her lips in a smile, but she still looked upset in the darkness. His touch sent tingles of warmth through her and feelings of goodness. She wished that she too could be telepathic; how she could ever live up to the expectations that Vulcan males had for their females, she did not know. Perhaps she never could. She was only human. But she could try, in her own way, and she wanted to. She lifted his hand to her lips and touched his knuckles, then used his arm to pull herself onto him. She sat on his lap, his legs between hers, chest to chest, and she traced her nose against the skin of his neck, the lines of his cheeks and jaw. She didn't kiss him, but she touched him with her open lips, gently breathed against him, and rubbed her cheekbones against his.

Liyar breathed quietly, inhaling her scent as she pressed closer to him. He let his head drip forward to touch his forehead to hers, digging the pads of his thumbs into her shoulders and the pressure point at her spine just below her neck. "You are very tense," he murmured, looking up at her. One of his hands moved to sit just above her lower back, and his other tucked stray wisps of her hair back behind her ears. He touched her ears, then her forehead, sweeping down the lines of her jaw as if he were mapping her features with his hands. He transmitted a sense of peace, crackling through his fingertips as easy as thinking. He met her eyes, an odd glint in his before he moved to kiss her, gently tipping her head back as he did so. A small telepathic zap clearly and efficiently highlighted his feelings on the matter. He'd almost forgotten how good it could be to have this connection, even in the physical realm. And he enjoyed touching Maenad, it was a simple thing, but no less comfortable. It was easy to fall into, and he knew he had to watch himself. He had told himself when he'd been insane enough to begin this that he would follow her lead, and he tried faithfully to live up to that internal promise, letting her push him back until he hit the couch cushions. He couldn't help pulling her forward with him.

Maenad fell into him, quietly laughing in his ear. She tried to bite his earlobe but she kept missing, so she kissed the side of his neck instead. She tightened her thighs over his legs, lowering herself closer to him as she pulled his chest closer to hers, caressing her lips along the sides of his neck. Then, almost as abruptly as it started, she climbed off of him. She was very tense, even after he'd softened her with his telepathic channeling. "I know," she said. "I'm sorry if I shouted at you." She leaned to kiss his cheek.

"If," Liyar said, dry as firewood. He nudged her and prompted her to balance on his knees, with her back facing him. He dug the edges of his thumbs into the knots in her shoulders and neck, using a mild neuropressure technique.

Maenad grinned as she moved to sit on his knees. She gripped the side of his thighs as he worked on her muscles and her back and shoulder tingled as he released the pressures in her body. After a moment, she pulled off her shirt and tossed it somewhere into the darkness, so he could massage her better. "Thank you," she sighed.

"Just relax," he said calmly. "You have the strength to overcome this. Breathe. Often the best and simplest thing you can do for yourself when agitated is to take care of your body and relax your mind. Like so," he tapped several consecutive points with his index and middle fingers against one another, generating a small, mild neural feedback link through their physical contact designed to spread trickling, hazy warmth through her back starting from the top of her shoulders and down.

"I am relaxed," she tried to argue with him as she sighed. She followed his instructions from behind her closed eyes. The touch of his hands, the touch of his mind on hers, calmed and excited her in ways that she had never experience before. She pushed her shoulder blades together as she tried to loosen her joints. There was a cracking noise from somewhere in her back, but she seemed unfazed by it. "Where did you learn to do that?" she asked him after several minutes.

"All Vulcans are taught in childhood to understand the various pressure points in the humanoid body, although as a Terran yours are a little bit different," Liyar said, demonstrating this with another small tap to the side of her lower back. "And through learning to train our touch telepathy, we learn how to influence the body through an application of kinetic energy, from one to another, like so." Another zap of warmth raced through their contact, this time with a little more edge to it. Liyar continued with a small shrug, "When I was a young adult, the practice interested me and I began learning it in more depth than I was traditionally taught. It is a form of holistic medicine on Vulcan and used to calm the body and induce pleasurable sensations."

Maenad grinned some more as she became more relaxed. "Well," she said, "you do it very well."

He dug the heel of his palm into another particularly rough spot and worked to dissolve it. He then returned both of his hands to the tops of her shoulders. "How do you feel?" he asked lazily from behind her.

She rested her hands on his and said that she felt better. The nagging nature of the mission was still there, and nothing could be done about it, but her body felt more fluid, and Liyar had calmed her down once more. She raised his fingers to her mouth and kissed them.

Liyar's hand twitched and his fingers curled back into his palm. That was always disconcerting. He shook his head, instead he used the edge of his thumb to tip her head upward and tapped his fingers against some of the innervated points just under her ear and around her temple, guiding her to sit back against him and resting his fingers over the top of her right shoulder.

"It's been a long day, that's all," Maenad slowly exhaled. She turned around to look at Liyar, her temple against his forehead. "Want to go to bed?" she whispered, then kissed the tip of his nose.

"With you?" Liyar asked, unsure if he understood exactly what she meant.

Neither of them had moved. The question caught her off-guard. Who else could she have meant, she wondered, blinking in the darkness. A pang of dread swept through her, doubt creeping up from the recess of her mind. "Well," she started hesitantly, "if you want to," she laughed silently through her nose as she pushed him with the top of her skull. "If you think that it's--" Maenad put her hand on his shoulder as leverage to come off of him and stood up. She looked down at him; wearing only a bra and her skirt, she looked skeletal in the milky light of the stars. Her eyes danced. "If you want," she played with her clasped fingers nervously.

"To- sleep," Liyar look up at her, expression hovering between confused and dry.

"Yes," she replied. "You can go home, if you want. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable." Maenad noted that he still hadn't gotten up, which grew her reservations. She didn't know what to do anymore; was she to see him to the door, leave him there while she went to bed? Offer him the couch. He didn't seem to want to leave, though. She was the one who'd suddenly cut things short, albeit unintentionally. "We can watch the stars for a while," she offered, desperately. "Or you can stay right there. I can get you a pillow."

He blinked a bit. He had forgotten for a moment that Maenad, as a Terran, had different expectations and understandings of certain actions. He'd slept in her bed twice before, events which created a considerable degree of tension in his mind. At the time, they'd been highly inappropriate, from a Vulcan perspective. A Terran, on the otherhand, merely found such interactions a sign of comfort and familiarity. And, he realized, Maenad was very tired. She would benefit from sleep, even if he didn't. He stood and folded his hands in front of him, meeting her eyes slowly and nodding. He was out of his depth, but, "I shall accompany you," he said, his tone accepting. He gestured to the hall that lead to her bedroom over her shoulder.

She smiled, showing all of her teeth, and bobbed her head. She bit her lip, felt a tingle in her body, and went into her bedroom without saying anything. In the blue dark of her room, she pulled back her bedcovers, removed her skirt, and crawled in. She moved all the way over to the side closest to the wall so he could get in too.

Still clad in only his t-shirt and pants that looked like they were meant to be pajamas, Liyar already looked ready for bed. He felt as if he were a page unstuck from the back of a novel, a scene jumping out, throwing him down, spiraling into nonreality. He watched Maenad discard her skirt, and climb under her covers. He sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing over the sheets under his hand for a moment before easing in. He settled on his side and pulled up the covers over her, resting his arm against hers. "Get some sleep," he said quietly near her ear.

Whatever had played out in the fantasies of her mind, Maenad realised, they were premature. She was comfortable, relaxed, and pleased, yet there was a chord of regret in her that came from crushing and wondering. She smiled at him nevertheless. The elastic was still on her wrist, she realised, and she put it between two fingers and shot into the darkness. She snuggled into her pillow, found herself still uncomfortable, and removed her underwear. She didn't care. It was her bed. "Good night," she whispered across her pillow.

Oblivious to her lack of clothing, or perhaps possessing a tremendous poker face, Liyar slowed down his breathing and unconsciously matched his body's rhythm to hers as she nodded off into sleep. He forgot how calming it could be to rely on the trails of another, although he remained awake for some time, staring over her shoulder into the darkness of the room. Alone now as she drifted off, he had nothing but his own swirling thoughts for company. He forced them away, flinging them from his mind like droplets of water, letting sleep come at long last.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer, SSC
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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