A Private Moment on Sarabrande

 


From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 19:50
This was intended to be posted in SSCN, but I never had time with a Harddrive failure 30 days after getting my new laptop! Besides it's a private moment for my character Jenssen that isn't generally known in game.

Stardate 201003.14

Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard is seen holding an ancient Olympic style recurve bow in her left hand. The hilt of the bow is a golden teak wood and the flights are a solid white composite material. The beam of the bow looms well over her head. An arrow is notched and drawn back by her strong, arms, left bare by her sleeveless black top. The red and black striped flights of the arrow are posed in front of her nose as she sights along the onxy shaft. The blunt target point is aimed directly at an Olympic-style, multiple ringed, round target that is well littered with other arrows like the one she has notched. Most of the arrows are clustered in various groups, but not really in the middle of the multi-colored bullseye 70 meters from where she is standing, barefoot, on a flat rock on the water world Sarabrande. A small waterfall cascades down the mountain side behind her and the brilliant light reflects off the water and through her long golden hair which is drawn up into a loose pony tail and cascading down her back. She stands steady, poised, ready to let loose the arrow. She silhouette against the sunlight looks like a statue of the Greek goddess Diana poised on the hunt. She is barely breathing as she lets loose the arrow. It slices through the air in an arc and embeds itself into the target just to the lower left of the center ring. She sighs as she kneels down on the rock, resting the bow on the counter weight bar as she leans her head against the bow. The spring day on Sarabrande is warm and she’s unzipped her khaki cargo pants at the knees to remove the bottom sections into a pair of short pants. A jagged scar can be seen on her left leg running from just under her knee up under her pant leg and onward towards her thigh. It’s an old wound yet she rubs it absently as she kneels on the rock. Her garnet and silver ankle bracelet sparkles brightly in the warm morning sun.


"Nice shot." [MACO] Ten Bears - EN-1 Support calls out to her from a small clearing he’s beamed down into.

Jenssen startles for a moment at the sudden intrusion into her private area and looks up at him. She then smiles at him, "Not really, Ten Bears the Wise and Fearless. I can’t really seem to focus today and it’s a pretty poor example of clustering compared to what I’m used too. I am guessing T’Laurn told you where I was."

Bears nodded.

"It’s not been a good week Bears." She sighed again.

"It can't have been too bad, you're looking great!" He replied walking up to where she had placed the bow and quiver of arrows beside her on the rock. She patted the rock beside her and he took a seat.

"It’s been a really bad week." She replied again softly. "You know Takila Boog of Sanctum is gone right?"

"Yes, I'd heard he had stepped down as Governor. I'm sorry to see him go, he was a good friend," Ten Bears replied in all sincerity.

"Trujen, Guy and Bijik went to the Sanctum Colonies. They found very little. Bijik was kind enough to send me an old pair of boots they found in a closet." She laughed a little cynical laugh, "Well, I have to tell you, Boog left some mighty big boots for someone to fill in this galaxy. Mighty big."

Jenssen nodded a little to no one in particular, an acknowledgement of the impact her dear Dark Knight had on the galaxy. "He’s going to be really missed here. I doubt anyone is going to come along anytime soon that can fill the void left when he departed for regions unknown. Dr Karst, Kor, now Boog."

Jenssen fell silent for a moment. "You know I’ve had to leave the THE KLINGON EMPIRE in shame Ten Bears. I betrayed my oath to Caesar in order to protect the innocent civilians and the younger warriors of the THE KLINGON EMPIRE just getting out of the Academy from retaliation by Drake. [palyer:29373] is in command now. I’m sure he’ll restore the Empire to its former Glory. There was just too much of a fractured Empire with an internal power struggle and I’ve had to leave Klingon Space." She nodded convinced it was the best decision.

"I’ve also had to kill my neighbor Skyraider at his request this week. A deadly virus had ravaged his colonies. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out if killing a dieing man, a man who had only a few days to live at best and at his own request makes me an murderer or not. That’s something I don’t even think Vulcan logic can come up with a definite answer too. How could any other alliance want to have me join them now after what I have done this week?"

Bears nodded, "That’s part of the reason why I’m here. You’ve always been respected here. I would be glad to accept your expertise and caring into my alliance of newly expanding colonists. You could help others build up new planets, help stabilize their economy, and be a cornerstone of our group."

Jenssen sat silently, listening to his offer.


to be continued.

 

 

 

 

To Hell and Back....

From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 20:10

Stardate: 201003.15 -- continued...

[MACO] Ten Bears - EN-1 Support sat silently beside Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard on the rock, waiting for her answer. His auburn brown hair shifted in the breeze a little. He was a patient man and knew she needed to think about his offer before she would accept it.

"Bears, I don’t know if you really want me to join you. I don’t know if I can be the leader you think I am. I hope I do not have repeat some of the things I’ve had to do this past week. It goes against everything I was brought up to believe in. I don’t like to be a killer and yet this galaxy seems to have a way of making sure you know how to defend yourself doesn’t it?" She squeezed his hand a little as they sat on the rock in the warm spring sun. The valley below was a blaze of wild flowers and it seemed as if the chill of winter was beckoning them to both begin anew. Bears absently rested his hand on her left knee, just above the ragged scar, in an innocent sign of affection and understanding. She tensed, drawing in a sharp breath as she quickly pull her leg away from him. It was an immediate reflex.

"No, damn it...." Jenssen cursed herself for her reaction, "Sorry Bears...I didn’t mean to do that."

 

She drew a shallow breath and quickly grabbed his hand to place it back on her leg, holding it gently cupped there with her own hand. "I’m sorry Bears....it’s just, very difficult for me to let someone get this close to me. She took his hand and ran it up over the scar with her own, gritting her teeth as she did it. "There, it doesn’t hurt now." She smiled at him but it was obvious she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him.

"Whats wrong? You seem very edgy with that....it does still hurt doesn’t it?" Bears was concerned now.

"In a manner of speaking, yes, it still hurts." Jenssen said softly as she stared out over the valley for a long moment. It was apparent that she as debating telling him this chapter of her life. It was something she shared with no one other then T’Laurn, as they had both been through that Hell together.

"Bears, I don’t know why I am going to tell you this. I haven’t been able to tell anyone this. Only T’Laurn knows the furthest extent of it because, she was there...." Jenssen breathed heavily. "The great English Prime Minister William Churchill once said, ‘If you find you are going through Hell, keep going.' BearsI’ve seen Hell. I’ve been through it and there are times when I think I’m still trying to climb the hill leading away from it." She whispered to him.

"It was a little more then ten years ago. I was the First Officer, a Commander on the Federation Exploration ship, U.S.S. Taylorsville. Our Captain, Byron Lance, was captured by a band of Suliban mercenaries just outside the Beta Quadrant during a little known battle of the Dominion War. We were on an exploration mission to investigate some anomalous energy readings on a rogue planetoid.  Captain Lance was very concerned that we locate something on that planet.  He couldn't tell the crew what it was.  Only a small handfull of officers were allowed to accompany him.  They had to use shuttles to get to the surface because of the weird power disturbances in the atmosphere on this planet. It seemed artificial in nature. The away team consisting of five team members and they spent over six hours on that planet and still never found the power source. Captain Lance, T’Laurn who was our Science Officer and stand in Emergency medic, two security officers and a geologist. They were on the way back from the surface with the scans and were reporting into the ship about to break through the upper mesosphere when the Suliban attacked. They came after us on the U.S.S. Taylorsville first to drive us away from the shuttle. They hit us with 80 cell ships and we had to back off. Captain Lance’s last command to me was to get the ship out of there and get back up, which was about two weeks away at the nearest starbase. While he was talking with us through the running skirmish, T’Laurn was transmitting the data from their scans on a submerged carrier frequency. We got about half the data from their mission before they were taken. I high-tailed it out of that area with the Taylorsville and we took refuge in a dense Class 11 Cerulean Nebula. I had two science teams try to decode T’Laurn’s transmissions. We got a little information on a strange power source. It wasn’t like any energy pattern we had ever seen before and there wasn’t enough data just in this transmission to be very meaningful."

"I wouldn’t just let my Captain go down without fighting to get him back. So I figured me and one other volunteer could take a well armed shuttle back to the planet after things cooled down and track the subspace signatures to find our Captain and his away team."

"I was really close to Byron then. We had met earlier at an Academy Conference and while he was a few years older then I was, we sort of hit it off right away. He asked for me to come join his ship as First Officer when he got assigned Captaincy. Of course I accepted knowing it wouldn’t be more then a few years before I would be offered my own command and hey, if things were to develop a little during that time, as I thought they might be by then, at least as a Captain of my own ship, there wasn’t any conflict of command to occur that way." Jenssen shrugged. "Believe me, we were completely professional for three years Bears. But we both knew that we had feelings for each other then and we waited to act on them." Jenssen whispered.

"At the time, T’Laurn and I were not close friends. She had just joined the crew after serving in both the Vulcan Medical Corps and she spent time in Starfleet Intelligence. There were a lot of people on the crew that didn’t completely trust her because of her SI background and I am sort of ashamed to say I was one of them."

"Well, I was in line to get a commission as a ship Captain myself at the time, so I didn’t figure I needed to get to friendly with T’Laurn and the other new crew. I had about four months to go to get that promotion and I figured taking the initiative to mount a rescue before these Suliban mercs could get too far away was a good way to show how I could and would step up to the plate when needed."

"So, I disobeyed a direct command and mounted a rescue mission because I was thinking with my heart and not my head. I and one Security officer volunteered for the mission. I sent the ship back to the nearest Starbase to get back up. Lieutenant Bagaamora, a Krelioan officer who had no family and lived to fight, volunteered to go with me. It took us longer then we thought to find that warp trail and we followed it for almost three weeks through 150 sectors at warp 6.75 before we found the Helix, Helix 46. It was in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf planet. We were setting up to go in on a quick dart in and out when they found us hiding in a sorium laced iceroid field. They traced a coded transponder which we had set to ping buoys we had left hidden along the route. We were trying to make sure the U.S.S Taylorsville and the reinforcements they would bring could follow us and find out where we had tracked the Suliban mercs. It was far enough, that if Starfleet had to set up a standard search pattern for us, it could take several months to locate us. Lt Bagaamora and I did everything we could to mask our warp signature just in case the Suliban started to try to see if they had been followed, but it wasn’t enough."

"The only thing I remember of that phaser fight was hitting my head on the shuttle helm control....I woke up four hours later inside that Helix in a cell right across from T’Laurn. Bagaamora didn’t make it." Jenssen shivered. "That’s when I learned that Hell is a very real place."

Ten yeas ago.

 

 



Jenssen awoke laying on the cold floor of the cell. Her nose and cheek were crusted with her own blood. The Suliban mercenaries who had captured her hadn’t even had the decency to get her any medical care for her nose or head. The room spun and she was sure she had a good concussion. She sat up groaning, holding her head and trying to keep the room from spinning. She leaned against the cold wall of the cell, pressing her cheek against it for the coolness. She tried to look around and saw T’Laurn sitting cross legged on the bench in her cell, just staring at Jenssen. T'Laurn has holding a hand to her own neck, either massaging a muscle or pinching off a nerve and Jenssen’s eyes wouldn’t focus enough to tell what she was doing.

"T’Laurn, you ok?" Jenssen asked through shut eyes.

"I will survive." T’Laurn replied coldly. "I would conclude from your presence here, you disobeyed orders to mount a rescue mission?"

"Yeah, you would venture to guess right..." Jenssen grumbled. "Didn’t quite go as planned."

"Indeed." T’Laurn replied again a almost acid quality to her voice that Jenssen had never heard from the Vulcan before. T’Laurn was either angry or in pain or both and Jenssen willed her eyes to focus to see what was wrong.

"Where’s Captain Lance? Where’s the rest of the away team?" Jenssen suddenly realized she could only see T’Laurn and the big, nasty looking, Naussicaan guard that was sitting at the door to the cell area. The whole area was dimly lit, cold and bare metal. Force fields covered the front of each holding cell. There was very little privacy here of any kind and Jenssen was fully aware the Naussicaan guard was listening to them now.


"Captain Lance is here. He’s been unconscious for almost the entire day. Ensign Midrowe is dead. The trexdarian worm killed her already. Seems our captor, Skecks, underestimated its effect on the human nervous system. He placed it too close to her spine. Lieutenant Henricks and Lieutenant Haadard are both in the medical bay. It is likely Haadard will not survive the night. He’s ingested too much poison in the food for a Malcoran. Another miscalculation by Skecks. Henricks will recover, but I believe his mind may be damaged beyond repair now."



"T’Laurn, you are saying this Suliban, Skecks, is torturing you all? Why?" Jenssen was coldly aware now that Skecks was not even following traditional Prisoner of War protocols outlined by the Federation Conventions. But then again, she realized these were mercinaries, they didn’t follow anyone’s rules but their own. She focused her eyes on T’Laurn now and was sure she saw something move along her forearm, under the pale Vulcan skin exposed by her ripped uniform. Jenssen suddenly realized just how bad of shape the Vulcan looked as well as realizing how ripped up her own uniform was. Their captor had not apparently been concerned about their appearance. Jenssen suspected she’d be in her present uniform for a long time.

T’Laurn took a sharp breath and pressed a hand to her own shoulder again. "He’s looking for information he thinks we possess. Information on an energy source that apparently was on that last planet we had surveyed. He’s been hired to find it by a client. The Suliban rarely want such technology for themselves." The Vulcan calmly replied.

"What’s he done to you?" Jenssen stood and stumbled to the front of the cell to see better across the meter and a half wide alley way between the cells. She could just see Captain Lances’ feet on his bunk where he was sprawled out unconscious.



T’Laurn cautiously turned her forearm towards Jenssen and she could see the angry green welt on her arm was about 10 centimeters long and swirled around like a nerve or a vein running up towards her shoulder. "This is a trexdarian worm. It is attracted to nerve tissue. It contracts muscles and triggers spasms when it is hungry. It generates an electrical field much like Earth’s electric-eel, to release lactic acids and sugars to feel on. This one seems to not be thriving given its incompatibility to copper based Vulcan blood and the effectiveness of Vulcan immune system’s 'T' cells. It is however, persistent, and determined to survive. It’s effects have limited uses on someone who knows neuropressure." T’Laurn’s dissertation was interrupted by the worm wriggling in apparent dissatisfaction of its surroundings under her skin again. She drew in deep breath, again holding the nerve junction between her shoulder and neck to pinch off the effect of the worm on her nervous system. About that time the Naussicaan Guard slammed a pole against the force shield in front of Jenssen and she jumped back at the energy distortion, stumbling and falling back onto the bunk.

"Don’t worry you’ll get your own pet." The Naussican roared and laughed at her. His towering frame threatening..."No talking!" He turned and bellowed at T’Laurn.

T’Laurn coldly looked back at him in silent defiance.

The Naussicaan went to sit back down at the entrance. T’Laurn and Jenssen fell silent until he fell asleep at the door.


 


"Jenssen, listen to me. They will not offer you any food this week, just water and barely enough to keep you alive." T’Laurn hissed at her quickly and quietly to not awake up the guard. "Conserve your strength. They want you hungry and thirsty, next week. You will be offered food in a room with Skecks....don’t eat it, don’t drink anything he offers you. Once you are brought back here they will bring you edible food. Hopefully in-between they won’t put this worm too close to your spine. After that we will have to endure until we can find a means of escape or a rescue arrives."

 

T’Laurn rested her head against the back wall falling silent into a light trance as Jenssen sat numb to what T’Laurn had just said.

 

Jenssen had been through training to deal with torture, but really she never expected to really have to use it. Reality was like a cold stone in her empty stomach now. She had been sheltered, naïve, to the dangers of the Universe up to this point.  Starfleet had been a grand and glorious ideal and those who had scientific backgrounds were generally sheltered from the military aspects of service.  Jenssen realized she had been lucky to be on mostly science related missions, and now her luck had just run out.

to be continued...

 

 

  When the night is filled with screams...

 


From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 20:37

Five days later ...on Helix 46...

Jenssen had no idea how hard it would be five days later to not eat the food set in front of her in that room with the Suliban leader, Skecks. Captain Lance had been moved to a cell outside of the area that T’Laurn and she were in. The Suliban apparently thought that Captain Lance’s presence with them was keeping them all in too good of spirits as he joked with both of them through the cell walls, after a quick dressing down of Jenssen for disobeying orders. The Captain had intended to keep their moral high and that was just not acceptable to their captor.

Jenssen concluded Skecks seemed cordial enough at first. He asked her about herself, about their mission, not really acting like a tortuous mercenary she knew he really was. Jenssen answered only what she thought was safe to volunteer. She had been offered a few moments to clean up her face and comb her wild hair, a sonic shower if she wanted it. She had taken only a few moments to wipe off her face and comb her long golden hair.

Skecks sat there, his yellow and green flecked skin almost glowing in the light on the table that was decked out as a buffet of sorts, with dishes elegant enough for a state dinner. He offered her item after item and she politely declined everything, though the smell of the food made her mouth water and her stomach growl in protest. Jenssen hadn’t eaten in five days and this was a tactic she knew to get her to give in to his requests. She sat steadfast refusing all food and drink knowing or suspecting something would be poisoned, drugged, or otherwise contaminated in a way to make her sick or loosen her tongue. It was undoubtedly how Haadard had died.

After nearly 45 minutes, the meal and the questioning ended without confrontation. The two Suliban guards stood to take her back to her cell. Jenssen suspected this was not going to be a simple walk back and she was not wrong. Half way to the cell the two guards grabbed her and pushed her into a medical bay. She fought back hard like a wild cat, but two more guards in the medical bay grabbed her legs. Without food and liquids she tired quickly. She had no reserves left to fight with. They lifted her up and held her face down on a table as the surgeon grabbed her left leg. She kicked furiously but couldn’t shake them. That’s when Skecks appeared standing in front of her.

"Seems to me your Vulcan friend warned you well." Skecks purred in her ear, breathing his hot breath across her neck.

"For the record, she’s not really my friend." Jenssen growled, "We just work together."

"Ah that’s good then....you won’t be too upset then when we bring her back in here for questioning later. Seems your Captain is a little more fond of her." Skecks hissed at Jenssen. "And how does your Captain feel about you? That we have yet to find out."

 

With that comment, Skecks flicked a switch on the wall and Jenssen could see that one-way mirror lining the wall had been shut off. She could see Captain Byron Lance bound to a chair on the other side of the mirror. Her heart sank. The one man she was willing to crawl over crushed dilithium for was going to be broken if he knew anything, which she suspected he didn’t, by Skecks torturing her. Jenssen could tell he was screaming silent threats but the sound proof nature of the room beside the medical bay prevented her from hearing his voice. Captain Lance was trying to stand up as two guards held him in place to witness the surgeons holding Jenssen’s left leg. Jenssen realized the surgeon was cutting her pant leg up to the knee and slitting the seam open up over her thigh. She struggled again to try to break loose of the grip the four guards and surgeon had on her to no avail.

"Aw, now look. He seems quite fond of you as well." Skecks purred again in her ear, this time licking the edge of her ear with his long, slinky, tongue an insult to her and to increase her Captain’s concern over her.

"You slimy bastard! You won’t get what ever it is you are after." Jenssen growled as the gaurds held her cheek and head tightly to the table.

"I may or I may not, regardless of that, I intend to have a little fun." Skecks purred again at her. "And I think my little pets might have some fun too."

Skecks was holding a little sickly looking, fuzzy, yellow-striped red worm in a pair of forceps in front of her face. It was about five centimeters long and rather limp. "This little beauty, well she needs a new home. Seems she was placed a little too close to your crewmates spine last time around. I had no idea how well they could grow in a human body. She was just a baby, only three centimeters long last week until she grew to about six centimeters in the course of a week, but she’s withered a little since then...a ‘fish out of water’ I think your human saying might be." Skecks smiled at her as the surgeon plunged and old fashion scalpel into her leg just below her knee to bore open up a whole in her flesh. Jenssen screamed.

Skecks handed the surgeon the little parasitic worm and he placed it over the hole in Jenssen’s leg. The worm took the opportunity to crawl in and latch on to the main sciatic nerve in Jenssen’s leg, sinking its teeth and little mircofilbral tendrils into the nerve and surrounding muscles. It let off a jolt of electricity to contract the muscle in Jenssen’s leg and feed on the lactic acids and warmth given off by the muscle contraction. Jenssen yelped at the eletrical jolt and little muscle contraction.

 

Captain Byron Lance came unglued in the little room behind the mirror. He rushed the mirror, bowling over the guards and slamming the chair he was bound too into the back of the mirror.  The guards quickly subdued him with a series of punches and kicks.

"Who knows, maybe now he’ll be a little more cooperative unless he wants to see me find a few more creative uses for you." Skecks purred again in Jenssen's ear, licking the edge of it with his long tongue.

 

"Oh and we did find this on you when we pulled you out of that shuttle." Skecks held up the dagger she had strapped to her shin upon deciding to go through with the rescue. Its emerald green hilt flashed in the bright lights.

"A Romulan Blooddagger.... not exactly Starfleet issue Ms. Jenssen. I didn’t think a Starfleet officer would carry such a weapon. How ever did you get it?" Skeck's questioned her lazily, as he tucked it back into her shin scabbard he had tied to his belt.

"Stick around and I’ll show you how I got it." Jenssen growled at him. "I’m going to kill you with it myself for dishonoring it by touching it."

"Oh now.... is that a threat or a promise?" Skecks taunted her.

"It’s a promise." Jenssen growled back.

"Good. I hate empty treats." Skecks purred again smiling with a wicked grin at her anger. This time he ran his hand seductively down her back, over her buttocks and down her bare leg as he turned to leave the medical bay. "And I promise, me and you, Ms. Jenssen, we are going to have a lot of fun in the next few weeks."

 

Skecks stopped running his hand down her leg at the point where the worm had been inserted. He rubbed that area particularly hard and patted it firmly a few times.

Jenssen screamed as the worm let off an angry set of electrical charge at the agitation to its happy new source of food and shelter. The series of electrical charges contracted all the muscles of her leg in a series of spasms. Jenssen didn’t stop screaming until she lost consciencesness.


Several hours later....

 

 

Jenssen woke up to the Nausicaan guard standing over her in her cell wiped her leg with a cool cloth. Jenssen scrambled back against the wall and instantly regretted moving so fast as the worm contracted and let off a small electrical joint at being suddenly disturbed by her movements. She stifled a yelp at the small muscle spasm.

"Here, you need something to eat." The Nausicaan grumbled at her and handed her a bowl of unappetizing gruel and a dingy cup of water. "Don’t eat too fast." He warned her as he left the cell and re-energized the force field at the front of the cell. Jenssen glanced over and realized T’Laurn wasn’t in her cell.

"Hey why you helping these mercs anyway....sort of strange for a Nausicaan to toss in his lot with the Suliban?" Jenssen boldly asked.

The Nausicaan eyed her from his chair and small computer desk at the edge of the cell holding area.

He shrugged at her, "They have my two daughters. No offense, but if I want to see them both again I do their bidding. They said they would release us all after they get this information from you. Why don’t you just tell me what it is that Skecks wants and I’ll get you and your friend out of here." The Nausicaan squared his shoulders at her and stared with a hard eye at her.

"I don’t have any idea what Skecks is looking for. He never directly asked me and I’m not going anywhere unless everyone gets out." Jenssen was completely frank with the Nausicaan.

"Well apparently he thinks your Captain does know. You are the forth ship crew he’s captured in this area to get this information. Only, you are the first Starfleet crew he’s come across. He’s sure you all know where this thing is he’s looking for. If you know it, you need to tell him."

"I don’t know what he wants!" Jenssen howled at the Naussican as she finished up the meager meal.  It was the first thing she’s eaten in almost six days and the barely edible food was sitting on her stomach like a rock now. She felt nauseous but willed it to stay down.

"Where’s T’Laurn?" Jenssen asked almost afraid of the answer.

"Where you were about four hours ago. Just down the hall." The Nausicaan replied coldly.

Jenssen shivered. She could only imagine what they might be doing to T’Laurn now.

"Your daughters? What are their names?" Jenssen asked him....He stared back unanswering.

"Ok, then what’s your name?" She tried to get to him to talk with her to keep her mind off its current track of possible tortures Skeck could come up with next.

The Naussican shrugged, "It’s Gorp".

"Well Gorp, if we get the opportunity to get out of here, any thoughts of helping us so we can free those daughters of yours and make a run for it?" Jenssen boldly suggested to him while looking over the damage to her own leg  and attempting to find a way to resecure the cut seam on her uniform pant leg.  She quickly determined where that worm was and could just barely feel it feeding and wiggling under her skin.

Gorp laughed at hearty, multiple mandible laugh at her....and stalked back to the front of the cell to stare at this little imp and her bold suggestions, "Truthfully, the only way you will get out of here Jenssen is probably in a body bag."

"Well until then, I’m going to spend every moment trying to get out of here with or without your help."  Jenssen smiled back up at him innocently, but with a cold stare of warning that if he wasn’t with them, she would consider him against them.

"You do that." Gorp growled back at her and stalked back to his chair to turn his back to her.

That was when Jenssen heard the screams from down the hall. It was undoubtedly T’Laurn and her shrieks sent chills up Jenssen’s spine. She had never known a Vulcan to scream out like that before. Jenssen covered her ears and began to sing the only song she could think of, an old song named "Everybody Hurts" at the top of her lungs in a crystal clear voice that made Gorp spin around in his chair and stare at her.

 

..."When your on your own....in this life...the days and night are long...."

 

The singing cut through the sounds of the screams from the hallway. By the time Jenssen had finished the second verse, she looked up and Gorp was hunched over the computer terminal shoulders bobbing.  His long black dredlocked hair was bouncing slightly. It appeared to Jenssen, he was sobbing as he read the translation to the words of the ancient Earth song. T’Laurn’s screams had stopped echoing through the halls and Jenssen strained to hear anything.

 

How long had Gorp been there? How long since he had seen his daughters? That was an angle she was going to have to work on with him. He had a real soft spot for his children and that could be their ticket out of here.

to be continued.....

 

  

 

                                      A Friendship born of Bloodfire.....

 


From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 20:55

 

Helix 46 .... Startdate: Unknown unable to keep track of days....

In the three weeks the followed, the cycle had repeated itself over and over. T’Laurn had been taken for 'questioning' again and Jenssen had spent almost an hour singing over the top of her screams.

It seemed like she only close her eyes for a moment in the silence, but it had really been about six hours later when Jenssen woke up from a fit full sleep. The periodic muscle spasms from the wormy parasite in her leg were not too bad unless she moved too quickly or rubbed it absently. Then it reacted defensively and sent her falling nose first to the floor with its electrical contractions of her leg muscles. The pain radiated up her thigh, inner leg across the gluteus maxims and up her back to her lower spine. The sciatic nerve the main lower body nerve ran though so many delicate areas of her body that when the worm got mad, Jenssen was in agony. She was sure that was Skecks’ plan from the onset. To just do enough to harm her without leaving a permanent mark really.

The worm was growing slowly, up the outer area of her leg just under the skin and first muscle layer. Jenssen could feel where its head was. She debated hitting it really hard to see if she could kill it, but realized if it died and started to rot in her leg, all sorts of other bad things could come about from infection.

Jenssen glanced over at T’Laurn who was just sitting rigid against the wall on her cot this time staring coldly into space. T'Laurn wasn’t holding her shoulder anymore to stop the affects of the worm in her arm, but just staring blankly into space, breathing shallowly.

Jenssen glanced over and Gorp wasn’t at his post.  They were lone for the moment, "T’Laurn are you ok?" Jenssen asked with all sincerity.

T’Laurn didn’t answer.

"T’Laurn.....this is the sixth week you have been here and he's doing something to you I can't even imagine. I know...you refuse to tell me, but it's just, I've never heard of a Vulcan well.... screaming.  I'm scared for you....are you ok? Can I help?" Jenssen was seriously concerned now at the Vulcan’s lack of response.

"You can’t." T’Laurn suddenly stood up and started pacing, almost agitated. Jenssen could see the tears welling up in T’Laurns’ eyes. Jenssen’s breath caught a moment. She’d never seen a Vulcan cry either. Jenssen wouldn’t have thought it possible. This unsettled Jenssen more then the pain from the worm in her leg. Suddenly, T’Laurn savagely kicked the bowl of gruel that was apparently the breakfast that Gorp had delivered earlier into the force field with a level of anger and shear physical power that scared Jenssen. The gruel splattered and fizzled in the force field.

"He’s drugged the food even here." T’Laurn whispered to Jenssen as she stopped pacing, her fists clenched as the Vulcan leaned her forehead against the cool metal wall. "This is the effect of the drugs he’s laced in this food. I can’t mediate, I can’t think straight....I ....can’t....control...." T’Laurn sank down against the wall panting heavily trying to regain some control.

"T’Laurn, last night.  He didn’t...." Jenssen started and quickly fell silent.

"No. Not yet." T'Laurn replied knowing just what Jenssen was leading up too. "but I don’t know how long I can hold this off." T'Laurn sat there staring at Jenssen apparently afraid to say it but having too tell someone, "The drugs are increasing my metabolic rate. I don’t know how much I have ingested in the last three weeks, but it is triggering a false Pon Farr. I can tell....I can just tell."

"Um... T’Laurn, are you married?" Jenssen asked, genuinely interested now.  Jenssen had heard about the Vulcan's species mating cycles as part of a very brief section in the standard issue Medical Books regarding basic first aide.  It was required reading for all Starfleet cadets, but it wasn't very detailed information.  Pretty much it only listed the cure as an immedaite return to the home planet or an immediate grant of leave to be with a spouse.  The rest of the details surrounding the effects of Pon Farr were obsure, specifically at the request of the Vulcan HIgh Council.  It was a matter Vulcan's rigidly kept to themselves and even Starfleet Medical personel known to treat Vulcan's kept the matter confidential and on a totally need to know bases.

T'Laurn seemed reluctant to continue, but after a brief moment, she answered, "Yes, Jenssen. I have been bonded with a mate for over 50 Earth Standard years. While I do not look it, I am 93 Terran years old. On Vulcan, that is about the age equiviant of a 34-year-old human. It’s not the first time I’ve experienced this...condition...but it is not time yet....it's not ....time...." T’Laurn sank against the wall of her cube seeking the cold of the wall against her face, starting at Jenssen with almost a blank look to her eyes now. "It is too hot in here."

Jenssen had actually drawn the meager remains of a blanket around herself, as she was keenly aware it was actually quiet cool in the cell area this morning.  Jenssen was very concerned as well as curious now that T’Laurn was a little more open to personal questions.  Something the Vulcan had ever been very forth coming about in the past six weeks.  Jenssen quickly realized the effects of the drug were also making T'Laurn more willing to talk about things she normally wouldn't, which was also what Skecks really wanted. 

 

Jenssen continued trying to keep T'Laurn focused on the converstation, "But you don’t have kids do you?"

"No, not yet." T’Laurn replied quietly, "Vulcan’s don’t have a high conception rate due to our desert climate and long lifespan. I was considering resigning my commission specifically for that reason, when I was offered a position on the Taylorsville to take your place.  It was widely known you were due for a promotion."

"I’m sorry T’Laurn for getting you into this and for asking such personal questions...I probably shouldn't be prying." Jenssen replied.  Jenssen could see by T'Laurn's suddenly cold expression, the Vulcan didn’t want or need her apology now. 

 

Jenssen could tell by the cold, hard stare that T'Laurn also quickly realized Jenssen has just warned her that the drugs were having other effects T'Laurn hadn't realized.  The drugs were making it difficult for the Vulcan to keep information she normally wouldn't discuss contained by distracting her mind to focus on controling her own metabolic functions.

T’Laurn had refocused now and she had concentrated enough on the conversation to get back into control of her emotions. "It’s not logical to apologize. You are not responsible for our current situation. It was my choice to take this assignment......but thank you, your 'concerns' are noted."

Jenssen shrugged satisfied T'Laurn understood her crytpic message. In a way, Jenssen still felt responsible for their situation now, knowing T’Laurn had only taken the position since Jenssen had been in line for the Captaincy of a ship of her own in a few months.

By now, Gorp had entered the room and had walked down to stand in front of Jenssen's cell.

"You’re going to be glad you didn’t eat that." Gorp eyed Jenssen and her breakfast sitting untouched on her bunk. "Time to go."

He lowered the force field and indicated to her to come out. Jenssen sit frozen on her bunk realizing just what he meant again. She was headed to the room to see what kind of information they could drag out of Captain Lance by torturing her in front of him or one of the other captives Skecks had in his cells once again. Jenssen had seen almost a dozen different faces behind that mirror now and it appeared as if none of them knew what Skecks was after. That didn’t stop him from torturing someone at a moment’s notice, more for his pleasure now than anything else Jenssen had concluded.

"Either you can walk in on your own, or I carry you....your choice." Gorp shrugged as he entered the cell to grab Jenssen.

"Ok, ok, I’m walking already." Jenssen replied, standing up and Gorp’s mandibles dropped at the sight of her walking out to face torture with her head up and her shoulders squared in defiance.

"I think you are the only other being here in the last nine months that has done this, this getting up and walking in there for this long." Gorp said almost in astonishment. "I’ve offered the others a chance to walk in there on their own, but other then your Vulcan friend, T’Laurn here, I’ve had to eventually drag them all in there anyways. Yet every time, you walk in there knowing what you are going to face. Why do you do it?"

"Well then, you haven’t met someone from Indiana. We are not shrinking violets." Jenssen quipped back staring up at his seven foot talk frame with a steely glare, but the knot in her stomach told of a different story. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going to make it all the way down that hall without throwing up this time.

Jenssen was almost right....

Jenssen was sitting bound to a chair as Skecks taunted both her and Captain Lance through the glass mirror. The first seductive stoke Skeck took down her face, running his hand down her neck and over her chest, across her leg hitting the worm and agitating it into a cascade of electrical responses caused her to upchuck what was left of last nights gruel all over his guards. It was at least a little satisfaction too know that they were going to have to at least wash up after this as well. One guard pinned her left arm to the chair and began twisting her thumb back at an unnatural angle even as she tried to struggle to break free. Time seemed to slow to a crawl and take on an unrealistic dreamy quality to it, as if she were looking down at her self from above, there but not really there.

Then the screaming started again and try as she might, Jenssen couldn’t plug her ears or even sing over it this time. The screams filled her head, choked her. Jenssen suddenly realized she was the one screaming and it wouldn’t stop until she mercifully lost conciseness again.


to be continued....

 

 

 

 Escape from Helix 46

 


From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 22:13

Stardate: 201003.15 approximately 11:00 hours A moment on Sarabande..

Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard sat shivering on the rock under the warm and bright sunlight of Sarabrande. Bears wanted to hug her tight, but was afraid to grab her right now. She sat holding his hand on her leg, willing herself to stay still.


"This went on for another three weeks.....every two or three days, on a random bases any time of the day or night [MACO] Ten Bears - EN-1 Support." Jenssen whispered. "T’Laurn went on a hunger strike that just about killed her. She refused to eat what was given to her for fear they had drugged it. Gorp had had enough of Skecks torture of me, as I bravely walked to that room every time knowing each time would be worse then the last. The surgeon there in that medical bay resorted to using drugs to keep me conscience after a while until I lost my voice. I would try to sing something whenever he tortured T’Laurn just to cover her screams so I wouldn’t hear them in my sleep. Between that bravery to faced these tormentors and songs I picked to sing, my constant questioning of if he had seen his daughter or not each week and if they were well or being tortured like T’Laurn and I was, Gorp broke down and finally decided to help us escape."

"Gorp gave T’Laurn his own food, which he started having delivered to him at his post to make sure she wasn’t getting anything that was drugged. It slowed the progress of her metabolic changes, but they didn’t stop. Skecks was trying to get her into a full blown Pon Farr so she’d beg him to violate her in front of Captain Lance to save her life. That was too much even for Gorp to stand by and allow to happen. Twice Skecks tried to get me alone with him disguised as Captain Lance. Suliban can take the shape of other people for a little while, if they have the appropriate genetic enhancements, you know that right? Once he had Gorp bring me to mirrored room with him tied to the chair as Byron. Of course I untied him and he tried to get me with him alone in a cell pod faking it as an escape plan, playing along like he was Byron, tried to ....

She shivered at the thought of just what he might have done to her alone. "But I knew it wasn’t Byron immediately. Even as much as we loved each other then, Byron would be looking to rescue everyone under his command and all those other prisoners."

"Did he ever?" Bears started to ask.

Jenssen shook her head. "No. At least I don’t think so. Starfleet Medical said no after they thoroughly checked us out after we were rescued, but I spent so much time unconscious, now knowing what was happening....I don’t want to be put in that position ever again... He did break every bone in my left hand over the course of the six weeks and had his surgeon repair them the morning after so it would throb all night."

Bears carefully traced the scar on her leg with a fingertip, just gently, calmly. Jenssen held her breath, not flinching as much this time. "Did you kill that slimy, bastard my brave and beautiful Warrior Bard?" He asked with an air of anger and fire in his eyes that almost rivaled her own at the situation. His eyes betrayed the death of horror he was ready to unleash now to hunt down this Suliban and all his ilk.

Jenssen almost stifled an uneasy laugh. "I’ve never really ever wanted to kill anyone in my life until then. Not for revenge, not just because I could and I was trained to be able to do so, but Skecks was the one who taught me sometimes the only solution to true evil is to totally eliminate it, without mercy and without apology because if you let it go even for a short time, it will fester and grow and suck the life out of all it touches. Skecks got exactly what he deserved and I got Gorp. Gorp will live and die for me because he feels he owes me for all the misery he contributed too. We rescued his daughters along with 15 others Skecks had captivate and our rescue came with a little unexpected help at the best possible time because T’Laurn was going to have to choose death over dishonor."

"How did you escape?" Bears asked intrigued by this tale now, knowing that the ending was quite good for her to be sitting here beside him.

"Well it was about ten weeks into being captured when almost in the middle of the night..."

 

 

 

The silence was quetly disrupted by a moan and an almost unrecongnizable fumbling of words in a different language.....something Jenssen hadn't heard in a long time...High Vulcan....

"T’Laurn...Hey T’Laurn! Psst." Jenssen shouted over at the Vulcan laying in a fitful sleep on her bunk. T’Laurn as repeating over and over a chant in her sleep and shivering even after Gorp had brought T'Laurn two blankets. Her breathing was strained. She was thin and pale from not eating. Jenssen was sincerely worried about her now.

"T’Laurn, hey, wake up...you ok?" Jenssen called to her.

T’Laurn’s eyes snapped open but they were dull and almost lifeless. "I’m still here."
She said with a hint of irony and almost a cynical laugh at the same time.

"Hey, who is Stelvok? Is he your husband?" Jenssen asked trying to keep her in the present.

"Yes." Was the only answer Jenssen got from the sullen Vulcan.

"Hey you are calling his name over and over and saying something in HIgh Vulcan, what were you saying?" Jenssen asked her again, trying to help focus T'Laurn's mind.

T’Laurn suddenly sat up, her focus totally clear for a moment. "Parted and unparted....forever touching and touched...He’s close. He’s close by." T'Laurn touched her fingers to her temples and held her breath for a moment. The Vulcan closed her eyes as if concentrating on something only she could hear. "He is very close."

"T'Laurn, I don’t think that’s possible...." Jenssen started to say.

Then Gorp came scrambling into the holding area out of breath. T’Laurn had taken on a huge streak of aggression towards any males around her except her mate over the last three days and Jenssen could see her almost snarl at Gorp being in her sight.

"Jenssen, you have to listen to me. Do exactly what I say, don’t fight me...we are evacuating the Helix. Starfleet is closing in on it and Skecks wants to keep his prisoners. He’s breaking you all up to send to different locations for hiding." Gorp tried to get Jenssen to understand that now was the time to escape.

"Gorp, I can’t move fast enough to help you with this worm in my leg." Jenssen looked at him seriously and then glanced at T’Laurn who was backed up against the back of her cell, glaring at Gorp with a look of murderous fire in her eyes.

"Here, this will help." Gorp had palmed a hypospray which Jenssen only assumed held something that would either kill or knock the worm out for long enough for them to escape. "But you have to help me find my daughters first." Gorp was looking at her with a deadly serious look in his icy blue eyes. Jenssen realized for the first time, that behind those eyes was a man dedicated and loyal to his family, not a military man.

Jenssen hesitated. She needed to find Captain Lance and Henricks. "My Captain and our crewmate Henricks." Jenssen countered his offer.

"We have no time. Other guards are moving them to the shuttle bays, my daughters first." Gorp glared at her.

"All right." Jenssen snapped.

Gorp dropped the force field and tossed Jenssen the hypospray and turned to T’Laurn.

"Stay away!" T’Laurn screamed at him, wild with rage, as he went to drop the force field on her cell. "You.... are not... my mate..." She panted at him, wild fury in her eyes.

"I don’t know if we can bring her. She’s too far gone. Skecks is going to self destruct the Helix....it might be more humane to leave her here now." Gorp looked back at Jenssen.

"She’s coming, if we have to drag her out." Jenssen huffed back at him as she quickly pulled up what was left of her uniform and found the head of the worm which was now almost twently-eight centimeters from where it had begun under her knee. It was working its way towards the inside of her thigh, high enough up that it was nearing the junction with her hip. She brushed its head with the hypospray and gritted her teeth knowing the worm would not take kindly to a dose of this medication. She injected the hypo and the worm set off a cascade of electrical impulses, causing her leg to stiffen. Jenssen crammed her fist into her mouth to stifle a scream. The worm suddenly went limp and her leg went numb almost to the toes. It was a sedative, effective enough to knock the worm out for several hours and the pins and needles feeling of numbness was far preferable to the alternative.

Gorp was already at the door watching for guards running down the corridors shouting orders. Gorp was listening for Skecks’ commands.

Jenssen jumped through the lowered force field on her cell and ran to T’Laurn’s cell.


"T’Laurn, we are getting out of here. We are going to find Stelvok." Jenssen shouted at the Vulcan who stood crouched, ready to attack anyone entering her cell. "T’Laurn, I’m lowering the field! Let me help you." Jenssen yelled at her again and this time the Vulcan’s eyes darted to hers.

"Not him!  He is not my mate." T’Laurn growled, bearing her teeth like a trapped animal.

"OK, just me. I won’t let males come that close to you ok...Trust me?" Jenssen quickly lowered the field and stepped in, being careful not to make any sudden movements. T’Laurn kept crouched at the back of her cell ready to fight.

"Here, give me your arm. Let me knock that worm out while we make a run for it." Jenssen held up the hypospray and both of her hands up showing T’Laurn that’s all she had and nothing more. Jenssen reached out carefully and touched the Vulcan’s arm.  Instantly Jenssen could feel the fever beyond the typically body temperature a Vulcan had through what was left of the Vulcans uniform sleeve. T’Laurn quickly yanked her arm back glaring at Jenssen. 

"No, I need the pain to keep focused. I need to fight or I will die. There is no time now." T’Laurn’s eyes were wild with a primal instinct she could no longer hold off, but Jenssen could see the Vulcan was struggling to regain some control now for just a moment.

 

 "Jenssen, hit me. Hit me, as hard as you can." T'Laurn replied with a moment of clearity.

"I will not." Jenssen shouted back, tucking the hypospray into the top of her own uniform as T'Laurn had refused it.

"Come on you two, we have to go! Or leave her!" Gorp yelled at them both. "Now!"

"You must, hurry. I can’t go with him ...please....do it..." T’Laurn pleaded with her, unwilling to look at or move toward a male not her mate, driven by instinct alone to stay away from Gorp.

Jenssen balled her fist and struck the Vulcan as hard as she could on the jaw, swearing her knuckles would break against bone that was harder and denser then a Human’s.

T’Laurn rocked back, eyes shut and shook her head as if to clear the fog. T’Laurn knees buckled and the Vulcan staggered forward and reached out for Jenssen to lean heavily on her shoulders. The Vulcan was barely conscience, T'Laurn slowly nodded, eyes still closed tightly.

"Alright Commander, let’s go, keep your eyes shut, your feet moving and don’t look at him if it will help.  That's an order." Jenssen commanded, wrapped an arm around the Vulcan’s waist as T’Laurn leaned on her for support. The two women made their way up behind Gorp. Gorp grabbed Jenssen careful not to touch T’Laurn and pushed them both into the corridor in front of him. He held a disruptor pistol against Jenssen’s back as she quickly limped along helping to support T’Laurn’s tall, thin, frame towards what she hoped was the shuttle bay.

Skecks came up from behind in the hall right as they made it to the door to the shuttle bay.

Skecks shouted at Gorp. "Make sure you get my two favorites to the rendezvous point and I will make sure your two favorites are shuttled safely there as well."

Skecks laughed as Gorp spun around to see his two daughters in rags of servants held by two guards behind Skecks. The two children screamed in their own language what could have only been 'Daddy' and Jenssen and T’Laurn both looked back to see the small children.

Gorp wanted to run to them. Jenssen could see it in the way he held his shoulders, but instead he just nodded an acknowledgement trying not to tip their hand yet. Jenssen saw him look longingly at his children as the guards grabbed both of them and pushed them onward.

Jenssen stopped dead in her tracks as T’Laurn almost growled deep in her chest, a grumble like a wild animal, at the sound of Skecks behind them. Jenssen could feel it radiate up as T’Laurn leaned on her.

"Not now, T’Laurn a few more steps, we have to get into that shuttle bay." Jenssen whispered in her ear hoping the Vulcan could keep her senses about her long enough to get Skecks and Gorp’s daughters all in the Bay together.

Jenssen quickly pushed against T’Laurn’s face with her free hand to make the Vulcan turn her gaze away from Skecks.

Jenssen gasped as visions of the blood fever of the Pon Farr filled her head.  Jenssen staggered and almost fell in the corridor with T’Laurn as the shear primal instinct, the driving desire to mate like a thirst that could never be quenched, filled her head. T’Laurn jerked her face away from Jenssen’s hand and with a moment of clarity mumbled through clenched teeth in a rather mater of fact tone, "Emafa kito, it is a mind touch. It is best not to touch my skin or my face like that. I appologize for the intrusion."

"Like a mind meld?" Jenssen swallowed hard and tried to get her breath and her bearings back after the images had instantly flooded her senses.

"Not unless you are suddenly telepathic. It is more vague then a mild meld and only one way, but I can’t prevent that kind of telepathic though or image projection right now. Humans would not understand it." T'Laurn quickly dismissed it.

"Oh, I can understand it alright...I just wasn’t prepared for the.... intensity... of it. Saying a human is love sick is a pale comparison." Jenssen shook her head clear of the wild images and then replied in all sincerity, "Your bedroom secrets are safe with me T’Laurn. No human would even believe me anyway if I did tell them."

 

 


Jenssen looked around the shuttle bay as the doors swished open in front of them. She hoped Captain Lance and Ensign Henricks were there already.

Gorp followed closely behind them. Jenssen could see several pod ships being hurriedly readied for launch. Pockets of guards were standing over and dragging various prisoners to pods.

Jenssen quickly looked about and assessed the situation; about 40 guards and about 17 prisoners, not counting Gorp’s two daughters. Her heart sang as she saw Captain Lance half carrying Henricks just to the right of where they were entering the bay. He looked in fair condition, thin but alert. Byron smiled a beaming huge grin as he saw her come in supporting T’Laurn. Jenssen nodded a quick nod at him and her eyes darted behind her twice to indicate Gorp, hoping that Byron would understand he was with them. Byron nodded back at them indicating the guard behind him was also willing to help. The guard was an Alpha Centurian, tall and young, not much over the age of a teenager.

Skecks started towards a shuttle in the middle of the bay and the guards behind him pushed Gorps’ daughters to quickly follow. The youngest was, all of maybe 6 or 7 Jenssen quickly concluded. She had long braided, light-brown drelocks, bright green eyes and was darling for a multiple jawed being. The little girl stumbled and fell to her knees as the guards were pushing her along was too fast for her shorter stride. She started to cry as the guard roughly reached for her and that was all Gorp could take.

Gorp forgot all about Jenssen and T’Laurn and ran across the bay, body slamming the guard standing over his youngest daughter. Jenssen quickly pushed T’Laurn up against the hull of a pod and followed Gorp to the children. Skecks came rushing back off the steps up to the shuttle to meet Gorp. Gorp had taken on both guards hovering over his children and that is when all hell broke loose in the shuttle bay.

Disruptors and phasers whined as Jenssen ducked and slid up to the older of Gorps’ daughters.

Jenssen grabbed the older girl’s shoulders and then pointed her and her younger sister towards T’Laurn and yelled at the two girls, "See that, dark haired lady there leaning against the ship hull, run for her and stay with her..." right then Jenssen realized Skecks was standing over the three of them with Jenssen’s Romulan blooddagger in his hand.

Skecks slashed at the older girl and Jenssen caught his arm and the blade with her hand, nicking her hand on the razor sharp blade.

As Jenssen pushed the older girl out of the way and yelled, "RUN!" to them.

Jenssen wrenched Skeck’s arm down and quick as a cat was behind him, stretching his arm and the blade up behind his neck in a totally unnatural amount of twisting. Skecks just laughed at her and flipped his hand over to point the knife’s blade outward towards Jenssen’s belly.

Jenssen was quicker than Skecks expected, unhindered by the effects of the sedated worm in her leg. Jenssen grabbed the hilt of the dagger and pushed both of her hands upward away from her belly. Jenssen still had a hold on his hand and the hilt of the blade, when he spun his body around with a typical Suliban transformational change in body position. Jenssen’s upward push of the blade continued with a back hand stroke as Skecks tried to pull the knife away from her. She caught him almost accidently across the neck with the blade held in his own hand. The blade slit his throat wide open, right across the vocal cords. Yellowish blood poured from his neck. Skecks’ eyes went wide at Jenssen’s uncanny quick luck as he knocked the dagger out of both of their hands.

Skecks leaned heavily on her, grabbed her hair and shoulder, wickedly smiling as he stared her in the eyes. Jenssen’s anger contained for the last seven weeks of torture came unleashed. She reached up and grabbed his tongue in her hand through the gaping hole in his neck and spun away from his grasp, ending up behind him again by using almost a ball room dancing move to twirl under his arm. She shoved him forward towards the bulkhead of the shuttle bay. As they scrambled, she quickly wrapped his own touge around his throat, tucking one end through itself into a noose as she slammed him face first into the bulk head, pressing her foot into the small of his back to hold him there.  While continuing to hold his tongue tightly in her hand. Jenssen groped around blindly for anything she could get her other hand on to hit him with. Jenssen grabbed the first thing that came into her reach. It was an anti-grav unit for lifting cargo loads in a sling. It had a large hook on the front of it. It wasn’t even a second thought to her when she rammed the hook through the end of his tongue and quickly set it to hover four meters off the ground and let it go.

The anti-grave unit hoisted Skecks up in a noose made from his own tongue, strangling him slowly as he kicked and gurgled trying desperately to release himself from the antigrav unit. It only took 90 seconds for him to pass out from lack of oxygen.

Jenssen hadn’t seen the rest of the fight that had broke out across the flight deck until she turned around. T’Laurn had both of the children into the shuttle pod and Gorp was holding Captain Lance on his knees under the edge of the pod. Jenssen could tell something wasn’t right. Henricks was far to the center of the shuttle bay and six dead Suliban were besides him.  Henrick's back was bend and an unnatural angle. It looked like he had taken them on single handed. Pod Ships were zooming out of the bay now as the computer started a final three minute verbal count down.

Jenssen ran to Byron, tears in her eyes as she could see the hole burned completely through his chest.

"Byron!..." Jenssen choked as she fell to her knees in front of him.

"Burgundy....go, quickly get out of here....there isn’t anything you can do for me now. Go quickly, that’s the last pod and there isn’t enough room for me on it." Bryon mumbled to her.

"Byron, did you know what Skecks wanted?....Did you know it?" Jenssen asked him, desperate to know if everything they had endured was frivolous or not.

Byron closed his eyes before answering her, unable to look her in the eyes now as he wheezed, "Yes, I do and so does T’Laurn....you have to get her out of here. That’s my last direct order to you. You understand me?...get her to Starfleet. They have to have that information." He whispered to her, his head falling to his chest as he struggled for breath.  "I love you....I always have.  I can’t live with what I had to let him do to you....leave now."

 

Byron gasped, sitting there on the decking as the life drained from him. "Go, Burgundy, Go...now..." He rasped as he spit blood with every gasp.

Byron pushed her weakly towards the shuttle pod. Gorp gently grabbed her arms, "Com’on Jenssen... we have less than two minutes...we have to go, we have to be clear of the core."

Jenssen was too numb from the information to struggle and too blinded by tears to fight Gorp as he pushed her into the shuttle pod. T’Laurn was sitting in the back staring at the wall trying not to look at Gorp, as Gorp pushed Jenssen into the seat at tactical station. Gorps two children sat on the floor hugging each other, staring at the Human and the Vulcan in the ship with them as Gorp launched the pod ship out of the bay.

 

 

 



Jenssen watched out the side viewport as they left the force field covering the front the shuttle bay. Byron slumped to the deck, unconscious or dead as he saw the shuttle with her leave the bay safely. In moments, it wouldn’t matter if he were still alive or not. The Helix self destructed around him in a ball of fire and light. Gorp punched the warp drive on the shuttle just as a fire ball of atmosphere and shrapnel bust though the upper layers of the brown dwarf planetoid and lit the upper atmosphere consisting of ammonia and hydrogen on fire in a blaze of blue green plasma flames that raced along the surface of the planet like swarm of electric eels through the various cloud layers.

Nearly 100 pod ships were fleeing the explosion now. Most of those in the pod ships were Suliban merics. A fleet of various Federation of Planets vessels was engaging the massive swarm of escaping cell ships as they emerged from the upper layer of the Brown Dwarf. The viewscreen was chaos as some of the ships were full of escaping prisoners and others were Suliban attacking the fleet or trying to tractor the prisoners. None of the Suliban probably knew Skecks was dead yet. Gorp piloted the ship quickly and swiftly through the malay.

Gorp punched the cell ship into a high warp and a Vulcan ship dropped into warp behind them. Gorp cursed in his own language and took evasive maneuvers to lose the Vulcan ship. The podship began to spin out of control.

"Gorp, kill the engines!" Jenssen screamed when she realized the ship follow them was a Vulcan ship.

"To late!" Gorp yelled back. "This podship is rigged to crash! Damn Skecks was going to kill us all anyways. That was his plan all along. Now looks like he might still succeed!" Gorp howled in indignation.

"Drop shields! Send a mayday to them to beam us all out!" Jenssen shocked out of her stupor started pulling the panels apart on the shuttle to drop the shields and kill the warp drive. An ice planet loomed larger in the view screen as the cell ship lurched. The Vulcan ship had tried to lock a tractor beam on them.

"I can’t get anything to respond!" Gorp howled again reaching into the helm pulling out cables trying to knock out the full impluse drive controls. 

"We’re going in way too fast." Jenssen yelled as the podship suddenly lurched as it hit the planet’s thin atmosphere. Jenssen at least could manually engaged the intertial dampeners as the shuttle descended rapidly into the atmosphere of the L class planet. Ice and snow loomed up at them as the podship came in at a clip a little faster than Jenssen liked the look of. Gorp tried to keep the nose up the whole way in but the podship hit hard, throwing them all to the floor. A spray of ice and melted water flew into the atmosphere and pelted back onto the small craft as the shuttle slid to a halt, surprisingly intact.

Jenssen was the first to get up and check T’Laurn who was pressed up against the back of the tactical station. T’Laurn was fevered and shivering, another than a large scratch on her face, didn’t look injured. Jenssen pulled out blankets from the emergency supplies to wrap around T'Laurn to prevent shock. Gorp’s two girls were next and they looked fine, just shaken where they were pressed against the bulkhead. Jenssen tucked two more blankets around them as they sat silently staring at her.

"Hey, it’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you." Jenssen leaned over to them and they shrunk back from her. Gorp was struggling up from being half tossed into the control panel at the helm and he staggered to his daughters. He hugged them tightly and wrapped the blankets around them tighter just sitting in floor of the shuttle with them in the dim gray emergency lighting. Blood was gushing from a gash on his head and a rip along his upper lip.  A large bruise was forming on one arm through his ripped tunic, but he didn’t care. He was happy to sit there, just hugging them protectively.

"You ok?" Gorp grunted at Jenssen.

"Yeah, but T’Laurn’s in bad shape. Let’s hope that Vulcan ship can find us, quickly." Jenssen sat down and cradled a shivering T’Laurn. Jenssen was careful not to come in contact with the Vulcan’ skin, least she be subject again to what was likely going to be rather disturbing, uncontrollable telepathic images from the Vulcan now. Jenssen tried to keep T’Laurn wrapped tight and to keep her warm as the interior of the shuttle quickly started to freeze over.  Jenssen knew the Vulcan wouldn't fare well with the cold.

It was about then the worm in Jenssen leg woke up from the sedative and it was angry. It set off a cascade of electrical impulses and Jenssen shrieked grabbing her leg. Gorps two children sat wide eyed at her response. Jenssen tried to stop screaming to not scare them.

T’Laurn woke up to her screams. "Jenssen?"

"Yes. I’m here T’Laurn." Jenssen panted though clenched teeth and stifled another scream as the worm buzzed again in anger.

"Your blooddagger? Where is it?" T'Laurn was focused for a moment.

"It’s gone, I lost it in the shuttle bay." Jenssen hissed holding her leg tighter.

"No, it’s not." Gorp’s oldest daughter piped up. "I grabbed it."

The youngster, all of about 10 years old with braided black hair and icy blue eyes of her father, held up the emerald green bade she had grabbed off the deck plates of the shuttle bay.

Gorp took it from her gently and handed it to Jenssen.

"If you would permit me, I can get that worm out of your leg now." T'Laurn replied with all seriousness as she leaned against the bulkhead, trying to not look at Gorp, "I have medical training..."

"Are you in any condition to do it?" Jenssen asked through clenched teeth.

"Wait let me get the emergency kit." Gorp dug around in the cold for the emergency med kit and found it. It had been neglected and badly pillaged for goods. It’s meager contents consisted of odds old doses of antibiotics and an old, crude dermal regenerator in it. Jenssen fished around for the rest of the hypo spray that she had tucked into her uniform and came up with it. It was a small dose of sedatitve still left, enough knock the worm out again, but probably not enough to cut it out without her feeling it.

T’Laurn breathed steady and slowly focusing on her own arm and the worm that was not thriving nearly as well as Jenssen’s. "I can, but it needs to be quickly. I don’t know how long I can stay focused."

"We do not know how long it will take for the rescue teams to arrive and I may not be conscience much longer." T’Laurn warned her.

"Ok hurry," Jenssen agreed, as she quickly found the head of the worm again high up on the inside of her thigh and injected its head with the sedative. Her leg went blissfully numb where the worm was wrapped around and into her muscles along the nerve.

Jenssen handed T’Laurn the blooddagger. T’Laurn quickly turned the blade to her own forearm and without a sound, cut the skin open to reveal the head end of a very weak worm still clinging to life in her own body. T'Laurn quickly slit down her own skin over the top of where the worm was along her arm and dug into the muscle to cut off the head worm without a yelp of pain.  Once the worm's head was removed, it's microfibers retracted and T'Laurn slowly and steadily pulled it off the nerve bundle and out of the muscle it had twisted itself into.  It took a few moments for the microfilbers to pull loose of their achors, but the entire twelve cenetimeter long worm finally came out cleanly, without pieces left that could cause infection. T'Laurn drew a quick breath using the pain to keep focused on the task at hand. The green blood welled slowly along the long slice in her arm as her condition was poor, but she still had the constitution to continue. 

 

Jenssen handed T'Laurn the dermal regenerator.  T’Laurn quickly passed it over her own arm to heal up the skin in a blister of a dark green scar. T’Laurn watched fascinated by the Romulan blade as it absorbed her green Vulcan blood before their eyes. A thin green line like a tree ring appeared on the blade just behind a yellowish ring that was the blood of Skecks forever embedded in the metal of the blade. "Fascinating, I have never seen one of these and would like to study its properties more thoroughly."

"Anytime T’Laurn, you bring honor to that blade by holding it and what you do with it." Jenssen said though clenched teeth trying to keep T’Laurn focused. "I only know that the blade never needs sharpened and it is completely sterile after it absorbs the blood.  At least, that is according to the Romulan Procouncil I recieved it from."

"Ready." T’Laurn asked Jenssen as she held a hand against Jenssen’s leg surrounding the head of the worm high up on the inside of Jenssen’s thigh. Jenssen’s head swam with alien images that T’Laurn was thinking of now.  Stelvok’s firm embrace, the pain of cutting that worm out of her own arm, and green blood.  Jenssen could almost see that green blood on her arm now as her head swam with effect of T'Laurn's blood fever from the contact with T'Laurn's hand on her leg. Jenssen tried to focus on just one of these strange images flooding her mind as she nodded to T'Laurn to begin.

As the knife blade cut through her skin, digging down to find the head of the worm, Jenssen started to scream again, clenching her teeth.  Jenssen couldn’t block out the pain the way the Vulcan did. About that time a large male Vulcan pulled open the door to the podship. He was dressed in a white winter survival suit and Jenssen could see he was as dark skinned as T’Laurn was fair. His build was almost like a huge, but thin, chocolate brown grizzly bear with thick, black wavy hair. Jenssen’s leg burned on fire and she clenched her teeth as T’Laurn continued to cut out the worm as quickly as possible now that they had started.

T’Laurn refused to look up at Stelvok, trying to finish removing the worm from Jenssen’s leg before she lost herself again to the blood fever. Gorp and his two daughters pulled back from the door to let Stelvok enter. Stelvok quickly and quietly knelt down by T’Laurn. He solumnly pulled a glove off, placing his hand against T'Laurn's face at specific pressure points to help her focus on her task and at the same time let her know he was with her now. Sweat poured from Jenssen’s brow as T’Laurn kept cutting and started pulling on the worm as it released it's grip.

 

T’Laurn almost smiled as Stelvok mercifully reached over and pinched the junction between Jenssen's shoulder and neck.  Jenssen had no time to object but instantly understood this was only so T'Laurn could quickly finish her work without inflicting more pain on her friend. With Stelvok there, Jenssen didn’t need to be strong for all of them any longer. It was time for Jenssen to let someone else take the lead.

 

Jenssen could sense T'Laurn's thoughts and the faint brush of Stelvok's calming, strong presence instantly projected through the contact with T'Laurn hand on her leg.  As Jenssen passed into unconsiencnes, a sense of peace for the first time in seven weeks overcame her.  Jenssen couldn't tell if it was her own thought or T'Laurn's now, but Jenssen sighed in relief as the tunnel vision surrounded her.  Jenssen smiled back as the echoes of word 'friend' in her mind lead her into the calming darkness.

To be continued...

 

  

 

 

 

 New Beginnings....


From:  Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard (13700) Time: 17.04.2010 - 23:10

Stardate: 201003.15 - Early afternoon...


Captain Burgundy Jenssen Warrior Bard sat in silence for a moment on the rock. She squeezed [MACO] Ten Bears - EN-1 Support’s hand again as it rested on her leg over the scar. She drew the blood dagger out of the shin scaffold that was setting beside her on the rock and held it up to the sun light. A thin red band, like a tree ring, ran along the edge of the blade. Next a dark green one, undoubtedly Vulcan blood, and further in a yellowish band of Suliban blood...the rest of the blade was a deep emerald green, years and years of Romulan blood absorbed by the metal of the blade.

"Bears I woke up in the medical bay of that Vulcan ship. It was Stelvok’s research ship, not even a military vessel. He is the one that found us through T’Laurn’s telepathic bond with him. Starfleet was weeks away from finding us. I don’t know if any of us would have been alive or sane by the time that would have happened. It took Stelvok almost three weeks to get Starfleet to believe him and send a fleet out with him. He was going to come into that Helix alone to save T’Laurn even if they both died had Starfleet not followed him."

"Starfleet got their chance to debrief me and T’Laurn after the several weeks we both needed to recover. Whatever T’Laurn knew about that energy signature, she told only top Starfleet Intelligence about it. I still to this day, don’t know what it was."

"I didn’t get a ship commission after this event. It was deemed I was a little too unpredictable for command of a ship and they wanted to see if my head was in the game or not anymore.  T’Laurn actually testified against me at the Board of Review. T'Laurn accurately pointed out that I had disobeyed a direct order, got a crew member killed in doing so, lost a shuttle in the process, was captured and then killed Skecks out of rage in the middle of our escape, but that I had successfully led the rescue and ultimately caused enough chaos for almost all the prisoners to escape.  She was quite complementory to those of our crew who didn't make it and she had stated to report that anything contrary to that view was immaterial as it would not be logical to present an argument to which there would not be an option for those individuals to voice opposition upon the final disposition of their service record ....all true. But I was still ready to punch her again for that after what I had done to save her and for her to be so....honest.

 

T’Laurn then turned around at read off all the reasons she should also be stripped of rank and posted to a base assignment as well. My jaw about had to be scraped off the deck plate of the starbase with a spatula when she did that.  She counted off all the thingssshe had done that also was not by the book as part of that last mission, except for the stuff about the energy source she only alluded to it in front of non-SI officers. She's definately not as rigidly logical, for a Vulcan, as you would expect.  Truthful yes, honest to a fault maybe, but not sometimes very logical.  Maybe too many years living among humans has rubbed off on her." Jenssen smiled at what had to be a private joke she and the Vulcan shared.

"Starfleet wanted me to take a ship building assignment as Captain of the Naranda Fleet Yard because of my Engineering knowledge but I really didn’t want that kind of assignment, at least not long term.   The Dominion War was winding down and several new ships were needed to replace those damaged or destroyed.  Truthfully, I didn’t know what I wanted to do then, but I knew I wanted to be in space and away from the Alpha Quadrant. So after about six years of that, I resigned my commission and I left Starfleet. It was an honorable discharge and sort of a mutual agreement really as several Admirals wanted me to stay on. I had a substantial amount of credits in my account, so I sold my portion of the old family farm house to my other cousins and bought a ship to come settle a colony out here."

"T’Laurn and Stelvok asked to join me, as did Gorp. Gorp’s wife was killed when the Suliban captured them He appointed me his daughters, well 'godmother' would be the closest Earth term to it. It’s another title I don’t know if I really deserve. Tellis, my security officer, he was the other guard on Skeck’s Helix. He was only 19 years old then. He and Byron had shared a lot of stories about me and about Starfleet while he was guarding them. Tellis serves me out of respect for Byron and to pay back a little of his debt he thinks he owes me for not being able to protect Byron at that last battle. I’ve told him over and over his debt is paid, but I don’t think he has anywhere else to go. I guess none of us really have anywhere else we can go, except back to Alpha Quadrant and back to old memories we probably all would rather leave behind."

Jenssen leaned against Bears’ chest, gently wrapping an arm around him. Bear’s hesitated just a moment. Then he put his arms around her in a solid hug, leaning his chin on the top of her head. He murmured to her, "I’d have come in after you like Stelvok would have for T’Laurn."

Jenssen traced the scar on her leg with her finger once more as they sat together in the sunlight and warmth of Sarabrande. The fresh smell of spring and new life surrounded them in the peaceful glen that was Jenssen’s favorite place of solitude.

"Starfleet medical wanted to completely regenerate this scar. I refused and told the Doctors to leave it. It reminds me every day that evil really does exist in this galaxy and I had better be willing to face it head on when I see it, or let it consume and destroy everything I love. Pure evil took from me a man I loved, my career, and it almost took what are now my best two friends along with a lot of others who were innocent bystanders. I don’t ever want to see that happen again to anyone, anywhere, if I can help prevent it. I right now I certainly don’t want to see that happen to you and the Macos if I can help it. I’ll lead the Macos if you want me too Bears, but I want you by my side if I do it, even if the going gets really rough. Agreed?" Jenssen looked up at his face as she leaned against him, for a moment trying to not have to be strong, brave and bold, but being just someone wanting to be held and loved.

Jenssen fished a small digital padd out of the small duffle that was sitting off to the side of the bow and quiver. She flipped open the padd to display a small hologram of her and Captain Byron Lance on the bridge of the USS Taylorsville.

"See this?" Jenssen pointed at the motto of the U.S.S. Taylorsville emblazoned on the ship’s boiler plate on the bridge.

 

          'The Past is History.  The Future is a Mystery, but today is a gift,

                                    which is why it is call the Present.'

 

 

"This is what today is....a gift." Jenssen sighed.


Bears studied the photo and saw that he looked remarkably like Byron in a strange sort of way. Though Bears wanted to be jealous of this man who Jenssen had once loved, he knew Byron was dead and never would be a threat to him to take away Jenssen. She was putting the past behind her and ready to move forward now.

Bears smiled and hugged her tightly.

The End...