A Little Bitty Bit Of Treachery

by Cheryl Pettersonand Mylochka

(Standard Year 2250)

What if certain crewmembers decided to save Valjiir from the Klingons?’

(This is an alternate to the Shadow Captain series.
It begins at the story "Danse Macabre").

Go to Part Eight

Return to Part Six

Return to Valjiir Stories

Return to Valjiir Continum

PART SEVEN

Del started to smile even before he opened his eyes. “Hey, you,” he said, pulling Ruth close and kissing her.

"You did it, babe.” She returned his smile and pushed the wild curls from his forehead. “Healed you.” She rewarded him with kiss. “Healed me.” And another for that.

The Cajun grinned. “So now I a Moon Princess, too?”

“It’s priestess not princess.” Ruth pulled back far enough to scowl properly. “And you’re not Antari. And your healing ability is primarily drug-fueled…”

“An' after all you done fussed 'bout me takin' too much drugs…” the engineer teased impudently.

Ruth raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to claim that while you were abusing your body and mind, all along you secretly knew…?”

Del gave her kiss as a peace offering. “I gotta be guessin' we not got time t' fight, cher.”

“Yeah.” Casting a wary eye at where she estimated the security camera to be, Ruth reached for her case and pulled out a small hand-held device. She quickly used its scanners to hack into the various monitoring devices in the room and lock their reporting into a feedback loop of the status of the room 10 minutes prior. She then pulled out a stack of garments and tossed them to the Cajun. “Here, put these on.”

Del tried to rise, but fell back to his elbows. “Oooeee…” He rubbed his aching head. “I be as weak as a li'l baby cat…”

“Or 'kitten' as we say in Standard,” Ruth corrected as she helped him off the bed.

“Weaker'an that, honey,” he joked back, accepted her aid in slipping out of the sickbay jumpsuit. “An' I murder fo' a steak… an' some shrimp.”

“I’ve rented a small ship,” she informed him as she pulled a smartly styled pair of boots out of her case. “It’s got a galley.”

“You stock it wit' anyt'ing other than meat?” the Cajun asked accusingly, pulling on the stylish black shirt she’d tossed him.

“Coffee,” she retorted. Somehow their usual banter was easier to take without the psychic static that usually accompanied their interactions.

“We can work wit' that.” The engineer conceded as he fastened up the dark colored pants. He paused and held the gray coverall she handed him next out at arm’s length. “What this?”

“Your disguise,” she said, putting a maintenance man’s cap bearing the hospital’s logo on its bill on over his curls.

The Cajun scowled. “You get to be a doctor an' I get stuck wit' th' janitor’s uniform?”

Ruth sighed impatiently, then gestured at her dress. “We can switch if you insist.”

“If heels not make me look so cheap,” the engineer faux-grumbled. “I take you up on it.”

To erase any doubt she might have had about the lack of seriousness of his complaint, the Cajun took her into his arms once more and kissed her hungrily.

“I so weak I not hardly able t' stand,” he said in between fervent kisses. “But all I wanna do it make love to you, darlin', fo' the next seven or eight hours… or weeks… or years… That a keheil t'ing, cher?”

Ruth laughed, “I think that’s all you,” she replied, reflections of his delight glowing brightly inside her soul. Wishing she’d somehow figured out a way to get the little interplanetary yacht she’d rented to be waiting for them outside the room’s window so they could just fall into bed, she forced herself to pull away. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“We got a plan?” he asked, as she smoothed her hair back into its severe bun and replaced her concealing eye-wear.

“Yes,” she assured him, handing him a clipboard before closing her case and heading for the door. “We’re going to improvise.”

“Now that there is a helluva plan, sugar,” the engineer grinned, tucking his clipboard under his arm and pulling his cap down low on his forehead as he followed close behind.

“Whoops!” In an almost cartoonish parody of her normal grace, Ruth made a big production of tripping and losing her grip on her clipboard and stylus as she exited the hospital room.

Using the little power his bruised brain could stand to spare, Del pushed the guard’s mind toward focusing on her instead of noticing him as he waited for his chance to slip out the door into the corridor – Not that it took a lot to direct anyone with a pulse to the show-stopping rearview of Ruth bending over in a miniskirt to retriever her stylus.

The guard obligingly rushed forward. “Let me help you, Dr. Maxwell.”

Del had to roll his eyes a little at Ruth’s choice of pseudonym but forced himself to keep ambling forward at the deliberately unhurried pace of an unenthusiastic hospital maintenance man instead of making a mad dash for the turbo lift at the end of the corridor.

“Wait, stop!”

Del’s heart obeyed before his feet did. Putting a look of bored annoyance on his face appropriate to his role, he slowly turned, but the guard still had eyes only for Ruth.

“You’re headed the wrong way, Doctor,” the security man informed her, helpfully pointing his way. “There’s the lift.”

“Oh, yes,” Ruth rewarded the guard for falling for her misdirection by giving him a dazzling smile and tapped the vision aid concealing her unmistakably Antari eyes. “Got to get these things checked!”

Del held the lift doors open for her, but did not otherwise acknowledge her presence until they closed. He then swept her into his arms and kissed her so hard her fancy false glasses were knocked askew.

“Careful,” she giggled. “You’ll blow our cover.”

“What?” he asked, running ravenous kissed down the side of her neck. “You not t'ink a sexy doctor never got it on wit' a hot janitor in a hospital lift befo'?”

“Well…” She smiled and ran a wicked hand down his thigh. “When you put it that way…”

Del gloried not only in the feel of her beautiful body beneath his hands but also in the touch of her delicious mind. Psychic contact between them had always tended to buzz and pop like a modern warp coil trying to feed off rough-cut dylithium. But now it felt like a master engineer had been at work on them. The rough crystals had been smoothed and fitted. The coils had been realigned and calibrated to capture all that raw power without a sputter. Thoughts and feelings hummed back and forth between them in a smooth, unbroken circuit…

Ruth suddenly broke contact. “Captain Kirk is alive?”

“Uhm, yeah… sorta…” Del mumbled distractedly, pulling her close again.

She frowned as the lift doors opened and pushed away from him more firmly. “And when were you going to tell me this?”

“Uh… now, I guess?” he replied, following her as she swept angrily past him into the hospital lobby.

“Was it just not important enough for you to remember?” she whispered tightly as they strode past the disinterested guard posted near the reception desk. “Did you think I wouldn’t be interested?”

“Now, honey,” he said gently as they pressed on into the street, knowing that Ruth harbored a bit of above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty attachment to the captain. “When you say 'alive,' you do realize that...”

The Antari jerked off her vision aid, revealing a pair of huge violet eyes narrowed accusingly. “Spock thinks the captain was abducted by Klingons, put through a mindsifter, then marooned in the past.”

Del uneasily checked behind them for pursuers and did not comment on the fact that their new, silky-smooth psychic flow had apparently allowed her to rapidly rummage through his backlog of thoughts and impressions in the same sort of casual and consent-free manner she had so frequently scolded him for employing. “Yeah, that the theory…”

Ruth put her hands on her hips. “And you have a better one?”

“No, but…” The engineer took her elbow and guided her towards a side street that looked more inconspicuous. “Not to be insensitive… or too technical, but bein' alive in th' past is, in practical terms, not at all the same t'ing as actually bein' alive...”

“We can go back and get him,” Ruth insisted stubbornly, shaking loose and setting off in the opposite direction.

“Maybe,” Del replied, still keeping a sharp eye out as he discarded his hospital maintenance cap in a nearby disposal unit as he followed her.

“The Enterprise has traveled back in time more than once…” his companion asserted, turning down a narrow passageway between two tall buildings.

“Yeah, darlin’, but 'The Past' is a really big place….” The Cajun pointed out, keeping watch for unwanted observers as Ruth hacked the lock on a side door. “…That you really not s'posed t' go an' change stuff 'round in, y'know…”

Ruth’s eyes flashed as the door opened to reveal a service hatch for what looked like the building’s environmental control system. “He’s not supposed to be there!”

The small chamber was lit only by the dull bluish glow of several monitors when the door slid closed behind them. Ruth opened the case she carried with her and unfolded a civilian coverall with an adamant snap.

“He might not be there at all, honey,” Del pointed out carefully as he shouldered out of his hospital maintenance staff uniform. “From what I can make o' what I pick up, it do look t' me like th' captain got put through a mindsifter… An' that pretty rough, as you know… as you so very well know…”

Ruth’s golden skin glowed palely in the dim light as she jerked off her doctor’s uniform and stepped into the drab gray civilian garment. Straightening, she jerked her chin up defiantly. “And you think that killed him?”

“It coulda done,” he replied, wondering why the hell she’d gone from being in complete loving harmony with him to being mad as a wet hen all the damn sudden. Wasn’t like he’d mind-sifted anybody… He’d not even had time to sift through all the junk the disintegrated pieces of his mind had collected from here and there while he was out. “It coulda easily.”

Ruth frowned at him. “He called out to Spock.”

Del shrugged, not particularly wanting to focus on someone else’s painful memory of what was probably a last desperate cry from a dying friend. “Yeah.”

“And Spock thinks he’s still alive…” she said slowly, as if some sort of realization was starting to dawn on her.

“Yeah,” he admitted readily, not attaching any particular significance to the fact for which he might be held to blame. “He wanna t'ink that.”

“And everything from the past year…” Ruth’s voice caught a little. “…Was all so he could keep searching for him…”

“Yeah,” Del confirmed disgustedly. “All a big, fat, fake act…”

The Antari’s huge eyes were filling with tears. “So, he still loves me…”

Del felt like he’d been punched in the gut. His mouth dropped open is sheer, appalled disbelief.

“Really, honey?” he asked, outraged. “You gonna take it that way?”

Ruth swiped her eyes defensively as she brushed past him to make her way to a door in the far end of the hatch. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Well, fo' one t'ing...” Del angrily tossed his hospital coveralls to the floor. “Jus' let me point out that when push come to shove, you come in a distant second to your husband’s work-wife…”

The Antari interrupted her security code breaking to glare at him. “His what?”

Del made a dismissive gesture. “Or whatever it is you wanna call what go on 'tween th' two o' them…”

Ruth straightened and put her hands on her hips. “How about calling it a deep and abiding friendship?”

“Whatever,” the Cajun conceded. “But it still mean your supposedly lovin' Vulcan throwed you over – wit'out a minute o' hesitation -- in favor of goin' after ol’ JTK. Sweetheart, he done play you like a two-string banjo – lie to you, turn on you, hurt you, throw you out like garbage, use you like live bait for murderin' Klingon scum…”

Her face contorted with pain. “But it hurt him so much…” she replied none-the-less, pulling out more impressions Del had retained from his psychic contact with the Vulcan but had not bothered to examine too closely.

“Good!” the engineer snapped back. “Lyin', manipulative, point-earred numbskull…. Honey, he done you way worse than he done me -- an' he an' me not never had no use fo' each other…”

Ruth turned resolutely back to hacking the security panel for the door. “Starfleet believed him.”

“Yeah, so much so they make him swear not to tell nobody,” Del retorted contemptuously. “I think they all like 'Uh, yeah, sure, whatever… but, hey, be sure you keep on doin' what we need you t' do… An' make sure you not mention this to nobody else, non?' Not 'xactly a resoundin’ vote of confidence.”

The security controls beeped obediently under Ruth’s fingers. The door hissed open onto a set of stairs descending to an unknown location. The Antari straightened and drew in a ragged breath. Tears stood in her eyes as she turned. “He still loves me…”

“No, no…” The engineer shook his head and held up his hands to block the indigestible sight of his dearest love standing up for the man he hated most. “I cannot believe you gonna swallow all his bullshi…”

“Del, I…” she interrupted. Her mouth worked for a few minutes in a vain effort to come up with a defense he could accept for the Vulcan’s actions. After a while, she took in another ragged, helpless breath and said simply, “He still loves me.”

The engineer’s mouth curved down into a deep frown. “Well, go on back to him, then,” he said, pushing past her angrily to head down the stairs. “I done wit' you.”

“Del…” she objected, following.

“No, this is it.” He held up an adamant hand as he continued downwards. “I break up wit' you this time. Fo' good.”

Ruth halted and gave an exasperated sigh. “Del, you can’t break up with me.”

“Watch me,” he retorted.

“We’re not teenagers. We’re not dating,” she objected, starting down after him. “I’m married. You can’t break up with …What does that even mean?”

He whirled on her angrily. “You t'ink you the only one can end this, non? But you wrong, ‘cause this is it. Right here. Right now. If you gonna go back to him after all he pull…” Feeling tears starting in his own eyes, he turned back towards the bottom of the staircase. “Then you too messed up for me, girl. I close th' door. This ol’ broken-hearted Cajun boy not gonna be there fo' you nex' time you decide to sashay back this direction.”

“Del…” Ruth was speechless for a few moments.

The stairs ended in a tunnel. Rails for a public transport system ran down the middle of the large, sparsely lighted passage. Narrow access paths led off in either direction. Del stood -- aching, angry, weary beyond words – and above all not wanting to admit that he had no idea which way to go.

“Del…” Ruth’s fingers were excruciatingly honey-sweet on his back. “You can’t just… I mean… We’re joined now…”

He couldn’t keep his mind from slipping into effortless harmony with hers.

He shrugged off her touch harshly. “So, what you want me to do? Jus' stuff my fingers in my ears an' put on some loud music ever' time you decide t' curl up next to ol’ Mephistopheles?”

She shrugged apologetically. “We can’t run away from this. We’re going to have to learn to adjust to our new… connectedness…”

He tried to slam down all the shielding he still didn’t have. “Or not,” he said coldly.

She tilted her head to one side and gave an exasperated sigh. “What do you think you can do?”

“Instead o' me, how 'bout you?” he suggested acidly. “How 'bout this -- You could not go back to him. Dump his sad, lyin' green ass 'cause he has used an' abused you past all forgivin'.”

Ruth shook her head and turned down the narrow passageway leading to their left. “I have to go back,” she replied resolutely. “I have to give him the chance to explain.”

“You know he gonna court-martial you for bustin' me out this joint,” he warned, crossing his arms.

She turned and matched his gesture. “No, I don’t know that.”

“You should,” he advised firmly. “An' you not need to be tryin' to look at me like that…‘Cause you not even need to start to t'ink I gonna go back.”

“You could,” she replied, imitating his tone. “Now he’ll know that we know…”

“Yeah, he done been knowin' that I know for a while now,” the Cajun retorted scornfully. “That jus' 'bout got me thrown into a padded cell in Elba wit'out benefit o' my brain actually bein' in my body no more.”

“But, now that I know too…”

“Nope.” Del shook his head and started down the passageway. “I done cross the Rubicon, cher. I done mutinied. Not jus' that. I the damn ringleader o' the whole t'ing. I got to take the blame so my whole crew can get off scot-free. No, baby. It a pirate’s life fo' me from here on out.”

“But you can’t just…” Ruth objected, following him. “Where will you go?”

“You comin' wit' me?” he turned and asked mockingly.

Her eyes were tragic. “I can’t, Del.”

He turned to hide how much this hurt him. “Then it best you not know.”

“They’ll track you down,” she cautioned. “It’ll go worse for you if you run and they catch you. And they will catch you.”

“I doubt that,” the engineer replied confidently.

He heard her gasp a little as an unsavory possibility occurred to her. “You can’t defect to the Klingons.”

The Cajun turned and gave her a reproving look. “Would I do that, cher?”

“No,” she decided with a satisfactory lack of hesitation. When he walked on, she followed, objecting, “But there’s no place else you can go from this sector. You might be able to hide out on a few border planets for a while – The two of us working together might have been able to make it -- but alone…”

“They’s lots of places,” he assured her airily. “You not worry 'bout it.”

“I’ll know where you are,” she pointed out. “We’re joined now.”

He shrugged as if this were no great concern. “All right.”

Ruth frowned as she caught up even to him. “What do you mean “all right”?”

He gave what he intended to look like a carefree smile. “I jus' gonna have to go where there not gonna be not'ing you or your man can do 'bout it, then, non?”

“There’s not a place…” Ruth suddenly stopped in her tracks when her mental folder of star charts hit on a tempting location within Federation territory. She frowned mightily. “Del, you can’t go to Antares.”

He didn’t stop walking. “I done told you not to worry 'bout it.”

She caught up to him in a few long, angry strides. “Z would never let you…”

He chuckled in agreement. “Now what would she want wit' some dumb ol’ Cajun boy?”

Ruth blinked at him in annoyed disbelief. He could almost hear her grudging admission that – as she thought could be said of many of his plans – whatever this scheme lacked in practicality, it amply made up for in sheer, brainless audacity…

“Some ol’ drug-fueled drunk prancin’ 'round like he t'ink he a Moon Princess,” he scoffed maddeningly. “That only interest Her if She need a good laugh, non?”

Ruth’s lips were set in a tight, forbidding line. “Fleet will extradite you,” she warned. “Antares is a member of the Federation…”

“An' only ever do what the Feds say, non?” he scoffed.

Rather than debating Beta Antares’ fairly capricious observation of Federation law and custom, Ruth shook her head adamantly. “Del, you would never make it. You’d have to go right through Federation territory. Once you got there, you’d have no guarantee…”

The engineer could now hear sounds in the distance of a crowd milling around a station-stop for whatever sort of public transport system this tunnel fed. Despite Ruth’s promise of improvisation, she seemed to have had their escape planned out fairly carefully. It looked like she intended for them to blend in with the crowd and take the public transport to the space dock where the small ship she’d bought was stashed.

“I know, I know,” he interrupted with an overly dramatic sigh. “Assumin' I could get there – since I jus' a poor ol’ ex-Clavist who not know not'ing 'bout outrunnin' patrols -- an' assumin' ol’ Z is warm enough fo' my form t' let me in – since she not never lick her lips in my direction befo' -- I probably jus' go an' get myself salished by the first fat, ugly, ol' Antari I run into…”

Ruth did not bother to dignify this speculation with a reply. Instead she stopped and removed a few more items from her escape kit. “Here,” she said, handing him a black hat.

The cap turned out to have a wide bill and mask-like cowl attached that covered most of his lower face. “This not gonna help, cher,” he said, purposefully feigning ignorance of its real intended purpose as he donned the disguise. “I hear them hardcore Antari bitches only like you fo' your mind…”

Ruth growled her lack of appreciation for his levity as she pulled on the distinctive robe and hood of an accolade of a Benzarite religious order. “You’ll never make it alone though Federation territory with Starfleet on your tail.”

“An' you not never gonna be able t' pass fo' a Bennie nun on close examination,” he pointed out mockingly as they neared the lighted glow of the public transport stop.

Her violet eyes were hidden in the depths of the hood, but he could feel the concern and conflicted emotions radiating from her. “You can’t make it alone,” she insisted.

Del could hear the chattering din of alien minds begin to jangle inside his bruised brain as they rounded a corner. “Then you jus' gonna have to go wit' me, non?” he suggested with a determined lightness he did not feel.

“Del!” Ruth put out a warning arm to stop him, but it was already too late.

A group of figures stepped from the shadows. Taking them by surprise that could have never been so complete if the two of them had been more fully recovered from the recent assaults to their psychic abilities, the armed figures quickly seized and separated them.

“No, Mr. DelMonde.” Their leader -- a Klingon, as they all were – smiled as he stepped forward into the dim light of the passageway. “I’m afraid you are both going to have to come with me.”

“Kor!” Ruth tried to scream, but rough hands were quickly clapped over her mouth.

“Ah, my dear...” The Klingon commander turned to her, ignoring his subordinates as they quickly bound and gagged Del. “How nice to see you again. And how is my dear old friend Spock? I heard you were having a bit of trouble at home. I thought I might intervene on the behalf of your husband before you did anything too rash.”

As she struggled wildly in the grips of her captors, Ruth’s shining hair burst free from under her hood and flowed down her shoulders.

“I do so long to see him,” the hateful Klingon continued with faux civility as he lifted a golden lock and held it up to the light. “Perhaps I should send him a little present – an invitation to the festivities…”

O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O= O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O

"You know, stayin' in a place like this might not be all bad," McCoy mused as he sipped his third mint julep. He gestured absently at the not-quite-bustling spaceport. "I mean, sure, there's Klingons, but..." He leaned forward across the small cafe table. "There's no extradition to the Federation. I checked." Leaning back, he continued. "Spock couldn't legally touch us, son."

Sulu tried not to scowl. "Unfortunately, my wife is still on the Enterprise," he reminded the doctor.

McCoy waved that away. "Mrs. Majiir's a talented enough engineer to find a way to beam down here."

"What about Ruth?" Sulu asked.

"Hell, that gal could just teleport herself anywhere she wanted," the doctor snorted.

"She'd follow Del."

McCoy leaned forward again. "Don't talk about him," he murmured. "A physician's worst nightmare. A patient who's alive but brain-dead and can't be healed."

"Spock wouldn't let Ruth try," was Sulu's bitter comment.

McCoy opened his mouth to make some retort, then closed it again, his gaze moving past Sulu.

Sulu's heartrate picked up for no reason he could discern and he turned in his seat. A waitress from the nearby bar was approaching him, a communicator in her hand.

"Commander Sulu?" she said.

He nodded uneasily.

"I have a priority transmission from your ship."

Sulu briefly closed his eyes, nearly feeling the Klingon gazes that were turning to him. What's the matter, Captain, he thought. Weren't we doing a good enough job of catching the Klingons' attention?

He took the communicator. "Sulu here," he said into it.

Uhura's voice was a mixture of sorrow and anger. "Commander, I have to report... we've received word... Sulu, Ruth broke DelMonde out of the Betaran medical facility. They've both gone AWOL."

"How can DelMonde go anything in his condition?" McCoy demanded as he leaned close to the communicator.

"All I have is the report from the hospital, Dr. McCoy," Uhura replied. "They say a Dr. Maxwell..."

Both Sulu and McCoy groaned.

"... went in to see DelMonde, and now they're both missing."

Sulu swore under his breath. "What are the captain's orders," he growled.

"Uh, we've been unable to locate him," Uhura said. "He's not in his office and there's no response from his cabin."

A shiver of dread raced down Sulu's spine, but he pushed it away. "Okay, Uhura, I'll take it from here. Sulu out." He gave the communicator back to the waitress, then turned to McCoy. "Let's get to the locker and get our things," he said as he stood. "You beam up and..."

"You think I'm leavin' you here to deal with Ruthie and DelMonde alone?" McCoy interrupted.

"We have to find them before the Klingons do," Sulu pointed out.

"And you think I'm leavin' you here to deal with Ruthie and DelMonde alone?" the doctor repeated.

Despite himself, a wry grin found it's way to Sulu's lips. "No, I didn't think that for a minute, Doc," he returned. He drained the last of his sake as McCoy finished his julep, then they both hurried away from the public terrace.

O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O= O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O

Noel DelMonde opened his eyes to one of the top ten sights most dreaded by every Federation officer – a Klingon smiling.

“Ah, Mr. DelMonde,” Kor said, oozing false charm. “You are back with us at last.”

Del reluctantly took in the unpleasant scene. A pair of force cuffs secured his wrists to the arms of chair in a drab, windowless office. Kor, with hands triumphantly on his hips, was sneer-smiling down at him. Four standard-issue Klingon goons were stationed about the room. Ruth was tied to a chair across the room – her golden locks shorn to ragged wisps, her face terrible.

“We had no idea you were so…” Kor paused to chuckle condescendingly. “…sensitive.”

His goons chortled appreciatively.

Del could have chalked their reaction up to generic Klingon jackassery, but he could tell that in good part they were laughing because their ignorant, country asses were terrified of he and Ruth. Telepathy was rare among Klingons enough to be consigned to the realms of overactive imagination. The average Klingon recruit tended not to know much about anything other than the rudiments of subsistence farming on some of the worst planetary environments in the galaxy and how to survive the brutal clan warfare that was more a daily reality than eating three square meals of raw earthworms. In preparation for facing not one but two telepaths as reputed to be as powerful as the most terrifying examples from the folklore of their childhood, their superior had only given them the unhelpful dictum of “Guard your thoughts!”

Unfortunately for Del, Klingons had naturally strong shielding and were so generally boneheaded they were hard to influence. It didn’t stop these goons from shaking in their big black boots and being relieved to the point of laughter that one of the big bad human wizards turned out to be so weak that he passed out from the sight of his girlfriend’s hair being cut.

“Yeah,” Del replied sourly, deciding to let them keep underestimating what a powerful shock it was to have the what-ever-it-was symbiotic thing that was Antari hair to suddenly be severed from the tender new link he and Ruth now shared. “Sensitive. That be my reputation.”

“Of that, I was aware.” Kor’s faux-smile faded. “Quite well, actually. You may be surprised at how much I do know about you, DelMonde.”

The Klingon held his gaze long enough to make sure a chill penetrated the engineer’s bones. Kor, unlike his subordinates, was not an uneducated hick who had been drafted straight from the boonies and put through three weeks of basic training to put a fine edge on the already formidable unarmed combat techniques he’d been honing since he could walk to deal with the ever-present possibility that ten or twenty of the neighbors might drop by to even up some old score with the sharpened edge of a their shovels. No, Kor was a professional soldier from a clan who had been admirals and generals for thousands of years. He was not bluffing. He was not spooked. Kor was mad, though. Not just angry at humans in general, but pissed at him specifically. Kor knew what Del was to Ruth. Somehow he also had an inkling about the role the engineer had played on the surprise attack on his flagship…. Or at least he had decided he was going to let Del take the full brunt of his anger over that embarrassing defeat. Kor was gunning for Spock, yes, but he could hurt Spock by hurting Ruth. Del was a spare human in this transaction upon which he take out his bonus rage.

The engineer swallowed hard as the cold edge of the Klingon’s hatred raked over him. Getting out of this shit was going to be tricky to say the least.

O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O= O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O

Raw-eth, cher, you best be wakin' up right 'bout now.

Ruth stirred at the telepathic plea in her head, then shuddered, stifling a cry at the psychic pain that was bleeding out the ends of her ruined hair. She held back the sobs of loss and fear, forcing herself to lift her head and open her eyes.

It hadn't been some horrible nightmare, or memory gone grotesque. There was Kor, sneering at Del who was tired to a chair opposite her. There were Klingon guards, one of them holding a bizarre helmet-type apparatus that she was all too familiar with. She shivered again, this time with despair and memory of helplessness.

You wanna pull a deus ex machina, I not tease you 'bout it, I swear, Del's voice continued in her head.

She shook her head, playing it like she was chasing the grogginess away - which wasn't far from the truth when she thought about it. I can't, she answered the Cajun. I'm not strong enough yet.

How much time you be needin? the engineer asked, his mental tone full of weary dread.

Ruth eyed the mindsifter. More than we've got.

That what I t'ink it is?

Before Ruth could answer, Kor was turning from Del. "If my memory is correct," he began, "this wasn't as effective on you as I would have liked the last time we tried it." He paused, his smile becoming uglier, if that was possible. "Although you - faked it, is I believe, the correct term? - quite well. Quite well indeed."

Ruth had to swallow bile and she felt the memory of her submission to Kor's rape being played into Del's thoughts. The way the Cajun growled, deep in his throat, his thoughts seething with blind fury almost made up for the Klingon's evoking it.

"But it hasn't been long enough for you to have recovered from the sauvrn," Kor was continuing, "and I must confess to some admiration for the methods your Federation must had employed to release you from it. But putting that aside - and I promise you, we will return to that particular subject - your weakened condition should be just enough to make our device more than useful."

Before Ruth could react, Del had.

"Mais, then, it be really effective on me," he drawled, "'cause I not been healed from that fo' more than half an hour now."

Kor turned to again face the engineer, a light of demonic delight in his eyes. “Indeed, Mr. DelMonde?" he said. "I do love volunteers.” He signaled the subordinate who held the device, motioning him toward Del.

Del, are you crazy? Ruth thought frantically. Why are you volunteering? You won’t survive...

The dark eyes met hers and she could feel the love welling within him, the gentle and grieving release. She caught a faint an' here you was hopin' she gonna come to you in joy before his voice was directed to her thoughts.

He still love you, he said.

Del, no....

That what you tol' me, cher. An' if he still love you, when he get that box o' hair Kor sent up the ship, he gonna come fo' you. I jus' gotta buy him 'nough time to get here.

She watched as he took a mental and physical deep breath, not struggling as the mindsifter was strapped to his head.

O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O= O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O

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