Log 29
SD 10040.3
Oh rats, the cats out of the bag, or would you please pass the Kleenex?
I’m still reeling from what has happened, and that I’m now doing my best to kill K, Tarra, and Cosmos. "What the hell!?" you may ask brought me to this sorry state, so I will tell you, but let me start at the beginning.
Things didn’t start badly, that is if you don’t think getting your ass set on fire and then kicked around by a rat in power armor a bad start to the day, but considering where it went it from there, it wasn’t a bad start. On the bright side I did manage to win the fight with the rat, and even started talking to the little guy when he stopped worrying about me eating him. I didn’t have time to do much talking or evaluating of the situation, before I learned that the rats have a military partly based on equipment salvaged from the Zenth-Trad and are almost as interested in space as they are paranoid about us eating them. I did leave the situation stable with Commander Lera, I hoped. She was talking things over with the little fellow when I left for the shuttle.
We had discovered early on that we couldn’t talk to the Freedom from our personal communicators, so I headed up to the shuttle to try that more powerful communicator. I thought the Trad was giving off some sort of signal that was dampening our comms. Perhaps some sort of experiment still running or something. Now I wonder if the comms weren’t being jammed. Anyway I felt the captain needed to be updated on the situation considering that the rat scientist had said they had a military and they were trying to get into space. I could just see the Freedom blundering into a mine or something.
It was a long haul back up out of the Trad, and it felt good to be out of the dusty wreck. It felt so good, decided to loiter for a few moments on the landing stage just to enjoy the air when all hell broke lose. There was a blossom of fire overhead that had to be ship to ship combat! The blast was so bright and unexpected that I froze in my tracks for a moment or so, then I heard the unmistakable whine of transporters all over around the wreck. I could tell they were not ours. The harmonics under carrier frequency were much harsher than the standard Federation models. In fact they sounded Klingon!
I dove into the shuttle and found K huddled in copilot’s seat looking frightened, and our shipwreck survivor Melvin snoozing in a back seat in a way that would have made Lt. Cmdr. Tempres proud. I dropped into the pilot’s seat and the first thing I heard out of the communicator was that the Freedom was fighting several Kzin ships! Here?! Now?!! This had to be a bad dream!
I was trying to decide what to do at that point. Should we try for the ship, or take cover here when two things happened almost as one. First, the realization of which Kzin commander favored using Klingon ships, and second came from K and froze my blood with certainty as to what the situation was. She confirmed it was her brother out there. I was about to suggest that we take shelter in the Trad when K jumped up and ran out of the shuttle!
At first I thought she was running to find a hiding place somewhere. Had I known her true intentions I would have stunned her before she could clear the door, but I didn’t. I hadn’t put it together then. When I followed more carefully I expected to see her at the door to the Trad, but instead saw that she had slipped over the side of the wreck and was running not away, but to the Kzin lines! In that instant several clues I had disregarded fell into place.
First, the deadline. She’d told me that she was under a deadline to marry. I thought up till then that this was just a personal deadline and put it down to two things, that she was getting older, and that she wanted to use it as pressure to persuade me. I’ve been there before and thought I recognized the feel, but I was wrong.
Second, all the hints and clues about her brother and his plans. She had mentioned how he wanted to breed intelligent females, and more thoughtful males. How he was obsessed with the plan, but I was thinking of retrogenetics not hybridization, not then. The thought had even fleetingly crossed my mind that Riit would love to get his hands on Tarra, but I didn’t carry it to its logical conclusion. Goddess I wish I had now!
Anyway as I stood watching her run to her brother all the bits fell together and realization sank in of what had been going on for the last few months. That he had been using and playing with her all along. He had given her the illusion of freedom telling her if she could marry in the time he gave her that she could remain free, but I doubt he thought it possible, and wouldn't doubt that he had purposely stacked the deck against her. I too have doubts that any of the Caitian would have wanted her. As beautiful as she is she, she is still an unwed mother and a half-breed. The paranoia that the Caitian feel when it comes to the Kzin runs very deep. Ask her mother. I also doubt that he would have kept to that bargain even if she had managed to win.
I think what he truly wanted was to have her a willing victim to his plans. In my minds-eye I could see him playing out the string, letting her have some freedom, then inevitably she would get hurt and he would ride to the rescue and make the hurt go away. Goddess! Could he have had something to do with my ending up on the Freedom? What better tool to use against her than a shell-shocked survivor of a conflict with her father! That would explain why he turned up when he did just after my arrival on the Freedom. He was there to save her from me!
In an instant of pure clarity I could see her future as well as the possible past. He would mate her to a Kzin to evaluate the resulting hybrids, if he hadn't already done so using cloning. If they were what he wanted, he would use her to build an army. She would be like the mother termite in a nest pumping out eggs as fast as her body would let her, and then likely he would marry her off for political gain just before she was used up. A thought that sickened me, and made me realize how far I had come from fearing and hating her as I had when I’d first awakened to find her hovering over me.
I should have guessed this all this sooner. I should have known from the way she was acting that something was wrong, but I didn’t. I was still too star-struck at having a relationship that didn’t end when the money ran out. For the first time in my life I had been selfish. For the first time in my life I had something better than the others, and in gloating over it I had screwed up.
By then the Kzin were mixing it up with the rats, and I joined the fight on the rat's side, dropping as many Kzin as I could, but it was to no avail. Suddenly there was a shimmer and the Kzin were gone. Well most of them. There were bits of arms and legs here and there that didn’t go with their owners, but thankfully no white limbs littered the ground.
Some time passed with more lights in the sky, then we were all beamed up to the ship. On my arrival I sort of lost it. I told Lee what I thought and he offered to help me with what I had to do.
I also discovered how it was that we were beamed up to a ship in combat. Someone had dropped a shield, though I don't know why yet. While the shield was down the Kzin had locked on to the medical bay and had ripped it right out of the Freedom with Tarra and Cosmos in it! Damage done, the captain had used the time to bring us up rather than leave us to the rats.
Knowing my place, I rushed to the bridge, but stopped at my cabin on the way to load up on weapons. I will never be caught as I had been on the Tang again. My phasers are on my shoulder and hip, and my favorite saber rides the other hip as well. I just wished I had some armor to go with it.
The view from the bridge was spectacular, and reminded me of the days of the Tang all over again. We were just passing the burning wreck of one Kzin ship and were after two more that had just cloaked and were running for their lives. The captain was just as I remembered her, decisive and as always scrapping for a fight. Were it not for the gray in her fur I would have guessed she had transited time as I had so strong was the memory.
As of now I am laying down a spread pattern of photon torpedoes fused not for impact but time and proximity. With luck we could get a crippling shot on Riit's ship, then would be the really tricky part, a boarding party. Goddess grant that we not lose too many of the green crew of this ship if that comes. They can’t have much idea about what they will face in that ship, and I bet I am the only person in the crew that had ever fought at Kzin standard gravity.
But the odds of our doing a boarding were dropping by the minute as more and more ghosts start to show on the scan. There could be as many as 15 Kzin ships out there now, or they could be using cloaked drones and or shuttles to make the tracks. We had seen that before with the Romulans, but they had also occasionally had real ships out there that waited till a shield was down and the ship stationary before firing.
Another alternative was a small commando raid on the Kzin ship using a shuttle. The commandos would be on their own, but it would mean a chance however slim for the hostages.
The final horrible alternative to boarding Riit's ship is that if we can bring her out of cloak the captain could order that we just bombard her till she is destroyed, saving lives among our crew and allowing us to keep our shields up. We’d done that before, but could I push the button if she orders it? Can I kill K and the others? If it came down to a choice of letting the Kzin have them or killing them, I think I could, but I doubt I would be any good to anyone ever again. Even myself……