Burn

Posted on Jul 26, 2016 @ 2:24am by Selyara Chen & Raxl Dreyton
Edited on on Jul 26, 2016 @ 2:25am

Mission: Fortress: Earth

= Burn =

(cont’d from “ The Dead”)

Location: San Francisco, Earth

Stardate: 2.160725.2132

Scene: Aquatic Park

James Barton half walked, half staggered his way down a sparsely populated thoroughfare, keeping his eyes down. He’d abandoned the tattered remnants of the inside layer of the dropsuit, having already left the rest of it to sink to the ocean floor. Underneath all the layers of shielding, Barton had been wearing casual clothes, good enough to let him pass as just another citizen by the time he hit the city’s streets. Unfortunately these clothes had soaked up a fair bit of ocean water during his desperate swim for shore. Lingering weakness in his legs meant his gait was unsteady enough to pass for drunk. The sun had started to dry out his hair, giving him a rapidly worsening case of the frizzies.

The few other people in the park had so far given him a wide berth, probably because he looked like an outsized hobo king, and Barton liked that just fine. There wasn’t much information about surface conditions on Earth, not after Edgerton had locked down off-world communication, but Barton didn’t like the idea of one of the park-goers calling in his location to Starfleet security. Edgerton probably never expected anyone to pull what Barton had just pulled, but he’d surely be on the lookout for traitors beneath his shield, especially after learning that Selyara was planetside.

Barton looked up, and at last he could see the edges of the park, and the street beyond. There was more foot-traffic there, as well as the occasional skycab, idling at sea-level while its fare enjoyed a bit of the local color. So far, nobody had noticed the half-drowned giant stumbling his way towards the street, but it didn’t look like a crowd that Barton could move through without turning a few heads. More attention was the last thing James Barton wanted right now, but there was nothing for it; he doubted very much that Selyara would be found biding her time in an aquatic park. He continued onward, stepping through the gates and onto the street.

The smell of sea air was still strong, but now there were other scents for it to mix with. Barton caught a whiff of something savory, instantly summoning images of spiced meats sizzling over an open fire, and his stomach rumbled. Barton decided he could risk a quick meal; he had come a long way, after all. He found a small food stand, specializing mostly in seafront favorites like fish tacos and crab cake. Barton had had enough “surf” to last a lifetime, and instead turned his attention to the “turf” portion of the menu, ordering a pair of cheeseburgers.

The restaurant was open to the street, with a counter and a row of small stools for patrons to sit on while they finished their meal. Barton settled appreciatively down on the closest one, grateful for the relief for his exhausted legs. Once settled, he couldn’t help but notice the confused look he’d attracted from the old timer sat a few seats down from him. Barton turned, and met the old man’s gaze with his own.

“Help you with something?”

“You fall off a boat, son?” the old timer asked, tracing his eyes over the sorry state of Barton’s clothes.

Despite himself, Barton chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that.”

* * *=[/\]=* * *

Scene: Selyara and Raxl’s hotel suite

“Ah hah.” Selyara’s sudden triumphant crow of delight woke Raxl from his half-sleep. She turned to him and looked apologetically. “Sorry, Mister- Raxl. But I fear your beauty rest will have to wait. I believe I the cavalry has arrived.” She turned her screen around to face him and waited expectantly. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and squinted at the screen blearily.

“A bit of burning debris?” She struck a key and brought up a second video clip. He blinked and cocked his head. “Wait, is that a parachute?”

“Indeed. I think they sent someone on a rather suicidal, but thankfully successful high orbit base jump. It would have been the only way to get past the shield. I saw several videos of it on The Network a couple hours ago, and I’ve been working hard to eradicate it so Edgerton doesn’t notice.” She stretched and massaged her neck. “The last thing we need is someone else to try to intercept him before we can figure out how to find him.”

“Him? You know who it is?” Raxl asked. Selyara tried not to allow her face to show the irritation that she felt, but she could tell by Raxl’s expression that she had not done very well. “And you don’t approve.”

“It… It is not that, precisely. I suspect I know from the general size of the object who it is, and he is quite adequate brawn. He is, however, about as inconspicuous as an elephant wearing a tutu and tap shoes, and he is also the reason why I am far more circumspect now about any unnecessary forays into other people’s minds. I suppose you could say it is a case of familiarity breeding mutual contempt. However, this may be an advantage in this case, he has certain insight into my behavior and ways of thinking that may allow us to liaise more easily.” She stood and fished around for a jacket. “But first, I am starving. Let's get something to eat, and lay some groundwork.”

“You know, I think this is the first time I’ve heard you express the need for something as human as food, or sleep. I was starting to think you were really a machine.” Her head snapped around to look at him, but she quickly surmised from his impish grin that it was intended as a joke.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am, alas, a slave to the flesh. Now, will you escort me, puny mortal?” She grabbed his elbow. Raxl rolled his eyes.

“You know how I told you stop calling me Mister Dreyton?” He asked casually, then waited a beat. “I changed my mind.”

“Too late. Silence puny mortal!” Selyara said imperiously, and smiled back at him.

“What’s this? A sense of humor? What next, are you going to get drunk and puke on my shoes?” Raxl joked with her as they walked out onto the crowded street. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him scan the people slowly, assessing threats.

“What am I, sixteen?” Selyara paused. “Do you think Mister Johnson will be back?”

“Don’t you?” Raxl asked rhetorically. She grunted, and shrugged. They walked in silence for a long time, winding their way down the streets. Selyara marvelled at how much the city had changed since she was last there, while simultaneously remaining exactly the same. It was felt familiar, but at the same time, she saw nothing she recognized. She’d been hoping to find old haunts, places that Barton, for she was sure that it was he that Michael had sent to her aide, would recognize as near and dear to her from her memories, somewhere she could leave him a message to let him know how to meet up with them. But one after another she found them gone, replaced by something else.

She stopped, feeling suddenly out of time and out of place. For the first time since she’d escaped from Jaros she was acutely aware of how the march of time had left her behind. Raxl stopped, realizing that she was no longer behind him, and he turned around to look at her. She saw a flash of concern or pity, she wasn’t sure exactly which, cross his face momentarily.

“I thought it would be the same.” She said slowly. “But everything’s changed. I thought there might be a place I remember that would be a good place to leave a message for the cavalry to arrange a meet up. But…”

“But everything’s different.”

“Yes. Now I need to formulate a new plan.” She frowned, and her stomach let out an undignified, churning growl.

“Now you need to eat something, otherwise the next time we’re hiding from some spook in a cupboard we’re going to get caught. Besides, momma Dreyton always told me that ‘a good decision was never made on an empty stomach,’ and her advice has never been wrong.”

“My mother always said ‘the hungry lion runs fastest.’” Selyara retorted, but her stomach chose that moment to rumble again. “But I suppose Momma Dretyon had a point.” At that moment a familiar smell chose that moment to waft gently through the crowd and insinuate itself teasingly in her nostrils. Moving on instinct she followed it down a few side streets before she found herself in a little hole in the wall. A young woman looked up from where she sat at one of the tables working on some sort of homework and waved to indicate they could sit anywhere. Selyara chose a corner table where she could see the kitchen and the front door, and Raxl slid in next to her. The girl handed them menus.

“It’s not on the menu, but may I get a tamago gohan, with bitter melon and pork with black bean sauce?” Selyara asked, a half memory of things eaten long ago during happier times worming its way into her thoughts. The woman gave her a quizzical look before taking Raxl’s order for sweet and sour chicken. She moved into the kitchen and there was a muffled exchange of words, and the cloth in front of the door swung open to admit a middle aged man of the indeterminate mix of races that was rapidly becoming the norm among humans. His smiled at them.

“I thought I recognized that order, Sely, right?” He wiped his hands on his apron and put his hands on his hips.

“I think you have me confused with someone else.” Selyara replied coldly. The man grinned and shook his head.

“Nope, pretty sure I haven’t. Used to run with that racing gang? Let them trash the place on Saturday night and then back on Sunday morning to help clean up? We used to be over by the shuttleport back then, though. I had the biggest crush on you, but you had your type back then and-” The man was about to continue, but Selyara grabbed a handful of his shirt and yanked him down so they were looking eye to eye.

“It is not generally good for one’s longevity these days to know me. If you’re wise, you’ll say you’ve got me confused with someone else, especially if anyone asks you.” She released his clothing and he straightened up.

“If you mean because that woman’s wanted by the Federation… Between you and me, that’s holding less and less weight around here. Times being what they are, there’s more than a few people here who might think that anyone branded a traitor might have a point.” The man said, a half smile on his face. “I’m just saying. But hey, I guess I don’t know you. Lemme get your food strange lady.”

Selyara stared at his back as he went back to the kitchen, a frown on her face. She turned back to Raxl.

“What are the odds of that happening?” He said with amusement evident on his face. “You know, Momma Dreyton also used to say that all memories live in the nose.”

“That doesn’t even make-” Selyara started to say scornfully, and then something clicked in her head. “Actually, Momma Dretyon is one smart cookie. That gives me an idea…”

* * * =[/\]= * * *

Scene: San Francisco streets

After eating his cheeseburgers and avoiding further inquiry from the old timer at the other end of the counter, James Barton had moved along. His clothes were nearly dry, though the salt made them feel stiff and uncomfortable. He hadn’t happened across a mirror or anything else reflective yet, but he had a feeling he looked like boiled hell. He had to find Selyara, but he also had to keep a low profile, and that was already going to be hard enough for a man of James Barton’s size and build. He had to find a change of clothes and a comb to run through his hair at the very least.

As he walked the streets, he realized it was difficult picking apart Selyara’s memories from his own. Like all Starfleet cadets, James Barton had once called San Francisco home, and the ghosts of those days were surprisingly potent, even after all this time. But there were other feelings too, memories that weren’t his to carry but were there all the same. Barton kept stopping to look behind him, always expecting Selyara to be standing there, and always feeling a momentary vertigo when he found nothing but empty sidewalk.

The mind-meld they had shared had been… intense wasn’t exactly the word for it. It was as though Barton had been pulled outside himself and tasked with the methodical dissection of his own mind, while also feeling much the same thing for Selyara’s mind as well. They had shared an imperfect one-ness, a disjointed joining of two souls that could not, would not submit to invasion. It was as though someone had laid a road-map of Selyara Chen’s mind over a road-map of his own… the routes could never match up, but here and there you might find similar landmarks. Barton did not like Selyara and he did not trust her, but the damnable thing was that Selyara didn’t completely like or trust *herself*, and Barton couldn’t be sure where his feelings ended and Selyara’s began.

The part of herself that Selyara Chen had left behind in James Barton’s mind was more awake now than ever. It was like having an itch that you couldn’t scratch, because it wasn’t ever *your* itch in the first place. He knew she was close, maddeningly so, but this only seemed to make the feeling worse. He knew he would never find her, but he had started to understand that he would have to allow her to find *herself*. He was only here as a chaperone.

But first: clothes.

He found a replicator station and ordered up a fresh outfit for himself, privately marveling at the simplicity of it. Limbo certainly didn’t offer free replication services, and even in his time aboard the PHOENIX, Barton had maintained a rather spartan existence. Even as his new duds assembled themselves from out of the void, Barton couldn’t help but think about what Earth might be like a year from now, or five years from now. Edgerton had nowhere to run, but he also had a knife to the Federation’s neck. Stalemate seemed the only logical outcome… and sooner or later, resources on Earth would start to run out. Barton remembered Arthur Embry, and the riots, and what people were like when you took away their food and their safety and their comforts. That could happen here, he realized. No more Dial-A-Suit, the buffet is closed, hope you’re all ready to find out some things about yourselves that you’re not going to like.

Barton pushed these thoughts away. Preventing that outcome was why he had risked everything in that insane jump, why he needed his new outfit, and why he needed to find Selyara. Nothing else mattered now but stopping Edgerton, and against all odds and reason, Barton had put himself in one of the best positions to do it.

* * * =[/\]= * * *

Scene: San Fransisco Streets

“This is all going to go bad before we eat it.” Raxl stared down at the little parcels and packages he was carrying.

“A shame, but eating it wasn’t the point. Give me a boost.” Raxl sighed and put the packages down and took a knee next to the gazebo. Selyara chewed noisily on a piece of gum and blew a rather impressive bubble for good measure before spitting it out onto the back of the antique communicator. She took a step up onto his knee and balanced there while she affixed the communicator to an eave of the gazebo.

“Are you sure that’s not too high? You’re pretty tall already.” Raxl said. Selyara’s derriere was directly at his eye-level now. Rax tried not to look, but he didn’t try very hard.

“The cavalry makes me look like a child and you look like a 90 pound weakling.” Selyara wiggled the communicator experimentally a couple of times. She reached down for his shoulder to help herself down, presenting a rather alluring view down her shirt. Raxl averted his eyes only to find himself staring right into Selyara’s coyly mocking face. “Feel free to look. Consider it a job perk.”

“*Job* perk? Does this mean I’m getting paid? Because I was starting to think this was one of those ‘out of the goodness of my heart’ kinds of deals…” Raxl sank into the joking banter which was starting to become their default.

“Goodness of your heart? Please, you’re more interesting than that.” Selyara scoffed.

“I’m not sure if that was a compliment, or if you just called me a money grubber.”

“Why not both?” Selyara pulled out a second communicator from her pocket tested it a couple times. “If we’re lucky the power supplies on these will last.”

“And they are so old none of Edgerton’s cronies will be listening in.” Raxl reminded her.

“That too. We better keep moving and get ready to meet Stephen and Leonard... How are you at dancing?”

Raxl Dreyton grinned. “At last, you’re speaking my language.”

* * * =[/\]= * * *


Scene: San Fransisco Streets

With fresh clothes and a full stomach, Barton was able to begin his search in earnest. He let instinct guide him trusting on his connection to Selyara to subtly nudge him in the right direction. It was frustrating, as there was no way for him know if he was getting close. He had to trust that what he could feel in his mind was real, and that it wasn’t his. And, at a certain point, he had to trust that Selyara would see him coming.

She’d specifically requested backup from Kane, so she knew someone would be coming to help. Barton decided there was no real way for Selyara to know Kane that would send him, but somehow he thought that he was exactly who Selyara had been expecting. So, his plan was to trust his gut and wait for her to find him… assuming she hadn’t already been captured, of course.

He’d hopped an automated skycab and punched in a course that would take him high up, over the cityscape. He spent the better part of two hours, soaring over the skyscrapers in a figure 8 pattern, gradually shrinking each loop. It was late afternoon now, and the sun was beginning its lazy descent towards the ocean; the light refracted through the Aegis shield, and gave the sky a sickly color that Barton didn’t like. He turned his attention to the city below; so much of San Francisco felt familiar to him, but he could feel his attention being pulled again and again to one particular burrough. He dropped altitude and did another flyby.

**The old neighborhood,** he thought. It wasn’t his thought, as he was quite sure he’d never visited this part of the city before. It didn’t look familiar, but it *felt* familiar, and that was a start. He landed the skycab, got out, and stepped back to allow the automated transport to return to its holding patten in the sky overhead. Then, Barton looked out at the street before him.

The buildings, the businesses, the stores… none of it looked familiar. But he had a sense of the geography of the neighborhood - of what blind alleys would come to dead ends, of the quickest way to move from end of the burrough to the other - that he couldn’t explain. This was Selyara’s place, and the part of his mind that was her seemed to recoil at having Barton standing here. It was a vulnerability, however, small, and those she did not lightly share. But another part of her mind in his was urging Barton forward.

**You need to find me,** Selyara whispered in his mind. **I need your help.**

**So shoot up a flare or something,** Barton thought back, wearily. There was no response.

So Barton walked, and walked. He found his feet seemed to know where to go even if his brain did not, and so he stopped worrying about navigation and instead let the memories - Selyara’s memories - come welling up to the surface. It was slow, but once it started there was no stopping it. He remembered people, places, things she had done.

**I had my first kiss there.** Selyara’s memories sighed suddenly. **We sat in the crook of the tree and he carved our names in the bark, said we’d be together forever. I broke up with him the next week. I forget why.**

This particular memory was so strong that Barton diverted his path to the tree in question, a venerable magnolia that sat in the middle of a roundabout, next to a small fountain. He found the scooped branch and saw next to older scars a small freshly carved heart with the initials SC&JPB in the center, an arrow impaling the heart, pointing quite deliberately down one of the streets.

He followed the arrow, walking until the scent of some sort of walnut shaped pastries being cooked by an old lady and her grandchild on the street corner filled his nose, and brought with them another memory.

“Nine walnut and one durian, please.” Selyara and her sister Lily always ordered them that way on Saturdays when they walked to the park to play. They both hated durian. They’d both use their least favorite chore as a bet, and then they’d ride the merry-go-round taking turns eating one of the round pastries from the bag, and whomever ate the durian one lost. Lily nearly always won, but she didn’t realize until she was much older that Selyara always knew which one was the durian one, and always picked it, unless she was mad at Lily.

The old lady laughed when he made the order, and made passing reference to his friend having said she looked forward to meeting him at the old trolley station later. He inquired where that was of some passers-by, and walked there, munching slowly on the pastries.

Selyara was certainly right. The durian one was disgusting.

One place lead to another until he finally reached a gazebo on a spit of land that jutted out into the ocean, and somehow he knew this was the end of his search. It was quiet, peaceful, and Barton felt instinctively that this was the place that Selyara believed she had begun, that everything else up until this point had been someone else, and another life.

He craned his head and looked around the gazebo. At first he saw nothing, but then a glint of sunlight caught something metallic on top of one of the supporting beams. He reached up and pulled free an extremely old fashioned communicator. The piece was easily a hundred years or more old, a valuable antique. He flipped it open and pressed the button. There was a long pause, and Barton began to worry that the ancient thing had malfunctioned.

{{Finally.}} Selyara’s voice was tinny and distorted but nonetheless managed to sound, to his ears, exasperated and immensely condescending. {{It certainly took you long enough.}}

* * * =[/\]=* * *


Scene: Selyara and Raxl's hotel suite

“...Because if you are going to wear peep-toed sandals when you dress up, you have to wear nail polish,” Selyara was trying to explain the finer points of human female fashion to Raxl, who was staring at her with bemusement.

“But WHY? I mean is anyone really going to be looking at your feet? Who looks at feet?” He watched her flick on a coat of pink paint onto one of her toes.

“I didn’t make the rules, I just follow them. I suppose it is one part tradition, one part making sure that other people know that you took a long time to look nice. Most cultures have that something like that. Have you ever been to a Trill formal? Sometimes they glue teeny tiny rhinestones on their spots-” She was interrupted by the insistent chirping of the communicator that was sitting on a chest of drawers across the room from her. She screwed the bottle of polish closed and neatly caught the boxy communicator when Rax threw it to her. She flipped it open. “Finally. It certainly took you long enough.”

{{Charming.}}

“Were you followed?” Selyara leaned back, putting her feet up, waiting for the polish to dry. “Edgerton has eyes everywhere, you know.”

{{Not that I could tell. I spent most of my time in a skycab.}}

“Good,” Selyara said. “These communicators run on outdated subspace encoders, so I don’t think anyone’s going to be listening in. But it’s not impossible, so keep your eyes open. We’ll have to keep this conversation short, I’m afraid. My colleague and I have plans for dinner.”

{{Your colleague? I thought you said you needed backup.}}

“Three heads are better than two,” Selyara said. “And there’s another player, one of Edgerton’s personal agents. He knows about us, but he doesn’t know about you.”

{{And you want to keep it that way.}}

“I do,” Selyara said. “He’s bound to track us down again, and when he does, you’ll be there to neutralize him. In the meantime, I think it’s important you keep your distance. If he’s tipped to your presence, he’ll be ready for you.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the communicator. Selyara imagined that Barton wasn’t too happy about the terms of engagement that she’d laid out, and was probably trying to find some way to wriggle out of them. She looked over at Rax, who had been watching this conversation in silence, made a “gab gab gab” gesture with her hands, and rolled her eyes.

{{Okay,}} Barton said finally. {{We’ll do this your way for now. What do you need me to do?}}

* * * =[/\]= * * *

Scene: A dance floor somewhere.

Raxl Dreyton could dance.

It wasn’t particularly notable in and of itself; lots of people could dance, after all, dancing was popular in many cultures. But despite herself, Selyara couldn’t help but be surprised at Rax’s confidence and skill when it came to cutting a rug. Stephen and Leonard, who were dancing together nearby, flashed broad grins at Selyara and Rax.

“Aella, you never said he could dance!” Stephen laughed.

“I never knew,” Selyara said, quirking an amused eyebrow at Raxl. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Chuck?”

The music swelled, and the two couples moved away from each other along with it. When they were sufficient distance away, Selyara leaned in close to him, and brought her lips close to Raxl’s ear.

“We need to get Leonard alone,” she whispered.

“Easier said than done,” Rax murmured, trying his best not to shudder at the sensation of her breath against his ear. “They look like they haven’t seen each other in a year, I don’t think we’re going to get them apart.”

“You’ll think of something.”

She leaned back from him, and her eyes caught the light and seemed to sparkle. It was beautiful, but Rax was too annoyed to notice.

“Oh sure,” he said. “‘Hey Stephen, come with me over here.’ ‘Why, Chuck?’ ‘Oh, no reason at all, but definitely do it now because it’s very important.’ ‘Gee, that isn’t suspicious at all.’”

“You realize that you’ll only be doing one side of the conversation?”

“You’re the spymaster, not me,” Rax said. “Why don’t we just talk to both of them? You gotta figure Steve isn’t the biggest Richard Edgerton fan.”

“No,” Selyara said. “Together, they’re strong, and they’ll be strong for each other at exactly the wrong time and in exactly the wrong way. I need to talk to Leonard first. Alone, where he’s isolated, not on his footing. He’s pliable, but there’s enough true believer in him that he’ll shut down fast if we approach him in the wrong way.”

“So why don’t we call in Barton?” Raxl asked. “If Mr. Johnson was going to show, he’d have done it by now.”

“Our biggest advantage over him is that he doesn’t know Barton is here,” Selyara said. “Johnson is looking for us, and Barton is looking for Johnson. This job is yours, Rax.”

Rax sighed, glanced over at Leonard and Stephen. The music had drawn to a close, and the two men were still standing, arm in arm. Stephen was laughing as Leonard led him back towards the table.

“Alright,” Rax said. “I have an idea. Follow my lead.”

He led Selyara back towards the table, where Leonard and Stephen were standing. Leonard had already sat down, and he picked up his glass of water to drink. Stephen, meanwhile, was still standing, not quite ready to abandon the dancefloor just yet. He looked up as Rax and Sely approached, and his face split into a wide grin.

“This was a fantastic idea,” Stephen said. “Chuck, where did you learn to dance?”

“Here and there,” Rax said, returning Steve’s grin. “Maybe you want a few lessons?”

Stephen laughed. “I pay you one complement and it’s gone straight to your head. Don’t think I won’t take you up on it.”

Rax extended his arm. “Let’s go, Steve. I gotta burn some calories to make room for dessert anyway.”

Stephen glanced at Leonard, who was already waving him away.


“Go, go,” Leonard said, smiling. “I’m going to need a few minutes anyway.”

“Please be careful with my business partner,” Selyara said to Stephen. “I need him to carry my bags.”

Stephen took Raxl’s arm, and then they were spinning back towards the dancefloor, disappearing into the crowd. Selyara watched them go for a moment, before slowly lowering herself into a chair across from Leonard, who was looking anxiously at a small wrist display.

* * *=[/\]=* * *

“I think Stephen would probably tell you a night off doesn’t count if you check work messages,” Selyara offered with a smile as she looked pointedly at Leonard’s display. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell him. After all, one might say you're the most important man on this planet at the moment.”

His eyes flicked towards her suspiciously.

“What do you mean?” he asked neutrally. She took a deep mental breath. This was the most difficult part of any manipulation, the moment before they trusted you, when one wrong word, one overplayed hand, could leave your carefully laid plans in tatters.

“Stephen mentioned you’re Edgerton’s aide,” Selyara matched his tone. “In my experience, men like Edgerton would be unable to function if they have to worry about the minutiae their aides take care of for them. Edgerton is the most powerful man on the planet right now. By my estimation, that makes you the most important.”

“Ah, and this is why you’ve invited us out? Charmed Stephen, so you could get close to me?” Leonard began to rise. She caught his hand and gently tugged him back down, getting a read on him as she did.

“Don’t be like that, Leonard. While I would be lying if I said I was uninterested in what you do for a living, I invited you out because I enjoyed Stephen’s company,” Selyara said soothingly. “But I won’t deny that it also crossed my mind that knowing you might be advantageous, given the current state of affairs.”

Leonard relaxed. He was a man used to being used for the connection he had to power. He was used to ulterior motives, to friendships with strings, and now that it was in the open he could be certain of where he stood. He cocked his head and looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to expand on her thought.

“This-” Selyara pointed a finger at the sky. “This can’t go on forever. We both know that. Earth can no longer survive isolated from the rest of the Alpha quadrant. There are things all these people here dancing rely on in their day-to-day lives that must come from distant worlds. What happens when deteurium and dilithium stocks dwindle? When things break down that require parts that can’t be replicated? What about the millions of aliens that are cut off from home, the billions of humans out there? There will be riots. What will happen when the enemy is within? Will you turn your military against the people you say you’re doing this for?”

She punctuated her questions with a seemingly accidental jostle, her mind reaching out and plucking the questions from Leonard’s subconscious where he’s been trying to ignore them, forcing him to confront the fact that they bothered him, that they scared him.

Leonard swallowed.

Selyara let her words hang in the air. Let him make the first move. Let him suggest. Let him have the idea.

“What do you want?” He said finally, his voice low.

“I want to be free. I want to go about my business. I want out of this golden cage, I want to see the stars. Talk to Edgerton, reason with him-”

“It’s not my place. And it’s too late for that. We- he- can’t back down now.”

“Then I’ll talk to him.”

Leonard laughed a little. “Oh, yes, I’m sure Edgerton will roll right over for the likes of you.”

“I’m serious, Leonard.”

Leonard looked up, and found that the woman he knew as Aella Navarron was staring at him, her expression set. Leonard found he couldn’t hold her gaze for long, and he turned, seeing Stephen and Aella’s companion still dancing several feet away. Stephen was laughing.

“You’ll talk to him,” Leonard repeated. “And what do exactly do you think you’d say, Ms. Navarron?”

“I’ll think of something,” Selyara said. “I’m persuasive.”

“All this, because you think I would agree to let you get close to Admiral Edgerton?” Leonard asked, daring to look back at her now. “Or that I could, even if I wanted to?”

“I think you do want to,” Selyara said. “As for the rest, I can help you work that out.”

“Are you insane?” Leonard said quietly.

“What’s insane is the Aegis Shield. What’s insane is Edgerton thinking this situation can last. We can end it, now, before anyone gets-”

A sensation hit Selyara then, like an axe smashing into the side of her head. There was no physical impact, but the psychic one was worse, and her body convulsed so hard from the pain that her chair tipped over, spilling her onto the floor. She was dimly aware that Leonard had risen, making a useless effort to catch her. She thought she could hear someone screaming.

**He’s dying-**

** No. They’re dying.**

**You’re dying.**

**No. I’m dying.**

**Oh god. WE’RE dying. It’s all of us. We’re all dying.**

**I don’t want to die.**

**Please- NotmenotmychildwhyisthishappeningithurtsI’mscaredsomeonestopitsomeonehelpusI’msorryI’msorryHolyMarymotherofgodprayforussinnersnowandinthehourofourdeath**

Selyara tried to order her thoughts, to will her senses back, but in her mind all she could see was flames, green flames lapping greedily at…

**No rubble,** she thought. **No debris…**

Then there was nothing but the fear again.

The psychic pain rocked her again. She knew she was on her back now, and felt hands gripping her shoulders, hard, probably trying to keep her from hurting herself in her convulsions. Raxl, probably, and Stephen and Leonard holding on to her legs. She could heard Rax’s voice, shouting muted orders at the other two men.

“She’s having some kind of seizure!” someone yelled. Stephen, maybe. Selyara didn’t care, not now. Not after… after *this*.

Empty sidewalks. Silent streets. And the burning…

**Oh Edgerton-** Selyara thought. **You monster.**

She slid down towards some final darkness, and was gone.

* * * =[/\]= * * *

When Raxl heard the scream, his head whipped around in the direction where Leonard and Selyara had been sitting. At first, he thought it was Leonard screaming, only because he had never thought he’d hear such a sound coming from Selyara. She was too controlled, too cold. Nothing could hurt her, not like this, not to make her make that sound…

But then he saw her, already fallen from her chair and writing on the ground, her hands clutched at her temples. Her eyes were wide, bulging, but not seeing anything. And that scream…

One by one, like some sort of demonic chorus, other voices joined Selyara’s voice. Their keening was an unholy, inhuman wail that shredded through the chatter, the noise and the music, leaving in its wake a deafening silence. Raxl had the brief impression of a Deltan man crumpling to the floor. Everyone was frozen in place for what seemed like an eternity after the screaming had stopped.

Raxl was a man of action, and he moved first, shoving his way through the crowd who had all stopped to stare at the commotion. He was on knees by Selyara’s side a moment later, trying to get her attention. Behind him, Stephen came up behind Leonard and took his hand. The two men stared down at Raxl and Selyara… Stephen looked concerned, but Leonard looked positively *terrified*.

“Sel- Aella!” Rax said, catching himself when he remember they were supposed to be undercover. Selyara would be mad at him if he blew it, he knew.

If she ever came out of this.

Her cheeks had flushed, giving her a sickly green pallor. Rax saw a trickle of blood beginning to leak from her nose. He wiped it away with his sleeve quickly, before the blood could betray her alien ancestry. Then she convulsed again, so hard that Rax was worried she might break her own back. He gripped her shoulders, forcing her back down to the ground, and glared up at Leonard and Stephen.

“Grab her legs!”

Leonard hesitated, but then Stephen was pulling him down to Selyara’s side as well, and the two men gripped her legs firmly. She was still writing beneath them, hard enough that it was difficult to maintain their grip, but for now at least she wasn’t going to hurt herself. Though now they’d gotten this far, Rax realized he wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do next.

Rax scowled at Leonard. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know!”

“She’s having some kind of seizure!” Stephen said. “Has this ever happened before?”

“Not that I know of,” Rax said. He leaned over Selyara’s face. “Aella? Hey, Aella, you there? Stay with me.”

Selyara’s bulging eyes seemed to clear for an instant. She looked up into Rax’s face, her lips trembling.

“Paris…” she said. Her eyes became sharp and focused for a moment, but it wasn’t him they were looking at. Raxl looked up to follow her gaze. Her and Leonard’s eyes were locked in an intense, oddly intimate stare. “This has to end, you know it has to-” Then her eyes rolled up into their sockets and her lead lolled back. Rax reached out quickly to stop her head from smacking on the ground beneath her, then grabbed for her wrist. He felt for a pulse, and let go a huge breath when he found one. It was faint, but steady.

“She’s alive,” Rax said.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” Stephen said. “Leonard, get an ambulance-”

“No hospital,” Rax said. If Selyara was taken to a hospital, there’d be an official record of her presence there. Even if they used an alias, Rax didn’t think there was any chance that Mr. Johnson wouldn’t be able to track them down there.

“Chuck, she’s just had a stroke, or some kind of episode,” Stephen said.”She needs a doctor.”

“No hospital,” Rax repeated. “Get a cab. I’ll take her back to our place.”

Stephen gave Leonard a pleading look. “Leonard, you know she needs a doctor!”

But Leonard wasn’t looking at Stephen. He was looking down at Selyara.

“He doesn’t want an ambulance,” Leonard said. “He wants a taxi. We’ll get him a taxi.”

Stephen’s mouth dropped open in shock. “That’s crazy! She’s *comatose*, Leonard! She needs-”

“We’re getting a taxi!” Leonard shouted. He shrugged out of Stephen’s grip and stalked over to a comm’s terminal near the front of the restaurant. Stephen watched him go, his expression numb.

Raxl had gotten one of Selyara’s arms up over his shoulder, and hauled her to her feet. She collapsed bonelessly against him, but he managed to hold her upright as he started picking his way though the tables towards the restaurant’s entrance. Around him, there were still people panicking as their loved ones writhed on the ground much like Selyara had been doing only moments before. Rax wasn’t sure what could be causing it, but he wasn’t about to waste the distraction.

The street outside the restaurant offered a menacingly similar scene: pockets of onlookers gathered around people locked in what appeared to be some kind of fit or seizure. There were only a few that Rax could see, but enough for him to decide that whatever had happened inside the restaurant wasn’t a localized occurrence. Rax realized that getting a skycab might be tricky; emergency bands were probably lighting up all over the city, and civilian transport would have to make way for emergency services. He looked back towards the restaurant as Leonard and Stephen were stepping out, and waved them over.

“Did you get a cab?”

“There’s something wrong with the communicators,” Stephen said. “Some kind of interference, we can’t get through. Chuck, what’s going on? Why are all these people-”

“How the hell should I know?” Rax shouted. He looked up and down the street, trying to find some kind of transport. Then he heard the sound of a skycab decelerating, and looked up. One of the cabs was swooping low and coming in for a landing only a few yards away. It landed a little harder than the pilot had intended, and at first Rax half-expected to see Mr. Johnson smash his way through the tinted windshield and charge directly for them. Instead, the door to the skycab swung open, and Rax saw a huge man, with long hair and beard, stuffed uncomfortably in the manual-operation seat towards the front of the cab.

“Get in!” the man shouted. Rax hesitated, and Leonard and Stephen exchanged an uncertain glance. The burly man flying the skycab frowned, and repeated his command. “Get in! We need to get her off the street!”

Rax looked to Selyara, who still looked out of it, then back up at the taxi. Then came the faint sounds of sirens, the first of the emergency services response to whatever phenomena had just struck the city. Moving around was only going to get more difficult the longer they waited, and a run-in with city safety officials could be enough to alert Mr. Johnson to their location. Rax cursed under his breath and started hauling Selyara towards the cab.

“Chuck, who is that?” Stephen asked. Leonard didn’t say anything, just watched as Raxl reached the cab, loaded Selyara into the back of it, and climbed in himself. The cab door slid shut, and a moment later the skycab was drifting lazily upwards, into the night sky.

Leonard Cagney stared after it, even as it drifted out of sight.

**This has to end,** she had said.

Leonard finally let his eyes drop, to look at the street around him. Emergency services had started to arrive, and some of the people affected by the fits looked like they were beginning to come out of it. Unlike Raxl, Leonard was paying attention to the kinds of people who’d been affected. Deltans. Betazoids. Vulcans. All species with latent or expressed psionic abilities. Something had hit them all, hard enough to knock some of them unconscious. Leonard wasn’t an expert on xenoneurology, but it didn’t require a lot of imagination to guess what it would take to trigger something like that.

**Richard... ** Leonard thought. **What have you done?**

* * * =[/\]= * * *

Scene: Skycab Interior

After making sure Selyara was safely buckled into her seat, Rax turned his attention to the cab’s pilot. The man had his back to Raxl, but even from behind Rax could make out the pilot’s impressive size and musculature. He suddenly realized he was unarmed, trapped in an enclosed space, with a man he did not know and who looked like he could easily snap Raxl over one knee if it were advantageous for him to do so. With no other real options except to trust in this stranger’s better nature, Rax gave a polite smile.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Jim,” the pilot said, glancing back over his shoulder at Raxl. “What’s wrong with Selyara?”

Raxl blinked. He and Selyara were still undercover; if this guy knew who she was on sight, it must mean he was the one that Selyara had called in as backup.

“You’re with Starfleet?” Rax ventured.

“Sort of,” Jim replied. “What’s wrong with her?”

Raxl sighed. “I don’t know. She seemed fine one minute, then the next… her and a bunch of other people wound up like this.”

“She’s alive?”

“So far,” Rax nodded. “Say fella, you look familiar. Have we met?”

“Limbo,” Jim said automatically. “I saw you fight those two Gorn outside that Ferengi’s place. Later we ran into each other in the tunnel’s underneath the fighting pits.”

Suddenly, it all came back. Rax remembered his brief encounter with the huge man as he’d been making his escape through the fighting pit’s bloodworks. At the time, Jim had been carrying someone else that Raxl had recognized - Kassandra Thytos - and the two men had given each other a respectful berth as they’d continued on their respective journeys. Now, Jim was showing up, presumably as Starfleet-sent backup, and it sounded like he and Selyara had some kind of history. Rax supposed there was quite a story there, but decided now wasn’t the time to dig into it.

“Raxl Dreyton,” Rax said. “Pleased to meet you, Jim.”

“Likewise,” Jim nodded. “Now you want to tell me where I’m going, Dreyton? Because it’s not going to take long for us to look suspicious if all we do is fly in a holding pattern.”

Rax looked out the window. Flashing lights from emergency services vehicles lit up the street below, and Rax could see similar lights flashing out across the expanse of the city. Mr. Johnson was out there somewhere, looking for any sign of Selyara, but with all this commotion, he was going to have a hell of a time tracking them down. Rax decided it was as safe as it was going to get for them to make a break for the hotel where he and Selyara had been staying.

“I’ll give you the coordinates,” Rax said. “But fly casual. We got people looking for us we’d rather not meet.”

* * * =[/\]= * * *

Scene: A dark place.

Selyara wasn’t comatose. Not exactly. Once she’d realized what was happening she’d sunk into a Vulcan meditative trance, a dissociative state to protect her psyche from the onslaught of psionic energy released from millions of people being destroyed. The thing was, as she was finding out to her chagrin, it was much easier to put herself into the state than it was to bring herself out of it.

The first problem stemmed mainly from an unintended consequence of isolating her consciousness from the rest of her mind. Without her psyche there to actively occupy and defend her mind stray bits of psionic energy, the last thoughts and hopes and wishes of beings who had suddenly and violently ceased to exist had gleefully collected there and taken up residence, seeking some sort of immortality.

When she’d first started to bring herself back to wakefulness she’d been assailed by the interlopers which clamored for attention, forcing her to retreat. Then, when she’d started to perform a Vulcan meditation to purge those pesky little bits as she would emotions and unwanted thoughts, she found that she couldn’t bear to do it.

Which was the other problem. Whatever the Orion Syndicate’s telepath had done to her mind nearly a decade before had not been able to withstand the onslaught of psionic energy unscathed. Now she found herself suffering from empathy, not just for all those little vestiges of what had once been people that now cluttered her mind trying to survive, but retroactive empathy for all the people who she’d harmed in the last ten years. The pangs of guilt were nearly as debilitating as the original cataclysm had been.

She considered staying there, locked away, where she wouldn’t have to face any of it. But reality quickly reasserted itself. She had to go back. She might have done wrong, but what Edgerton had done eclipsed anything she might have considered in her worst moments. Originally she’d wanted revenge for Rawyvin Seth, to prove her superiority by besting the mastermind behind the largest coup in the history of the Federation. Now, she wasn’t sure what she wanted, although she guessed it might be some sort of redemption, some sort of atonement for things she’d done.

So she fought her way back into her mind, brushing the last thoughts of the citizens of Paris into neat little piles in her mind, promising them that when she could she’d look at them, catalogue them, help fulfill wishes she could, and keep them alive.

It took a while, but finally she was back and her eyes fluttered open.

* * *=[/\]=* * *

Scene: Selyara and Raxl’s hotel suite

“What are we going to do if she doesn’t wake up?” Barton’s voice rumbled suddenly, making Raxl jump. He looked at the huge man, then back down at the woman lying in the bed. She was pale, and her chest barely moved, and her heartbeat was still nearly undetectable. He put a gentle hand on her cold forehead, trying to convince himself that she looked better, or indeed, *different* than she had an hour ago.

“She’s going to wake up.” Raxl put a conviction he didn’t really feel into the statement.

“She might not,” Barton countered. “Even if she does, she might not be all there.”

“I guess if she doesn’t, we have to go ahead and try to convince Leonard Cagney to help us. From the look on his face when she started seizing, I think she may have gotten to him before… Well, before whatever happened happened. I may be able to convince him to assist us. Make him feel guilty about whatever happened to her, since it almost certainly had to do with this Edgerton guy.” Even though it was a sound plan, Raxl still felt like he was clutching at straws. He fervently hoped that Selyara would wake up This wasn’t his plan, this wasn’t really his cause, and he didn’t fancy suddenly being in charge of trying to steer the juggernaut home, even with the help of the enormous Jim Barton.

As if on cue, Selyara suddenly let out an audible choking gasp of a breath, and sat up, swaying, her dark eyes momentarily wild and disoriented, as she tried to figure out where she was. Raxl reached out to steady her, and she flinched away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” She said sharply. Raxl thought there was a hint of hysteria in her words. “I’m fine. Give me room. How long…?”

“A couple hours. What happened?” Barton interjected. He seemed concerned, but it was an off kilter concern, less about the woman herself, and more about what her not being okay would say about his competency. Or maybe Raxl was just projecting because of Selyara’s attitude when speaking about Barton earlier.

Selyara smoothed her long black hair back and studied Barton with an uncharacteristic lost look on her face. There was a moment of hesitation, and then Raxl saw something flicker in her eyes and he suddenly realized that whatever she said next to the man was going to be a lie of epic proportions. The haughty, cold mask that she’d worn at the beginning of their partnership suddenly settled onto her features like armor, and she tossed her hair and smirked at Barton.

“I just learned to give more credence to wild rumors. There have been rumblings for a while that Edgerton has been developing a psionic weapon for use against telepathic species, but I assumed that was baseless fearmongering, as it seemed rather impractical. But apparently I was wrong, and have learned that to my detriment.”

“A psionic weapon? Why?” Barton looked slightly suspicious.

“Why? You aren’t really so stupid that I need to spoon feed it to you, are you?” She at her most condescending, and Raxl knew she was deliberately trying to push Barton’s buttons so his annoyance with the way she was saying it would make him less likely to expend energy thinking critically about *what* she had said. “Listen, the Neo-Essentialists are not really about Federation First, or whatever their inane slogan is, they’re really about Humans First. It’s only a matter of time before they start trying to kick non-humans off Earth. Of all the races out there, which can most easily pass for Human with minimal disguise? Betazeds, Deltans, and Vulcans, of course. So what better way than to find them and segregate them from the Humans than by using a psionic weapon to send them all to the hospital? Even better if it damages them permanently. Now, please tell me that you boys haven’t spent the last couple hours doing nothing and waiting for me to hold your hands. What’s been happening?”

Barton gave her a rundown. Selyara coldly, and quite deliberately, poked holes in and nitpicked everything he’d done, until Raxl was fairly sure the huge man was about five seconds from wringing her neck. Finally she sent him out with a laundry list of errands to run, some of them obviously critical, like checking to see if various underground communications networks were still in play and gauging whether there seemed to be any signs of Martial Law being instituted, while some of them seemed downright ridiculous.

Barton said as much, and she primly reminded him that it was she who was the mastermind, not he, to which he growled something at her that clearly pissed her off immensely, though she never lost the cold smirk.

Finally she got him out the door, and the smirk fell from her lips.

“You want to tell me what really happened and why you just lied to him about it?” The words came out of Raxl’s mouth with far more vehemence than he’d intended, surprising even himself. “Listen, I know you don’t trust easily, but this isn’t going to work if you’re going to cut him out things and keep him in the dark, if you do that then why the hell did you even bother-” She launched herself out of the bed and past him into the bathroom, and he heard the telltale sounds of her retching up the contents of her stomach. He followed her in and held her hair back for her until she stopped. She rested her forehead on the rim of the toilet, and he saw her shoulders shake in the way he instantly recognized as a woman trying not to cry, but not quite succeeding. “Hey, come on, I didn’t mean to yell at you-”

“Edgerton… Paris… Paris is gone. All those people, I heard them die. I felt them die, and I saw, I saw-” She lifted her face to look at him, her lips trembling in a valiant effort not to cry.

“Jesus.” Raxl sat down hard, feeling like he’d just been sucker punched. There didn’t seem to be much more to say than that, and he offered Selyara his shoulder to cry into. She accepted, hiding her face as sobs wracked her body.

“Those things up there, they’re not just a shield, they’re a weapon, Raxl. If we don’t stop it, he’ll do it again, he’s insane. And I can’t live through that again, I won’t.” The words were thick and nearly inaudible, her face buried in his shirt.

“But why didn’t you tell Barton-” Raxl began, but her head snapped up and she grabbed his shoulders and roughly shook him.

“You can’t tell him the truth. He can’t handle the truth. Promise me you won’t tell him,” her voice was still trembling, but ferocious. Raxl had never really learned to handle a crying woman in any other manner than to say yes to anything he wanted, so he agreed. “Don’t let the way he looks fool you. He’s delicate. This could destroy him if he finds out, and I won’t be part of that. I’ve already caused far too much hurt.”

There was a long pause, a momentary calm in the storm, and then she began to cry again.

* * *=[/\]=* * *

NRPG: TL:DR? MOAR POSTS


A post bought to you by:

Shawn Putnam
as
Raxl Dreyton
Lord of the Dance

and

Alix Fowler
as
Selyara Chen
A woman with baggage