Act 3: Jaeih
Just want to reiterate the warning from post 1. Space violence, dark themes, and mature subject matter ahead.
Spoiler: Show
"Go!" Siras broke cover first, strafing across the open street, his plasma rifle barking as it tore into the constructs that stalked the streets. A small procession of civilians followed, with Davin bringing up the rear. His hands wrung the grip of his disruptor, the taste of blood still fresh in his mouth. Screams echoed through the streets, mingled with the sounds of disruptor fire and the low, synthetic rumblings of the combat machines laying siege to the city.
"Davin, cover!" Siras dove behind the far corner of the building he had led the civilians into. Davin, on the far side of the broad street, ducked quickly back into the building they had been sheltering inside. Above, one of the towering tripedal walkers bellowed and tore the street to dust with a torrent of powerful crescent shaped blasts. Then came another sound, the familiar roar of a Kestrel shuttles afterburner. A barrage of cannon fire came after, and then a single, ground shaking explosion.
The walker let out a high mechanical whine, and Davin watched as it's legs tilted, skewed, and finally the massive war machine collapsed into the street, scraping along the buildings on either side of it and sending up a great, choking cloud of dust.
Davin staggered out of his hiding place, disruptor raised, one hand holding up his jacket for whatever protection he can get from the dust in the air. In the open, he could see the green glow of plasma fire in the heap of what had been the walkers 'head'. It's legs had fallen in such a way that Davin could slip under them at least, and though it slowed him it didn't stop his crossing the street.
"Davin!" Siras was there in the haze, waving his rifle in the air, guarding his face much like Davin. "C'mon, we're almost to the ship!" The pair jogged through the grey haze until they emerged on the outskirts, the small crowd they had been escorting waiting at the edge of the street. Other groups were in view now, some larger and some smaller, mingling along the narrow path up to the hilltop shipyard.
"Davin!" That time it wasn't Siras calling, and by the time he turned around Lir was already on top of him. The hint of something familiar seemed to drive home the reality of the situation. Having Lir in his arms broke the focus that had kept him from shaking.
"Joran?" That was all he could manage, and Lir's silence told him everything he needed to know.
"Kaela?" And now it was his turn to fall silent, the words forming but catching in his throat. She had been with them at the outset, leaving the apartment with them what felt like days ago, but there had been more of them then. Before the machines dove down from the sky and dragged people away.
Siras set one hand on each of the shoulders of the younger Romulans. "We need to move." His tone was soft, not denoting the urgency of the situation. A gentle prod that both of them could understand. The group started moving again, slowly up the hill. Siras stayed at the front, clearing the path, while Davin hung back, Lir staying close to him as he swept his disruptor across the widening field between them and the settlement.
The looming scaffolds of the shipyard never seemed quite close enough, the promise of the aging T'Varo nested there like a bait eppoh dangled in front of a hungry dhael, driving it forward without any promise of reward.
Then someone screamed. The air erupted with the crescent energy bolts and everyone started running. More of the machines dove from the sky, swooping down and carrying away screaming Romulans to who knows where. Davin and Lir threw themselves flat on the ground, Davin firing his disruptor blindly into the fray above, Lir covering her head. Time passed, a second or an hour but most likely somewhere in between, and the chaos calmed enough that the pair rose. The ground ahead was strewn with the fallen, the crowd little more than a few dozen silhouettes in the distance running for the ship, scattered disruptor fire lighting up the sky above them.
"Ohno... Davin..." He followed Lir's gaze to a figure in the distance. Struggling to his feet, hunched over his plasma rifle, was Siras. Davin didn't speak, just tearing off across the field to where the older Romulan staggered.
"Si! Ajoi, Si!" The younger Romulan grabbed his elder by the shoulders to hold him upright. Siras' jacket hung in tatters around him, stained by big, angry streaks of green. Green ran from his lips as well, sputtering as he struggled to speak.
"Dav'n..." Even with help Siras couldn't hold himself up, and he collapsed onto the dry evening grass.
"Si, just... just hang on! We can... We'll get you to the ship, and-"
"No," Siras choked, "jus' go. Get outta here!" His voice was a harsh whisper, quiet but forceful. With a flourish he threw out his arm toward the ship and his plasma rifle tumbled to the ground beside him. "Go!" he said again. Then he slumped back onto the ground.
"No... No, Si!" Davin fell to his knees, grabbing Siras' shoulders and shaking him. "C'mon, get up Si! We can make it! We can..." His shaking slowed, stopped, and Davin left Siras to lay where he had fallen. Lir was beside him, holding the plasma rifle.
"Davin... Davin, we have to go."
"Yeah, I..." His voice wouldn't come. The words would have caught in his throat if he'd had any idea what he was trying to say. After a few moments of stunned silence he managed a meager nod.
The rest of the walk to the ship passed in a blur. Field, shipyard, loading bay, and eventually the bridge. At the end it was just Davin and Lir standing in the dark bridge, the only members of the crew who had made the frantic rendezvous. The only command crew the ship had.
And Lir was typing at one of the engineering consoles. She said something. "...off the ground."
"Huh?"
She stared at him, her expression a mix of wide-eyed panic and frustration. "Davin, we need to get this ship off the ground, now." She took a breath as the ships lights came on, the viewscreen opening up to the fields outside, and the fires consuming the colony beyond. "I'm... sorry about Si, but we have a ship full of people that... Please, just focus. Long enough to get us out of this, at least."
"...Yeah... Okay." Davins eyes fell from the ruined cityscape to the flight controls. His fingers moved slowly at first, but as they did he fell into patterns he had practiced over and over. His mind fixed on the rhythm of the task, and not the details. "...Give me full impulse, and fire the docking thrusters on my mark." He sniffled and brought up a sleeve to his face, clearing his eyes. "Sei, kre, hwi, mark!" The viewscreen turned from horizon to ash-choked twilight sky, sky to the speckled void of space.
Other ships rose with them, mostly shuttles speeding to the scattered orbital defense fleet. A handful of Dhelan and Mogai class ships, most of them disabled judging from the debris field forming above Ecurai. Beyond that haze of floating metal lay a handful of unusual warships, angular and glowing, and among them a single D'Deridex, great and imposing.
"No..."
"What is it?" Lir turned to see Davin staring in disbelief at the viewscreen. "Davin, talk to me."
"Okhala..."
"Broadcast this on all frequencies."
"Yes, Commander."
"Attention all colonial ships, this is Commander-"
A voice cut off the Romulan commander, a voice from one of the ships rising from the surface. "Mandukar..."
She turned to her Comm officer and pointed to the viewscreen. "Who is that? Find that ship and get me a feed!" Her attention returned to her broadcast. "Yes, Commander D'Kera Mandukar of the Tal Shiar. To whom am I speaking?"
Her answer came without words when the viewscreen cut to a pair of young Romulans in a dingy, empty bridge, staring at the screen in wide-eyed wonder. One was some sort of mongrel judging by the color of her hair, but the other... By the Elements, it was Vallir! No, not Vallir, but it could have been his double if not for that gaudy tattoo. Standing there in his jacket, hunched over a console, he was the spitting image of her lost husband. "Davin... Davin, it's-"
"Mom..." He cut her off. Oh, how he looked like he had so long ago, eyes full of wonder, and... terror! The invasion!
Spinning on her heels she shouted to her command crew. "All elements, cease fire! Cease fire, fvadt you all! Lower our shields, and stand by transporters!"
"The colony... How could you..."
D'Kera cringed, and she stepped slowly toward the screen. "Oh Davin... What you must think of me... Lower your shields, I'll have you beamed aboard and we can talk about it face to face. There's so much to say..."
"Commander, he's targ-" That was as far as her chief engineer got before D'Kera cut her off.
"I said lower the shields, you insubordinate whelp, or I'll see you thrown out an airlock! That's my son out there, and I have no intention of leaving him to the Elachi!" Seeing the color drain from her insolent little face, D'Kera turned back to the viewscreen. "Lower your shields, Davin. Come aboard Okhala." A little smile drew across her face as her mind was drawn back through the years to a memory almost forgotten. "You always wanted to see the inside of Mom's ship, didn't you?"
"...If this is what D'Kera Mandukar has become then I am not her son." The words hit like a torpedo, rocking D'Kera into a stunned silence. But he wasn't done. "My mother died with Romulus, and I refuse to let you dishonor her memory... I am Davin T'Varros, and you will PAY for what you have done here!"
In that instant D'Kera realized her mistake. She hadn't seen Vallir in Davin. Nor had she been looking at the frightened toddler she had last seen a world away and years ago. That was only what she had wanted to see, a delusion that blinded her to the grim truth of the situation. What she had seen as fear in his eyes was a rage like Vallir had never shown, even in his darkest moments. If this mans mother had died with Romulus then D'Kera's son had died before her eyes, and from the ashes rose a stranger. A stranger with pale green eyes that burned hot as plasma.
Her engineer's voice brought her back to reality. "Commander, he's locked onto our bridge!"
"Raise-" was all she managed, her voice a choked whisper. The viewscreen showed a torrent of green torpedoes pour from a T'Varo warbird rushing toward the Okhala, and D'Kera had a moment to reflect on Davins old toy starship before a beam of blue-green light filled the screen. And then that beam was in the bridge, cutting through the metal with a searing heat, vaporizing the viewscreen and turning the port side of the room into a gaping void. The helmsman and conn officer were ripped into out of the ship before the emergency forcefields engaged, and a stunned D'Kera was thrown across the floor, landing in a crumpled heap beneath her indigo cape.
"Raise shields," she whispered again to her ruined bridge. Her voice was just a single note buried beneath crackling conduits and klaxon screeching.
The torpedo spread tore the D'Deridex's hull to shreds as the T'Varo rushed toward it, swooped between its broad split hulls, it's beam array slicing the vulnerable warbird apart before emerging on the far side of the larger warship. The small ship lingered a moment longer, as if savoring the stunning chaos of its improbable victory. And then it jumped to warp, leaving a crippled warbird and a confused cluster of Elachi battleships in its wake.
"Davin, cover!" Siras dove behind the far corner of the building he had led the civilians into. Davin, on the far side of the broad street, ducked quickly back into the building they had been sheltering inside. Above, one of the towering tripedal walkers bellowed and tore the street to dust with a torrent of powerful crescent shaped blasts. Then came another sound, the familiar roar of a Kestrel shuttles afterburner. A barrage of cannon fire came after, and then a single, ground shaking explosion.
The walker let out a high mechanical whine, and Davin watched as it's legs tilted, skewed, and finally the massive war machine collapsed into the street, scraping along the buildings on either side of it and sending up a great, choking cloud of dust.
Davin staggered out of his hiding place, disruptor raised, one hand holding up his jacket for whatever protection he can get from the dust in the air. In the open, he could see the green glow of plasma fire in the heap of what had been the walkers 'head'. It's legs had fallen in such a way that Davin could slip under them at least, and though it slowed him it didn't stop his crossing the street.
"Davin!" Siras was there in the haze, waving his rifle in the air, guarding his face much like Davin. "C'mon, we're almost to the ship!" The pair jogged through the grey haze until they emerged on the outskirts, the small crowd they had been escorting waiting at the edge of the street. Other groups were in view now, some larger and some smaller, mingling along the narrow path up to the hilltop shipyard.
"Davin!" That time it wasn't Siras calling, and by the time he turned around Lir was already on top of him. The hint of something familiar seemed to drive home the reality of the situation. Having Lir in his arms broke the focus that had kept him from shaking.
"Joran?" That was all he could manage, and Lir's silence told him everything he needed to know.
"Kaela?" And now it was his turn to fall silent, the words forming but catching in his throat. She had been with them at the outset, leaving the apartment with them what felt like days ago, but there had been more of them then. Before the machines dove down from the sky and dragged people away.
Siras set one hand on each of the shoulders of the younger Romulans. "We need to move." His tone was soft, not denoting the urgency of the situation. A gentle prod that both of them could understand. The group started moving again, slowly up the hill. Siras stayed at the front, clearing the path, while Davin hung back, Lir staying close to him as he swept his disruptor across the widening field between them and the settlement.
The looming scaffolds of the shipyard never seemed quite close enough, the promise of the aging T'Varo nested there like a bait eppoh dangled in front of a hungry dhael, driving it forward without any promise of reward.
Then someone screamed. The air erupted with the crescent energy bolts and everyone started running. More of the machines dove from the sky, swooping down and carrying away screaming Romulans to who knows where. Davin and Lir threw themselves flat on the ground, Davin firing his disruptor blindly into the fray above, Lir covering her head. Time passed, a second or an hour but most likely somewhere in between, and the chaos calmed enough that the pair rose. The ground ahead was strewn with the fallen, the crowd little more than a few dozen silhouettes in the distance running for the ship, scattered disruptor fire lighting up the sky above them.
"Ohno... Davin..." He followed Lir's gaze to a figure in the distance. Struggling to his feet, hunched over his plasma rifle, was Siras. Davin didn't speak, just tearing off across the field to where the older Romulan staggered.
"Si! Ajoi, Si!" The younger Romulan grabbed his elder by the shoulders to hold him upright. Siras' jacket hung in tatters around him, stained by big, angry streaks of green. Green ran from his lips as well, sputtering as he struggled to speak.
"Dav'n..." Even with help Siras couldn't hold himself up, and he collapsed onto the dry evening grass.
"Si, just... just hang on! We can... We'll get you to the ship, and-"
"No," Siras choked, "jus' go. Get outta here!" His voice was a harsh whisper, quiet but forceful. With a flourish he threw out his arm toward the ship and his plasma rifle tumbled to the ground beside him. "Go!" he said again. Then he slumped back onto the ground.
"No... No, Si!" Davin fell to his knees, grabbing Siras' shoulders and shaking him. "C'mon, get up Si! We can make it! We can..." His shaking slowed, stopped, and Davin left Siras to lay where he had fallen. Lir was beside him, holding the plasma rifle.
"Davin... Davin, we have to go."
"Yeah, I..." His voice wouldn't come. The words would have caught in his throat if he'd had any idea what he was trying to say. After a few moments of stunned silence he managed a meager nod.
The rest of the walk to the ship passed in a blur. Field, shipyard, loading bay, and eventually the bridge. At the end it was just Davin and Lir standing in the dark bridge, the only members of the crew who had made the frantic rendezvous. The only command crew the ship had.
And Lir was typing at one of the engineering consoles. She said something. "...off the ground."
"Huh?"
She stared at him, her expression a mix of wide-eyed panic and frustration. "Davin, we need to get this ship off the ground, now." She took a breath as the ships lights came on, the viewscreen opening up to the fields outside, and the fires consuming the colony beyond. "I'm... sorry about Si, but we have a ship full of people that... Please, just focus. Long enough to get us out of this, at least."
"...Yeah... Okay." Davins eyes fell from the ruined cityscape to the flight controls. His fingers moved slowly at first, but as they did he fell into patterns he had practiced over and over. His mind fixed on the rhythm of the task, and not the details. "...Give me full impulse, and fire the docking thrusters on my mark." He sniffled and brought up a sleeve to his face, clearing his eyes. "Sei, kre, hwi, mark!" The viewscreen turned from horizon to ash-choked twilight sky, sky to the speckled void of space.
Other ships rose with them, mostly shuttles speeding to the scattered orbital defense fleet. A handful of Dhelan and Mogai class ships, most of them disabled judging from the debris field forming above Ecurai. Beyond that haze of floating metal lay a handful of unusual warships, angular and glowing, and among them a single D'Deridex, great and imposing.
"No..."
"What is it?" Lir turned to see Davin staring in disbelief at the viewscreen. "Davin, talk to me."
"Okhala..."
"Broadcast this on all frequencies."
"Yes, Commander."
"Attention all colonial ships, this is Commander-"
A voice cut off the Romulan commander, a voice from one of the ships rising from the surface. "Mandukar..."
She turned to her Comm officer and pointed to the viewscreen. "Who is that? Find that ship and get me a feed!" Her attention returned to her broadcast. "Yes, Commander D'Kera Mandukar of the Tal Shiar. To whom am I speaking?"
Her answer came without words when the viewscreen cut to a pair of young Romulans in a dingy, empty bridge, staring at the screen in wide-eyed wonder. One was some sort of mongrel judging by the color of her hair, but the other... By the Elements, it was Vallir! No, not Vallir, but it could have been his double if not for that gaudy tattoo. Standing there in his jacket, hunched over a console, he was the spitting image of her lost husband. "Davin... Davin, it's-"
"Mom..." He cut her off. Oh, how he looked like he had so long ago, eyes full of wonder, and... terror! The invasion!
Spinning on her heels she shouted to her command crew. "All elements, cease fire! Cease fire, fvadt you all! Lower our shields, and stand by transporters!"
"The colony... How could you..."
D'Kera cringed, and she stepped slowly toward the screen. "Oh Davin... What you must think of me... Lower your shields, I'll have you beamed aboard and we can talk about it face to face. There's so much to say..."
"Commander, he's targ-" That was as far as her chief engineer got before D'Kera cut her off.
"I said lower the shields, you insubordinate whelp, or I'll see you thrown out an airlock! That's my son out there, and I have no intention of leaving him to the Elachi!" Seeing the color drain from her insolent little face, D'Kera turned back to the viewscreen. "Lower your shields, Davin. Come aboard Okhala." A little smile drew across her face as her mind was drawn back through the years to a memory almost forgotten. "You always wanted to see the inside of Mom's ship, didn't you?"
"...If this is what D'Kera Mandukar has become then I am not her son." The words hit like a torpedo, rocking D'Kera into a stunned silence. But he wasn't done. "My mother died with Romulus, and I refuse to let you dishonor her memory... I am Davin T'Varros, and you will PAY for what you have done here!"
In that instant D'Kera realized her mistake. She hadn't seen Vallir in Davin. Nor had she been looking at the frightened toddler she had last seen a world away and years ago. That was only what she had wanted to see, a delusion that blinded her to the grim truth of the situation. What she had seen as fear in his eyes was a rage like Vallir had never shown, even in his darkest moments. If this mans mother had died with Romulus then D'Kera's son had died before her eyes, and from the ashes rose a stranger. A stranger with pale green eyes that burned hot as plasma.
Her engineer's voice brought her back to reality. "Commander, he's locked onto our bridge!"
"Raise-" was all she managed, her voice a choked whisper. The viewscreen showed a torrent of green torpedoes pour from a T'Varo warbird rushing toward the Okhala, and D'Kera had a moment to reflect on Davins old toy starship before a beam of blue-green light filled the screen. And then that beam was in the bridge, cutting through the metal with a searing heat, vaporizing the viewscreen and turning the port side of the room into a gaping void. The helmsman and conn officer were ripped into out of the ship before the emergency forcefields engaged, and a stunned D'Kera was thrown across the floor, landing in a crumpled heap beneath her indigo cape.
"Raise shields," she whispered again to her ruined bridge. Her voice was just a single note buried beneath crackling conduits and klaxon screeching.
The torpedo spread tore the D'Deridex's hull to shreds as the T'Varo rushed toward it, swooped between its broad split hulls, it's beam array slicing the vulnerable warbird apart before emerging on the far side of the larger warship. The small ship lingered a moment longer, as if savoring the stunning chaos of its improbable victory. And then it jumped to warp, leaving a crippled warbird and a confused cluster of Elachi battleships in its wake.