Interlude – Borg & Belligerence, Part 3
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Post Details
ON:
OLD:
Tharek finally rested it down into his palm and smiled eerily. "I like this weapon." He said coldly, with a tone that pierced souls. "When this program is over, if you can get me a weapon like this, I'll pay good latinum." He said, still admiring it, but walking along with his eyes focused on the blade. He glared up and looked straight into the eyes of Yolanthe.
She held his gaze without flinching. Had she pushed him too far? Possibly, but she wasn't going to apologise. Besides, he was quite attractive when he was angry. She held up the tricorder so he could see the little blips of approaching Borg. They were converging on the treasure room, slow but steady. "If we get out alive, I'll get you two. Lead the way, your Excellency"
NEW:
He laughed dryly as he prepared himself, spinning the blade in his hand cockily. He really did feel like he could take on the quadrant and win. The Borg came from around the corner ahead, and began their warpath towards the two. Tharek laughed and waited for the drones to get close enough...
He swung at the drones neck, and sliced through the metal piping and flesh with ease, like a knife through air, let alone butter. He span the blade arrogantly yet again, and plunged the dagger deep into the belly of another drone. Tharek roared as the blade sunk deep within the metal man. The crunch of bone, organ and metal was enough to make most grown men keel over. But Tharek listened intently, it was like beautiful music to him.
In the space at the back of Holosuite Seven, Klia sank onto her knees in despair. It shouldn't be possible. But it was, and now she had to think of a way to fix it. She tapped her communicator.
"Lani, are you there?"
Inside the holosuite, not six feet from where the Orion sat, Yolanthe swung her machete and lopped off the arm reaching for her. It spurted thick sticky blood for a moment. "Just about."
"I can't open the doors."
"what?!" Yolanthe parried another drone's artificial arm that swept towards her head, the jabbed the tip of the machete into the drones neck. She checked on the Ambassador; he was dividing his attention between two more, but so far they hadn't broken his defence. The knife moved in a blur, and she was treated to an arc of arterial spray that splattered across the floor in front of her.
"I cant open the doors." Klia repeated. "If I do, the program will think its a hull breach, and try to explosively decompress you."
"What?!" Yolanthe stopped moving, unable to process what she had just heard. "Kill the power!"
"Can't." the Orion replied. "The program has somehow overrun the environmental feedback buffer. Anything that is done to the suite, it thinks is being done to the cube. If it detects a power outage, it will preserve the rest of the cube by flash freezing you in the second or two it takes the power to drain."
Yolanthe leant on the railing that surrounded the gallery they were fighting on, catching her breath and trying to keep her temper. "Think of something. Fast!"
She cut the connection and turned, just in time to see an enormous drone reaching for her. Whatever it had been before assimilation, it had been huge, nearly eight foot tall and barely able to fit within the confines of the gallery. Its augmented arm was tipped with a pair of snapping pincers which flashed out to grab her throat before she could dodge. It lifted her into the air and slammed her against the ceiling, knocking her breath from her and the machete clanged to the floor beneath. The drone was out of reach of her legs, the arm was so long. She couldn't even kick it.
Black spots appeared in front of her eyes as the pincers squeezed the blood to her brain. She turned from angry yellow to an emerald green as every move she made to free herself became weak and feeble.
The Borg continued his assault on Yolanthe's neck, his face not showing emotion, anger or fear. But Tharek's was. His was showing aggression, power and raw strength. His face emphasised these features as Tharek plunged the blade through the back of the drone, and it exited out of the centre of the Borg's chest.
The Borg turned at the waist, and slammed his other fist against the cardassian’s solar plexus sending him sprawling away. Then it reached back and to claw the blade from its spine. Nanoprobes began to repair the hole that Tharek had carved in its body.
Tharek smirked, and spat out another small lump of blood. He reached for his own, personal blade embedded into his boot. He drew it, and it made a satisfying grind against metal as it left the holster. Tharek focused, and saw only his target. His brain made the commands and his arm soon followed suite. The dagger penetrated up through the Borg's jaw, and into the head.
For a moment the drone just...stopped, frozen by the sudden loss of its front brain functions. Then it went into spasm, limbs twitching and jerking. For another moment it carried on, before it crashed onto its knees like a puppet with its strings cut. As it folded up, it dropped its arm, still locked around Yolanthe's throat. She landed on her feet, but only to topple over onto her side, dragged down by the weight, and with no breath left to stand.
Tharek panted for a second, before regaining his composure and focusing on Yolanthe. "Never mind watching my back, what about yours?" He said, half serious, half joking. Tharek bent over and retrieved his blade from inside the drones head, and returned it to it's holster.
Yolanthe managed to pry the claws open and gasped in a huge lungful of air, as her dark green skin and hair moved to a dark blue. "Its been a long week, I'm having an off day." Her voice came out croaky and raw where her voice box was bruised. She tried to stand, a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she ended up on her rump.
Tharek lent over Yolanthe, his fiery eyes dissipating to be replaced by their usual darkness. "Come on, we can't stay." He said, as he lifted her up. He placed one arm under her legs and the other rested against her back.
"I’m fine" she protested croakily as he lifted her, "just need a moment."
"We don't have a moment." He told her. "We either keep moving or die."
And I'm going to die of embarrassment if we leave. Her skin flared between shades of pale orange and strong yellow. "Klia can't stop this from the outside. We need to kill the bloody queen. Any bright ideas?"
"Well, I could fight through an army of drones and rip her spine from out of her body? Sound alright?" He asked using his morbid sense of humour.
"I like the spine ripping part. The army of drones not so much." There had to be a method that was not so heavily stacked against them. "lets find some where to catch a breath, see what we can think of."
"Right." Tharek stated, as he kept held of Yolanthe in his arms. "Uh... I'm a bit scratchy when it comes to the interior of a Borg cube. Which way?" He said, cocking his head from left to right to find a safe place to stop.
She wriggled in his arms to get to the padd and the tricorder in her pockets. "We have the map. " She croaked, comparing the two. "There's some sort of dead zone about two hundred meters to the left. No drones are going near it, and everything this side is dead."
"Sounds good." Tharek said, hulking off in the direction she pointed out with Yolanthe in his arms still.
__________
The small chamber was panelled with closely fitting black metal, smooth as glass, in stark contrast to the tangled bio-mechanical thickets of piping that seemed to cover the rest of the ship. Once the door was closed behind them, the place seemed eerily silent, lacking even the quiet hum and small movements of the rest of the cube.
Yolanthe turned to Tharek. "May I get down now please sir?" She asked him drily.
Tharek chuckled lightly. "Why, of course mi'lady." He said as he let her down gently.
She wobbled slightly, but the dizziness was gone. She felt suddenly awkward. Without the cardassian's assistance she'd would be dead. "thanks," she murmured, her voice husky, "That was a bit close."
Tharek spat out a bit more blood over to the far side of the room. "Yeah, I guess it was."
She felt the bruises on her throat, now turning a sludgy brown, like to many paints mixed together. Her apricot skin lightened and began to pick up hints of blue. She was going to croak for a bit, but she was going to live. At least for now. "Well, we shouldn't hang around. We have regicide to plot."
She called up the map again and looked for areas that might be of interest. "We've got a bit to choose from." She pointed to various places. "Astrometrics, Deflector maintenance here and here," she pointed to spots above and below them. "shield generation, Tech assimilation lab." She paused then shook her head. "No we've been there.... Transporter control, communications maintenance ordnance storage and shuttle bay. That's the ultimate destination, but you can't get in until the Queen is dead." She looked up at Tharek, "So, how do we assassinate the queen without getting killed by the horde of drones first?"
Tharek thought for a moment. "Could you make it to the shuttle with little resistance?"
"probably." she gave him a suspicious look, "what are you going to do
"I'm going to take on a raging horde of drones." He said, his smile spreading across his face.
She sat back on her heels and pinched the bridge of her nose. That wasn't a plan: it was insane. "Just how bad a day have you had that suicide by malfunctioning holosuite seems like a good idea?"
"Trust me. It's not been the best of days." Tharek said, moving his damaged palm out of sight. "You make a run for the shuttle, I'll lop the Queen's head off."
She saw him move his hand, and caught it out of reflex. "How did this happen?" She examined his palm where the puffy tender flesh was starting to swell to the point the hand wouldn't close properly. She gave it a cautionary probe. the bones underneath moved more than they should have done.
Tharek pulled his hand back and scowled at Yolanthe. "Don't ever touch me without my permission again!" He bellowed.
"You have broken your hand on a Borg!" she shot back, yellowing sharply. "You can't take on a horde of drones leaving it as it is. It'll seize up, become useless, and then you'll die. All over my holosuite probably. Let me at least give you something for the swelling." She held out her own palm, expecting him to return his hand to hers and glared right back.
Tharek breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want anyone to know that Isha had humiliated him. "Yeah... I must've been when that Borg hit me... " He said, outstretching his palm into hers.
She gave him a smile and bent her head to carefully examine his hand. It was definitely broken, maybe a finger or two as well. She took the hypospry from the tiny medkit, set the dial to the anti inflammatory and pressed it to the swollen muscles. She repeated the procedure with a local pain killer. Short of being able to put it in a cast it was the best that could be done.
Finally, she carefully felt around each finger and wrist, looking for more damage. "I think you've trapped a nerve. Hold still.". She didn't give him a chance to react, but dug her thumbs into the base of his wrist and then twisted
Tharek stood perfectly still. No feeling of pain came to him, as the juices from his new implant starting kicking in. He smiled yet again. Flexing his muscles, he gave an eerie smile to Yolanthe. "Can I kill them now?" He asked playfully.
The Bokkai let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her white eyes. She took him by the shoulders and turned him around towards the door. "Yes, go! Kill Borg. Don't die!" She gave him a slap on the arse to get him moving.
Tharek smiled cheekily to her. "Careful now." He said. He made to open the door, but the obsidian black door didn't budge. Tharek tried again, but harder. Still nothing. He took a few steps back and ran into the door with his shoulder.
The smooth black door still didn't open.
From all around, came the voice of the Borg: "We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. You will surrender now. You have 5 seconds to comply."
Tharek slicked his hair back. "Well... This isn't going well."
Yolanthe looked around; the difference of this chamber to the rest of the cube was nagging at her. The fact that the Borg also showed no interest in it either was just wrong. Then it came to her. She turned bright emerald. "Shit! It's a replicator!"
She dashed to the door and threw herself into helping him to slide it back. The air took on an electric texture, lifting stray hairs up till they stood on end.
"...three seconds." droned the voice of the Borg
"Well that's just dandy." Tharek said. He sucked in a deep breath, and charged at the door with all his might. He counted down the time he should have to live in his head.
3
As a motivator, imminent dematerialisation was very effective. Yolanthe focused sharply, timed her own charge to match his and together they hurled themselves against the door.
2
"Of for the love of... " Tharek said as their attempt failed once more. "Fuck this!" He said, taking a larger run up this time. He charged at the door with his full pace. Leaping into the air, he extended his leg out, and made his foot slam into the door.
1
TBC...
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner & bartender, The Box of Delights
Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Cardassian Dictator
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Post Details
| Title | Borg & Belligerence, Part 3 | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal | |
| Posted | Fri May 28, 2010 @ 7:44pm | |
| Location | The Box of Delights | |
| Timeline | SD18 0200 |
OLD:
Tharek finally rested it down into his palm and smiled eerily. "I like this weapon." He said coldly, with a tone that pierced souls. "When this program is over, if you can get me a weapon like this, I'll pay good latinum." He said, still admiring it, but walking along with his eyes focused on the blade. He glared up and looked straight into the eyes of Yolanthe.
She held his gaze without flinching. Had she pushed him too far? Possibly, but she wasn't going to apologise. Besides, he was quite attractive when he was angry. She held up the tricorder so he could see the little blips of approaching Borg. They were converging on the treasure room, slow but steady. "If we get out alive, I'll get you two. Lead the way, your Excellency"
NEW:
He laughed dryly as he prepared himself, spinning the blade in his hand cockily. He really did feel like he could take on the quadrant and win. The Borg came from around the corner ahead, and began their warpath towards the two. Tharek laughed and waited for the drones to get close enough...
He swung at the drones neck, and sliced through the metal piping and flesh with ease, like a knife through air, let alone butter. He span the blade arrogantly yet again, and plunged the dagger deep into the belly of another drone. Tharek roared as the blade sunk deep within the metal man. The crunch of bone, organ and metal was enough to make most grown men keel over. But Tharek listened intently, it was like beautiful music to him.
In the space at the back of Holosuite Seven, Klia sank onto her knees in despair. It shouldn't be possible. But it was, and now she had to think of a way to fix it. She tapped her communicator.
"Lani, are you there?"
Inside the holosuite, not six feet from where the Orion sat, Yolanthe swung her machete and lopped off the arm reaching for her. It spurted thick sticky blood for a moment. "Just about."
"I can't open the doors."
"what?!" Yolanthe parried another drone's artificial arm that swept towards her head, the jabbed the tip of the machete into the drones neck. She checked on the Ambassador; he was dividing his attention between two more, but so far they hadn't broken his defence. The knife moved in a blur, and she was treated to an arc of arterial spray that splattered across the floor in front of her.
"I cant open the doors." Klia repeated. "If I do, the program will think its a hull breach, and try to explosively decompress you."
"What?!" Yolanthe stopped moving, unable to process what she had just heard. "Kill the power!"
"Can't." the Orion replied. "The program has somehow overrun the environmental feedback buffer. Anything that is done to the suite, it thinks is being done to the cube. If it detects a power outage, it will preserve the rest of the cube by flash freezing you in the second or two it takes the power to drain."
Yolanthe leant on the railing that surrounded the gallery they were fighting on, catching her breath and trying to keep her temper. "Think of something. Fast!"
She cut the connection and turned, just in time to see an enormous drone reaching for her. Whatever it had been before assimilation, it had been huge, nearly eight foot tall and barely able to fit within the confines of the gallery. Its augmented arm was tipped with a pair of snapping pincers which flashed out to grab her throat before she could dodge. It lifted her into the air and slammed her against the ceiling, knocking her breath from her and the machete clanged to the floor beneath. The drone was out of reach of her legs, the arm was so long. She couldn't even kick it.
Black spots appeared in front of her eyes as the pincers squeezed the blood to her brain. She turned from angry yellow to an emerald green as every move she made to free herself became weak and feeble.
The Borg continued his assault on Yolanthe's neck, his face not showing emotion, anger or fear. But Tharek's was. His was showing aggression, power and raw strength. His face emphasised these features as Tharek plunged the blade through the back of the drone, and it exited out of the centre of the Borg's chest.
The Borg turned at the waist, and slammed his other fist against the cardassian’s solar plexus sending him sprawling away. Then it reached back and to claw the blade from its spine. Nanoprobes began to repair the hole that Tharek had carved in its body.
Tharek smirked, and spat out another small lump of blood. He reached for his own, personal blade embedded into his boot. He drew it, and it made a satisfying grind against metal as it left the holster. Tharek focused, and saw only his target. His brain made the commands and his arm soon followed suite. The dagger penetrated up through the Borg's jaw, and into the head.
For a moment the drone just...stopped, frozen by the sudden loss of its front brain functions. Then it went into spasm, limbs twitching and jerking. For another moment it carried on, before it crashed onto its knees like a puppet with its strings cut. As it folded up, it dropped its arm, still locked around Yolanthe's throat. She landed on her feet, but only to topple over onto her side, dragged down by the weight, and with no breath left to stand.
Tharek panted for a second, before regaining his composure and focusing on Yolanthe. "Never mind watching my back, what about yours?" He said, half serious, half joking. Tharek bent over and retrieved his blade from inside the drones head, and returned it to it's holster.
Yolanthe managed to pry the claws open and gasped in a huge lungful of air, as her dark green skin and hair moved to a dark blue. "Its been a long week, I'm having an off day." Her voice came out croaky and raw where her voice box was bruised. She tried to stand, a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she ended up on her rump.
Tharek lent over Yolanthe, his fiery eyes dissipating to be replaced by their usual darkness. "Come on, we can't stay." He said, as he lifted her up. He placed one arm under her legs and the other rested against her back.
"I’m fine" she protested croakily as he lifted her, "just need a moment."
"We don't have a moment." He told her. "We either keep moving or die."
And I'm going to die of embarrassment if we leave. Her skin flared between shades of pale orange and strong yellow. "Klia can't stop this from the outside. We need to kill the bloody queen. Any bright ideas?"
"Well, I could fight through an army of drones and rip her spine from out of her body? Sound alright?" He asked using his morbid sense of humour.
"I like the spine ripping part. The army of drones not so much." There had to be a method that was not so heavily stacked against them. "lets find some where to catch a breath, see what we can think of."
"Right." Tharek stated, as he kept held of Yolanthe in his arms. "Uh... I'm a bit scratchy when it comes to the interior of a Borg cube. Which way?" He said, cocking his head from left to right to find a safe place to stop.
She wriggled in his arms to get to the padd and the tricorder in her pockets. "We have the map. " She croaked, comparing the two. "There's some sort of dead zone about two hundred meters to the left. No drones are going near it, and everything this side is dead."
"Sounds good." Tharek said, hulking off in the direction she pointed out with Yolanthe in his arms still.
__________
The small chamber was panelled with closely fitting black metal, smooth as glass, in stark contrast to the tangled bio-mechanical thickets of piping that seemed to cover the rest of the ship. Once the door was closed behind them, the place seemed eerily silent, lacking even the quiet hum and small movements of the rest of the cube.
Yolanthe turned to Tharek. "May I get down now please sir?" She asked him drily.
Tharek chuckled lightly. "Why, of course mi'lady." He said as he let her down gently.
She wobbled slightly, but the dizziness was gone. She felt suddenly awkward. Without the cardassian's assistance she'd would be dead. "thanks," she murmured, her voice husky, "That was a bit close."
Tharek spat out a bit more blood over to the far side of the room. "Yeah, I guess it was."
She felt the bruises on her throat, now turning a sludgy brown, like to many paints mixed together. Her apricot skin lightened and began to pick up hints of blue. She was going to croak for a bit, but she was going to live. At least for now. "Well, we shouldn't hang around. We have regicide to plot."
She called up the map again and looked for areas that might be of interest. "We've got a bit to choose from." She pointed to various places. "Astrometrics, Deflector maintenance here and here," she pointed to spots above and below them. "shield generation, Tech assimilation lab." She paused then shook her head. "No we've been there.... Transporter control, communications maintenance ordnance storage and shuttle bay. That's the ultimate destination, but you can't get in until the Queen is dead." She looked up at Tharek, "So, how do we assassinate the queen without getting killed by the horde of drones first?"
Tharek thought for a moment. "Could you make it to the shuttle with little resistance?"
"probably." she gave him a suspicious look, "what are you going to do
"I'm going to take on a raging horde of drones." He said, his smile spreading across his face.
She sat back on her heels and pinched the bridge of her nose. That wasn't a plan: it was insane. "Just how bad a day have you had that suicide by malfunctioning holosuite seems like a good idea?"
"Trust me. It's not been the best of days." Tharek said, moving his damaged palm out of sight. "You make a run for the shuttle, I'll lop the Queen's head off."
She saw him move his hand, and caught it out of reflex. "How did this happen?" She examined his palm where the puffy tender flesh was starting to swell to the point the hand wouldn't close properly. She gave it a cautionary probe. the bones underneath moved more than they should have done.
Tharek pulled his hand back and scowled at Yolanthe. "Don't ever touch me without my permission again!" He bellowed.
"You have broken your hand on a Borg!" she shot back, yellowing sharply. "You can't take on a horde of drones leaving it as it is. It'll seize up, become useless, and then you'll die. All over my holosuite probably. Let me at least give you something for the swelling." She held out her own palm, expecting him to return his hand to hers and glared right back.
Tharek breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want anyone to know that Isha had humiliated him. "Yeah... I must've been when that Borg hit me... " He said, outstretching his palm into hers.
She gave him a smile and bent her head to carefully examine his hand. It was definitely broken, maybe a finger or two as well. She took the hypospry from the tiny medkit, set the dial to the anti inflammatory and pressed it to the swollen muscles. She repeated the procedure with a local pain killer. Short of being able to put it in a cast it was the best that could be done.
Finally, she carefully felt around each finger and wrist, looking for more damage. "I think you've trapped a nerve. Hold still.". She didn't give him a chance to react, but dug her thumbs into the base of his wrist and then twisted
Tharek stood perfectly still. No feeling of pain came to him, as the juices from his new implant starting kicking in. He smiled yet again. Flexing his muscles, he gave an eerie smile to Yolanthe. "Can I kill them now?" He asked playfully.
The Bokkai let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her white eyes. She took him by the shoulders and turned him around towards the door. "Yes, go! Kill Borg. Don't die!" She gave him a slap on the arse to get him moving.
Tharek smiled cheekily to her. "Careful now." He said. He made to open the door, but the obsidian black door didn't budge. Tharek tried again, but harder. Still nothing. He took a few steps back and ran into the door with his shoulder.
The smooth black door still didn't open.
From all around, came the voice of the Borg: "We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. You will surrender now. You have 5 seconds to comply."
Tharek slicked his hair back. "Well... This isn't going well."
Yolanthe looked around; the difference of this chamber to the rest of the cube was nagging at her. The fact that the Borg also showed no interest in it either was just wrong. Then it came to her. She turned bright emerald. "Shit! It's a replicator!"
She dashed to the door and threw herself into helping him to slide it back. The air took on an electric texture, lifting stray hairs up till they stood on end.
"...three seconds." droned the voice of the Borg
"Well that's just dandy." Tharek said. He sucked in a deep breath, and charged at the door with all his might. He counted down the time he should have to live in his head.
3
As a motivator, imminent dematerialisation was very effective. Yolanthe focused sharply, timed her own charge to match his and together they hurled themselves against the door.
2
"Of for the love of... " Tharek said as their attempt failed once more. "Fuck this!" He said, taking a larger run up this time. He charged at the door with his full pace. Leaping into the air, he extended his leg out, and made his foot slam into the door.
1
TBC...
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner & bartender, The Box of Delights
Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Cardassian Dictator