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"When Ethics Fail" by A. Rhea King
Rating: PG CHAPTER 4 Lips pressing against his woke Archer. He opened his eyes, looking into Kerql’s eyes. For a few minutes he didn’t realize his situation and then it hit him. He was sitting against the upper hatch ladder with his arms tied tight to it over his head. Kerql crouched next to him, cradling her big gun. Archer heard Porthos plaintively whine and looked away from Kerql. A length of rope was tied to the pilot’s chair arm and one end was tied around the dog’s neck in a secure knot. A blanket was nearby and his food and water were within his reach. Archer looked back at Kerql, his anger flaring from the humiliation that she was an assassin and he’d fallen for her wiles. With no hint of emotion, Kerql told him, “I was hired to kill you.” “By who?” “A Suliban. He knew a great deal about you, your ship, your crew.” “Was his name Silik?” He had watched Silik die, but one thing time travel had taught him was that dying wasn’t as permanent as it was meant to be. “He never said his name.” Kerql sat the gun on a bench. She straddled his legs, sitting down on his lap. She reached out to touch his face and Archer jerked his head away, glaring at her. Kerql’s hand drifted down. “Jonathan, something very strange happened before I set out to find you. A man that looked human came to me. But... He wasn’t human. Now that I’ve met you I know that. He didn’t have your scent; he didn’t have any scent. You must understand, Jonathan, I have been an assassin since I was practically a child and I have killed thousands. This is the first time I didn’t kill who I was paid to kill, mostly because the man showed me Ashi’s future. She joins a committee of several races that you help form and becomes a renowned scientist. Later, her first daughter becomes our world’s queen and abolishes our most common trade: assassination. All because you live. And then he showed me a future where I killed you. Ashi becomes an assassin and she dies being tortured. Her screams still haunt me.” “He showed you two futures? That’s not possible!” “Perhaps, but I can’t take the chance it wasn’t real.” Kerql narrowed her eyes. “How is one being so pivotal to the fate of so many others?” “I wonder that all the time.” “Will you do something for Ashi if I ask it of you?” Archer nodded. Kerql pulled a PADD from behind her, showed it to Archer, and then sat it on the bench. “This has all the information you need to retrieve the money I’ve saved for Ashi’s education. It has whom you need to contact and what her money account should be set up like. See to this for me. Tell her nothing of me or where the money came from.” Archer nodded. Kerql leaned in close. “Do you think I lied to you? That letting you mate with me was a ploy?” Archer nodded. “Yes.” Kerql looked down, tears tinted black sliding down her face. “I didn’t lie and it wasn’t a ploy. I love you. Why couldn’t I have met you when there was time to change what I was becoming?” Archer relaxed. In his heart he knew she was being honest. He had a strong urge to tell her that they would leave together and flee to an uncharted part of space. But he knew he could never do that. He could never live with himself if he helped an assassin escape justice, and he couldn’t abandon his ship, crew, and friends like that. Kerql leaned in and kissed him. Archer pushed his lips against her, eating the passion in her kiss; the same passion that had overwhelmed him when he’d made love to her. Kerql laid her forehead against his. Archer closed his eyes. “You know I’ll have to tell the Kroashuns you were here when they arrive, don’t you?” Archer whispered. “That is one of the things I love about you, Jonathan. Your honesty.” “I am so sorry, Kerql.” “I just wish we shared this love.” Archer leaned his head back, looking in her eyes. “We do.” Kerql wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling close to kiss him. Archer closed his eyes tight against burning tears. He gasped softly when something pricked his neck and then there was nothing. # Archer stared at space whizzing past the observation windows. Across the room a shattered PADD lay on the floor where he’d thrown it. It was a letter from Kerql, probably the last thoughts she’d had before she was executed. In it she asked for his forgiveness and again professed her love. Archer knew it had taken courage to turn herself, knowing it meant her death; but another part of him wished he had ran away with her. That part of him would always long, and mourn, for her. Archer didn’t look away when the door opened. T’Pol walked in, slowly approaching him. “You have not responded to anyone calling for you, Captain.” “I said I didn’t want to be disturbed, T’Pol.” “I must not have heard you.” Archer closed his eyes. ‘She hadn’t heard me? Unlikely. She’s just trying to make me feel better and today it won’t work.’ Archer looked back at space. “I need to be alone. Go back to the Bridge.” Instead of obeying the order, T’Pol sat down beside him. She stared at the PADD for a long minute and then looked at him. “The letter from the prison was from Kerql, wasn’t it?” Archer didn’t answer. He looked down at the broken PADD. “Was it not what you expected?” The remark burned Archer and made him wish even more that he’d hidden Kerql from her executors. “What exactly would you expect from a woman about to die, T’Pol?” Archer snarled. T’Pol said nothing. He recalled a thought that had been running through his mind since he first read the letter. It cooled his anger, a soothing balm spreading over his pain. “She lived the fate of the Lady of Shalott.” Archer murmured. “Whom?” “In the early nineteenth century a lord wrote a poem titled The Lady of Shalott. In it a woman is cursed to live alone in a tower on an island in the middle of a river. She was told that she’s cursed and cannot leave her loom and look outside, she can only see the world beyond the tower in a mirror before her. One day she sees a warrior in the mirror; a knight named Sir Lancelot. So taken is she by him that she risks leaving the only life she’s ever known and facing the consequences of the curse to see him. She makes it to a boat and dies in it. Down river the boat passes through the town of Camelot and the people there fear her, curse her. But Sir Lancelot sees beauty within her and voices it. By doing that, she is lent mercy.” Archer paused, thinking about the poem and his lost love. More to himself, he added, “I wonder... Had Sir Lancelot met the Lady of Shallot before she was cursed, would he have saved her?” T’Pol sat for a long moment before turning to him. “You loved Kerql?” “Yes.” “Did she ever profess love for you?” Archer nodded, looking down at the PADD. “Then you don’t have to wonder if the warrior would have saved Lady Shallot had they met before she was cursed.” She held his gaze when he looked up, quietly adding, “You know you would have.” Archer nodded once before returning his gaze back to space. Like an ever-watchful sentinel, T’Pol remained at his side; her presence was a welcomed commiseration. “The Lady of Shalott,” Lord Alfred Tennyson. (1842) |
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