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"Payment" - Part Three
Rating: R (Violence, Strong Language, Adult Situations, Brutality) Note: Vulcan terms used in this story were taken from the online Vulcan Language Dictionary, the Vulcan Language Institute, or I made them up myself.
Part Three: Tucker sized up the room in a single sweeping glance as he strode through the doorway. The door guards got a fast once over apiece, were classified and dismissed. T’Pol was right where he had left her. Hoshi - correction - make that her imperial majesty was behind the desk smirking. Travis stood nearby looking dangerous as usual. Reed stood with his back against the wall. Tucker stopped to meet and match his glare. The two of them locked eyes and started moving toward each other unconsciously. “Not just now, gentlemen,” Sato’s amused voice broke into their concentration on each other. “As entertaining as it would be to watch the two of you locked in gladiatorial combat, I am afraid that we all have too much work to do at the moment.” Reed’s mask fell into place instantly and he stepped back against the wall. “Of course, your majesty.” Tucker’s head snapped around and suddenly he remembered where he was and why he had come. “I beg pardon, your majesty.” Tucker stepped up just behind the interrogation chair and bowed his head. “Commander Tucker reporting as ordered, ma’am.” “Naturally,” Hoshi yawned deliberately. “You always do what you are ordered to do, don’t you, Trip?” The burn scar at Tucker’s temple darkened slightly, but no other sign of emotion was visible. “Yes, ma’am. I do.” “An excellent quality. It really is you know.” Hoshi stood up and walked around the desk, stalking closer to Tucker like an alley cat. “It’s the reason that Forrest put you in charge of Engineering in the first place. Of course, you certainly have the skill. But that alone would not have gained you the position of Chief Engineer. Captain Forrest knew that you would never challenge him. He knew that you would stay right where he had put you, like an obedient little boy. And he was correct, wasn’t he, Trip?” Tucker fixed his eyes on a point over Hoshi’s shoulder and kept his face immobile. “I guess he was, ma’am.” Sato laughed softly and ran a finger across Tucker’s scar. “It’s nasty down there on the NX class ships, isn’t it Trip?” She clucked with mock sympathy. “All that dirty radiation. You have been damaged, haven’t you? You can’t have normal children now, can you?” Tucker made no reply. Hoshi’s voice became sharp as a razor. “Can you?” His lips twisted bitterly. “No, ma’am,” he half snarled. Hoshi let her hand drop and continued pacing around behind him. “You know Trip, you once were rather presentable... before you picked up that scar. What a pity that conduit happened to explode just as you were walking past it.” Sato’s eyes had an evil gleam as they flickered toward Reed. Tucker also shot Reed a swift look, which got a bland stare in response. “Accidents happen, ma’am. It’s just the way things are.” He returned his gaze to the front. “Yes, of course,” the new Empress acknowledged ingenuously. “You are correct of course. And with the losses we have recently taken, all departments are shorthanded so there have been even more accidents than usual lately. Like what happened with poor Sgt. Cole’s hand.” “Cole?” Tucker blurted. He seemed honestly surprised. Reed’s face flushed and tighened. His lips curled into a snarl and he took a half step forward toward Tucker. There was a flicker. No more than a flicker, if that. Reed froze, staring at the end of Travis’ phaser weapon, taken from the Defiant’s armory. It was half a meter from his face. “Back.” One word, barely audible. Reed snapped back into his previous position as if it had been a shout. Travis flowed back into his place at the end of the desk with the graceful precision of a jaguar and resumed watchful readiness. Hoshi giggled and sent him a delighted smile, then turned back to Trip. “Yes, Trip. It was while you were in the booth.” Hoshi rubbed her lips and half smiled. “Archer was quite incensed you know. He couldn’t get a single engineering work order completed properly the entire time you were in the booth. Not a single one. Either there were no parts available, or there was no one available to do the work, or...” she looked at Tucker and snorted, “or somehow fixing one problem seemed to spawn several more. It was quite frustrating to him.” Tucker wore a poker face. “That’s what happens when you are short handed.” “Yes, I quite understand,” Hoshi assured him. “But Archer wasn’t nearly as understanding. He sent Major Reed down to have a talk with Hess. The message was that if things didn’t get fixed she would be joining you in the booth. I do believe that Major Reed was quite looking forward to the job, weren’t you Malcolm?” She teased the glowering Security officer. “I merely carried out my orders, ma’am,” he said stiffly. “Apparently you carried them out with enthusiasm and dispatch,” Sato responded, walking back aroud to the desk chair and seating herself. She leaned back and told Tucker, catching T’Pol’s reaction out of the corner of her eye, “By the next shift there were engineering crews all over the ship, working on almost every system. And the next day, when Sgt. Cole started to step off the turbo lift the door suddenly snapped shut and cut off her hand. Dreadful thing. All that shrieking. One would have expected a MACO to have more self-discipline.” “It was no accident, your majesty,” Reed growled. His hands opened and closed. “If you will grant me permission to question Hess-” Tucker stiffened and his scar flashed crimson. He turned toward Reed and bared his teeth like a wolf. “Like hell! You put a hand on one of my people and Cole won’t be the only one-” “ENOUGH!” Sato slapped the desk like a clap of thunder. The two men woke up to see three phasers pointing at them, one from Travis and two from the door guards. Both froze, staring at the weapons and waiting for the order that would mean their deaths. Sato was fuming. “I have had enough of this!” She pointed at Reed. “Travis, sit that fool down on the floor against the wall. If he tries to get up, or says one word without being spoken to first, break both of his arms.” Mayweather grinned and took one long stride toward Reed, who sank to the floor looking sick. “Now,” Sato, still smoldering, turned back to Tucker. “You have been a fool, Trip. But you have the potential to be a useful fool to me. You sat there in that pit on the NX-01 for years because you either didn’t have the guts, or the ambition, to make a move for anything higher. And you are the best Human warp engineer in Starfleet. I want to buy your loyalty.” Tucker blinked. “You... already have my loyalty, your majesty. I have always been loyal to the empire.” “I do?” She raised her eyebrows. “And yet you claim to be loyal to the empire? Isn’t that a bit inconsistent, considering that I haven’t even killed the old emperor yet?” Sato’s voice developed an edge. “Which is it, are you loyal to me or the empire?” Tucker looked her straight in the eye. “Both. You hold Defiant, so killing the old emperor is a formality now. You are the de facto empress.” He paused a second. “Besides, like you said, the old administration didn’t do me too many favors lately.” Sato snorted. Then her shoulders started shaking and turned into giggles. “Oh, Trip,” she choked out with a hand over her mouth. “There may be hope for you yet. Could it be that you are not really a fool after all? Are you a coward instead?” She looked carefully at him. Tucker did not return her stare, choosing instead to gaze over her head at the far wall. “Or... could it be...” Sato continued in a slower and more contemplative voice, “that you were consolidating your position? Were you planning to make your move once you were completely impregnable in engineering?” Tucker’s face worked but he made no response. “Hess already worships you, ever since you stopped Archer from throwing her out the airlock. In fact,” Sato mused, “every single crewman in engineering owes you a personal blood debt, don’t they? Some of them more than once. I hadn’t stopped to think of that, but its true.” She glanced up with a tinge of respect. “I may have underestimated you, Trip.” Her voice chilled. “But rest assured, it won’t happen again.” What could he say? “Understood, ma’am.” “Good. It had better be.” Hoshi stood up with decision. “Now, enough wasting time. As enjoyable as this has been, I have an empire to run.” She picked up a small chip the size of a man’s thumbnail and walked over to Major Reed. “Here, Malcolm. Stand up and put this in your pocket.” She smiled happily. Reed looked blankly at her, then at the chip. “I don’t understand, your maj-” A swift kick in the ribs cut off his words and his breath. Reed pitched sideways onto the floor. “Travis, if he is not on his feet in five seconds, cut off his left ear.” Reed instantly scrambled to his feet with a full second to spare. He stood and watched Hoshi, breathing hard with murder in his eyes. Travis stepped closer and removed Reed’s phaser, holding both his and the Major’s weapons ready to use. “Much better,” Sato approved. “Now, Malcolm. As I was saying, take this cute litte explosive device that you thought you were being so clever in concealing on the controller pad I asked for, and slip it into your pants pocket. No, the front pocket, right there next to your crotch. Good boy.” She patted his shoulder. “With any luck, we should be finished here before the radiation does any permanent damage.” The empress turned her back and casually walked back to the desk, leaving Reed sweating under the lethal gaze of her consort and his dual phasers. “I really can’t imagine what he was thinking,” Sato spoke in a conversational tone, directing her words in the general direction of both Trip and T’Pol, who had sat silently during the preceding drama, taking it all in with deep interest. “What were you thinking, Malcolm? Never mind,” she chuckled, “I know what you were thinking.” Empress Sato picked up a small sensor device on a broad strap and turned toward Tucker with it. “He was thinking,” she told Tucker as she fastened the strap around his neck. “that I got my position as chief communications officer aboard the flagship strictly on my bedroom skills. Tsk, tsk, Malcolm. How shortsighted.” She turned back to the deck. “Trip,” she said abruptly. “I know about your bond with this bitch. I saw the security recording.” He nodded, unsurprised. “It’s nothing important, your majesty,” he assured her. “She’s lying.” “No,” T’Pol said wearily, “I was not.” “Oddly enough,” Sato told him, “Just this once it appears that she, hard as it is to believe, may be telling the truth. Not because of anything she said, but because it matches up with what’s in Defiant’s database. According to the records of this ship, if the slut dies you might very well be hurt. Perhaps even killed. We can’t have that, can we?” Tucker’s eyes narrowed and he shot a glance at T’Pol. “I’m willing to take that chance, your majesty,” Tucker promised. T’Pol winced and bowed her head. Sato giggled. “My, my. Didn’t expect that from your tame little pet, did you?” Hoshi asked T’Pol playfully. “That’s the problem with Human males. Just when you think you have their spirit completely broken and you own them, body and soul, they have this disconcerting habit of turning feral on you. Unpredictable devils sometimes.” She walked over to stand at the front edge of the desk closest to the interrogation chair and opened the small box she held. The thin metal band inside was hinged at two points, which were decorated by large glowing jewels. Sato stepped forward and snapped it around T’Pol’s neck, sealing the lock at the back of her neck with the empress’s own thumbprint. She adjusted the collar until the glowing jewels were positioned on each side of the Vulcan’s neck, then rotated both of them clockwise ninety degrees. A low hum began to sound and T’Pol gasped. Sato stepped back with a look of satisfaction. “This is a modified version of the collars that Orions used to put on their slaves. That hum you are hearing is the sound of the nano probes making connections with her neural pathways. In a few minutes it will be embedded. After that the collar will be able to apply direct stimulation to either her pain centers, or her pleasure centers, whichever you prefer.” T’Pol’s eyes flew open in horror. “No!” came out in a strangled croak. She writhed in the chair, to no avail. “Oh yes,” Sato hissed in deep satisfaction. “And I am the only one who can unlock it. If anyone else tries to tamper with the lock, both of the explosive hinges will detonate, blowing your head off. If the sensor that I hung on Tucker indicates that his heart has stopped beating, the hinges detonate, blowing your head off. If you get farther than half a kilometer away from Tucker, the hinges detonate.” She grinned in lascivious satisfaction and turned to pick up the final item on the desk. “Trip,” she purred, “you said the old administration hasn’t done you any favors lately. I have a proposal for you, if you are interested.” “Of course, your majesty,” Trip replied. He eyed the controller in her hand, glanced at the slave collar, then back to Sato. Hoshi smirked. “Defiant is an awesome weapon, but it is only one ship. I need a fleet of ships like this. Along with ground based weapons like this. You already know more than anyone else about this ship. With your background, you are more likely than anyone else to be able to unlock its secrets. What will it take?” Tucker grunted. “We have to reverse engineer every system aboard. Some of them are not going to be too much trouble. The impulse drives are just more advanced versions of what we already use. The only difference is more sophisticated control systems and superior construction. The warp drive is another story. Not only is it more sophisticated, it operates on a more sophisticated set of equations. The intermix ratio is calculated based on a different formula, magnetic containment is more powerful by three orders of magnitude and I have no idea how it is achieved, the warp field geometrics should be completely unstable according to what I was taught, but obviously they aren’t which means that our basic warp theories need to be revised. The-” “That wasn’t what I meant,” Sato interrupted him in amusement. “I meant what would it take to persuade you to agree to do the job,” she explained. “But I see that has already been taken care of.” The empress paused and eyed him. “You honestly do love it down there don’t you? The work itself I mean. You love it the way Phlox used to love cutting things up. The way Malcolm loves making people scream. That’s the real reason you stayed down there, isn’t it? Because you couldn’t bear to leave your work.” “I’m an engineer, ma’am,” Tucker mumbled. “It’s what I do.” “A breed apart,” Sato mused. “Forrest always used to say that engineers were a breed apart. I never really paid attention, but I think I begin to see what he meant. Well then, Mr. Engineer, how would you like to become Imperial Minister of Starfleet Research and Development?” Tucker stiffened as if someone had rammed a frozen stake up his rectum. “Me, ma’am?” He stared. “Yes, ma’am. I would like that very much,” he hurriedly stammered. Sato nodded. “You will have to earn it. Duplicate the warp engine on this ship, and I will promote you to captain. Duplicate the weapons and shielding on this ship, and you will become an admiral. Duplicate both, and you will take your place as Minister. How does that sound, Trip? Better than anything the old administration ever offered you?” Tucker skinned his teeth in a massive grin. “Yes, ma’am.” Sato smiled. “Come here.” Tucker walked over and joined her behind the desk, turning for the first time to face T’Pol. He noted that the prisoner was looking less than pleased with the proceedings, which did nothing to diminish his grin. “Since you are the only reason that I am being forced to let her live,” Sato explained, “I am going to make you responsible for her. I see no reason to waste anyone else’s time and energy looking after the creature. This controller is straightforward enough. This toggles the pain control, with this lever controlling the intensity. This pair on the other side do the same thing for pleasure. Try them,” she offered. Tucker took the unit and looked at T’Pol, who tried to meet his eyes. He slowly and deliberately pressed the pain switch and watched her muscles tighten. Then he carefully adjusted the pain level upward, watching as she gradually started to quiver, and then tremble, and finally went into uncontrollable spasms. When T’Pol began to emit brief whimpers, Tucker snarled in disgust, “Weakling. It’s no worse than the booth.” But he switched off the control and watched her slump into the chair, temporarily helpless with relief. “You may find that the pleasure circuit is even more useful at keeping her in line,” Sato offered suggestively, with a cruel smile. “But of course, that’s entirely up to your personal taste. Just remember that if she steps one foot over the line, you will pay the price for it.” “You can depend on me, ma’am,” Tucker swore. “She won’t be doing anything at all except exactly what I tell her to do.” He looked at T’Pol. “Will you? Honey.” The rasp in his voice brought her eyes up to his face. She pulled in her uneven breathing and managed a complete sentence with a semblance of dignity. “I will obey.” “Good girl,” He told her. Tucker walked over to the chair and keyed the release. “Stand up.” T’Pol’s legs felt shaky, but she managed to make it to a standing position without disgracing herself by showing weakness in front of her enemies. Her mate’s emotions through the bond were a tangle of excitement, shame, triumph, pain, anger, pride, happiness, lust, joy, and a dark undercurrent of something that made her sick to touch. Tucker turned to Sato and asked formally, “Is anything else required of me, your majesty?” Sato waved her hand. “You are dismissed. Submit that list of personnel you are going to need to Travis by 2200 hours today. And maintain readiness to go to warp at any time. Remember that you will still be Chief Engineer of this ship while you are ‘reverse engineering’ her. Don’t disassemble anything that we might need to fight with.” Sato quirked her lip. “Understood, ma’am,” Tucker said. He turned to T’Pol and pointed at the door. “That way. Go.” She turned and started pacing slowly and tiredly toward the exit. Sato snickered. “Isn’t that such a sweet picture?” she told Travis. “A boy and his dog.” Her laughter followed them out into the corridor. TBC |
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