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"Payment" - Part Four
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 Four: “Turbolift.” T’Pol turned obediently in the direction of the lift and headed down the corridor, keeping her eyes on the floor. Tucker maintained his distance, two paces behind her at all times with his hand on the controller. Crew members passed along the corridor, saluting Tucker and giving T’Pol sardonic glances. When the turbolift door hissed open Tucker snapped, “Inside, face the back wall.” The door closed and he announced, “Main Engineering.” With a muted whine the car started moving. Tucker never took his eyes off her, nor his thumb off the button. Neither spoke again until the car stopped. The door opened and Tucker met the eyes of the two guards that he had ordered posted at the entrance to Engineering at all times. “Stand ready,” he ordered. They readied phasers and Trip backed out of the turbolift carefully. When he was two meters out and well clear, he ordered T’Pol, “Turn around slowly and walk out one step at a time, hands in plain view.” She flashed him a look that would have made a hooded cobra seem kindly. T’Pol moved out of the lift with her head high, arrogantly sauntering with a hint of an upturn at the corners of her mouth. Tucker nodded. About what he had expected. The games were already starting. But she wasn’t going to be able to push his buttons anymore. He knew what he was dealing with now. This time, she was in for a few surprises. “My office,” he said simply. He fell in behind her again, two paces back just as before. A meter short of his office door he said, “Stop.” Tucker turned his head and shouted, “Hess!” Lieutenant Anna Hess scrambled down from the catwalk and hurried over. “Yes sir,” she said brightly, grinning in savage satisfaction at the sight that met her eyes. “We got a new mascot?” “Yep,” Tucker replied with a grin. “Her majesty thought we needed some amusement down here to boost morale.” “Now that’s my kind of empress,” Hess chuckled. “What d’you need, Sir?” “Get me a handful of those big cable ties, Anna. The long black ones with the pull latches. We don’t want our new mascot wandering around underfoot, do we?” T’Pol stiffened but made no complaint. Hess bounded off on her errand and Tucker ordered T’Pol, “Into the office. Sit in the visitor’s chair. Don’t move or speak.” She moved carefully into the Chief Engineer’s “office”, actually an enclosed area that was separated from the rest of Engineering by a fencelike metal latticework. It contained a small desk with computer terminal, a drink dispenser, and a visitor’s chair. T’Pol seated herself as instructed and sat back, resting against the fencing and watching Tucker with hooded eyes. She probed carefully, trying to extract his intention without alerting him to her telepathic touch. "Got ‘em, Sir,” Hess announced, holding up a fistful of black nylon strips. “Good.” Tucker turned to T’Pol and ordered, “Raise your arms shoulder high, and bend your elbows so your forearms are pointing stright up. Press them flat back against the grating. Yeah, like that. Anna, put three ties on each arm. One at the wrist, one at the elbow, one just below the shoulder. Snug them tight.” T’Pol sneered. “Brave Humans. You have no faith in your own tools, do you? I thought the collar was guaranteed to control me.” Tucker ignored her. Hess however, heard the remark and felt motivated to add a little extra weight to the yank that she used to tighten the bonds with. “Now,” Tucker said, “one more around the neck. Don’t tighten that one. Keep it loose. We just want to discourage her from getting too frisky, that’s all.” T’Pol snarled. “Sato was right. You are a coward.” Hess backhanded her sideways, following up with a punch to the jaw. “Treasonous Vulcan bitch! You aren’t fit to lick Commander Tucker’s feet! I oughta break every-” “Anna!” Hess stopped with her hand raised, caught in Tucker’s fist. “That’s enough for now. Maybe later. Right now we have work to do. Her majesty wants us ready to go to battle at any time. You know what that means. Did you finish the diagnostic on the starboard aft phaser cannons?” Hess caught her breath. “Yes, Sir. All lights green. But we still need to finish double checking the ship’s manual on those intermix formulas. Everything looks good, but I want to make triple sure that we have it exactly right.” “Good idea,” Tucker nodded. “Get to it. I will have a look at the warp coil alignment parameters and compare them to the standards in the database.” Hess gave T’Pol a last murderous look and stalked out. Tucker stood looking at his captive for a moment, shaking his head. Then he tossed the controller on the desk and keyed in the selection on the drink dispenser for a cup of strong coffee. Sipping the potent brew, he leaned back against his desk and observed T’Pol carefully. “To answer your question,” he finally told her, “no. I don’t have any faith in the collar. Of course, all Vulcans are good liars, and you are a better liar than most,” he smiled bitterly. “But I have trouble believing that the collar could put out more pain than the booth. And I know the booth wouldn’t have had you spasming and whimpering that fast.” T’Pol’s eyes narrowed and she suddenly looked at him in surprise. “Just how stupid do you think I am, anyway?” Tucker asked her with real interest in his voice. “I have never said, or implied, that you are stupid,” she said in a wary tone, watching him closely. “Well gee,” Tucker snorted. “That just comforts the shit out of me.” He shook his head and sat down at the desk, propping his feet up and taking another sip of coffee. “What am I supposed to do with you, anyway? Hoshi has really stuck it to me this time. I had the drugs all lined up, had Hess and Rostov already briefed and ready to dope me up and monitor me until you were safely spaced. Now what? If I kill you myself it might piss off her majesty. Not the brightest move I could make, even if I am a fool. As a professional coward, I always make it a point to avoid pissing off people in authority over me.” T’Pol sat stunned. “You did believe me.” “Of course I believed you,” Tucker told her in disgust. “Her imperial majesty is not the only one on this ship who can read. As soon as we captured Defiant and I got a free minute, I started researching Vulcans and mind control. I was trying to find out how you set me up. Instead, I found out about Pon Farr and the bond.” “You knew?” Her forehead wrinkled. “You...already knew? Even before you came to me in the interrogation room?” “Yeah.” He drained his coffee. “Like I asked you before, how stupid do you really think I am? I just wanted to see how much you would admit to.” She stared. “But you were ready to let them kill me.” Tucker shot her a look. “You gathered every non-Human you could get your hooks into for your rebellion,” he told her quietly. “If it had worked, how many Humans were you planning to leave alive?” Despite her best effort, T’Pol could not meet his eyes. “I had no intention of killing you,” she managed. “So you were going to have Phlox do it instead?” Tucker guessed. “Or did you ask Soval to pull the trigger? One thing I learned from Defiant’s database, and no doubt you did too since you spent more time studying it than anyone else from day one, is that in a Vulcan/Human pairing the bond is uneven in strength. If you die, it will probably kill me. But if I die, you will almost certainly survive because I am not a natural telepath. The database cited case history after case history to prove it.” Tucker paused to look at her and wait for a reply. None came. “You learned that the same way I did, didn’t you? And it gave you an easy way to get rid of me. Dump your Human mistake and find yourself a real Vulcan husband.” T’Pol squeezed her eyes shut and and fought for control. Trip watched her and felt something buzzing at the back of his mind as she struggled. “Just like I thought,” he finally said. “Well, too bad. I’m the bondmate you got. And by the way, I have been reading up on Vulcan law. You have been a neglectful mate, T’Pol. Haven’t you?” She flushed emerald with fury. “You are not Vulcan,” she growled. “You have no right to claim the privileges of a Vulcan mate.” “And where does Vulcan law state that?” Tucker sat back. “Show me anywhere in Vulcan law where it says that a non-Vulcan mate is not entitled to the same privileges as a Vulcan mate. Anywhere.” “I will kill you if you touch me! I will sear your mind!” Her hissing screech caught him by surprise for a moment. Tucker hadn’t expected such an extreme reaction. Certainly not so quickly. “Who said anything about touching you?” he asked her mildly. “No, T’Pol. If I want a woman I can get all I want now. Chief Engineer on the Imperial flagship? Under direct command of the empress herself? I could look even worse than I do and women would still line up from here to the bridge and back. But you have still been neglecting my needs. As my mate you are responsible for making sure that I am properly tended, aren’t you?” T’Pol gaped at him, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?” she blurted. “Are you so ignorant of your own people’s law?” Tucker asked her innocently? “Look it up for yourself. As my bonded mate you are supposed to take care of me. You are supposed to make sure that my physical needs are tended to. Make sure that I get enough food, and a proper diet. Make sure that I get enough rest. Guard my privacy while I meditate. Generally make sure that I stay healthy and happy.” T’Pol told him, “If you intend to invoke that law, then you must also obey it.” “Why?” he asked her. “I am not Vulcan. I did not agree to become your mate. You trapped me into it against my will and without my knowledge or consent. I am not obligated to you in any way. In fact, by Vulcan law what you did in trapping me into a bonding without my knowledge and consent is a capital crime on your home world, isn’t it? If it becomes known on Vulcan that you bonded someone without their consent, much less that you bonded a Human without his knowledge or consent, then you will become a hunted criminal among your own people, won’t you?” T’Pol sat paralyzed. “Now, Honey,” Tucker told her sweetly, “Let me get some work done while you think about what to fix for dinner tonight.” TBC |
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