Killing in the Name
Posted on Fri May 26th, 2023 @ 8:32pm by Captain Mrazak & Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Commander T’Bela
Mission:
Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Detention Center | Tembiti Lagoon, Risa
Timeline: ID 4/5 - middle of the night
"Let me out of here..."
Mrazak was huddled up in the corner like a whipped dog. He'd nodded off, woken up, yelled, nodded off gain, only to wake up and yell some more far more times than was dignified to count. His voice was hoarse, his clothing damp with perspiration from sweating out the alcohol and the rage of the entire day. Deprived of his communicator, Mrazak had screamed obscenities from several languages into the overhead camera until he could barely speak. Now, reduced to pitiful whispers after a scant few hours, he bided his time under the crushing weight of futility.
"Do you know who I am?" The question lacked the outrage of the first hundred times he had posed it. "I will see you... you..." Mrazak closed his eyes and sighed, unable to even finish his idle threat. For a moment, he nodded off again, but then snapped awake and resumed his old tirade with renewed vigor.
"I am a Starfleet officer!" Eyes narrow and ablaze, his face contorted with fury. "You cannot illegally hold me here! I was accosted by a gang of thieves! Let me out this instant!" He raised a rude hand gesture directly to the camera in the corner of the room.
One level up and a few rooms over, the resort's on-duty detention officer stared at the screen with his arms crossed. "He's been pretty much like this the whole time. Whenever it seems like he's calmed down a tick and would be safe to release, he gets wound up again and starts over. I'm sure he'd rather sleep in his luxury bed." The man shrugged. "He won't listen to any of us, though, so he'll be here until someone comes and claims him--his commander, doctor, legal advocate, someone." His mouth ticked up in a frown. "No telling how long that would take without his cooperation, so we appreciate you stopping in."
T'Sen nodded, "of course. I am so sorry for the inconvenience he caused." She said, putting on her most charming smile.
Or so she thought. While she looked young, when she smiled she looked like a human teen, dressed in edgy clothing wanting to make a statement, rather than a charming, self assured woman she considered herself to be.
"May we see him?" She asked, glancing over at T'Bela briefly.
There were times when T’Bela was not quite sure what would come out of her own mouth until she opened it and found out. This was one of those times. “Yes, we do apologize for our husband’s antics,” she said, laying an affectionate hand on T’Sen’s shoulder. “We do try to keep him in line, but sometimes he just gets away from us and…” she gestured with her free hand, indicating someone running off to shenanigans.
"Husband. Right." The detention officer looked to be made of skepticism. "You both can go see him but I'll need someone to stay here and sign him out."
T'Sen sighed, "fine, you go get him this time." She said to T'Bela, "I'll sign him out."
"Makes no difference to me," said the detention officer. "I'll need everyone's hand scan before you leave."
T'Sen nodded, "of course."
“As I would expect,” replied T’Bela, a bit annoyed. Why did the guard keep bringing up more stuff they had to do? It made her suspicious, but for now she said nothing.
While T'Sen held back to finalize his release, T'Bela proceeded to Mrazak's holding cell. It was a pristine white room, its walls even brighter than the security feed had boasted. The security system already recognized T'Bela and authorized her access without need for further guard personnel.
Mrazak snapped his head up when the red light over the door flashed blue. It parted, at which point he rushed toward it in hopes of freedom. Instead he ran smack dab into T'Bela.
"Who the lekk are you?!" Mrazak exclaimed. Between his hangover and his detainment, Mrazak's natural distemper was elevated far above normal. And Mrazak had never been good with Cardassians. One spoonhead looked an awful like another.
T’Bela sighed sadly. “Oh, ashayam,” she said, using the only Vulcan term of endearment she knew. “So drunk you don’t even recognize your favorite wife.”
"Wife?" Mrazak scoffed bitterly. "I have never married, and if I did, it wouldn't be to a Cardassian." He noted the door had not sealed shut, so he made to move past her. "Be about your business, as I shall be about mine."
T’Bela‘a lips created a thin line and she clenched her jaw- a fair approximation of irritation. “You always do this when you’re drunk,” she snapped. “You always forget who I am! Or are you pretending? Trying to be rid of me, no doubt. Well, one of these days, it’s going to work and you’ll find I’m not there anymore. With any luck, I’ll take T’Sen with me.”
"What did you say?" Mrazak stopped in his tracks, turned around slowly, and drilled T'Bela with a hard glare. "Did you say 'T'Sen'?" His nostrils flared with rage. "I should have known." Eyes up, scanning the corridor for cameras, he said, "You can come out now, T'Sen. Your crony gave you away."
The detention officer strode toward the both of them with T'Sen in tow. "Sir, these ladies have signed for your release, so you are free to go under their recognizance. Whatever your issues, I am going to ask that you take them outside of my purview." He effected a phony, nearly obnoxious smile. "I'd just hate to put you back in the drunk tank for being unruly and disorderly."
There was so much wrong in that statement, Mrazak didn't know where to begin. So many words fought for release that his lips began quivering over which ones would be uttered first. For a moment, the bulging vein in his forehead suggested he was going to indeed end up back in detainment, but before his top blew, he closed his eyes, breathed deep, and said, "Fine." When his eyes opened, it was as if he became another person. His boiling rage, the wild look in his eyes, even the menacing countenance were all washed away and replaced by an almost convincing sense of calm. "That will be just fine." Though his tone had cooled, there was a layer of icy hostility lingering beneath the façade of niceties. "Let's go, ladies."
"Oh good, you straightened him out." T'Sen commented as the two exited. "You're all signed out, 'dear'." She said and then turned to head out with her nose up high and an entitled huff.
“I’m not sure he can ever be straightened out,” replied T’Bela, glaring after Mrazak. “But he’s as straight as he’ll ever be.”
Mrazak marched right after T'Sen. "Not so fast," he said, barking at her heels as they left the detention center and entered the staff area opposite from the resort's main lobby and guest services area. "You have some explaining to do."
T'Sen whirled around on her heel, her outfit moving with the swift turn, hair tumbling around her head, her dark makeup somewhat smudged. " Iii have some explaining to do? Who the lek do you think you are? I'm not the one who attacked people without provocation!"
"No provocation? They tried to attack us!" Mrazak was again seething with outrage, so despite his whispered tones, the volume of his voice was steadily rising. "Do I get gratitude? No! I got wrongfully arrested while you stood by and did nothing!"
“Nobody tried to attack us,” T’Bela pointed out. “They just jumped out and asked for Jane Doe. You’re the one who did all the attacking.”
"Lies!" Mrazak barked, his voice growing ever louder. "It was a trap and I saved us all!"
"Even if it was a trap, who for? It clearly wasn't us!" T'Sen gestured at the trio. "And another thing!" She poked at Mrazak's chest with her long-nailed finger, "We would have gotten beaten up and arrested too, ass shaht t' wuh jarel. And then all three of us would be in that cell and there would be nobody to get us out! Pfft! And you're supposed to be the smart, Starfleet one. It's made you dumb!" Her dark eyes burned at him as she glared indignantly.
"Starfleet has made me great!" Mrazak bellowed, his eyes wide in abject offense. "If you had half the clearance I do, you would know that! I have watched entire worlds perish and saved countless others! Compared to sniveling civilian researchers like you, I am a god!"
T’Bela rolled her eyes and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a German exclamation of disgust. “You sound like a Cardassian,” she pointed out.
"I am more Cardassian than you are Vulcan," spewed Mrazak with verbal venom, "so butt out."
While they were arguing, a staff member in a brightly colored vest and little else walked toward them. "Begging your pardons," he said meekly, "but I have to ask you to take your conversation somewhere else. You are disturbing the area."
Mrazak's acidic tone only spurred him onward. "And look at you, palling around with this wannabe Vulcan!" he yelled at T'Sen with no regard or acknowledgement for the staff member's warning. "You've become the shame of our people!"
T’Bela was beginning to regret all of the life choices that had lead her here. “I say we let them arrest him again and don’t bail him out this time,” she suggested to T’Sen.
T'Sen sighed, "T'Bela, I think we should disperse for the night. This is going nowhere and I'm quite frankly over this harvasek." She motioned with her hands around them. "I need some sleep and I need to relax...and to get away from this lok!" With that said she turned to walk away.
"Not so fast!" Mrazak jumped in front of her to better yell in her face with T'Bela at his back. "I am not a harvasek, as I distinctly recall that title belonging to your mother!" With his voice growing even louder, he bellowed onward. "And it's plain to everyone how that tsak'val'tat nut didn't fall far from the tsak'val'tat tree. This is just like you. Tracking me down, interfering in my business and disrupting my people, calling me a lok because you can't get my lok out of your mind, and then running away again like you haven't been a perfect stalker. I've got just one thing to say to that: ponfo miran!"
"Sir..." the resort staffer said even more awkwardly. "... please..."
T’Bela sighed. Without a single word, she rounded Mrazak, took T’Sen’s arm, and began leading her away. She was tied of this battle of words and hoped T’Sen was, too.
T'Sen rolled her eyes and pulled out of T'Bela's arms, and stepped over to Mrazak, directly in his face. "You're right! My mother is a greater harvasek than you will ever be. You fail at that as well as well as basic powers of observation! AND YOU CALL YOURSELF VULCAN! PFFT!"
Her eyes were vide open rather than narrow, her posture and disposition inviting rather than closed off and stand off-ish.
"I AM VULCAN!" Mrazak screamed, his voice going from a deep pitch to a falsetto shriek. "Not that a traitor to our people like you would know it!"
T'Sen scowled back. "I'm no traitor, you duhsu!"
"Zarak-tor!"
"Zhuk-fas!"
"Tsat olozhikaik sasu!"
Mrazak's eyes shot wide open in disbelief. Fool, damaged fool, phony fool... such insults were par for the course. But to be called a secret logical man was below the belt. It... it was too much. The anger, the resentment, the offense, all of the baggage from his longtime rivalry with this infuriating woman cut down deep to the core of their mutual animosity. "You..."
At first it looked as though Mrazak assaulted her for the physical aggression he showed, but with his hands merely clutching T'Sen by the head and neck so as to better press his open mouth against hers, the context became quite clear in short order. The passionate grunting remained emotionally ambiguous, but the sounds of sticky smacking were far less so.
"Ma'am! Do you require assistance?!" The resort staffer took a step back out of instinct, but prepared himself to intervene just as soon as T'Sen gave the word.
T'Sen however did not hear them initially, for blood and lust were boiling in her veins. She, being short and tiny wrapped her legs around Mrazak's waist, not breaking the kiss. Then when they repeated their words, she extended one hand to them in a rude gesture, still not breaking for air from the infuriating lok.
T’Bela- who had kept walking when T’Sen pulled free- glanced back at the sudden silence, concerned that something had gone wrong. But then she rolled her eyes and grinned. “Vulcans,” she said with a shake of her head as she continued on her way. That had been an interesting and fun experiment.
A look of relief passed over the resort staffer. Out of all the possible contexts, this was probably the best one. "All right... so, I'm still going to have to ask you both to take this somewhere else."
With their tongues intertwined, neither Vulcan could respond verbally. But the gyrations from their bumping and grinding suggested that matters were only beginning to escalate in the very public setting.
"Please..." begged the staffer. "Just... just return to your rooms."
Mrazak pulled his mouth free from T'Sen long enough to yell his final retort. "Lek you, I won't do what you tell me!" He repeated the same rude hand gesture T'Sen had made, then threw his head back and shouted, "I AM V'TOSH KA'TUR!"
When T'Sen threw her head back in jubilant agreement, Mrazak seized upon her neck and licked it from collar bone to ear, which he then nibbled from flappy lobule to pointed tip. The dangling earring only presented a minor inconvenience.
"Uh huh." The resort staffer had seen enough. He pulled out his handheld communicator. "Resort Control, I've got a Code Lovebird in the back sector. Requesting a remote retrieval. Uploading room key data now." He pointed the communicator at the slowly but surely merging Vulcan figures to pick up the signal emitted from the keycard he assumed one or both of them possessed, but cringed when he heard far more than he wanted.
"T'Sen, I'm going to spread your skin and wear it in the worst way," Mrazak muttered through gritted teeth in between his oral ministrations on her neck.
"Fuck my life..." the resort staffer said under his breath.
"Room key detected," replied Resort Control. "Transporter locked. Energizing."
Mercifully, the two Vulcans were whisked away by transporter energies to far more private environs. Little did they know, however, that the Lovebird protocol included temporary quarantine measures to avoid immediate... reprisals.
