The Cost of Destiny
by Carol Sandford
~Chapters 1 to 5 ~Chapters 6 to 10 ~Chapters 11 to 15 ~Chapters 16 to 20 ~Chapters 21 to 25 ~Chapters 31 to 35 ~Chapters 36 to 40~ ~Chapters 41 to 45~ ~Chapters 46 to End~
Chapters 26 to 30
Chapter twenty six
The darkness surrounded Will like a comforting blanket. For the first time in hours, he felt relatively safe and he allowed himself a moment or two to drop his head back against the chilled sand, close his eyes and hope that the few minutes respite would be enough to see him through the long hours of the night.
Deanna.
She drifted into his dream like a butterfly on the breeze, fluttering into his mind's eye, letting his heart warm with her presence. Lord knows, he needed her there, more than ever. Imzadiiiii he heard, the sacred word replenishing his soul, brought forth by his own desperate need to hear something more than the stillness of night, heavy with suspended foreboding.
But Will refused to let their hovering predicament sully his precious moment with Deanna. The Sindareen could wait. He needed, Her, just for a moment longer, just to help him through.
He ached, all over. The aches hurt more than the multitude of tiny burns upon his exhausted body. His uniform, tattered and singed, hung in ragged strips around his torso. It was caked in soot, dust and gritty sand that bit at his sores, adding to his misery. But he was okay. He was alive.
But then he opened his eyes and glanced at the battered soul beside him. Tang. The poor old fella had struggled to jump free from the exploding ship, and had suffered dearly for it. Will assumed his age had made him slower, less quicker to react. Or maybe he just got stuck on a piece of the ship's interior. Or maybe he just got unlucky.
Will shuddered when he thought back, his mind letting Deanna go back to her tiny hideaway until another moment in time when he would need her. How did they escape? He wondered, the question still managing to emit a disbelieving shake of his head.
It was a miracle, he surmised. Nothing short of that. The missile that had knocked them out of the sky had hit their rear engine head on, springing open the rear door, creating a vortex that sent the ship into a spin which had thrown the four men from their seats to the floor. Tearing metal groaned in agony as it tore itself away from it's fixtures.
Amongst the screams that filled the small space, Will heard his own. He was sure it was his own. It sounded like his voice. It sounded terrified; Certain that he was about to die. Certain that another higher pitched scream he could here was his Imzadi's. Was she somehow watching his death from afar, feeling his terror? Maybe she knew that they were never to touch one another ever again. That thought alone hurt Will more than the possibility that his life was about to end.
As the ship spiralled towards the ground, alarmingly quick, the men managed to jump clear before impact, rolling away just as the ship blew apart. The gust from the blast forced the men further away from the fire that tried to snatch at them, its fiery fingers reaching out, livid that it had was being denied.
But it still had one man in it's clutches. Lieutenant Tang. He hadn't made it. As the three men scampered away from the ship, Will didn't notice that only two bodies had followed him until he reached a point that he considered safe enough to stop and take stock. When he turned to aide his men, he almost died on the spot when it was clear that his friend was missing.
Unable to see or hear through the dust created from the still battling ships above and the flames and smoke of their own felled shuttle only a few meters away, Will's eyes smarted from the burning fumes and grit. Will had only one option, and that was to call to his comrade and hope that he was still alive.
"TANG!" he roared, immediately succumbing to a coughing fit as the heat burned his throat. He tried once more, but the first effort had singed his vocal chords and he gasped as the searing pain tore at his tender membranes. For the time being, he could do nothing more than wait, and pray.
Eventually, as the canopy of dust and smoke that clouded around them slowly lifted, Will eventually spied the old man. Trapped beneath a lump of the hull, Tang lay still. Deathly still. Will was torn between revealing himself to those above, and risking all to pull his friend free of the burning wreckage, or fleeing away from the scene in the vain hope that their enemy would conclude that they had all perished.
Taking another anguished look at the trapped man and still seeing no sign of life, Will, his heart ripped in two with the loss of a man who had treated him more like a son than his own father had done, wrenched himself away with the other two surviving members of his crew, moving towards another felled ship. It was a Sindareen ship, and they hid beneath its vast, broken wings, out of sight from the battle still raging in the skies above his head.
It felt like hours, but in reality it was probably only minutes - the longest minutes of Will's life, before the fight above him suddenly took a turn for the worse. Will's heart ached as he watched another Federation ship explode in mid air, more than conscious that the crew could never had survived.
But worse still, there was only one Federation ship left, and Will instantly recognized it as Jameson John's ship, the man that had saved their lives a little earlier on. But now he was in dire need of rescue himself as, aware that he was out-numbered and alone, Jameson and his crew had turned about and ran for their lives. But as he ran, he had six Sindareen ships on his ass.
Will was acutely aware that John's was his only hope of either rescue, or at the very least to relay a message back to base to report survivors on foot. But then Will suddenly thought, his heart pounding with panic, What if he hasn't see us. Nobody know's we're here. Nobody but the bloody Sindareen. Oh, shit! he groaned.
Will and his men watched with a mixture of worry and relief as the lone Federation ship disappeared out of sight over the distant horizon, leaving behind a deafening silence, only broken by the crackle of burning fuselage. All three men in unison turned their heads to their own ship, with one thought on their minds; Tang.
They all scurried towards him, the wave of desperate dread etched upon their dirty, scorched faces. "Tang!" Will croaked as he reached his side, his hand instinctively reaching for the pulse in his neck, his eyes searching his charred and blistered face for any sign of life
Will barely suppressed the tears of gratitude as he felt the very feint rhythm beneath his burnt fingertips. But even so, he couldn't contain the gasp of joy, his eyes relaying the good news to the other two men who sat on their haunches on the other side of the felled man.
But seconds later, Bobby Tiller leapt to his feet, encouraged by his leaders findings and made his way to the rear of the shuttle in the hope that he can get inside and salvage anything useful - especially a medikit.
Gently tapping Tang's face as he tried to rouse the unconscious man, Will spoke gently to his friend, "C'mon, Tang, I know you're in there. We need you awake, old man." He looked to his remaining team member who watched Will working on the Lieutenant, worry laced his words, "We've gotta get our asses away from here before those bastards come back." He tapped the craggy face once more, "Tang. Tang!" he croaked.
William Riker and Zakar Trez, the only alien amongst Will's team, heard the distinct sound of an extinguisher, which raised their hopes that the ships interior was accessible, But moments later, those hopes were dashed when Bobby stepped back to their sides, gingerly holding a smouldering medikit case in his hands, the heat from the metallic casing obviously still hot enough to burn.
"Sorry, Sir, doesn't look like this is any good. I can't even prise the catch open, it's melted that much." Slinging it to one side, disgusted that his moment of glory had to go up in a puff of smoke along with the medikit, he added, "Nothing else is salvageable either, Sir. Want me to check out the other ships? Might be able to find something useful."
Will hadn't taken his eyes off Tang's face as he continued to try and rouse the big man. But after Bobby had given his report on his findings, Will first looked at him as he pondered over his question, then swung his gaze over the distant horizon, searching for returning Sindareen ships.
"I don't think we can afford the time, Tiller. Chances are they'll come back to see if there are any survivors. I think we need to move, and move now, especially while the sun is up. I can't see them bothering with us after nightfall - maybe we can come back then and have a nose around. But for now, I think we need to get as far away from here as we can."
And then a heavy, telling silence descended and Will felt the gaze of the two other men fall upon the still unconscious, prone man, his own eyes dropping, realizing what was going through their minds. "I'm not leaving him behind," he vowed.
Both men went crimson, instantly contrite of their thoughts, the silence stretching out uncomfortably as the three men volleyed their objections with their eyes. Will said it again, more forcibly this time. "We are not leaving him behind, even if I have to carry him myself."
Bobby glanced at Zakar and Will wondered what was going through their minds. He couldn't really believe that they would even consider leaving Tang behind, if not to certainly die, then to possibly be captured by the Sindareen, if and when they came back.
Zakar's voice broke his pondering. "It was Lieutenant Tang's orders, Sir." he said, warily.
"What orders?" Will asked, already figuring out what they were going to say.
Tiller took over, "Wounded were to be left behind, Sir, no matter what. They were too much of a burden on retreating survivors. Said they'd hold them back, Sir. We got to leave them...him, behind, Sir." he ended, lamely.
Will, shell-shocked with the revelation, slowly pulled himself to a stand, using his full height to its full advantage as he squared up to the two now cowering men. "And do you agree with this..." he struggled momentarily to find the right word and ended up spitting, "regulation?"
Once again the two men looked to each other for confirmation, and once again it was Zakar who spoke first, "Well...not personally, Sir, but rules are rules, aren't they, Sir?"
Will took a deep breath as he realized that they weren't actually, 'happy' with the ruling, so he figured it was time to change it. "Yes, they are, Trez. But likewise, new rules can be made, can't they, gentlemen?" He looked to them both for confirmation. The two men nodded in agreement, already the relief of Will's suggestion lifting the burden of leaving a wounded man behind.
"Good," Will said, "The new rules are that as long as a wounded man doesn't endanger us any more than the danger that we are already in, then we take him home with us. Understood?"
Two heads bobbed in unison before him. Two distinctly lighter voices spoke up in tandem too, "Understood, Sir. Thank you, Sir."
Will took another deep breath, this time, it was one of relief, "Okay. Now then, let's see if we can find something - anything that we can make into a make-shift litter." His eyes already moving around the battle sight looking for possibilities.
Less than an hour later, the three men plus a very angry Tang, even if he was still half dead but awake enough to cause a ruckus at having his own rule broken by a mere, pain-in-the-ass juvenile, made their way towards the distant hills, and hopefully safety, fully aware that they were utterly and entirely, on their own.
But were they?
Chapter twenty seven
"Three survivors, in those hills," he pointed off to the far horizon, "I want them found."
Moments before, his gaze had searched the surrounding barren desert, inch by inch, the exploration hampered by the swirling rusty clouds of dust rising up from dead ground resembling miniature tornado's. As the slate-grey eyes reached the protruding crags, sweeping over them disinterestedly, barely giving them a glance, until something tickled in the back of his mind and he slowly swung his eyes back. It was the only logical destination. It was the only way to go. It was the only safe place to hide.
On arrival, it had taken the party a while to survey the metal graveyard. The still smouldering, twisted beyond recognition, carcasses of Federation and Sindareen craft lay strewn over a two mile radius. And just as tragically lay the dead and dying souls that had given their lives to fight the cause. The dead were quickly vaporised. There was no time for elaborate funerals. The dying enemy were treated to the same fate, and their own wounded, mercifully transported onto the ship hovering not too far away in orbit.
One by one, the reconnaissance party moved from one torn ship to another, searching for survivors and thoroughly destroying the ships so that the enemy couldn't gain any knowledge of their technology.
That was until they reached one of the last ships that fell to earth like a fatally wounded bird. The men milled around the Federation craft searching for it's occupants and not finding one. But then the leader spotted the abandoned medikit, tossed away, discarded, already half-covered by the red dust that blanketed the planet. As he stepped cautiously inside the shuttle, searching the hidden corners for signs of trouble, he couldn't fail to miss the tell-tale layer of oozing extinguisher foam, now sticky from the heat and time. It could only mean one thing;
Survivors.
Stooping as he stepped free of the confining ship, he straightened his long form up and surveyed the nearby ground looking for evidence of life, and found it. Footsteps. He followed their somewhat scuffed and muddled trail towards a crashed Sindareen ship, ducking once more as he stepped under the enormous wing, studiously attempting to ascertain his quarries movements, and soon deciding that they had remained there for some time whilst they had watched and waited out the fight in the skies above, out of sight, and out of relative danger.
Signalling his men, using his menacing weapon as an extension of his arm before nonchalantly throwing the bulky, cumbersome load onto his shoulder, the tall Sindareen raider began walking in the direction of the distant hills, his steely eyes following the footsteps that led the way. One by one, his comrades tagged on behind him, creating a formidable line. Each one with an agenda in their mind. Each one with hatred in their soul.
~~
The ship descending into the metal graveyard was almost obliterated by the red dust cloud that billowed up from the burnt earth. As they touched down and killed the engines, it plunged them into a ominous hush that fitted the scene of annihilation that surrounded them. A scene that plunged it's captain back in time, and back to a hellish moment in time that would torment and torture him for the rest of his life.
The sight of the smouldering ships shimmered out of focus to be replaced by burning buildings. Screaming, terrified people, either running away or rooted to the spot they stood on, too dazed, too scared to move. Moans oozed from some of the torn bodies strewn around his feet. Others lay noiseless. Lifeless. Some he recognized. Some he didn't, and some, God help him, he couldn't tell, and that was the worst. Who were they?
Who were they?
He snapped back to life as the quiet was when the shuttle's hatch lowered, the whoosh of released air pressure momentarily filling the air, breaking the eerie stillness. Four men stepped out from the ship's belly, their phasers held firm in steady hands as they warily surveyed the immediate area.
But instead of hate in their hearts, these men had apprehension. These men had come to look for their venerable leader and his companions. These men had come to take their own home, regardless of their fate.
Captain Bill Travern's eyes lit up when he spied the open hatch on the doomed Federation craft, and with feet that were as keen as his heart, he bounded over to the ship and stepped inside, his eyes adjusting to the dim interior caused by the trapped dust and the setting sunset that cast a ghostly haze over the cockpit.
He heard the rest of team come up behind him, their eyes too searching for men, that in their hearts they knew they would not find. Travern ignored the dispirited lull that cascaded over them, his eyes too intent, too busy searching for clues; A sign, any sign that the men that fell with this craft didn't perish.
But when he recognised the distinct grubby-white globs of foam that a fire extinguisher expelled when triggered, another image flashed through his mind, forcing his eyes to close against the visions and unable to stop them coming; Skin. Melted skin, burnt clothes, the unforgettable stench of burning flesh. The screams. The moans. The desperate cries for help. He swayed with remembrance as he struggled against the pull of his memories.
But with an effort that created a half-strangled croak erupting from his throat, Travern pulled himself back and allowed the sight before him to overrule the sights and sounds racing through his head, purposely injecting the hope that his voice and heart held with his discovery.
"Survivors!" he said, turning to his fellow comrades, his relief more than evident in his brown eyes, hastily pushing past them to step back outside the ship and begin the search in earnest, determination strengthening his demand, "Find them."
The group exited the ship and searched for signs of movement in the drifting sands that covered the ground, but Travern soon silently howled in frustration as he tried desperately to filter out the partial footstep remains. It had been too long, too long since the battle had happened. Too long since he'd left a shell-shocked race of intensely peaceful people. Too long since he'd searched for, and lost the Sindareen craft that had spirited away innocent public; men, women, even some children from their homes, from their loved ones.
Too long since he'd heard that his revered leader's woman, Deanna Troi, one of the planet's most admired citizens, had lost her life.
He began to tremble, as he began to remember her with horror, Oh, God, too long,
Chapter twenty eight
The hushed, terrified whispers trickled through the still dazed captives aboard the oppressive and dimly lit hold on board the Sindareen ship. For a long time, the only sounds that could be heard besides the thrum of the engines were cries of pain and suffering. Of fear and of prayers being systematically repeated, over and over.
But eventually as time passed, when it seemed that their deaths weren't immediate, or that they weren't about to be brutalized, or raped, an uneasy calm settled over the prisoners, and they began to quietly chatter amongst themselves. Even though each and every one of them could communicate silently to each other by telepathy, somehow, the sound of their spoken words added to their calm, and Deanna was no exception.
She sat in the safe curve of Jeb's arms, mostly to stave of the chills that racked her body, most of it born from terror, and some from the cold that permeated through the ship's hull as it moved further and further away from the moon's orbit and out into the depths of open space. They had no idea of their destiny, and they had no idea what fate had in store for them.
Jeb's hands tenderly stroked Deanna's arms, the motion not only warming her, even though his own hands were chilled, but soothing her inner hurts. She missed her home, her friends. Chandra, her mother. But most of all, she missed Will.
"Tell me about him," he said quietly against her hair. "Tell me about this man that has captured your heart. I've heard your mother's interpretation of the infamous William Riker, but I want to hear yours. Can you tell me, Deanna?" he asked gently, but persuasively, as if knowing talking about him would help her through.
It would also remind him of a love that was long lost. Jeb would have done almost anything to feel what Deanna was feeling for her man right now. Within his own heart, his love was as powerful as hers, but without Lwaxana, without his heart's desire, that love was as hopeless as his life. But his love was too long past. Too late for him. But it wasn't too late for the woman in his embrace.
Jebediah Murser didn't care about his own worries. All he cared about in this moment was that in their most desperate moments, as he had stood and witnessed the most abominable act of his life, a voice had cried out to him. It was a voice he knew very well. A voice that he had remembered from a long time ago, a time when he was young and foolishly in love with a girl that he had no chance of ever claiming for his own. This voice, or more appropriately, the woman it belonged to, had silently pleaded with him to help her beloved daughter.
Being one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet of Betazed, Lwaxana Troi had seen in her mind, the attack on the city centre, and the college where she knew Deanna was. But worse than that, she had heard Deanna's horrific cries, and unable to break through her daughters terror, somehow, someway, Jeb had stepped into her thoughts and told her that he would take care of Deanna, no matter what. No matter how.
And so here he was, doing as he promised, for the woman he had always loved, and always silently would.
"Tell me about him," he repeated quietly, his voice thick with emotional remembrance.
Deanna trembled violently as the pain of loss swept through her soul. "I miss him, Jeb," she murmured, before pulling away far enough away to look up into his eyes, her own dark orbs filling with fresh tears as Will's love saturated her thoughts, "I need him here. I need him in my arms." her voice breaking.
Jeb hugged her close again, giving her that precious moment to gather herself together. He knew Deanna would talk, she needed the release. Needed to be reminded that not everything in the universe was sullied and bad, and sure enough, barely a minute later, he heard her soft rumblings against his chest.
"He loves me, Jeb, and I love him," she said simply. "I tried and tried not to fall in love with him because I knew that if I did, he would break my heart." She paused momentarily as the shock of her own confession, and realization of what her future held, came and forcibly smacked her across the face again.
How many times would this feeling of desolation, and betrayal haunt her. Cause her to cast aside the good for the bad. Unthinkably disregard Imzadi for sanity. Chase away happiness for unimaginable agony. Abuse destiny because of what was happening to them now. And as hard as she tried, Deanna could not avoid the thoughts. They plagued her every moment of the day, except for the few precious times that Will physically absorbed her, heart, body, mind and soul.
Jeb heard the heavy sigh leave her lungs before she said even more quietly, "But I can't let him go. I don't think I'll ever be able to let him go," Her shoulders lifted in a resigned shrug, as though stating the obvious held all the answers to her dilemma. "He's my Imzadi."
She felt Jeb's chin rest on top on her head as he pondered over her words, but when he lifted it again, there was an urgent stiffening of his whole body, along with a cascading wave of uneasy silence that drifted throughout the hold. Deanna lifted questioning eyes to his, but Jeb's were staring ahead and with an air of foreboding, Deanna turned her head in the same direction.
The big Sindareen that had brought her aboard stood in the doorway, and he was looking straight at her, his menacing face that had previously been devoid of colour, was now tinged with red. He appeared to be angry, at her, and she had no idea why.
But Deanna didn't have any time to wonder what had brought the anger on because a second later he stretched his hand out, extended one long finger towards her and slowly turned it over, bending it at the knuckle.
"You," he spat, "come here."
Chapter twenty nine
The man that still held her tight against his chest, tightened his grip even more as he rose his eyes up from his huddled position in the cargo hold to look into the face of the gigantic Sindareen that stood in the oval doorway. In reality, Jeb guessed that the man was maybe six feet five or six, but against their smallness and the fact that he clearly had to stoop to manoeuvre around the ship's insides, he seemed gigantic.
Jeb felt the trembling woman in his arms stiffen when she'd lifted her own eyes and realized that he'd been addressing her. Her unconscious, whimpered, "No, please!" tore from her throat on a sob before she buried her face against his chest, pulling her limbs closer to her body in a valiant effort to somehow make herself disappear.
But her effort was in vain when she heard the thud of his boot as he stepped into the hold, reached down and dragged her to her feet by her hair, emitting a screech of protest and pain at the brutal handling, her hands instinctively reaching up to prise his fingers loose. It was a futile effort. His hands were like hard, ice-cold vices.
Jeb made to stand, to help her, stop them, say something - anything to halt whatever they had planned for his charge, but when that same boot landed upon his ankle, snapping it in one swift purposeful stomp, the sickening noise echoing in the shocked silence, he could do nothing more than slither back to the floor, crying out in agony as he felt the bone snap, his face draining of colour as he swallowed down his churning stomach as the pain surged throughout his body.
Deanna screamed as she witnessed the barbaric treatment of a friend who had become someone to hold on to, someone whose mental strength had saved her own sanity in this desolate and cruel time. "No! No! Leave him alone!" she cried. "I'll come quietly!" Spinning in his arms to face him, her eyes beseeching his, pleading for mercy.
The Sindareen let out a roar of laughter that made her blood run cold. But she didn't have time to reflect on her precarious position as he spun her around and begun to drag her out of the hold. And then suddenly he stopped, addressed one of the guards that stood watch by the door, pointed to Jeb and snapped, "Get rid of him."
Unable to stop herself, Deanna let out another ear-piercing scream, "NO!" she sobbed, making one more try at freeing herself from his grip, her pathetic attempt only producing another heinous bout of laughter from her captor.
She watched in horror as the guard stepped inside and reached down to drag her quivering, terrified friend off the floor, but the boom of anger from the man holding her made her jump out of her skin, "Not him, fool! The piece of scum behind!"
All eyes turned to the poor soul that lay half covered, bent over in a foetal position behind Jeb. The young man was dead. Deanna shivered with horror as she realized that she had sat within inches of a corpse. So wrapped up in her own grief, she hadn't noticed the dying man take his last painful breath and her heart broke as she pictured him dying alone without a hand to hold his as he passed away.
They all watched with morbid fascination as the guard reached down, dragged the man up onto his shoulder as though he weighed nothing at all, and passed them by, taking him out of the hold.
But horror turned to disgust when he dropped the man to the floor, reached down and released the latch on a hatch, pulled it open, letting a whoosh of air pour into the ship, making Deanna gasp with shock at it's frigidness, and then he simply, and without ceremony, or feeling, dropped the man through it, and then just as calmly, closed the hatch and bolted it down once more.
For a long moment, Deanna could only stare at the metallic hatch and imagine the poor soul free-falling through the skies, but she deliberately closed her mind and her eyes to the vision that would ultimately follow his arrival to solid ground, but as hard as she tried, Deanna couldn't stop herself, her face paling with the waking nightmare.
With morbid curiosity, the grinning Sindareen watched her face with interest, until at last, satisfied that his action had received as much revulsion from her as it could have, he laughed and moved on towards the ship's control room, still dragging her along by her hair.
Pushing her free of his hold as they reached the centre of the control room, Deanna momentarily stumbled with the suddenness of her release. Glancing around the room, taking in the three men who's backs faced her as they manned their own panels, she questioningly turned to face the big man, her eyes wide with fear.
Grinning sadistically, he studied her for a brief moment, and then pointed to the control panel behind her. Puzzled, Deanna turned and glanced at the unfamiliar set-up and then back at him, confusion etching her wary, tired, tear-stained face.
He laughed loudly for a moment, and then just as suddenly severed the action, and then with his overly deep voice, punctuated with venom, he snarled, "Beg for your life, Betazoid bitch."
Chapter thirty
"Wha....what? Deanna stammered, not quite sure that she heard him right. Was he telling her to beg for her life to stop him from slaughtering her, or did he mean call home and beg for rescue?
Her question evoked a violent response from him as he swung his mighty arm back and slapped her heavily across the face, sending her spinning on the spot before crumbling to the floor at his feet.
Deanna felt the distinct taste of blood trail down from her nose onto her arid and cracked lips, making the bile rise from her gut at the smell. Blood had never been a favourite sight of Deanna's. It always seemed to signify death and pain, and at that moment, both seemed to sweep through her senses with such magnitude, that for a very brief second, she welcomed the calm serenity of death. Anything. Anything was better than feeling the way that she did right then as her head, her senses swam, threatening to send her off to oblivion in a dead faint.
But she didn't dare. The fear of a similar fate happening to her like the dead man kept her from doing what she most wanted to do; sleep the nightmare away, only waking when she was safe back home with her loved ones. Lifting a trembling hand to her swelling nose and mouth, Deanna dared to look up at the towering man before her, her pain and confusion written all over her face.
Planting both hands upon his hips he bent over and stared her down, his face even more menacing, if that was possible, than before. "I want you to call your planet and get the remainder of the pathetic scum that tried to outwit us, to come and rescue you."
Deanna remained silent for a long time as she took in what he was saying. He wanted Betazed's only protection to come after her and the rest of the captives and lead them to certain death. Who knows where they were heading, or how many other Sindareen ships were out there, waiting. She couldn't do it. Even though she knew in her heart that Will wouldn't be amongst them, she couldn't willingly sacrifice so many men. An ancient Vulcan saying that she remembered from her schooling flitted through her mind. ' The needs of the few outweighed the needs of the many'
There was only maybe a dozen people huddled back in the ship's hold. There had got to be at least a hundred or more service men back on Betazed. And then of course, there was the rest of her planet. Take away their defences, and her people, her friends, her family would be left open to attack. She couldn't do it.
"I can't," she said with a smidgen of bravado in her voice. "I won't do it. I won't let you kill anymore of my people."
Without even turning around he spoke to the guard hovering by the doorway, the same guard that had thrown the poor dead man out of the hatch, "Araak, kill the man that this bitch was with. I'll let you have the option of how you chose to do it."
"NO! NO! DON'T!" Deanna cried, leaping to her feet. She didn't know if he meant it, or if he was bluffing. All she knew was that he was a mean bastard without an ounce of heart and he didn't give a damn whether they lived or died. What he wanted went beyond a few meagre captives held in the grotty bowels of his ship. What he wanted was the Federation army, whatever it took, whatever it cost. And at that moment, Deanna realized that she had the fate of her whole planet laying in her tiny hands.
Dropping her chin to her chest, her grief poured from her soul as she muttered, utterly defeated and wretched, "I'll do it. Just don't harm anybody else, please."
He sneered knowingly at her, completely unashamed of revealing his barbaric tactics to her. He was aware that she wouldn't tolerate him hurting another living soul, whatever the price. Using her companion was simply the quickest way of getting what he wanted. He could have toyed with one of the others, but he was losing time, and patience. He wanted retribution, and he wanted it now.
He wanted to be rid of his unwanted cargo, and he didn't care whether they lived or died. But when he'd overheard the woman before talking about a man - it had to be a man, probably a Federation man at that, he knew he couldn't lose the chance of having another stab at ridding the universe of a formidable force.
Taking on the mighty Federation was a huge undertaking, but he figured he could do it, if he was crafty enough. And using the woman was a small stroke of genius. He's sensed something about her when he'd attacked the college that she attended. Watching her standing there whilst everyone around her went berserk instantly told him that she was different.
Stronger.
And he liked that in a female, even if it wasn't one of his own kind. Even now as she stood before him with tears streaming down her face, he knew it wasn't because she was scared - not woman scared. It was because she was about to betray her people. Her home. He had a hunch that her man was Federation, and that made it all the more sweeter. It meant that he would sacrifice himself for her.
He was going to enjoy watching their reunion when it finally happened.