Tyran walked slowly to the docking
pad where the runabout and Commander Bentara were waiting. His ribs and shoulder
were still a little tender and it hurt to have to breath in deeply. He reached
the docking pad and before him was a woman, shorter than Tyran at least. She
had long dark brown hair down to her shoulders and dark brown eyes.
"Commander Bentara?" asked Tyran
"Thats right. And you must be Commander Tyran"
"Some people call me that, but Tyran will do fine"
"In that case, you have permission to call me Karissa," she said with a grin.
"Shall we get underway then?" asked Tyran indicating the airlock. "The crew can't wait for ever you know"
"Of course, let's go."
The two boarded the Runabout and set off in the direction of the stranded crew.
"Commander, sorry.. Tyran. You're involved with Ensign Jin aren't you?" asked Karissa about half way throught the journey.
"I am indeed," he replied,"And I think I know what your going to ask."
"You guess rightly," she said without missing a beat.
"Excuse me?" he replied with surprise.
"Sorry Tyran," she said, with an apologetic smirk, "I guess I should have told you. I'm a telepath. I can read thoughts. As soon as you considered what I might ask you about her, I saw your reply before you spoke."
"I see"
"You didn't mind?" she asked a little hesitantly.
"Not really. Telepaths are empathic for a reason. They read thoughts of hundreds of people a day in an unrestricted environment. With so much mind reading, you tend to not find things as surprising or interesting as you get older. So, in my opinion, they can read my mind as it is their natural ability and right."
She was genuinely surprised. "I've never met anyone who quite understood like that." "Nor have I," smiled Tyran. "Also, I'm not as susceptable to it as a lot of people anyway. I was born with an ability to shield my thoughts better than most non-telepathic beings. It takes a lot of concentration, and gives me a head ache after long periods. But if there's anything I didn't want an empath to know, they wouldn't find out."
"Thats really unusual. Especially for a Bajoran, isn't it?" she asked.
"As far as I know, I am the only Bajoran to ever have this ability. However, Bajoran medical records only date back to the occupation where great deals of data was lost. Besides, in all of the Bajorans history, they haven't encountered many telepaths, if any. So you never know, it may not be quite as uncommon as you think."
"True," she replied with a smile. "For us telepaths, we have the reverse problem . . . trying to control our abilities so we don't pick up every randome thought everyone around us has. It would be too much information for our brains . . ." she explained. "So we learn how to open and close our abilities like a channel being switched on and off . . . though it doesn't always work that way . . ."
He nodded in understanding. After a brief pause he asked, "Anyway, you wanted to know how Dinara would react to you, right?"
"I did," she replied with a nod and a bright smile, but her eyes betrayed a hint of concern.
"Well, it will take her a while to adjust to it. Shes been a "chief" counsellor ever since she left the academy. Unusual yes, but she is very good at her job. Thats going to be the main problem if you ask me. She will be upset that she has been replaced when she is so good at her job. The fact that we're on a Defiant class vessel also means that splitting the job between two counsellors will result in almost nothing to do, where as if we were still aboard the Knight, she may have not taken it so hard."
"So how do you think she will act towards me?" Karissa asked with emphasis on the end of her question.
"She won't ignore you, but she will try and avoid contact with you until she calms down. But you have nothing to fear from her."
"Well thats good!" she replied with a little laugh, "The way Commander Markos and Captain Evans explained things to me, I was expecting a physical confrontation!"
Tyran laughed aloud, but stopped clutching his chest due to the pain. "Physical violence? Dinara? No, you don't have to worry about that. It will just take time for her to adjust to you. You mentioned Captain Evans, have you seen him recently?"
"We spent some time together during the days the Ronin was gone, just before he was recalled to Earth. He seems like a good man, but there's something profoundly sad about him. Its too bad about having his command taken away from him like that though . . . Very rarely have I seen people as . . . defeated as him. I mean, its more than just sadness . . . more like sorrow, and being resigned to the hurts of life . . . I don't know . . . "
"There's a lot there," Tyran replied, somberly, "I don't suppose he mentioned anything to you about Commander Owens did he?"
"No..." she replied, with concerned interest. "What happened there?"
"Well I don't know in any great detail, but it would seem that the two of them once had something very special and were engaged to be married. However, somehow things fell apart and she left. Now he's found her again and things haven't gone too well."
"Hmmmm," she said, mentally going over her time with Ryan. "That would explain a lot of things, but still I sensed more..."
"The Captain hasn't had an easy career," he explained, "Especially not since taking command of the Ronin. Do you know anything about her history?"
"None. I didn't have much time to research the ship I was transfering to."
"Well, She was commisioned on January 12th of this year. Thats 4 months ago exactly. In that time, he has lost many fine officers and seen things that most captains haven't seen in their life time. Do you know how many of the original crew compliment are left onboard when the ship was comissioned?"
Karissa took a sharp intake of breath in with surprise as she read Tyran's mind.
"Yeah, thats right. He's the only one left. Not only that, he was betrayed by his first officer and best friend, Commander Heim, who tried to kill him. He had to watch his other friend, well, I believe he was more like a son to him, die. The Captain seemed to take special care of Lieutenant Benosk. Anyway, he was tortured and killed before his very eyes, and not in a pleasant way either. He was immeidately sent into a combat situation under-experienced, under manned and in no way prepared. I myself was sent aboard the Ronin to get her stable and get her out of danger. The Captain was almost injured and would have died in that situation if Commander Heim and myself hadn't gotten to him."
"You say you were sent aboard?" she asked, absorbing every ounce of information she was getting.
"Yes, I was chief of security onboard the USS Knight at the time."
"Thats a lot of information and explains the Captain's emotional state . . ." she said, "I'm not surprised he's feeling like he does. May I ask how you know so much about his past when you were stationed aboard another ship?"
"I like to know my ship and my commanding officer. As well as the people under my command. It gives me a better understanding of them and I can work better with them. But enough about this, you haven't told me much about yourself, and I'm not a telepath. I can't find out for myself"
She smirked with a gentle laugh. "Well, there isn't much to say," she explained, "I don't know who my real parents were. I was found in a lab that was burning to the ground. Who knows what I was doing there, but as no parents could be found I was placed in the care of Dr. Ryan Bentara and his wife where I lived a pretty normal life. An adorable little brother included! I excelled in school to the point I granduated early. After that, I decided to joined Starfleet. It offered me the opportunities I wanted and it gave me the hope that I may find an answer somewhere out here as to where I came from. How about you?"
"Not a particularly pleasant tale. I was born and brought up near the end of the Cardassian Occuptaion. Night after night, I would sit in my room and cry while the Cardassian soldiers came and raped my mother over and over again."
Karissa visably shuddered.
"My father had been sent to Terak Nor to work in the ore processing center, but we never heard from him again. My mother eventually took me to live with my grandparents and left me there. I never saw her again either. I can only assume that she took her own life. After that I was so intent on killing Cardassians and getting revenge I joined a resistance cell against the wishes of my grandparents. There I met Dinara and we fell in love. However, the occupation ended shortly and I still wanted more revenge. I could see war between the Federation and Cardassia was imanent, so I joined the academy. However, the Dominion war was over before I'd finished the academy. Once again I was taken away from my desire for revenge. I would have joined the maquis if i had known, but the Dominion had already wiped all of them out. So there we go, I have a personal vendetta against every Cardassian I see. Not a side of myself I'm particularly proud of, but it's a part of me none the less."
Understanding him, and yet gently, she said, "Tyran, I understand and can feel what you feel . . . but you shouldn't hate them. All the Cardassians involved in the occupation are all dead by now and if not, the ones that aren't are old and crippled. The present Cardassians have learned their lesson and had nothing to do witt the occupation. Most of them hate what they did to Bajorans as much as you do. And your hate is only hurting one person. Working through it -"
"Karissa, thats a side of me that is never going to disappear. I have learned to live with it and luckily I haven't come into contact with any Cardassians since the occupation. And believe me, the only thing that will protect a Cardassian should they run into me is this uniform!"
"Just make sure you never take it off then" laughed Karissa, her brown eyes sparkled. She was trying to lighten the conversation up a bit. Suddenly, the panel in front of her got her attention. "Tyran, I'm picking up a ship in orbit of the planet. It.. It's the Ronin!"
"Damn! They've beaten us to it. Karissa, if they were duplicated from us, then their long range sensors will be damaged from before the duplication like ours were. Hopefully they won't have them working yet. Take us behind that moon over there. Hopefully it will obscure our warp signature and we can find a way onto the planet then."
The small runabout which would be no match for even a crippled Ronin swiftly headed for the small moon and took up position behind it.
"Tyran, the ship, its moving in our direction. They've raised shields and are charging weapons!"
"How on earth did they know?!"
"Tyran, I'm picking up a class 4 probe in orbit of the moon... could that be anything to do with it?"
"Of course!" said Nige pounding his fist on the controls "Thats what I'd have done.... what he would have done. They knew we'd come and I knew.. he knew that we would no doubt try to hide behind the moon."
"Their almost ontop of us," she said.
"Can you detect the Aldrin anywhere?"
"Yes, it's on the surface, near the original beam down site for the crew."
"Take us down there! We have no chance up here, but on the surface we may just stand a chance."
Karissa frantically tapped in the commands to the computer and the runabout sped off towards the planet. As the cloud cover cleared, they could see below them a rocky terrain, snow topped mountains, and vast alpine forrests on the slopes.
"Looks like its going to be cold out there, Tyran" said Karissa taking in the view with concern.
"I know, but theres nothing else we can do. There are survival suits and emergency rations in the back. We're going to have to go out and find our people as quick as we can."
The shuttle landed and Tyran and Karissa suited up to step outside and mists of vapour formed before their faces as they breathed. They both took a phaser rifle and attached a hand phaser to their coats. Tyran pressed the button to open the door and as the door opened a jet of cold air shot in and filled the runabout. The two shivered and stepped out into the icy cold.
They quickly headed up the slope. Tyran stopped and thought.
"No, we can't go up. That's where Tyran would expect us to go" said Tyran to himself. "We have to go down."
"Wait! Think about that for a second, Tyran. Your double will beam down and think the exact same thing as your thinking too. He'd follow us down. We should go up."
"Your right, lets head up."
The two officers hurried up the slope again and looked down toward the runabout and the Aldrin. Karissa was thankful that there was no snow on the ground where they were climbing to give their position away. After a minute or so, a group of people beamed down by the shuttles. Tyran used the scopes on his rifle to zoom in on the party. Karissa's pupils dialated and allowed her the same vision just as clearly.
"I see Fenris (D)" said Tyran. "Theres McQueen (D)"
"Tyran, you're there too . . ." she replied, a bit troubled.
"Great! Thats all we need. Now if i were there, I'd have sent McQueen (D) into the shuttles to check the computers see if that turned up anything." As Tyran spoke, McQueen (D) climbed aboard the Aldrin. "Now Fenris (D) will stand watch while I survey the area." Fenris (D) took his rifle in both hands now and stood near to Tyran (D). Tyran (D) scanned the slopes up and down trying to work out what to do next. McQueen (D) came out of the Aldrin and said something to Tyran (D). Tyran (D) hesitently looked back up the slope and headed off down the slope with the other two.
"They must have found something aboard the Aldrin to indicate where Stonk and Dinara have gone," Karissa said. She was picking up disturbing thoughts from the men below as they mentally deteriorated.
"Ohh no!" said Tyran. The thought suddenly occured to him that Tyran (D) would be just as eager to find Dinara as he would.
"He's after Dinara!"
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"We need to get to the Aldrin... see what McQueen (D) found."
The two hurried back down toward the shuttle as soon as it was clear. Tyran accessed the Aldrins systems and not surprisingly, the Aldrin's data banks were wiped clean.
"I was hoping he wouldn't have thought of that" said Tyran. "All we can do is follow them to the crew and hope that we can come up with some way to convince Dinara that I'm the real Tyran."
"Tyran, I've just had a thought... what if... what if your the duplicate!" She said, more for effect than meaning it. She knew better.
"Don't worry, I'm not. The Gemini Device is on the Ronin at DS11. Don't start confusing me. I still have a bad head from that electrical shock."
Karissa smirked. With that, the two stealthily headed down the slope after the duplicates.