Just How Bad Is it?
Posted on Tue Mar 29th, 2022 @ 1:25am by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke
Edited on on Tue Mar 29th, 2022 @ 1:40am
2,179 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Episode 12 - Risin' To Risa
Location: Sickbay - Deck 5 - USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD001 0700 hrs
Lunara hated sessions like this. She hated it in college, before she was joined. She hated it even more now that she had the memories of friends from lives past ending up like that. Now she was here, on a call she hoped she'd never have - evaluating a brainwashed kid. She couldn't have been out of her teens. She'd read the reports - Romulan techniques were extremely sophisticated, not too mention stubborn. There was a good chance she'd never recover.
Lunara exhaled and straightened her uniform before walking through the sickbay doors. She whispered to a passing nurse, who pointed her towards a bed in the rear. Nodding her thanks, she quietly made her way over. She put on her most friendly face, mentally preparing herself before taking a deep breath. "...Lyie tr'Hwersuil?"
Lyie had severe nightmares and fitful sleep. The last thing that she remembered was being shot, but for the life of her she could not remember by who. She had snippets of consciousness throughout the night. During one of them she recalled her brother being sent back to his quarters. But were they on a Romulan ship?
She could hear whispers around her and the sounds of technology, machines and the like. As she was coming to she heard someone mention her name and Lyie fluttered her eyes open. When she saw the Trill wearing a Starfleet uniform Lyie's eyes widened for she knew now that she was in the hands of the enemy. "Sub Commander Lyie tr'Hwersuil. Tal Shiar. Serial number 335690/Q"
Lunara stiffened briefly, taken off guard, before relaxing again. She instinctively patted her jacket pocket to ensure her tranquilizer hypospray was still there. "Hey, take it easy." Her voice was gentle. "I'm Lunara Hol. Do you know where you are?" She carefully studied the girl's face, looking out for any errant blinks, glances, even a momentary twitch. Anything that would tell her if there was still something left of the former cadet.
Lyie's eyes casted about as she surveyed the room that she was in. They showed no sign of recognition until they moved past Lunara's comm badge. On the badge Lyie's eyes lingered for a moment and her mouth opened as if she would say something. Then just as quickly as they had stopped her eyes moved again, this time to face forward with a loss of emotion. "Sub Commander Lyie tr'Hwersuil. Tal Shiar. Serial number 335690/Q"
The starfleet badge got a reaction. At least that was something. "Don't worry, I'm not here to interrogate you. I just want to talk." She pointed to the department colors on her uniform. "Look at this. Blue, see? I'm a counselor, not intelligence. If this was an interrogation, I'd be wearing gray. I just want to make sure you're doing all right, that's all."
Lyie turned toward the Counselor and eyed her with suspicion. "I am fine, my training has taught me what your colored uniforms mean. I am also aware that if your Captain wanted information from me he would not be as foolish as to send an Intelligence officer in here. I have answered the only question that I am willing to answer. I am fine..."
"You see, here's the thing..." Lunara leaned in slightly, "I don't believe you." She decided to play along for now. "I don't think it was the Tal'Shiar that taught you about our uniforms. Now, I'm not sure how the Romulans treat their prisoners these days, but Starfleet cares about its people. Which is why..." She popped off her commbadge and held it up, "I wanted to know if this meant anything to you."
Again for what could be said was a fleeting almost imperceptible moment Lyie's eyes lingered on the comm badge. She blinked her eyes and returned to the demeanor that she had since Lunara walked into the room. "It is a communications device that is shaped into the delta wave that is the key to warp drive. If you would like to see what it means to me you could give me access to it..." Lyie spoke with a cocked eyebrow and a Vulcanesque tone to her voice. There was a deviousness in her manner as well.
Smartass, she thought to herself. Wait - this was an officer. One of the good guys who had been rewritten. "Anyone in particular you wanted to talk to on it?" Jogging her memory seemed like the best bet for now.
"Actually two people one to complete my mission, and one to get out of this place. However, I doubt you would help me with either. Besides I have said too much already." A turmoil of sorts had begun in Lyie's head, a battle between the Romulan spy that she was told she was, and the Starfleet officer that she actually was. At least outwardly it appeared that the spy was winning the confrontation.
"I don't think anybody's coming to pick you up, Cadet." She spoke softly - normally she would call her by her first name, but she needed to reinforce she wasn't, in fact, a Romulan agent. "Your 'handler'... Loval, right? I doubt he meant you as anything more than a means to get to your brother." Lunara saw the struggle written all over her face. Now was her chance.
"Ambassador Loval would never do such a thing. He is determined to see the Federation and New Romulus coexist." Lyie looked toward Lunara as she spoke. There was something different about the way she spoke and the way she looked. The Romulan woman appeared to be angered by the insinuation that Loval would do anything wrong. "He was even the first to reach out to Starfleet in the aftermath of Hobus. He would never..." Lyie spoke now as someone who refused to believe the worst in people, refused to believe that someone she looked up to could do wrong. A second after she finished talking Lyie turned to face front again, her eyes staring and her mouth closed.
Damn it, did I just make things worse? Clearly, she wasn't going to get anywhere fast like this. "I..." She leaned forward in her seat, sighing. After a bit of a pause she began to speak again. "All right. Maybe I'm wrong about him. When did you first meet him?"
Lyie was not sure if she wanted to answer, or should answer the Counselor's question. After a moments pause she realized that at least with this question there was no harm in answering. "I met Loval at a diplomatic function on Earth. He spoke with passion and gusto about a Romulus that can emerge from the shadows of its past and join the galactic stage it was very moving."
Lunara nodded. "At a diplomatic event, hm? Did you get to speak with him afterwards?"
Lyie's brow furrowed as she tried to remember the particulars of how she met Loval. She thought the questioning to be trite at best, however, thought there was no reason not to answer. "Yes I did we spoke at length at dinner in San Francisco... Or... was it on his ship..." Her voice trailed off as everything seemed to be fuzzy for a moment. Her real memories had come in conflict with the memories that were planted within her brain.
"Hm? Where was it, then? Don't you remember where you first got to know him? What did you talk about there?" Lunara decided to press the girl on this, though her voice was completely innocent with a hint of concern and confusion.
"It was on Earth, definitely at the Academy. We talked about Starlfleet training versus RDF training." Lyie replied with veiled certainty. She tried to cover up the fact tht she was not sure. More and more of her was not sure what was going on.
"At the Academy? Are you sure? What did you talk about? Nothing confidential, I hope." Lunara seemed to be getting through, so she decided to press on, a bit more gently this time.
The scenes at Starfleet Academy passed through Lyie's head in fits and stirs. She was unsure what was real or what was false, the only thing that she was sure of was who and what she was. "Yes it was at the Academy, and no there was no exchange of anything confidential. How could there be I am Tal Shiar and do not know anything confidential about your fleet. We simply discussed our observations." The mental training that the Romulans had put her through had reasserted itself. The lingering look at Luara's comm badge was the only proof of the real Lyie that lay underneath.
Lunara could tell she was getting about as far as she could in one session, but wanted to see if she could get a bit more done for the day. "I'm glad you brought that up, because I'm really having trouble understanding this." Lunara sighed and glanced aside, keeping on her act of confusion. "You certainly didn't have access to any of our classified information, so then why did the Tal'Shiar decide to activate you now of all times? After all that work to get you in, surely it would make more sense to bring you back once you had some secrets to share. All the things you know, the Tal'Shiar could learn with a few textbooks. So... why? The Romulans I've dealt with are much more clever than that. From where I'm sitting, it seems like they just threw away an entire deep cover operation for no reason."
Lyie cocked her head as she thought about the question. The facts of the matter were that the Counselor was right. Activating her while in the Academy made little to no sense at all. She frowned and looked worried for an instant. The look on her face was similar to a child who wanted to impress a parent with an answer but had none. An instant later an answer dawned on her. "I was not activated, I was retrieved. My brother had blown my cover and it was deemed better for me to return to the Empire than attempt to continue."
It did not take a Betazoid to know that what Lyie had said was not what she had felt. The body language, and the emotional output did not match the words.
"He blew your cover? How?" Lunara kept up her innocently confused charade. She wanted to prod her, without making it seem like an interrogation and causing her to close up. It seemed like her past life as an actress was paying off.
Lyie laughed as she thought for a Counselor this woman was rather unintelligent. "He blew my cover because he recognized me. You see he was supposed to be aboard the Pioneer in deep space. We were never supposed to cross paths and yet here we are."
"Is that what happened? Because I heard you were sent to try and recruit him. I'm a little confused now, which one was it?"
Lyie laughed, it was both maniacal and filled with fear. "My brother, recruit, that is a laugh. He is of no use to anyone let alone the Empire..." Lyie had no idea what was happening internally. That is to say in her head. She was suddenly of two minds and could not figure out which one was the right one. However, she could not allow this Counselor to know that.
"Is that so? I'll have to double check the reports, because I heard something else entirely." She sighed and leaned forward. "Why don't you come clean, Lyie? You can trust me, I'm a counselor after all. Why don't we start back at the Academy? Do you remember what you were studying?"
Lyie's breath slowed and her eyes closed slowly, a moment later they opened and it seemed that the Romulan's entire demeanor had changed. Internally there was a struggle and at the moment perhaps the Starfleet Cadet had won. "At the start of my sophomore year I decided to major in Intergalactic Studies. My mind was to spend some time in the Sciences to learn Anthropology and the such. But my goal was to join the Diplomatic Corps. I wanted to bring my people into the fold, to show that we are a lot more than the sum of our parts. My brother of course hated the idea of a diplomat in the family, but he understood why I wanted to pursue that career. He supported me in his own way."
"Hey... hey, that's good." Lunara's voice was softer now, the response having taken her by surprise. "Can you tell me more? Anything you remember, no matter how small." Her goal was to keep her talking as long as she could, to remember more of her old life.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Junior Grade Lunara Hol
Chief Counselor, USS Pioneer
Cadet Sophomore Grade Lyie tr'Hwersuil
Cadet, Starfleet Academy
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