Past Prologue, Part 6

Posted on Fri Mar 8, 2019 @ 10:02am by Commander Caleb Ryan

2,154 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Things Past
Location: Mira’wi/Rowa/Between Vulcan and Andorian space
Timeline: FLASHBACK: 2375/Toward the end of the Dominion War

Artemis was still shaking his head when they rejoined the waiting Vacan. “So who is the father?” Anzio asked delicately. “I mean, I didn’t realize you were involved with someone when we… I assumed you were single…”

Kees looked up at him with confusion. “Father? Oh, how in Rybok should I know who his fathers are!” she laughed.

Artemis stumbled. “Fathers? Plural?”

“Of course,” Kees said. She stopped and put a hand on his chest. “Artemis, Rowa’ni do not pair off like you Humans,” she told him. “There is no…single or dating or married. We are with whoever we wish to be with.”

“That…is quite different,” Artemis said wryly.

Vacan chuckled. “You are quite different, Artemis,” she pointed out. “Come. Daniel is waiting.”

The Matriarch led them to a clearing in a quiet corner of the cargo bay turned wooded park. There was another small pool here and a circle of mounded grass with a small carved wooden table. On one side of the table sat an older Human male who looked about sixty. He wore simple loose silk pants and a matching vest in blue, his chest bared. He was slim and wiry and looked to be in good shape for his age and a full head of red hair starting to gray. Draped over him were two naked female Rowa’ni that Artemis swore couldn’t be more than Anzio’s age! They caressed and kissed him and fed him pieces of fruit from the table in front of them.

“Vacan! I’m sorry. I started without you,” the man said. “Need to keep my strength up!” He grinned and slapped the pert bottom of one of the girls, who giggled and brought a wooden goblet to his lips, which he drank from greedily, some kind of whitish liquid.

“And Keesmaat! So lovely to see you again!” Daniel Larison struggled to his feet and tottered over to them. He was clearly quite inebriated. He pulled Kees to him and kissed her deeply, his hands roaming her body.

Artemis scowled, feeling a surge of jealousy rise up, and he put a hand on Larison’s arm, gripping him firmly to pull him away. He was a bit surprised to feel the tense, wiry muscles beneath the man’s skin.

Kees shot Artemis a glare. “You do not need to defend me, Artemis!” she snapped at him. “Especially not from Uncle Danny!”

“No uncle kisses their niece like that,” Artemis shot back, staring challengingly at Larison.

“Ugh! You Humans!” Kees said, flipping her hair and stalking away from her captain.

Daniel Larison just let out a guffaw of laughter. “Oh, jealous, are we, Captain?” he asked. “You don’t know Rowa’ni very well, do you? That is the quickest way to lose her!”

Artemis frowned, trying to understand why he had suddenly been so possessive of his young flight chief. And what did Larison mean? Artemis was well aware that Kees had other lovers on the Winchester. He had just never seen her with them. Her flirtatious affections seemed just that, harmless flirting. It was just Kees being Kees, being Rowa’ni. He knew she could get up quite the party on the infrequent shore leaves they managed to get, had bailed her out of more than a few scrapes because of it. But here, being confronted with her open sexuality, her very different mores, he found himself extremely unsettled, his stomach tied tightly, his heart beating faster, body tense with anger.

Oh, God! I can’t be in love with Kees! Artemis thought with sudden realization. He stared at the pretty green alien, at the way her moss-soft green hair fell behind her delicately pointed ear, her slender neck, the way she filled out her uniform. Even fully clothed she seemed the most beautiful thing in the galaxy to him, and she was sitting next to her equally stunning mother.

Artemis felt Kees studiously ignoring him as she chatted and caught up with Daniel Larison and her mother. He pulled back into himself. Another nubile young Rowa’ni girl arrived with another tray of food: fresh sliced fruit, nuts, mushrooms, edible flowers, some simple strips of cured meat like thinly sliced salami with a peppery flavor, and plenty of the white-colored wine.

Artemis barely touched the food, or acknowledged the Rowa’ni girl that sat next to him, draping herself over him and offering to feed him, his personal body servant. He just shook his head and gently removed her wandering hands, ignoring the distress he seemed to be causing her when she couldn’t seem to please him. He caught Vacan giving the girl a simple look and the girl got up and left him to his bitter musings.

Keesmaat half listened to another tale of Daniel’s she had heard many times growing up. Her green eyes strayed to Artemis where he sat at the other end of the long side of the table, near her mother. Her eyes took in his strong jaw, his intense, brooding blue eyes beneath his dark black hair, thick and lustrous that she so loved to push her fingers through when they shared the goddess. He had been her reluctant lover, shutting down her flirtations, deftly parrying her advances. It only made the young Rowa’ni only more determined. She had never met a male of any species immune to her charms.

Admittedly, her experience was limited. The Mira’ni were not like the Nepyxa’ni, with their hosts of naladis being entertained among their fleet of restored star liners. The Mira’ni hosted those that came to trade and barter with them, offered haven to the occasional refugee from some local law enforcement body, but Daniel Larison was the only real outsider to live among them. Ending Rowa’ni isolation from the galaxy had been part of the plan when she was sent to join Starfleet as an experiment in Rowa’ni acceptance among the larger Federation societies.

Kees stared at Artemis as he stared down into his goblet, swirling the sweet oqawa wine. She realized then that she loved him, but he could never accept her, not who she was. Her chest clenched and she covered a sob with a large swallow from her own goblet.

Kees? came her mother’s concerned voice.

It’s nothing, Mother.

You cannot lie to me, Vacan patiently reminded, but she gently withdrew the contact.

Daniel tossed back his wine and slammed the goblet down on the table with a belch. “Well, Captain!” he said. “Shall we leave the females to gossip and talk business?” he said, looking between Artemis and Keesmaat and giving Vacan a knowing look.

“Yes, please,” Artemis said, straightening up, gladly willing to push aside his morose self-musings and focus on something else.

“Walk with me, then,” Daniel said, and his Rowa’ni girls helped him up from the table. He shook his head clear and strode over to Pierce, leading him off into the trees.

For a long time Daniel said nothing and Artemis found his thoughts returning to Keesmaat. He pushed them aside and started to speak when Daniel said, “Yes, I fucked the girl. Many times. Over and over. She’s very good.”

Artemis pulled up short, his fists clenching, his face reddening. His blue eyes shot icy daggers at the old man.

“Hell, I’ve fucked Vacan enough I’m probably one of Keemaat’s fathers!” Larison said with a loud guffaw.

Artemis lost it and grabbed the old man’s throat, shoving him hard against one of the trees. His fist was back and ready to push Larison’s teeth back into his throat when Pierce caught himself. Trembling, he gave Daniel another shove and stepped back. “Don’t talk about Kees like that,” he warned. “I didn’t need to hear that.”

Larison coughed. “Heh,” he laughed, hacking. “Yes, you did, son,” he said, looking up at him with serious blue eyes. “You need to know little Kees is not Human, she’s Rowa’ni. They’re a people that need their freedom, Pierce,” he said. “Like a songbird, if you try and lock her down, she won’t sing.”

Artemis looked away through the trees, back toward the clearing, which couldn’t be seen any longer. “I think I might love her,” he said. Why was he confessing this to a lecherous old traitor?

“No think about it,” Daniel snorted, starting off again. “You do. It’s natural. Unfortunately, you’re Human.”

Pierce frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not wired the way she is. Call it evolution. Call it metaphysics. But for us, sex and love…it’s all a big, tangled mess. Not them. They’re flowers, Pierce!” he emphasized. “The males spread their pollen everywhere and the females take it all in..”

“Maybe…maybe she could learn?”

“Learn to be what she isn’t?” Daniel eyed him. “And you say you love her!” he scoffed.

“Then maybe I could learn?”

Daniel shook his head. “Then it’s not really love you feel, is it?” he prodded.

Artemis sighed. “So what are you saying? It’s hopeless?”

“Nah,” Daniel snorted. “Just fucking messy. Love conquers all, right?” he asked, peering at Artemis. “But then you’re not that fucking naïve, are you?” He smiled.

Artemis sighed and looked off again.

“Well, let’s go,” Daniel said, already several paces off. “You didn’t come to see me to fix your fuckin’ love life. Not that I could. Never met a starship captain that had much of one.” He laughed.

Pierce pushed his feelings aside again. “I need information about the Omicron Nebula.”

“Borderlands, eh?” Daniel confirmed.

“Yes. And what the Orion Syndicate might be doing in there. Specifically on a rogue planet that is supposed to exist inside, and how to get there.”

“Well, I don’t know that,” Larison admitted. “Heard tales of it, though. That’s pretty lawless country. Omicron is Deneia Tejera’s territory.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“Mean little bitch.” Daniel laughed. “You don’t want to know what she did to the warlord she took the territory from.”

Artemis frowned. “How powerful?”

“Powerful enough,” Daniel shrugged. “Slaves and weapons, mostly, plus whatever runs through her territory. But she’s fair. You don’t cross her, she won’t cross you, unless you show weakness. Then she’s all predator.”

“Why is she working with Section 31?”

Larison’s eyes slid to Pierce. “Money,” he said. “And proximity to the Klingon border. She can get operatives through the nebula undetected into the Empire. For the right price, of course.”

“So I could buy a map to the research facility?”

“Possibly. Depends on how invested she is in it. My guess is she’s just taking rent and tariffs and letting them be. Possibly might have a stake in whatever they’re cooking up in there.”

“Cooking up?” Artemis asked. “Do you know what it is they’re working on?”

“Word in the galaxy is something biological, if the black market shipping is to be believed.”

“So it is another mutagenic virus,” Pierce muttered.

Larison shrugged. “Maybe. Or some other bio-weapon. Can’t tell you for sure. Guess you’ll have to find out when you get there.”

They had made the circuit of the garden and come back to the clearing where Vacan and Keesmaat sat beside the pool in silent telepathic communication. Daniel’s girls were gone and the food had been cleared from the table. Kees had removed her uniform jacket and shoes and socks, letting her bare green arms soak in the artificial sunlight and her feet in the pool. Artemis stopped to just admire the way the light shone green-gold through her long tresses.

Kees looked up and saw them. She pulled her feet out of the pool and reached for her socks and shoes.

“Remember what I said,” Daniel told Artemis before he headed over to join them.

Artemis frowned, trying to sort out his conflicting feelings. Finally he gave up for now and followed the old man. Kees was just pulling her jacket on and starting with the fasteners.

“Are we ready to go, Captain?” she said.

Artemis winced, the sudden formality like a slap, and it almost felt like the air chilled between them.

“Yes, I have what I need, Ensign,” he said stiffly. He turned and strode for the exit.

Kees looked to her mother, the pain and confusion evident in her eyes, before she hurried off after Pierce.

FIN

Captain Artemis Pierce
Commanding Officer
USS Winchester

Ensign Keesmaat Mira’ni
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Winchester

Vacan Mira’ni
Matriarch
House Mira’ni

Lieutenant Daniel Larison
Former Starfleet Intelligence officer

 

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