She dared not glance over at the person that was Savant but knew Hanaj had taken the opportunity to land another blow all the same.
"Now tell me… yyaio." Almost thoughtful, casual, the way he pulled a knife from his belt, cold, glistening steel, the blade sharp enough for a surgeon's tool. "And what an apt name it will be, soon enough. You must know the codes to access your superior's files, for a bad adjutant you would be if you can't even bring her the most mundane paperwork."
"I am quite intimate with Charon's databases," Yyaio replied squarely, bleeding from a broken lip, her opposite eye swollen up magnificently, like a pitted olive. No doubt Savant enjoyed that brief dig at her captors, but the Vulcan face she wore showed nothing but a faint hint of distaste.
Sakarra did not watch the knife slide into her adjutant's flesh, hearing only the sharp intake of breath. It was convincing, too convincing - as if they had dragged in some favoured aide instead of a convincingly lifelike simulacrum. She could feel the waves of pain as another sentient being suffered helplessly beside her, could feel the desperate shaking of will - even though there was none. Savant had studied body language and non-verbal communication, and knew enough to suffer convincingly.
They say that time moves strangely when one is under stress - sometimes it moves in a terrific blur as adrenaline and urgency compress the minutes together into an indistinct force of will and adversity. At other times, times such as these, it slowed - each second of pain stretched thin, with every pinprick of sensation burned into one's brain. The light in the room was all wrong - high-intensity white lights in pockets from above, beyond the field of view but pooling in sharp halos about them. Their tormentors were only half there - the intense light splitting them into glowing fragments connected by man-shaped puddles of black. Beyond, shadows roiled with observers and tricks of the eye, a primordial void from which new evils would arise. The air was cold, clean, moist with humidity, and only just now filling with the untainted scent of burnt copper as her aide's blood slid down the leg of her chair in thick green rivulets.
Sakarra could not help it. She was … incensed. And on the road to furious, accelerating fast.
She did not know whether this being created by Savant – if that it was - truly suffered or merely managed a clever imitation. The scent of her blood and her motions of agony certainly were convincing enough, and hardly did it matter in the end for the intention had been to cause pain.
What she did not realize was that her pure, unfettered anger was showing clearly in her eyes and the way she tensed, testing the solidity of her restraints … until it was too late.
How …
Ah, curse them, curse them to whatever hell they believed in!
"So you are beginning to … feel it, yes?"
With the same casual elegance, an almost conversational smile on his lips, Itsak turned to see those lovely dark eyes lighting with fury. "And to think the Andorians considered the technology obsolete … when it only required some ingenuity."
Obsolete it had never been, only useless. To eat away at a Vulcan's control, to strip layer after layer of emotional restraint … will perhaps make them wish to kill you and tell you so. It will hardly make them reveal their secrets, give you access to the rational thought you yourself have burned away.
Yet torture it was, and effective indeed.
And in her foolishness she had let her only chance of defense slip away, the conscious decision to sink into a trance, to wrap herself into an impenetrable shell and sink to the bottom of an ocean too deep for anyone to reach …
She did not flinch when the cold steel caressed her cheek like a lover, the razor fine edge tracing down to her chin, her throat. But her hands clenched into fists and she glared at the man holding the knife, just so managing not to curl her lips in a snarl.
"Yes, I do believe it's too late for you to slip away quietly. You need better … control for that, don't you?"
The uniform shirt's fabric parted with a sigh, revealing an elegantly rounded shoulder. Down, until her entire arm was exposed and the knife traced the veins pulsing at the Vulcan's wrist.
"Of course I should inform you that any such attempt will only make me very … displeased. You would not wish your loyal adjutant to suffer the consequences, would you? Or that old thaessu who seems so fond of you? Oh, yes, I noticed …"
The blade's point pricked the inside of her arm, and this time Sakarra hissed between her teeth.
"Lunikkh ta'avik! Saday'uh!"
She had noticed of course that the shade of his eyes, the line of his chin were like his cousin's, even the casual elegance of their movements were the same. But never had this similarity been so … disconcerting. It seemed as if she were watching a shadow of Shiarrael t`Rehu, cruel, malevolent, alien and yet so familiar …
"No, I do not think so lady Vulcan." Amused, almost flirtatious, the laugh that answered her curses and the demand to let her go. And then the blade began to cut.
She had suffered worse, much worse. From broken bones after an enthusiastic but ill advised climb in the mountains of Betazed to the day her shuttle had crashed on Charon's deck and left her bleeding from gruesome wounds. But the goal of a knife such as this was not merely to injure, it was to cause pain. He was a master at it.
As lightly as a breeze, the blade traveled down her arm, parting skin and carving flesh as it went. Slowly, so very slowly, leaving the merest trickle of emerald in its wake.
"Fay-wakh treshak-tor! What is it you want!"
A Vulcan even without full control of herself can endure a fair measure of hurt, and not be overly disturbed by it. A Vulcan teetering among the abyss of murderous rage who feels her inhibitions, her reason, a part of her very being slowly stripped away by a soulless machine will feel it as acutely as every indrawn breath, every beat of her heart.
"In due time, lady Vulcan. In due time."
Hot breath, as hot as her own, whispering over her neck. The low, almost playful voice, and lips brushing over the finely tapered ear for a mere instant … before the blade struck again, laying a path of agony across her collarbone.
She would kill him. With her own bare hands, she would kill him and watch as the life drained from his body.
Beside her, Sakarra's artificial adjutant shuddered with agony, breathing hard and heavy through gritted teeth, but through it all her face had been a flat, expressionless mask. Savant/Yyaio had been treated far less sensitively than her true Vulcan companion - where Itsak was almost erotic in his tender administrations, Hanaj pursued his task with sadistic glee. She hissed out her breaths in an attempt to even her breathing and regain some composure,.
The pain was too great, and she needed to give it voice. Sakarra heard at first a sobbing yelp, followed by Hanaj's malevolent cackle of glee.
"The bitch can whine!" he howled, pressing his implement upon a bared nerve. Were it not actual agony, were Savant only acting, it was an impressive performance. "Give me the access codes!" he sneered angrily into the adjutant's ear, assuming that his prey would soon falter.
But Savant was either putting on a great show, or had more willpower than anyone had assumed. She angled her head back and hummed with her agonized breaths, a low even thrumming that accompanied the meditation instruction young Vulcans received. It was low, but at the pitch where it filled the room. No doubt Savant hoped to stabilize Sakarra's spiralling emotions as well as her own, if her own truly existed.
Streams of emerald trickling down her belly, her arms, and now, slowly, her thighs, Sakarra had been about to howl in fury, fight the restraints with all the unexpected strength slumbering in her slight, slender frame.
The familiar, soothing sound was like a breeze of fresh desert air in the foulest dungeon, T'Khut's ruddy, warm light over scorched plains, the heat and shine of a copper brazier burning at night's darkest hour. And it puzzled their captors for long enough to not immediately silence the insolent one – long enough for the other Vulcan to blink, … and laugh. Soft, quiet, like the mountain spring dancing over the rocks, clear and melodious.
Ah, what marvelous irony.
They had no idea what they had done. And even though tr`Sahen's expression could nearly be called thoughtful, the others seemed to hover between surprise and irritation.
What little did it matter.
[To be continued ...]
LtCmdr Sakarra Tyrax
Executive Officer
Savant
Aka Yyaio the insolent Vulcan
USS Charon
Vaek'Riov Itsak tr'Sahen
Fleet Commander
Galae'Krha-Sei
