Worthy Pursuits for Warrior Women

Posted on Fri Aug 23rd, 2019 @ 8:36pm by Petty Officer 3rd Class S'Rina Wil'I'Ams & Petty Officer 3rd Class V'Nus Wil'I'Ams
Edited on on Mon Aug 26th, 2019 @ 9:44pm

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: 2396

Standing in the center of the cramped enlisted quarters she shared with her sister S'Rina, Security Petty Officer V'Nus Wil'I'Ams was trying to clear her mind through her daily Mok'bara exercises.

Slowly, she breathed in as her taunt stomach tightened and she moved her arms slowly and gracefully into the pre-set positions, exhaling slowly but loudly. Normally, this activity helped the tall, lean but still extremely well built Klingon woman achieve a level of calmness. A greater mastery over her aggressive nature. But this morning, her aggressive nature was winning out.

"GAH!" She shouted to the empty room as she stood back up straight and flexed her considerable muscles in frustration. S'Rina had left earlier to go to the gym to exercise, but V'Nus craved solitude this morning. And her sister's insistence on talking and complaining was becoming more grating the longer the Hera had been in port at the Artan Fortress.

They understood that the Captain was a busy woman, and that restructuring an Empire onto itself was a task worth of Kahless, but it was allowing boredom to set in for the Klingon sisters. They were warrior-born, and the longer they had no battles to fight, the more they seemed to be at one others' throats. Poking at each other's nerves like mewling children. Behavior unworthy of Klingon warriors.

But V'Nus was not like many other Klingons. She found that she enjoyed pursuits that brought her what could only be described as... serenity. Internal peace. Activities that curbed her inner fire were... enjoyable to the looming Klingon woman. She enjoyed her morning katas more than she enjoyed her workouts in the gym. She enjoyed standing guard at the doors of the beings described as gods that dwelled on the Hera. She enjoyed the time it gave her to contemplate her place on the ship, and in the cosmos.

Of course, it was time that S'Rina despised with a passion worthy of passionate Klingon warriors and she took every moment she could to complain about it. On this morning, V'Nus felt as if she had heard a single additional complaint, that she would shove her sister into the door said to be occupied by the herald of Sto-Vo-Kor itself and lock her in. Not honorable, but honest.

That room fascinated her. Once a week, the RomuluSngan went in there with meals and an... unusual smile. She could often hear casual laughter and the sounds of casual conversation. Hardly what one would expect from an audience with the master of the dead. And every time, when the RomuluSngan emerged, the food was eaten and, upon inspection, the room was empty.

And while softer in the middle than not, the RomuluSnagan had been steadily losing weight the last few months, so she wasn't eating that food all by herself. The Intelligence Chief had explained that only those who had come to the very gates of death itself and met her there could see her. V'Nus often wondered when, as a Warrior, she might find herself meeting the RomuluSngan's dinner companion so she might at LEAST finally ask what the two did in there so often.

Which brought her mind then to the Intelligence Chief himself. A cybernetically enhanced Human that tended to... irk the usually unflappable Klingon. He had an air to him that she found disingenuous. His aggressive accent changed from day to day, as if it were an affectation he was trying on to irritate others, and his jovial mannerisms felt somehow equally false to the woman who equated Honor with Truth. In reality, these details were irrelevant. It was his profession she disliked. On a ship of secrets, he was their master. And lies and deception were dishonorable pursuits to her. As she tried to resume her morning katas, her mind continued to race uncomfortably.

What she needed was a war. Something to fight. Something to rage and bite and claw against, to sate the fires building in her broad chest. All this time to think was making her soft. Contemplation was, as S'Rina LOVED to remind her, a pursuit best suited to Vulcans. And contemplation that led her to harbor ill thoughts of her shipmates was an act of Dishonor in and of itself. One she would chastise herself for... later.

Perhaps S'Rina was in a mood for sparring. Or the fat little RomuluSngan was there. The Lieutenant fought well, and in spite of her initial distrust of the people, found the red-headed Romulan Lieutenant both honorable and enjoyable to hit. The honor was good, or she would not take so well being hit by her. But she was skilled, and enjoyed the combat as well. She had followed the Lieutenant into battle and would be honored to do so again. Plus, she could curse as well as any Klingon. A plus.

But no, it was her sister that she hoped was there. With S'Rina, there was no rank in the way. No concern for holding back or withholding her more violent tendencies. With her sister, she could be truly Klingon and have no fear. And as she walked through the corridors of the ship, and her frustration mounted, that's what she wanted. To be Klingon. Unfettered and free. Serenity escaped her, and what she craved now was release.

Both women swore an oath to Starfleet. To service and honor in an organization devoted to peace. And it was not always the easiest path. But it was an easier path than the one both sisters trod in the Empire. The Empire, where their house no longer existed and their name held no honor. But those were thoughts for another time, as V'Nus reached the gymnasium and strode confidently in.

"Dor-sho-gha!" She cursed, venting her frustration in her native tongue! S'Rina was nowhere to be seen. Even the RomuluShgan was absent. Only a few random crewmembers and the annoying Pig and her tiny, incessantly chattering human...pet... in the corner cowering, hoping to be unseen. They confused and irritated her, and she had no patience for their rambling. But according to her sister they had fire, if a misguided lack of fear at the wrong moments that almost had S'Rina trying to mate with the pig. As if their family needed even less honor.

"BAH!" V'Nus exclaimed as she slammed a fist against the bulkhead and stormed out. "Very well. If I must go kill imaginary opponents on the Holodeck to relax, so be it."

Storming out with even greater frustration down the corridors, V'Nus' mind was racing. Why could she not find her calm? Why today was she raging against herself? Why could none of the pursuits that brought her peace have any effect today? Perhaps, she thought, she too needed to scratch that itch that the pig brought out in S'Rina, but there were precious few men on this ship. And fewer still she felt could survive such an encounter.

Arriving on the turbolift, she sulked and fumed as the doors opened and she stomped in, shouting "Holodeck!" as a simple destination instruction. But the Hera's computers were... smarter than most she had seen and it never pestered her for specifics like deck numbers. It knew where the blasted holodecks were and took her there. She liked that at least something on the ship simply did what it was supposed to. As she was supposed to be a warrior. And she wanted blood on her hands more than usual this day.

The lift stopped on a different level, however, and an unfamiliar crewmember came on board. It was a slight wisp of a human in blue. A scientist or doctor, no doubt. Far too frail to satisfy any of her needs and looked as if he was ready to shame himself if she so much as cleared her throat. As the door opened, she stormed past the crewmember brusquely. "This blasted ship needs more damned MEN!"

Moments later, she arrived at the holodeck, but noticed that it was in use. But as she looked at the program, she smiled. 'Jem Hadar Combat Program Gamma'. There was only one person that would be using that program, so she stepped in. "S'RINA!" She called out.

The swarm of genetically bred and engineered warriors were swarming the swarthy Klingon warrior woman, who was deep in battle lust, and could not bother to be moved to words. Words were for lovers, and she had no use for such things. A disembowelment was followed by an uppercut that brought the blade of the tik’leth in her right hand up through the lower jaw of the jem’hadarr soldier and out through his eye socket, trapping the weapon even as she slashed with the left, removing the weapon hand of a charging opponent.

Using the still-standing soldier as leverage, she swung her mass about to bring her boots to bear upon the chest of another opponent, using the impact to loosen the blade, then rolling with the impact to come up in a feral crouch, blades at the ready as she took out the tendons of the legs of two more soldiers, dropping them so that she could then slash at their throats as they fell before she turned to move toward her sister, the right blade coming in at an angle to cleave into her collarbone.

For a moment, V'Nus watched with a small smile and pride as she observed her sisters skills. But the moment passed quickly as her eyes narrowed to slits and she stormed into the room, the doors wooshing closed and vanishing into the illusion of the room behind her. "COMPUTER! FREEZE!"

As she yelled, the computer complied and the battle froze like a fly in Amber. "Are you MAD or simple, sister?! You would wave those about the ship openly?! Why not simply wear a BALDRIC WITH THE HOUSE SIGIL ON IT?!?"

“Because no one else knows, sister. Because no one else cares, because this is no longer a house of the Empire. These are just weapons now, pieces of antiquity, forgotten relics of a bygone age. No one knows the stories of the traitors who wielded them any longer, for their names were stricken from the records and spoken no more. We are of no house, the names Starfleet insisted we take those of humans so that they could struggle with their own words. So do not seek to lecture me of what I choose to do with my property, sister. If you object to MY use of MY weapons,” the brawny Klingon bared her sharp teeth and whirled the swords to the ready position. “Come and take them!”

"Oh, but you would have them know, wouldn't you?" V'Nus growled as she held her right arm out, hand open. "Computer, Bat'leth."

A second later, a perfect replica of the ancient Klingon weapon appeared in her hand as she twirled it, feeling it's weight.

"You would shout it from the mountains! We are the honorless kin of House Durass. Hated in the empire and even in the Federation for it's treachery. And all the honor we have worked to gain for ourselves vanishes!" V'Nus walked in a powerful stride towards her shorter but more muscular sister, weapon raised to attack in a swift slashing motion against her sister.

“I would restore honor to our broken house!” her sister countered with a snarl, deflecting the strike by driving it to the side, then spinning to bring her own secondary blade about to swat her already angry sister on the rear. “We have no honor! We are but drones in Starfleet!”

Swinging both blades simultaneously, she brought them down in an overhand strike to force her sister to catch them on the bat’leth. Leaning into it, she pressed V’Nus with her greater strength and weight, snarling as she did so. “We are not officers, we are not warriors! We are guardsmen and the basest of soldiers. We have no opportunity for honor nor glory here. We will live and die in obscurity, with no one to ever know our names, and no one to care that we lived. None will sing songs of our glory, for we shall have none!”

Snarling, V'Nus lacked S'Rina's greater strength,but had speed and a clearer mind. As she shouted back, she spun the handle of her Bat'leth around in a twirl butting her sister first in the stomach and following it up with a harsh kick that separated the two. "And how will you restore our HONOR, Sister? But spitting on our sworn duty like a p'tahk? We both swore oaths when we took our uniforms. Want to be an officer? Do the WORK! You want songs sung in your name? EARN THEM, CHILD!"

Crouching back to a low, defensive position, V'Nus gritter her teeth as she snarled out more. "Always you want honor NOW. Glory NOW! You mock our duty. Mock our triumphs. How can you have honor when you cannot even see it?"

"I DO my DUTY!" S'Rina spat back as she swung about, hurling her hips in to throw her weight into each swing, spinning like a dervish to drive her sister onto the defensive as she did so, their steel ringing against one another. "I OBEY my ORDERS, I SERVE and STAND and STOP and DON'T and WAIT and all the things we do that are not what bring glory to ANYONE!" Growling gutturally, the Klingon warrior was, in this moment, free with her sister at least to vent her frustrations, and she was most certainly going top take advantage of it. Breathing heavily, as thatr sort of all-out assault tended to wind her, she glared at her sister from a now defensive poisture.

"The Federation arm and armor us for war, then they want us to stand around and do nothing! We're going to die of old age on guard duty and end up spending eternity in Gre'thor on gods-damned guard duty!"

"The let us hope that the gates of Gre'thor aren't so close to his seat that Fek'lhr has to listen to you WHINE!" V'Nus smirked back, the ludicrousness of the concept making her break her rage enough to chuckle. "Fek'lhr... Lord of the Dishonored... sitting on his throne... HA HA... with his fingers in his ears. He'll send us to Sto-Vo-Kor just to make us shut up!"

The taller of the two was now straight out laughing. It was a deep, throaty thing that filled the chamber.

The younger, brawnier sister ground her teeth against one another, then let loose with bloodcurdling howl of rage to the heavens- impotent rage. "Kahless' manhood, why must you ALWAYS do that?!? You know I cannot fight you whil;oe you are disarmed by lauighter, so you deliberately dodge my point and it frustrates me and it is dishonorable, I don't care what you saw. Gowron all you want!" To 'Gowron', referring to a chancellor of the Empire from years ago, was to declare anyone you disliked to be without honor. It had grown to be slang of their generation, and a casually hurled accusation of dishonor was 'to Gowron'.

But the rant barely slowed V'Nus's laughter as she allowed the moment to run its course while her sister fumed. Then, as she regained her calm, the taller of the two Klingon women suddenly shifted from her laughter to a calmer demeanor. And a sterner one. "You are right, Sister. No dodging. You may plant your very weapon squarely in my heart in victory."

"I share your frustration. It is the truth, but it is not all of the truth." She looked down at her sister amd nodded. "We guard doors because they must be guarded. And when honorless pirates board the ship, we defend it. And when Valkyrie threaten the crew, we stand and fight them side by side with the Commander. And when next this ship must face another... ludicrous but deadly threat... we will also be there."

"We will have our opportunity to prove our honor and earn our places in Sto-Vo-Kor. But for today, we must be frustrated and bored." V'Nus admitted. "I am as well."

“We never stop anywhere fun for shore leave. The only ones who will spar with us by choice are the Romulans and the Vulcan. Even the giantess shies from us, because she fears her own strength and knows we would goad her to use it. The commander fights like a frightened child if she is not safely ensconced in her armor. There is no one on this ship to have sex with who could survive it. I grow weary of this post, sister. This was supposed to be a combat post, yet we have seen what, three combat missions? And the only real fighting was that brawl with the motherless pirates,” S’Rina grumbled, openly voicing her complaints to her sister as she sat down on the corpse of a fallen nausicaan.

"This is our reality, sister." V'Nus sat across from her on the ground, crossing her legs and nodding. "We knew joining that Starfleet strives to avoid conflict at all costs. There is no ship or posting we would find that would be any different, just more… incompetent. I don't want to die in battle simply because we served an incompetent ship."

Then the calmer of the two looked thoughtful for a moment and asked, not with sarcasm but legitimate sincerity. "What would you do? We cannot claim honor in the empire. That is denied us, likely forever there. We may still earn honor here, but we chose to move quickly to simply be out here. There are ways to earn commission and become officers?"
Laying the swords reverently across her knees, S'Rina leaned on them. "How many officers accompany us on a mission? 1 officer per team. our chance at personal glory is higher as enlisted because they bring us with them into danger. They at least respect our skills, and they know we fear nothing."

A frown settled onto the face of the stout and angry warrior woman, along with a slow nodding of her head. "When we went to the Gamma Quadrant, to meet with the Vorta and the Jem Hadarr... the Commander brought US. She knew if there was going to be a day to die, we would make it cost them many lives. That would have been a glorious death, no, sister?"

Smiling slightly, V'Nus nodded. "It would have, indeed. Instead we gained an honorable and fierce ally. Then we remain here, where we can continue to serve. Our battles may be few, but those we have will add honor to the names we have taken, or give us the opportunity for glorious death."

Then the contemplative Klingon, a contradiction interns, paused for a moment. "The Commander. She is... an unusual woman. Even for a human. Not a fighter and yet still a warrior. And I do not believe she would allow our names to go forgotten. Her ways are not our ways, but they are honorable. And yet, in a way, she will be the greatest obstacle in any desire for an honorable death... for she will not allow it if she can risk herself instead. I would follow that."

"Aye. She respects our skills, but she leads into the fray. The Captain, too- she fought fiercely at that pirate brawl, and it chafed her to be behind us all, you could tell. But she let us do our jobs, because she respects our skills... our... capabilities." Grasping the hilts of the blades to control them once more, S'Rina smoothly slid to a standing position, and unkinked her muscles. "The Romulans on this ship fight with honor. The humans show courage. All races stand equal on this ship- even the Cardassian is not shunned. I heard a Vorta once served aboard... this ship knows no prejudice."

With that said, S'Rina chucked her chin at her sister in an unspoken yet clear challenge of 'stand and fight or I will end your unworthy carcass here and now'. Without a house, she and her sister stood together, nameless in the Empire, so they had fought for everything their entire lives. This was just the game they had played since childhood, with S'Rina always starting it. She had rage and passion, and a thirst for blood and glory that was not uncommon amongst warriors of her race or caste.

"Indeed. This is a worthy ship and a worthy crew." V'Nus said as she stood, pulling her Bat'leth from the ground where she stuck it when she began her fit of laughter.

"And if Kahless wills it, we may even find something that can survive your more... primal urges." The taler sister said with a sarcastic smirk, planting her feet in a battle-ready stance with her weapon raised. "Unless your eye is still trained on the pig woman?"

“ONCE! S’Rina snarled as she swung the smaller, lighter blades in toward her sister, bringing them to bear so that she could press her full strength with her body weight against her sister’s braced strength. “I considered it ONCE and I will hear about it until our final battle!”

Pushing back against the force of her sisters blades, V'Nus laughed with teeth beared. "Oh, make no mistake. I plan to keep reminding you of that when we're feasting and battling forever in Sto-Vo-Kor, Sister." And as she spoke, rubbing in her joke, she shoved back, pushing the two apart to face off again, content in their moment of combat. Together as Klingons.

“I’ll just have to make sure you get there first…”