Twixt Scylla and Charybdis II: Onward to Victory

Posted on Wed Nov 13th, 2019 @ 8:48am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Earth, Scotland, MacGregor Manse guest house
Timeline: 2396

"That is why I called for you to meet with me. Because I want you to know you are not alone, have never been alone, and I have been aware of you since the first day you applied to Starfleet Academy." The statement that she had been aware of Dox for over a dozen years now hung in the air, as the old woman admitted that her interest was neither recent nor uninformed.

The message was penetrating as intended, right up until Dox locked in on the idea that Charybdis had been watching her. Something in that revelation made the young woman tense back up and sit a little straighter in her seat as her eyes narrowed slightly.

Manipulation had been a running theme in her life, it had seemed. People with more knowledge of her own life than she often had kept cropping up, sometimes to her detriment, and the idea bothered her deeply. Her mother surgically and genetically altering her to appear half-human and lying to her about it for years. Her secret family lineage and the family on ch’Rihan hidden from her. Captain Telvan picking her name out of a list of prospective helmsmen because she and Dox’s mother had history. That history being exploited to make Dox a Baroness in the Captain’s Artan fleet to take advantage of Dox’s family history with reunificationists.

Even the kidnapping itself, designed to try and woo the young woman away from Starfleet and over to the Imperium. Her Grandmother trying to sway her with family and the promise of the history she had been denied. Riov Rendal trying to seduce her by appealing to the sense of duty and responsibility. Death herself grooming Dox to one day succeed her. Now this.

It felt like even more manipulation, and the young woman’s face stiffened and the smile evaporated as she thought of it all. But at the same time, the woman seemed warm and sincere. She seemed legitimately interested in Mnhei’sahe and her life. She seemed as though she only wanted to help, and the nervous pilot wanted to believe her. Believe IN her. Perhaps it was that she reminded her of Rita in some ways, and her grandmother in others.

Her gut was telling her to not over-react. Her instincts were saying to push past that knee-jerk fear. After all, Enalia had proven herself as good a friend as she was a Captain. Her Grandmother proved herself to truly care for Mnhei’sahe and wanted the best for her, to the point of finally choosing to let her go to live her own life. Even Death herself had proven to be a loyal friend who had bent the rules of her station to help Mnhei’sahe when she needed it the most. And now she had a new choice to make. To trust this stranger that somehow didn’t feel like a stranger, or shut back down and go on the defensive.

Taking a breath and pushing the fear out of her mind, Dox made her choice. “I think I understand… I do, but… Charybdis...” She hesitated, trying to form her words as her anxiety allowed the accent she had worked hard for years to keep under wraps began to slip out. “You’ve been… watching me? If you’ve been watching me… then you likely know just why that idea makes me… somewhat nervous. I need to know if… watching was all you’ve done.”

Setting herself a bit more upright, chin raised, the old woman offered full eye contact as she spoke. "I swear upon my honor as a Starfleet officer, I have never interfered in your career, for weal or woe. I was made aware, yes. I did not clear nor hinder your application, I have not put any pull behind any postings, and I have in no way manipulated your career, as busybody retired admirals tend to do. I swear it on the lives of my great-grandchildren, on my honor as a Lady of Clan MacGregor, and may Al'thindor take me this night should I speak falsely."

The last was a phrase Dox had recently learned, an old one that seldom had meaning on Romulus any longer. Yet the woman's sincerity shone through, as did her choice of verbiage. 'For weal or woe' was a turn of phrase Mnhei'sahe's grandmother had employed during their time together, and the young pilot smiled slightly at the welcome comparison.

"The only reason you are here now, is because I know how it feels to run that gauntlet you've been through- we're still getting to that part of my story. It happened more than once, you see. But there was no one like me, no one who had experienced what I went through. I was rather alone in that experience, and I remember how singularly put upon by fate I often felt. How utterly alone I felt in the universe, in the choices I had made, in the experiences I had encountered. Which is why I reached out to you- I swear it." The old woman's eyes had teared up a bit at the recollection, and she hastily wiped them away. "I did not want another honorable Rihannsu Starfleet officer to have every loyalty questioned, and imagine that she was alone in the universe. That is the only reason you are here, and you are in no way beholden to stay. I just thought... knowing you are not the first might help. Upon my mnhei'sahe, if you will pardon the phrase."

"I knew what the word meant far before I knew it was my first, given name, and I have no issue with its use. Especially here and now. But thank you." Mnhei'sahe replied sincerely. She was blushing a light green with just a twinge of embarrassment at having clearly caused Charybdis distress with her question. She was, if nothing else, still a perpetually guilt-ridden woman and it showed. "I apologize. I meant no disrespect, nor did I wish to upset you. It's just that… I've had a few too many people interfere in my life. Try to lead me where they wanted me. For... for weal or woe. And it's made me… hesitant to trust. But I'm trying to be better about it and I appreciate what you're telling me."

"And…" Mnhei'sahe continued, looking a bit more emotional herself but the smile had returned and it was clearly sincere. "And I appreciate knowing that I'm not going down a path like this… alone. I do. Thank you." Then her tone shifted back to the curious. "You said you've been through this all too. Was… that what Risa was about?"

"Ahhhh, Risa," the old woman turned once more to reverie, and she smiled. "I had friends... when you looked as I did, were smarter than the rest of the crew and you were sleeping your way to the top, you didn't have many friends. That, I suspect, hasn't changed through the years. But I did, and they were dear to me, so I... appropriated some funds that would otherwise have gone lost, and put them to good use to buy my friends and I a night on the town like no other. Which of course meant we got tangled up with jewel thieves and mobsters and the seamy underside of Risa, back when it had one. We became a sensation for a moment, which drew the attention of the Syndicate."



Listening, Mnhei'sahe leaned in a little closer and took a sip of tea. Dealing with or avoiding the Orion Syndicate was standard operating procedure growing up on a smuggling ship, so she knew exactly how dangerous they were.

"When we got back aboard, Patrick was jealous that I had received some accolade and I did not defer it all to him, as I tended to do in those days. So he got angry and we had a fight, and we broke up. I was... devastated. He was my first love, and I turned to kali-fal, as we are wont to do, and Fiona and Selune hauled me off to a remote cabin to lick my wounds and heal my broken heart. Such a fool I was, for a man who was never worth it," she chuckled, shaking her head at her own foolishness of the past. "When we were attacked by assassins sent by the Syndicate, we had no weapons, no means to defend ourselves. Just our wits and determination, and we managed to make it to the shuttle against all odds. Which might have been the end of the story, as we found the booby trap on the hatch... but not the one in the engines."

"Fiona had been experimenting with installing warp drive capability into a Class-F shuttlecraft- always tinkering, always pushing the boundaries, she was," Charybdis choked up for a moment at the memory, then her sharply-angled brows furrowed as she blinked away tears. "Going to warp in an atmosphere was insanely suicidal, but I... was a risk-taker. Better any chance than none, and we were all going to die. So we said our farewells to one another and rolled the dice with the cosmos." Smiling a wry smile, she added, "It worked, obviously. It just catapulted us forward twenty-one years in time."

"We were brought back to Earth for debriefing and medical care, and it seemed in the intervening years that I skipped over, Starfleet had encountered the Romulans again, and they now knew how to differentiate them from Vulcans. My cover was blown, although my allegiances had long since switched- I was Starfleet. I hadn't reported in once since my assignment to the Bonne Chance, and while Fiona and Selune knew, Starfleet Command had a prickly problem on their hands." Getting up, the old woman bustled over to fetch the teapot, to refill both their mugs before continuing.

"Siivas... that Deltan doctor I mentioned earlier- saved me and my soul in so many ways,” Char sighed as she recollected. “He understood time and space in a manner I have never grasped, and he was waiting for us when we popped back out over a Risan ski chalet twenty-odd years later, and he stood up for me when Starfleet wanted me in irons. Our reappearance was something of an event, you see- the Bonne Chance Trio, as we were called, had become symbols, a rallying cry synonymous with rooting out the Syndicate and driving them back.”

“The image of us all together and mugging for the camera was one of Starfleet diversity- a Caitan, a Human and grinning 'Vulcan' who had beaten the Syndicate at their own game, then were cut down by assassins on Risa of all places." Pointing to an image on the wall, Dox could see the headline and the image- a fiery-haired spitfire that reminded her of an ensign under her own command, a snowy white-furred Caitan with golden eyes who was exotic and beautiful, and a bombshell in a blue science minidress grinning from ear to ear as she offered the Vulcan salute.

The story had become bittersweet, and Mnhei'sahe could hear it in Charybdis's voice. That pain was still in there, inexorably tied to the good memories.

"We were heroes, martyrs who had miraculously returned from death, and the entire Federation was excited about it. So discovering their V'tosh k'atur Vulcan Commander of twenty years before was actually a Romulan spy made things a bit sticky for Starfleet Command, as you may imagine." At that, Charybdis paused to give her audience a moment to digest all of that, as it did explain a bit of how she had come to be in the position she was in, as a Romulan, although it was a bit of a cliffhanger.

Pondering what she was being told, Mnhei'sahe nodded and took a sip of her tea. As she did, there was a pause in the retelling and she thought about it. "I would… assume this was when you had to go through something far worse then what I just did with Command. But at some point, I have to imagine the Tal'Shiar must have renewed their interest in your return?"

"All I had to do was bleed on the wrong space station to catch their attention, after all." The young red-headed pilot commented.

That earned her a snort of derision, and a look from up under those brows- an inquisitive look. The look of a keeper of secrets who comes across a clue and pursues it. In that moment, Dox could see that old hunter of the unknown. "All right, THAT I don't know. What's that twist of your tale? 23.7% of the humanoid population with pointed ears roughly in our size category bleed green of a variety of shades. What made you- ah, your report. Riov Rendal took your sample to study your ancestry and that led to your father and the Senator, of course." At that, the wizened old Rihannsu's face pinched together in embarrassment.

"I'm... sorry. I knew that, I just had to think it through, and... it's much more difficult than it used to be. Siivas was my mentor, my Eeshur in the Deltan ways, philosophies and disciplines. He was my guide to realms far beyond this one, and he schooled me in the telepathic arts, guiding the reintegrations of my shattered id, ego, and superego who were all not really getting along." Looking up, the pointy-eared old officer offered a somewhat sheepish expression. "I'll get to the point, but I'm an old woman, and I don't get much company. So indulge me, hm?"

With a smile, a light chuckle and a nod of acquiescence from Dox, the flashback sequence continued. "Sleeping with Patrick awoke my latent ability, and I was raw talent. Siivas taught me how to hone it, scan for minds, gain awareness of life filling space. His lover Andurean Velth, the emerald-skinned Kolari assassin who was sworn to aid me... That's so racist of them and they don't even see it. They invented names for our races, and they refuse to call us by the names we identify ourselves as a species. 117 years I spent in Starfleet. Don't kid yourself, those shoulderboards came neither quickly nor easily. But in all that time, despite everything I did for them, the one concession that I tried to accomplish I never could."

"They still call us bloody Romulans."

"At any rate, the Kolari, whom the Federation insist on calling the Orions, bore a windserpent. The little life form was an amazingly deadly pet slash partner, and spectacularly telepathic. When they reproduced, they decided how many offspring they would have, and offered them to suitable candidates. I was chosen, and intrigued, I agreed. Mind you, this from a man who offered to tutor me in the ways of the assassin. I politely declined, deciding that I was already quite dangerous enough.”

“Sning the windserpent was born into the world, and he bit me, to test if I could survive the poison. I had fever dreams of things to come, and things that would not be because of me. It awakened my mind, and Siivas saw my body through the fever. When I awoke, I had considerably more telepathic ability, and a sidekick who spoke in my head. Now I was even stronger, frighteningly capable telepathically and it was as if this great ball of destiny was just rolling along behind me. I knew I was destined for something, I just had to figure out what."

Pausing to take a sip of her tea, the chubby old matron in the faded blue dress sighed. "Yes. Point is, Siivas was supposed to teach me how to compartmentalize my memories, because I have total recall. My mind records every form of input and files it away in my limited mortal brain. My well-built and well-organized mind, again, thank you telepathic surgeon, and perhaps the closest thing I ever had to a father..." At the admission, a sour expression came over Charybdis' face as she fought to stifle what was clearly a great sadness for her. Snarling a bit and blinking away tears, she swallowed, took a snotty inhalation and steeled herself to press on with her explanation.

But for Dox, the pieces were falling into place as even more parallels became apparent. Telepathic abilities awakened by external forces and a guide slash father figure to help her control them. Compartmentalized memories. All things that mirrored her own experiences once again. Listening and watching Charybdis's facial cues and body language, the young officer was beginning to see what was happening to the elder Rihannsu. The engineering that had made her smarter and faster and stronger was all still there, in a body aging beyond the capability of managing it. Like trying to run the Hera’s warp drive and sentient computer core on a Constitution-class starship. Sooner or later, the hardware would no longer be able to keep up.

"When he died, that wasn't a lesson he'd taught me yet- how to compartmentalize. Siivas died a hero- he and that whole wonderful crew of Sickbay misfits, from the Sulamid color-changing tumbleweeds of pseudopods and eyestalks to Zhir, the noble Efrosian botanist. Andurean Velth was visiting that day that the Bulikaya particles mutated with whatever that virus Spotty brought back with him from his trip through the dimensions, and they became multiphasic entities. Which meant that they were a contagion that was transmittable through force fields, solid objects- anything." Char paused as her brows contorted and she sucked in some air, reliving the memory clearly emotionally painful for her.

"They... torched the entirety of Deck 6. Flooded it with a sustained plasma burn for a full 42 seconds, which is apparently what they expect the 'liferaft' section of the Constitution-class saucer requires to purge any biological, nuclear or chemical danger."

"They had to, you see. If it had taken the ship, we might have found a cure. But it was mutating wildly- Siivas sent the report before..." The old adventurer's nose twitched, and she raised her chin to continue. "At the time, we were in the rarified position to be drydocked planetside, not in orbit. Parked on Vulcan, no less. They all died saving the planet Vulcan, and almost no one will ever know of their sacrifice." The silver-haired old country woman's hands wrung in her lap as her face contorted with the memory of a great grief of a bygone age. "Because we were a secret, you see. The technologies we dabbled in, the secrets we knew... when I finally set her off, to perform one last task for me... No."

Mopping at her tears with her fingertips, the old woman drew herself stiffly erect, with a military posture reminiscent of Rita, in an odd sort of way. Drawing her chin up, the old woman steeled herself, and for just a moment, Dox could see a starship commander under all that weight and age, and found herself having to keep her own emotions in check. The story was hitting her hard, and her natural compassion was making it difficult to listen to without feeling strongly for the great woman before her.

"We'll get to that part. But I mustn't get ahead of myself without making the salient points. Ah," The bony fingers snapped. "My memory, you see. I remember it all, it's just.... the filing system isn't what it used to be because I ran out of room a very long time ago. I wasn't supposed to live that long, you understand. They expected five, ten years of service out of me, to serve some espionage escapade for them, then I was disposable. While I do have the satisfaction of having outlived them all, my memory comes and goes quite a bit these days, and my ability to craft a straightforward narrative might be diverted in a stream of consciousness that might take us off on all sorts of tangents. So... bear with me."

At this admission, it was small wonder that the old woman's grief was so unbearable to her. For while she might not have perfect access, all of the events were stored perfectly within her mind. So unlike memories of pain that would dull over time, she remembered every tragedy perfectly, every loss and the subsequent grief with perfect crystalline clarity.

It sounded a bit like a layer of hell for the Tal'Shiar experiment gone rogue over a century ago.

Nodding, Dox smiled and decided to take a little initiative at the moment, wanting to let her companion's mind rest a moment. The elder Rihannsu Admiral had given the young pilot an approval earlier to be more casual and now, she felt, was the time to take it. As their stew bowls had been empty for a little while now, Dox stood up quietly and took them over to the sink to rinse them and while she did, she replied casually. She had a very real, warm smile for the woman she was growing quite fond of in the moment and wanted her to feel comfortable.

“Take your time, Char.” Dox said, using the more friendly nickname she was told she could use if she felt comfortable doing so, and wanted now to express that comfort to the elder who had been reaching out to her. Putting the clean dishes in the drip rack, she dried her hands on the dishtowel and came back too quickly for there to be protests at her taking on that task as a guest. “Unless you’re kicking me out, my ship isn’t planning on leaving Jupiter station for a good week still, so I have time and no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon.”

“It’s your story. Tell it at whatever pace you like. I appreciate the details, and I like to think I’m a good enough pilot to keep up with the course changes easily enough.” Dox said as she wandered a bit on her way back to the table, taking a closer look at the uniforms and displays. Particularly, the vintage baby blue Science uniform so much like the uniform Rita wore, from that same wonderful era she had learned so much about.

“My commander… well, my chosen Rinam really…” Mnhei’sahe said, referring to Rita as she was with the Rihannsu word for sister, “...she’s from this same era. We talk about it a lot , and she’s taught me quite a bit about the ships and systems of that era, which is all so amazing to me. And she still wears her command gold minidress. Looks almost like this, really.”

"I've read about her," the old Intelligence officer admitted. "A fascinating case study, she and her husband. Quite the epic escape from a universe that never was, across space and time. We'll be getting back to that in due time..."

Stepping back to the table to sit down, Mnhei’sahe had a warm smile and nodded. “We got stuck on a holodeck that was being controlled by the shard of a Titan once… it’s all in my file, so nothing classified to the Admiralty.” Dox held up her teacup with a nod towards the elder woman listening across from her as she took a sip then continued, “But the recreation of her old ship was taken from her own mind, so it was perfect. I got to fly a Connie and the holodeck replicated my actual uniform into a gold command one of those. When the simulation ended, the uniform remained. I have it framed on the wall in my quarters, next to my first uniform. All things considered, a good memory, really. When I think about it, the good ones… they’re finally starting to outnumber the bad ones.”

Then she looked at the wizened Rihannsu in her still-sharp eyes and smiled a little broader. “Like this. A good one in the making. But I’m sorry for my own little tangent, there. But like you said, this isn’t a debriefing. Just two... ke'rhin talking.” With that, using a Rihan term for fellow Rihanna meant to indicate friendship, Mnhei’sahe deferred back to the Admiral.

"Not at all, Mnhei'sahe, if I may call you that. Sharing means that you feel comfortable doing so, giving of a bit of yourself instead of just listening. That makes it an interactive encounter, which is always far more creative and productive, my friend. Now where was I... ah, yes. Starfleet, 2285..."

"Yes, as you surmised, there was a markedly hostile debriefing, a great number of interrogations of myself and my shipmates, and eventually Starfleet decided that the best way to deal with me was to let me destroy myself. The last of the Constitution refit classes to come off the line was the USS Victory, NCC-1967." Pausing to point to a model starship hanging from the ceiling, sure enough, the lettering on the hull declared her to be a starship registry Dox had never heard of in her studies of ships of the line, although admittedly she had never gone looking beyond what was on record, in spite of her interest in the subject.



"A starship which you've never heard of, correct- more of that secret history we'll keep touching upon," Charybdis admitted. "The Victory was being stripped out by a criminal Starfleet captain named Herod who was cutting corners and pocketing the cost overruns. who planned to sell her off the Syndicate once she was deemed spaceworthy. Instead, I was taken under the wing of one Rear Admiral Tom L. Jones," Char pointed to another image on the wall, of a human with a hangdog expression that made him look like a human hound dog with pockmarked skin and even the photo made him appear to have no sense of humor.

"So, they sent you our to fail. To solve their problem for them." Dox said quietly, not wanting to interrupt the tale.



"Admiral Jones promoted me to captain and saddled me with a crew of misfits and rejects from across the fleet- and those misfits and renegades were the best crew a captain could ask for. Maur Weaver was a genius in the engine room, a pioneer in dual core warp design. Siivas and Andurean returned to assume their posts, Selune took the helm, I had Valin at navigation and Fiona served as my first officer. Once we saw her through the launch and the space trials, I thought we were prepared to launch and assume our mission, but... Fiona was cracking, though I couldn't see it. I was so wrapped up in pushing the Victory out to space, I didn't see what was right in front of me."

A deep breath followed by closed eyes brought to old woman center, then she pressed on. "The McCray's ancestral home is Eilean Donnan, not far from here on Loch Duich. In that old castle there is a memorial, the 'Wall of the Fallen' they call it, where those of the clan who lost their lives in service are memorialized." Looking up and away, she recalled the inscription. "We are the dead," she quoted softly from memory, "Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset's glow. Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flander's Fields.’ Our names were on that wall, and remain there today."

"Our journey through time was not without cost, it seemed. I was designed to be hardy, durable and adaptive, so I simply took to the new circumstances. Selune was always... detached, so she simply remained that way, until the day she became unstuck in time and drifted to a future era. But losing twenty years of her life, seeing the changes wrought, knowing that her mother had taken her starship the USS Baensidhe and waged war on the Syndicate on Risa against orders, and done time in the Luna penal colony over it... all of this and the strain took it's toll.”

“One night Fiona was unwell, so I stayed with her in her quarters. The next morning, she was... gone." The old woman's face contorted with grief as she unsuccessfully attempted to push past it, and for an awkward moment, tears fell freely as her face wore that mask of anguish at the loss, as if it were fresh all over again.

"She... was my... my faithful friend, who cared for me as family," the old fleeter recalled, struggling through the pain. "When she died- not in some great sacrifice or heroic effort like she deserved, but just quietly in her sleep… a part of me died with her. I still... I still miss her, and she's a hundred eleven years gone now. But she... she made me a better person, by being my friend, my shipmate, my first officer… and my sister. I've spent the rest of my life trying to live up to who she thought I was, and who she thought I could be. Just as Siivas did, and the Deltans who dubbed me the 'Firebird' in their writings."

Taking a break, the old country woman pulled out a hankie from her up her sleeve, and mopped at the tears and blew her nose. Taking a sharp intake of breath, she composed herself a bit and explained. "Fiona's death was a catalyst, you see. As much as I loved this planet, her family were now my family, and she had literally introduced me to the man I would marry, whose children I would bear, and whose grandchildren preside over Clan MacGregor to this day. Her death meant that no matter how far I roamed, Earth would always be my home now.”

“Not Vulcan, which cost me so much over my life. Not ch'Rihan, to which I had ever just been a tool. But Earth, with her lush green hills and fields and deep cold lakes and craggy peaks. This would ever be my home, and all because of that little redheaded engineer who didn't care what I was or how I had come to be. Just that I was her friend, and she always believed me to be a hero... so when she was gone, I had no choice but to live up to it."

To Be Continued...