Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in Nakuto’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Peter Sigmundsson (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Nakuto’s Quarters

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in Nakuto’s Quarters
Snip
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

The room had been destroyed, Kara Nakuto’s belongings torn and shattered and spilled across the space in a million tiny pieces. The tapestries from Qo’nos that once hung proudly in her ready room were scattered across the floor like shredded paper, her books leaving trails of pages in every direction, the furtuture upended and piled high like a ceremonial pyre, its balancing angles in contravention to every known law of physics. Only one item remained unharmed and it glared down at them from the pinnacle of the unnatural furniture pile - the photograph of Kara with her sister, Mirai, the image framed with the pale wood of Aokigahara.

A heavy stillness hung over the entire room, as if the architects of this chaos were not yet satisfied with their work and were merely resting while calculating their next move. Kara hovered at the doorway for an age, brown eyes wide and darting nervously from one corner to the next as if struggling to take it all in. It was, in truth, no less than she had expected. But no easier for such foreknowledge to be faced with visual confirmation of previously intangible fears.

“Wait,” she attempted to halt Sigmundsson with an outstretched hand as she herself took one tentative step into the room. Nothing. It was as if the entire scene was no more than a painting, a fixed and unchangeable tableaux by some demented and desperate artist.

Peter stopped behind her and raised his left hand, turning his body sideways. He was preparing to both launch his blade then himself if neccecary. He wondered what spooked her so much.

No. Behind the mountain of furniture she could detect a faint suggestion of activity. A scratching - as if something was buried deep within and struggling to break free. Another step took her close to the scene, the half-Klingon peering through the gaps between bed and table and chair while being careful to touch nothing.

A shriek. Nakuto stepped back, her knife raised and ready to strike…as a small, grey figure launched into the air then fell quickly back down onto her shoulder.

“Fek’lhr!” Kara cried out, one hand reaching for the wizened grey parrot and allowing it to settle in her palm. “You survived.”

Turning to Peter, she offered an introduction. “We rescued Fek’lhr, along with several other small animals, from the lower decks. A former medical officer had…” she shrugged at her inability to settle on an appropriate description to encapsulate his horrendous crimes, “…gone rogue and decided to make his own laboratory in an abandoned corridor. These animals were his test subjects.”

His discovery had immediately preceeded the appearance of the portal. And while Nakuto remained convinced that the two events possessed no connection, it did mean that she was currently unaware of the doctor’s whereabouts.
“The last I knew, we had him secured in the brig,” she offered.

Fek’lhr clambered up to rest on her shoulder, its one round and glassy eye fixing on Peter.
“Still here,” it croaked from a syrinx almost decimated by months of shrieking. “They are still here.”

Nakuto cast a nervous glance around the otherwise still room, before returning her gaze to the CIO and questioning silently just what in the name of Gre’thor he made of all this.

Kara Nakuto

Peter looked around the room. He’d lowered his left hand and his right had left his jacket. He was no longer holding a knife in either. Japanese designs and Klingon artefacts, Kara truly hadn’t changed much these past years. He moved carefully to the stacked furniture, looking at it with great intensity “What was it that you feared so much, Ca..” He stopped himself and looked back and smiled sofltly “Kara. What haunts you so?”

Peter Sigmundsson

She did not answer immediately. In fact, as Nakuto moved towards the pyramid of furniture and began frantically digging through it, Peter could have been forgiven for wondering if she had even heard him at all.

Objects and clutter were retrieved, examined and then discarded with abandon until finally the half-Klingon drew out two old, worn desk chairs, pushing one towards Sigmundsson before arranging the other for herself. A final exploration of the pile produced a bottle of bloodwine which she wasted no time in uncorking and draining to almost the halfway mark, before handing the remainder to her companion.

Peter took the bottle and looked at it for a moment before shrugging and taking a sip. He sat down without uttering a single word, only watching his former Commander pace the room. He took another sip, it was only polite to keep up.

As the scorch of fiery liquor blazed a trail along her throat, so too did it ignite her senses, the initial fear that had consumed her when stepping into this room being displaced by a defiant courage. If Fek’lhr spoke the truth regarding the entities and their lingering presence, then they could damn well reveal themselves and do battle face to face, instead of skulking in the shadows like the cowards that they were. But until they did, she would not allow her fear to honour them so boldly.

Lowering herself into the chair, Kara found her attention returning to the CIO, brown eyes studying him intently and for the first time seeing, not only the Starfleet officer, but the living, breathing man beneath. There was no denying his physical appeal, the chestnut hair and rugged stubble accentuating his imposing, muscular build. But what truly captured her interest was the darkness, that indelible stain worn only by those who had stared into the abyss. It was a stain she too was marked with. She found herself briefly wondering on his talent for poetry…

But the current situation required such thoughts be banished from her subconscious and Nakuto drove them away with a roar, the question he had spoken still heavy in the air between them, demanding her attention.

“What haunts me?” she echoed, her eyes scouring the room as if the words to formulate a response could be found amongst the ruined artefacts and broken memories. And once more, Kara Nakuto found herself at the edge of the mountain, the arms of her sister, Mirai, wrapped tightly around her to stop her plummeting over the edge.

“Do you know what it is like to exist between two worlds?” she spoke again at last, her voice unnaturally loud against the pervading silence. “To some I am considered neither human nor Klingon, the dilution of my genetics preventing absolute acceptance by either race. My entire life so far has been dedicated to the battle for belonging. To prove that I was good enough, brave enough, strong enough.”

She got to her feet and began to tread a slow cirle around the two chairs. “When I left the Curie, I knew that my actions would require a suitable punishment. I gave no quarrel to the Federation for my incarceration, nor do I give it now. But upon my release I found myself…lost. For the first time in my life I was devoid of purpose, devoid of a role to perform or a place to belong. I wandered aimlessly in the dark until…”

She shook her head, her body sagging under the weight of the confession lingering on her lips, her eyes refusing to meet his as the shame of so many years formed a tableaux upon her features.

”…I believed that it was the only path remaining open to me. To walk off the edge and into the ignominy of a dishonourable death. My courage had deserted me, my ability to fight too transient to muster. One more second is all it would have taken…then an eternity in Gre’thor known as Kara the coward, Kara the weak.”

Returning to her chair she reached out and once more reclaimed the bloodwine from Peter’s hands, the final drops fortifying her with the ability to raise her head once more and cautiously glance at her former Security Chief.

“That, Peter, is what haunts me. To know that I possess the capacity for such weakness. To know that I am capable of fleeing from battle as easily as I might choose to stand and fight. And the question - which event will it be that finally breaks me? What singular moment from this ongoing tragedy will be the herald that announces my passing with a singular, white feather?”

Kara Nakuto

Peter took a moment to contemplate her words. How many times had he turned from a battle, how many times had he fled from his life? It seems he hadn’t realised how very alike they were. For a moment he considered what he knew about her, about her life all written dispassionately by an Intelligence Analyst on Earth. He crossed his legs and smiled kindly “I think you misunderstood that moment” He leaned back in his chair “That wasn’t when you were moments from falling off the edge, that was the moment you found true strength. I’ve been to that edge so many times so believe me when I say I know the strength required to back away from it.” He looked down for a moment “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” He looked back at Kara “Don’t mistake loss of confidence for cowardice.”

Peter Sigmundsson

Bump

She considered his words carefully. Was it truly confidence that had stayed her heel at the last second? Or simply the primal fear of death itself, the desperate need to cling to a life irrespective of how tattered and tarnished that life had become? She wondered what other events had pushed him towards that final precipice, but denied the question a voice. If Peter wished to share then he would find the words to do so without any needling from her.

(OOC: And please feel free to insert more here if Peter wishes to continue this part of the conversation…)

“Perhaps,” she replied with a shrug, the battle to accept such a negation of her own sins too powerful, still, for her to commit to acceptance. But it had been gracious of him to try and she acknowledged that with a smile.

Presently her attention returned to their chaotic surroundings. So still. So quiet. The unnatural calm tugged at Kara’s nerves until every hair on her body was bristling with anticipation. But for what? The deafening poundings and screams that had woken her nightly from fitful sleep? The knocking that had seen her tear the room apart in the ever-fruitless effort to discover its source?

Nakuto found herself recalling her conversation with Akorem. His eluding to the involvement of Section 31 in the Viking’s troubles was a concept still weighing heavily on her mind. She needed to speak to John McHarrie but, considering the outcome of her last entanglement with the McHarrie clan, she did not trust her own perception of his potential answers. But Sigmundsson had trained for this. Intelligence. Information. Surely this was now his continual focus when on duty?

Nestling back into her seat, the half-Klingon smiled once more at the CIO.
“I have another favour to ask of you, Peter,” she began. Once his commanding officer, now it seemed she could not function in her meagre duties without him by her side.
“Commander Akorem has asked me to follow a potential lead on…a matter regarding the current state of the Viking. I need to make a call to an old friend but…I would appreciate an impartial opinion on his responses, albeit one we will have to keep secret from the target himself. Considering your current role onboard this ship, I consider you the ideal man for the job. If you are willing?”

Kara Nakuto

Peter cocked his head slightly and smiled “Of course” He looked around the room “Is this a call we can make now or later?” He asked with the same smile “I’m good either way.”

PEter

Kara glanced around the room at her battered belongings. “I suspect our current location will not be suitable,” she commented with a wry grin. Even if her terminal was still operational, which she very much doubted, she did not want to hand such a visual clue as to the current state of affairs on the Viking to McHarrie so easily.

“I would suggest that we find an abandoned crew quarters somewhere, plug into its terminal. Considering that the shutdown of the lower decks is still in place, that should not be too hard of a task.”

And with that, the half-Klingon cast one final glance at these broken remnants of her former life then, with Fek’lhr planted comfortably on her shoulder, she moved towards the exit, beckoning for Peter to follow.

Kara Nakuto

OOC: I’ll start a new thread for the conversation with McHarrie so that Jim can join us

Peter took on last look around the messed up quarters before following Kara out the door without uttering a single word.

Peter Sigmundsson