big deal gabriel lorca (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryptofascist) wrote2023-08-16 01:49 pm
cryptofascist) wrote2023-08-16 01:49 pm
OPEN RP.
INBOX + OPEN POST
General Discovery content warnings: violence, death, grief, war, mass murder, genocide, internment, animal abuse, sexual assault (dubcon, noncon and grooming), brainwashing, torture (physical and psychological), PTSD, survivor's guilt, sci-fi racebending, subjugation, slavery, racism, quasi-cannibalism, xenophobia. And spoilers.
TEXT ACTION PROSE CONTINUATIONS
General Discovery content warnings: violence, death, grief, war, mass murder, genocide, internment, animal abuse, sexual assault (dubcon, noncon and grooming), brainwashing, torture (physical and psychological), PTSD, survivor's guilt, sci-fi racebending, subjugation, slavery, racism, quasi-cannibalism, xenophobia. And spoilers.
TEXT ACTION PROSE CONTINUATIONS
Section 31 AU continuation.
Soji has never been shot.
She's been shot at, quite often in the last few weeks, but until recently she's never even recieved a stern warning from a security officer. Getting shot half a dozen times was a hard shock to her system and did her abused pre-frontal cortex no favors. Soji is out for a long time as her brain tries desperately to right itself. When she finally awakes she has the hangover to end all hangovers.
Her vision floats when she opens her eyes and the back of her head feels like it's been cracked open. Her stomach wants to turn itself inside out, but is painfully empty. When she tries to sit up, to get her bearings, three things happen at once.
First, she's made immediately aware of the myriad of restraints she's got on. She bound at the wrists, ankles, and has her upper arms tied to her torso with an alarmingly tight elastic strap. The restraints are jarring enough that they startle her into reflexive flailing, childish twisting to try and get free. This leads directly into the second thing.
Second, she's in a very small space next to a very high powered forcefield. The cell is clearly single (uncomfortable) occupancy. Her startled twisting puts her elbow in contact with crackling forcefield and a patch of her jumpsuit sleeve is scalded away in that same instant. The field repels her violently, knocks her onto her other side with a welt of a burn for her carelessness.
Her third and final realization is that she's not on a planet anymore--as she's sent sprawling, the floor feels hollow. It's a deck, not a floor. She can feel the hum of inertial dampeners, the pulse of a warpcore. She's restrained in a cell on a space ship. Her horror mounts but the smoke from her burned sleeve trips a silent alarm and the air goes simultaneously heavy and thin as the fire suppression kicks on.
Hyperventilating while halon is being fed into the space around her is a pretty terrible idea, but it spares Soji the rest of her hangover. She passes out fairly quickly.
When she wakes up again, she has no sense of how much time has passed, but she knows she's been moved. This is a much bigger room, but it looks the same as the last one. She's still on that ship, or one with extremely similar design. Someone has propped her upright against the wall and hooked her wrist cuffs to the wall behind her. She can hear the high energy buzz of the forcefield on the far side of the room, but she can't smell the ozone or feel the heat.
Her vision is still floating, but it's gradually settling, getting more stable as she blinks into the dark. Everything is much clearer than it was before. It's clear enough that she can see that she's not the only person in this holding cell.
The lights are dimmed so far they might as well be off, but if she squints she can make out a profile in the near-dark. Her boots make a piercingly sharp squeak as she tries to push herself back against the wall, to stabilize and sit up. The profile dips back into darkness as they look over and Soji feels an acute sense of dread. It can't be, he couldn't have been--why would they take him too?
"Gabriel?"
no subject
It makes for a dull initial commute. Tricorder readings match up with her medical records. Whatever she is, she convincingly passes for human. Invasive techniques are required to determine the source of the differences. At his order, they're holding off on those.
He has her moved from a solitary cell to a block, partitioned by force fields. Each configuration has its uses. Lorca isn't in the mood to prioritize isolation as an interrogation tactic. He laid the groundwork to progress more expediently than that, and besides, she interests him. A wolf in sheep's clothing, by turns as vicious and docile as if she spent every waking moment rehearsing the role. Reminds him of home.
Gabriel's thrown together his own costume while she was out. A gash on his forehead from hitting some furniture or other after he took a stun beam to the shoulder. The wound he opened himself with the help of a doorframe, the phaser burn on his chest was mocked up by an officer, his jacket and shirt singed while removed. This approach to information extraction is not new for Section 31. Besides the biometrics measured through both his and Soji's cuffs, there is an established script of hand gestures and code words to ensure his safety. His colleagues know him well enough by now not to interfere over an elevated heart rate.
"Soji," he sighs when she finally stirs. Relieved to no longer be alone. Tired, scared, momentarily selfish. Gabriel collects himself, raising his head. "Take a moment. You've been out for hours."
no subject
This can't be happening--they'd grabbed her and grabbed him in the process--did they have the message from Dahj? Did they know what Dahj was trying to tell her? Who were they?
"Shit," she says softly, her tone teetering on despair. "I'm so sorry, Gabriel. I'm so sorry--I didn't know they would have rifles--I thought we were safe--I can't believe I dragged you into this."
She sounds like a toddler who just broke something expensive, repeating excuses and apologies like a panicky mantra, like if she says them enough they might be spared. She has no idea who they are, why they took her, or what happened to Dahj. She's been captured by some shadowy cabal and she doesn't even know why.
Wait--no--that she does know--
Soji sits upright again so fast that wall creaks behind her as her cuffs are suddenly pulled taut. Staring into the dark helps, but only insofar as it doesn't distract her. Soji concentrates and tries to remember it all, eyes darting across the middle-ground as she combs her memory--she does know why they want her.
Dahj told her. Dahj apologized for it.
The thing she'd been working on--an isolynium breeder reactor, some voice supplied against the back of her mind--it made fuel for...something? Damn it. Everything was hazy, almost like she'd been caught up in a dream. Dahj destroyed the prototype and the plans. But--there was something else, something desperately important that Soji couldn't quite put a name to.
They have got to get out of here--Soji isn't sure why, but she knows she has to. She has to get to--something. She has to get there now.
But she can't just abandon Gabriel, not after she got him into this mess. He'd sounded so relieved when he said her name.
What happened to him after they shot her?
"Gabriel," she asks quietly, "Are you hurt? I can't remember--it was so bright--did they shoot you too?"
no subject
"Stunned me," he answers. Now that he has company, he straightens his back against the wall. "After..." He swallows, unsure what to tell her, and how. Planetary security doesn't see a sliver of the madness Starfleet regularly encounters. Klingons are the boogeyman to civilians. Vulcans rarely display their strength. Gabriel is doing his level best not to be afraid of her, but would she be afraid of herself? "You threw one of them against a wall."
no subject
Dahj's message had been more than a simple video. It had a truly enormous amount of data and was uploaded directly into her brain. She was still struggling to write it all out of her active memory. The message, Gabriel shaking her awake, the conflict afterward, are all a disjointed mash of packets. In the end, she can neither verify nor invalidate his account. As the process attempting to do so ends, Soji unfreezes and her biometrics pick right back up, reflecting all the panic of before.
"I did what?" Soji asks, alarmed and genuinely incredulous.
She couldn't remember anything solid; his account is more credible than her lack of one. The very last image she has in her mind is of the phaser rifles in her face--had she shoved one and tried to run? He said threw? She is barely 55 kilograms--she's a graduate student--how?
"I threw one of them?" Soji repeats and the program in her mind that tries to resolve her cognitive dissonance kicks in hard. "That can't be right--I--I can't lift anyone, much less throw them."
no subject
The beast responsible for the latter horror, as well as the deaths of the two Discovery crew members, was also salvaged.
Stamets probably appreciates having one more reason to hate him, and Lorca couldn't care less about how the other officer is getting along. But the last survivor is of special importance to him. Once she's had time to make her report and decompress, whatever that might mean to her, he reaches out with a buzz on her communicator. ]
Ensign January. To my ready room.
no subject
She couldn't bear to be around her crewmates right now. They would want to ask questions about what had happened and what she'd seen, and she wasn't up for providing deflecting answers or putting on an amiable facade. Likewise, she couldn't bear to go to her own quarters right now. She couldn't be alone with her thoughts. Every time she closed her eyes--and most of the time she had them open--she saw flashes of it all again.
So here she was, standing in a lift, looking blank every time the doors opened and a puzzled crewmember traveled with her in silence to their own destination. She felt ridiculous, but she also couldn't make a decision.
Strength training, maybe, to fatigue herself until she was too tired to think. No good--her hands were quivering, even now. Target practice, to give herself a task to focus on. No, same problem. Mess hall, she should eat, how many hours had it been since she'd eaten? But no, there wasn't a chance she'd be able to keep anything down.
You're not some fresh-faced trainee anymore, she told herself sternly. You've seen combat. You've survived perilous situations. You shouldn't be puking your guts out, repeatedly, over ... over ...
Her brain froze up, skipping over itself like a corrupted recording, going blank rather than letting her finish that thought. The doors opened. The other crewmember startled, and probably gave her some look which Annie didn't lift her head to see. The doors closed again.
The buzz of her communicator drew her attention. She hoped she wasn't far gone enough that it had buzzed more than once.
Lorca. Captain Lorca, she reminded herself. Any past slip of formalities when they were stranded in a combat scenario was past. Her heart flipped over at the sight of his name. That first instinctual jolt of anxiety at being summoned by her commanding officer, like she was eight years old and being called to the principal's office, was such a mundane emotion that it was pleasant improvement to her emotional state. It was followed by disappointment and dread as it occurred to her that this was no doubt because of her recent
ordealmission, which meant he'd have more questions to ask or need her to rehash it all again. There couldn't be any other reason for the summons. She squashed the tiny flare of infatuation that wanted to think it was because she was special, that she was valuable to him in some way.Regardless, she had a command to follow now. Her hand reached for the lift controls. She stated the necessary floor. Emptying her mind of anything but the instruction she'd been given, she let her feet take her to Lorca's ready room.
no subject
Lorca still chafes at that. Cornwell enjoys great esteem in the Empire, as well, but she doesn't outrank him. Their trust of each other is hardwon and will hold a tenuous undercurrent for him until she either betrays it or dies. A state of affairs they sometimes joke about. Federation relationships are built on more solid foundations. The resulting leeway gives him comfort when he's incensed at the idea of Katrina being his undoing.
January poses no such risk. The Buran was home to over a hundred officers. He assumed when he first met her that the captain would have little cause to regularly engage with someone so low-ranking, and he seemed to be correct. The Lorca he's replacing wasn't a very social man, going by his personal logs and correspondence. He was respected, sufficiently compassionate so that the sacrifice of his entire crew didn't raise suspicion. Many of his peers would never look at him the same way again, but then Lorca was seeing all of them for the first time. It made no difference.
He got the Discovery. An asset as vital as her could only go to someone capable of making the hard decisions.
Would January have accepted the posting he offered her here if not for the bedrock of admiration her captain had prepared for his usurper? Would she look past the changes in him if not for their shared trauma, the day the Buran was lost? Circumstances had to align just right. She isn't just perfect for the position he's put her in. She was made for it.
A featureless ball of fur sitting on the corner of his standing desk coos as she enters. Lorca nods in greeting, both hands braced on the desk's edge. Besides the viewport into space and the screen set into one wall, the dim room is otherwise bare. He doesn't want people getting comfortable in here. ]
Did I interrupt anything?
no subject
[Even that much feels like an excuse, but it's all she has to offer. It's not like she thinks they're wrong, after all, given her newly developed tendency to stand in an elevator for an hour or three at a time. But it's weakness. She ought to be better than this. She feels like she's letting her captain and crew down because she's too fragile to just shake it off. It's not like it's a real injury. People died. She's got some bruises and 'shock'. She should have been better on that ship, so that those people would still be alive, and she should be better now.
It helps, at least, to be here in front of Lorca. Even though she knows he won't give her any kind of special treatment or gentle handling, just being in his presence makes her feel better. It gives her something to focus on, because she always wants to please him. She always wants to be the best possible version of herself in order to earn his approval. And she knows he can rely on him. He was always a good captain, but now ...
He'd kept her alive. He'd protected her, in those awful, desperate times, and that trauma bonding was always going to be there at the back of her mind.
She'd respected him, before all of that. But he'd been distant and ... unexceptional, if she was being honest. Almost bland. A good captain, and ... she had nothing more to say about him. What had happened after had shown her a different side of him. Someone hard and determined to survive. She felt like he'd changed because of what they'd gone through--sometimes she thought that he'd changed before all of that, but it was probably only the distance. She hadn't know him well before. Before, he'd been no one to her. Now ... she was always going to trust him with her life. She was always going to be a tiny bit obsessed with him.
She blinks. Shakes her head. She's not sure how long she spaced out just now. Was that a couple of seconds worth of thoughts or more? Had he said something to her? Fuck this 'shock'. She feels broken, and that weakness enrages her.] I'm sorry, sir. How can I be of help?
multiversal spouses.
this is his world, not only in the broadly figurative sense but in many ways as well the crushingly literal. the mantle of empress would not feel so ornamental, she imagines, to the woman who had intended to wear it at his side; she would not feel trapped beneath it. nyota, in her place—
she thinks of escape. every day, she strategizes and problem-solves and plans, and the goal is always: home. her own universe. the enterprise, and spock, and not existing in the shadow of who must have replaced her there, or spock's sister, or under the weight of lorca's expectations. it feels at times like it's become a game to him, allowing her to maintain this masquerade, though she knows full well the math he must have done on which option serves him better. in a cell or on a leash? which weakens him? everything here is about power. the longer she's trapped in this universe, the less she can avoid that and all that it means.
every day, she thinks: maybe I will be home before this matters. she barely has to stage anything to set the scene— ensures there are places in her private quarters that blood can be found. allows herself to be seen drinking, allows herself to be seen ... not off-balance, but furious, sharp-edged, asserting herself in a new way that could mean insecurity in her position if someone wanted it to. a little out of character, if not for the true empress then for the woman who has reigned in her stead at an aloof remove, as if these fucking people don't even deserve to see her riled to anger.
she baits her trap with her clenched fists and taut jaw and, to sell it, a little proprietary behaviour towards her husband — territorial where she might have made the pretense of viewing her position at his side as inarguable and uncontestable. a hand on his thigh in company. her gaze tracking who he speaks to, who he looks at. it's not even difficult to do, really; the months she and spock had spent apart and at odds had been hard, and she isn't proud of absolutely everything that crossed her mind in that time.
so it's not fast. a week and a half, maybe, in which time she can think: maybe I don't have to do this. maybe I will be gone, before I have to do this.
she isn't. )
That was a mistake,
( she says, terrifyingly calm, at a remove from herself, when the strike finally comes.
she doesn't immediately recognise the woman she wheels on, which is a relief, but there's a glimmer of familiarity that tells her she'll know later,
she doesn't think about rules of engagement or setting anything to stun or how this is going to feel, after. she doesn't even think about the consequences of failure. she waits for the moment that some rival of her imperial highness thinks to carve a name for herself in nyota's skin and take her place, and catches the blade that comes for her in her own hand, kicking out and striking her assailant in the throat, ready for the clash in a way that she had concealed, baiting her trap with the appearance of weakening grip.
adrenaline means she barely feels the slash in her hand, tossing the blade and catching it by its hilt, her blood dripping as the other woman collides, choking, with the wall of her pagoda-like luxury vessel, the attendants around her scattering, calculations being made: does she want their assistance? does she need it? will she remember, if she lives, that they hesitated? )
You're not going to get a second.
( it becomes easier to wear this role every day she lives in it.
she cannot think about that now. )