Coming Clean

Posted on Thu Jun 21st, 2018 @ 2:05am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor
Edited on on Thu Jun 21st, 2018 @ 2:11am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Future Tense
Location: Starfleet Command, Interrogation Room #17
Timeline: 2285
Tags: Jones

"So how are you this fine Starfleet morning, Commander?"

The debriefer who had yet to identify himself had entered the room smiling, which for some reason put Char on edge. Greeting her with jocularity put her on edge that much more, and by the time he had finished sitting down opposite her, his hands folded and a closed-mouth smile fixed to his face which did not reach his eyes, she was genuinely unnerved. She resisted putting up her Vulcan stereotype and smiled back at him cheerfully.

"I am fine. How are you?"

"I'm good, I'm good, cept for a few little details. See, it really can kinda ruin my day when people lie to me, and you've been hiding kind of a whopper. And it compromises a lot of what I've devoted my life to serving and protecting, and that kinda gets me, y'know?" He tapped his left breast with his closed fist. "Right here."

Internally Charybdis could feel her pulse racing, and even as she fought to bring her panicked reflexes under control, externally she cocked her head slightly to one side and waited, folding her hands on the table in front of her, mirroring his pose. They stared at one another for a full minute across the table before he broke the staring contest with a dismissive wave.

"You're not gonna admit it. You been lyin all this time, you ain't gonna come clean now. Just let your friends all burn for ya, you don't care."

"Try asking me a question," the comely commander stated quietly.

The debriefer turned his head. "You've never asked my name. None of you have. Hasn't it struck you as odd that I've no official insignia, no rank, title, not even a name? We could be anywhere, I could be anyone, and you have no idea."

"I've not exactly given away any state secrets," she replied, "nor have my crew. This is an intelligence game, nothing new. You would be working a lot harder to convince us that you were legitimate Starfleet if you were not. The fact that you aren't trying at all says practically everything."

The debriefer chuckled. "Interesting line of logic there, Commander. Or is it Subcommander?"

"Commander," she replied calmly.

The interrogator got up from his chair quickly and began to pace behind it. "Really? Because a funny thing has happened in recent years. We came back into contact with the Romulans. You remember them, right? Pointy ears, ships that cloak, little different hairstyle than the Vulcans, tend to be a bit on the sneaky side. Turns out if you don't look too closely they look kinda like Vulcans. But there are very subtle differences. And we learned what they were, and how to tell a Romulan apart from a Vulcan."

"Charybdis. Only survivor of the Shek-Hinah. Orphaned at age fifteen. Over two years in a Vulcan care facility recuperating. Judged to be sane, while the caretaker was driven insane. Left Vulcan never to return. Joined Starfleet, nothing but trouble at the Academy- outstanding grades, personal conflicts galore and not a friend to be found. Spent every available moment scouting the planet. Graduated the Academy with more demerits than any candidate in history- your record still stands, by the way. Assigned to a dead-end post for four years, no complaints save one demotion and a number of terrible evaluations from the human XO, but a promotion and a posting to a top of line vessel as a parting gift from your CO. Another personal conflict leading to reprimand, this time from a Vulcan CSO. Saved the ship and a good chunk of the crew, though not all. Meteoric rise through the ranks in short order by sleeping with the captain. Lost in a shuttlecraft implosion on Risa. End of story."

"Except that ain't the whole story, is it?"

Stopping suddenly he whirled on her, slamming his palms down and leaning across the table with a sneer. "We ferreted out the last of the subversive directorate's plants years ago. Why are the Tal Shiar trying this old lame duck again? And why such an unbelievable scenario? Are the other two clones or mindwipes that have been genetically rebuilt? What did you do with the originals? Are they still alive? Are you aiming for a POW exchange? Why try this plan now? What part do the Deltans play in all of this? What's your real purpose here?"

First one eyebrow slowly raised, then the other as he went on, until Charybdis slowly leaned forward, interlacing her fingers and setting her hands together on the table with a small smile. "I said ask me A question, singular. Would you like the answers in order or would you like to pursue another line of questioning?"

Levering himself off of the table he snickered. "I somehow doubt you could tell me anything we don't already know. Besides, surely you don't plan to give me anything but a little kernel of truth amongst the chaff, do you?"

"My shipmates have nothing to do with this. They are guilty only of following my leadership, and they have comported themselves as nothing but exemplary Starfleet officers." The officer in the out of date uniform looked up at her interrogator with an expression that gave the very clear impression that she would not be moved. "I want assurances that they will not only be exempt from punishment but protected. They lost twenty years of their lives because of my lack of foresight and poor command decisions... they have suffered enough. If I get assurances from Starfleet Command in writing that they will be protected and exempted from any and all charges, then I will offer a full confession, and complete compliance."

"You expect me to agree to that? I'm gonna get your confession anyway, then they'll be tried on their own. No deal." He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the wall.

"Then good luck with the interrogation. If you plan to get to my crew then you will have to break me first, and frankly you simply don't have the balls for it, mister." The bemused look that he turned on her was met by a rather sadistically steely gaze that left absolutely no doubt that she was neither bluffing nor was she going to budge a millimeter.

"You honestly think I can't break you? I got as much time as I need, yannow. You don't exist according to official records... you and the rest of your little friends are all dead, remember?"

The sardonic scientist laughed scoffingly. "I know for a fact that you can't do anything more than irritate me. The Federation will only allow you to employ a certain level of, shall we say, creative measures during the course of an interrogation. Mostly it is just psychological warfare, and you really cannot compare to what I've known in this lifetime."

Propping her feet up on the table and crossing her legs at the ankles, she interlaced her fingers and put them behind her head then leaned back. "You can go ahead and try physical torture if you like. I'm not immune to pain in the least, and I don't have some mumbo jumbo mental disciplines that will render me able to remove myself from it all while you abuse my body. You wouldn't try it without sufficiently restraining me first, and I have no doubt that you could manage that."

"Whatever you might try, however, is quite simply nothing compared to what I've already experienced in this life." Her pose was still one of casual relaxation, but the look in her eyes was one that spoke volumes to anyone who could read it. They were the eyes of a veteran of horror who had seen far too much and somehow still survived.

"Simply put, you threatening me makes me laugh. I'll die before I let you hurt my crew, and while you might imprison me for life or even execute me, I'll not cooperate with you for a single instant until I know that they are safe. Because whatever you want with me, they're innocent."

"Make your play, mister. You can go consult with the brass or the psych techs or whomever you wish, if you'd like. I'm no going anywhere."

"So what makes you think you can protect your crew? What makes you think we won't go through them to get what we want?" The interviewer narrowed his eyes and turned his head slightly, a somewhat bemused look on his face.

"Because they are loyal Starfleet officers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time... well, except for Siivas and Andurean, who chose to be there. But they aren't who you're after. Siivas has friends who put him beyond your reach, despite how much you might wish it otherwise. Fiona and Selune are innocent, and you know it. I'm the prize that you're after here, though I've yet to determine exactly why... if you truly have ferreted out the other deep cover agents..." at that her face betrayed a hint of sorrow, but she pressed past it. "Then I'm just an obsolescence, twenty years out of date, who wasn't that useful as an intelligence asset even then."

"You want me for something. But first you need to test me. This little game of yours is a part of it. But before I play, I'm setting some ground rules. If you play by my rules, then I will play the game. If you won't let me dictate my rules, then we don't play at all, and you get no satisfaction, nor whatever it is that you seek. All you get is lots of wasted time, and the waste of a number of good officers, which isn't what you want at all. So..." those sharply angled brows angled upward at the outer edges as she shifted her legs off the table, then she set her arms on the table, folded her hands before her and smiled mirthlessly.

"Your play, Mister Black."

The interrogator smirked on the left side of his mouth, not unlike Char herself was wont to do as he sat down opposite her at the table. He slid the PDD over to her and brought up an amnesty document for Fiona, Selune, Siivas and Andurean.

"Jones. The name's Jones."

"I feel so intimate with you now. Shall we mate?" she asked in a deadpan even as she thumbed the document, then sat back in her chair, hands folded in her lap, her demeanor casual and relaxed. "So what would you like to know?"

The next hour was spent explaining Char's convoluted origins, as she attempted to keep the story simple, but Jones interrupted and interjected, questioning minor details along the way. In some cases she had answers, in others she did not. But eventually the tale of Scylla Charvanek, Tal Shiar subversive agent of the seventh wing, genetically engineered wunderkind of the Romulan Star Empire, as well as the tragic tale of Charybdis, daughter of J'sin and T'hetis was laid out for him.

No detail was overlooked, nor did she spare him any- her abuse at the hands of the captured Klingons to make certain that her injuries were convincing she relayed in detail, as well as the slow crawl back to Vulcan barely remaining alive. Her torment at the hands of Sebel she explained, as well as his eventual fate when he found the experience hidden in her mind as a trap.

Her Academy experiences she relayed to him, and her love affair with Earth, then her doldrums aboard the Antares, where she feared she might be trapped for decades. Then her reassignment to the Bonne Chance, and the beginning of a life she had never dreamed possible... of duty, of responsibility, of adventure and romance amongst the stars, and of friends and friendships that were genuine and real. She told her tale honestly, the good and the bad, her foibles laid bare from malice or ignorance as well as her triumphs. He seemed to rather enjoy the tale of the 'girl's night out' she had taken with her friends from the Bonne Chance, as he chuckled over a great number of the unpublished details.

"And no one ever knew? No one ever found out your little secret?" Jones asked at long last when her tale was done.

"The Captain knew. As we lay sleeping, my mind extended to his, and I shared with him pieces of my life story. I was never supposed to be capable of such feats, but I am apparently far more than I was created to be," she said without arrogance but as a simple statement of fact.

"So you're telling me that the Captain knew that he was sleeping with a Romulan spy, but he not only kept at it but he promoted you...?"

"You make it sound moronic," she replied. "Yes, he knew, and yes, he promoted me once, though my promotion to Commander came from the Starfleet brass in recognition of a high profile action. I was an exemplary officer- I did his job for him, to be blunt. All he was interested in was a warm tight place to put his penis and spending time in his ready room doing Janus knows what, so whether I was in his bed or on the bridge I was enabling those desires. I was enthusiastic, a more competent leader and tactician than he himself, I was effective in leading the senior staff and the majority of the crew assumed that I was simply his whore. Why would he get rid of me?"

Leaning across the table she raised an eyebrow at Jones. "I held the ship after Siivas and I freed it from the spatial anomaly that claimed sixty percent of the crew. I held the bridge, and I am fully capable of operating an undamaged Constitution class starship in non-battle conditions with a bridge crew consisting solely of myself. Had I desired it, I could have driven the Bonne Chance into Romulan space with an escort waiting, brought her to Romulus as a prize capture with me at the helm. I would have been hailed as one of the greatest heroines of the Empire, and likely been named commander of the next such vessel produced given my comprehensive knowledge of the systems while the Romulan Star Empire began assimilating the Federation's greatest technological advances into their own vessels."

A look of doubt flashed across Jones' face and his eyes flickered up to her own as he rubbed two fingers together. "Why didn't you?"

"Because I'm a Starfleet officer, and proud of it. Because Siivas McKenzie saved my life, and working together we saved that ship and that crew when her captain and her officers failed her. Because if not for him I might have died out there, no one the wiser, another mystery in space. Because when I sat in that chair and brought that mighty vessel into port, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment that I had never known before in my entire life. I knew for a brief instant what it was to be a starship captain, and I realized that whatever may come, my heart and my loyalty would always belong to Starfleet."

There was a pause while he took all of that in, then he shook his head. "You expect me to believe that?"

"I don't particularly care what you believe, to be perfectly frank," she replied matter-of-factly. "You may feel free to dismiss it, but it is the truth. And I don't know you... aside from the fact that you are left handed, married for over forty years, an admiral in Starfleet who started out as a maverick, likely in engineering as you still tinker on the weekends 'just to keep yourself busy', you are currently working on a model of the NX-91 for your office and you collect cuckoo clocks, I know nothing about you."

Jones frowned at that, then shook his head, rose slowly and stretched, then sighed. "I'll be honest... what do I call you, anyway?"

"Commander Charybdis."

"What about your real name...?"

"That is my real name. My friends call me Char or Chary, but we are not that close, Mister Jones. So Charybdis will do for you. I earned my rank, and I take considerable pride in it. I know that it is unusual to have simply one name in human society, so perhaps that will help. Call me Commander, call me Charybdis or call me Commander Charybdis... I offer you a plethora of options," she explained spreading her hands wide and showing the barest hint of a smile. "Just try not to call me Vulcan Juggy... that's still one of my least favorites."

Jones cracked a smile at that, and it almost seemed genuine. "You really are a piece a work, ain'tcha?"

"I am, I hope, one of a kind. If there are more out there like me then I pity them, but I hope that they found a purpose as I did to justify their existence and bring them peace. But yes," she added with a wry smile, "I'm certainly a 'piece of work', as you say."

With a chuckle and a shake of his head Jones paced a bit behind his chair. "I'm gonna have to spend some time correlating some of this data and checking some of the facts... most of it being twenty years old don't help, neither. But I'll be damned if you don't sound genuine to me... you really did come completely clean with me once I agreed to lay off your shipmates, didn'tcha?"

The renegade Romulan smiled, arching her eyebrows together. "I told you... I am their superior officer, thus they are my responsibility. I swore an oath that I would well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I entered... and those are my crew. I am their commander. They have trusted me with their lives... how can I not rise to serve?"

"How indeed..." Jones replied as he departed the small windowless room.

 

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