The DrearGyre

to her eyes.

  Seren refocused.

  Vain, you are so beautiful. Vain, you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Vain, your eyes are windows into beauty. Vain, your lips speak and all I hear is beauty. Vain, your touch upon my skin reaches my heart gifting me your beauty. Vain, you find within me, a beauty I thought destroyed and lost forever. Vain, your beauty discovers me.

  And Vain broke the spell. Seren’s smile became real rather than a prophecy of a violence so near, it felt as if it had already happened.

  She took a deep breath and lowered the weapon. “What are we going to do with him then?”

  Vain looked at the male, shot him twice in the side where his heart was, then once in the head.

  “Wait,” Seren said, puzzled, staring at the corpse. “You said that wasn’t the merciful thing to do.”

  “Mercy is a Human failing. And as I have explained multiple times to you, Seren, I am a Romulan.”

  Seren hugged her with all her strength then doubled over.

  “Ugh, my chest.”

  Vain held her. “How are you?”

  “I feel like a rock is sitting on me. How did you know the coat is bullet proof?”

  “The coat is bullet proof?” she asked.

  “What?” Seren gasped. “You knew! Didn’t you?”

  “The tailor likes you. The material is Tholian dragon hide. It can even dissipate a low disruptor or phaser blast. You were quite safe. I think.”

  “You think? I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t hit my boobs.” She cradled her chest. “I thought the bounty hunters disarmed you. Where did you hide the disruptor?”

  “The tailor apparently likes me as well.” Vain lifted her turban. “The mercenaries preferred as he also said, to pay more attention to my body. It does appear that a certain lack of intelligence is a requirement for that career.”

  “I’m beginning to like him a lot too. Anyway, what the hell’s this thing on my head?”

  “Let’s get back on board and we shall see.” Vain detached it from Seren’s forehead.

  Seren fussed over the graze on Vain’s arm as they headed back to the ship.

  She examined the device with the ship’s console. “The Tal Shiar use this equipment to counter the conditioning we implant in our operatives. That kind of conditioning allows the agents to do our bidding without their knowledge. This device undoes that conditioning. It would not work. Our order does not practice these kinds of procedures. My presumption is they assumed if they found just you then they could use this to deprogram anything I had put in place. It is useless.”

  “Then why would he think it would work on me?”

  “Zealots and the followers of the Beloved Nephew construct a world they can live in based on the way things should be. Reality is discouraged.”

  Seren poked at it. “We are in the ship. It might work in here. Try it.”

  Vain looked at her. “As you wish. It will do nothing, however.”

  She picked up the device and placed it against Seren’s forehead. The Human jerked back.

  “What...” She frowned.

  Vain drew her brows together. “Seren?”

  The Human shivered, her eyelids fluttering. Then her face grew blank.

  “Seren? Are you...”

  “Shut up. To think what you’ve done to me.” She snatched the thing from her forehead and threw it against a bulkhead. “I should kill you right now.”

  She rubbed her face. “It is like.. like... waking up. From a nightmare that won’t end.”

  Vain frowned.

  “Go home, Romulan. Take your ship and get out. You’re evil. It’s always been the conditioning hasn’t it. Always.”

  Seren spun and stormed out the hatch.

  Vain held still and looked around. Her heart felt as if it had forgotten how to beat. Romulus. It waited. She walked out to where Seren crouched.

  “Don’t bother saying goodbye, Romulan,” Seren sneered. She was searching bodies removing things of value. “The bodies I’ll dump in that hole back there. You’ll be covered.”

  Vain came to stand beside her. Seren jumped up.

  “Go home, Romulan. Go back to Romulus!”

  “I am going to go home,” Vain said. “And there I will let you play with my ears for five whole minutes.”

  Seren’s pupils dilated just a little more. Vain smiled her triumph.

  “Oh, that’s cheating!” Seren snarled.

  “You are a terrible liar, Seren. Your mind is undisciplined. It is why Romulans will rule the universe.”

  Seren crushed the Romulan into her embrace. She wept then pushed her away.

  “Vain, please, This is your ticket home. Don’t you see? With this tech, you can bargain for anything. You could be on the Senate. The Praetor himself would forgive and forget everything.”

  “I am home. I do not need a ticket. And we have both witnessed the punishment that is greed.”

  “But Romulus... It’s there for you. You want to go back to your life. I feel it.”

  “Perhaps one day. Under different conditions. But not now. And never without you.”

  Seren wrapped Vain in her arms. She poured tears onto Vain’s. They waited until they no longer cried and no longer laughed and no longer laughed and cried. She was so happy.

  Syll put her gun against Kari’s breastbone in the opening between her coat lapels and pulled the trigger three times. Kari never knew. That is what Syll told herself. She dropped the body noting how the bullets had not exited from the back. She placed the gun beside the corpse.

  “Trust everyone,” the Romulan answered the echoes of the gunfire bouncing against the cave walls. “To be who they are.”

  Kari had been right. The Senate and the Tal Shiar fell all over themselves to reinstate her, to forgive her, and to reward her. The ship was a prize of infinite value.

  The many decades that followed brought her even greater recognition. And not a few grey hairs. Time tried to bend her to its will. Living long did have drawbacks. Like this so called celebration which dragged on interminably. All the faux diplomacy with varying degrees of hypocrisy exhausted her. Age had done nothing to make her more tolerant of these thin veneers of civility between the quadrant’s major powers. And now her feet hurt. At least this conference was not off-planet. She milled around trying to be pleasant until she found her husband speaking with a Vulcan.

  “I am going outside for some fresh air,” she smiled at her spouse. He nodded to her.

  “Live long and prosper, Senator,” the Vulcan said, turning to her, his face unreadable. Eyes, set deep into his dark complexion, bored into her.

  They exchanged the Vulcan gesture for peace and she walked outside onto a large balcony overlooking a garden.

  The Romulan air was clean here. Crisp. She wished she had brought a wrap. Few stars were bright enough to shine through the ambient light pollution. Eventually, they’d become visible. Romulus was beautiful this night.

  “Senator Syll,” said a voice behind her. “I apologize for disturbing you.”

  She turned, nodding. “Ambassador Kim. No apology is necessary from the Federation. I just required a respite from the noise in there.”

  He took a quick peek over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “I don’t want to offend our hosts but it is a little loud. I was just speaking with your daughter. A fine officer in your fleet. You must be very proud.”

  “I am. She is the center of my universe.”

  The Ambassador chuckled. “Children would have it no other way.”

  She kept her demeanor quiet, as he fiddled with the corners of his sleeves and shifted from foot to foot.

  “There is something you wish, Ambassador?”

  “Yes, well, it’s not a wish.” He laughed with embarrassment looking up at the starless sky. “Senator, I’ve a question and I will completely understand if you decide not to answer. It’s about something both very strange and probably very trivial. I fear to bring it up because I do not
want to offend you in any way. This is very personal and neither Federation nor Romulan in nature.”

  “Have no concerns, Ambassador. My age and my doctor do not allow me to take offense towards anything or anyone anymore.”

  Still the Ambassador hesitated. Finally, he said. “Senator, have you ever heard of The DrearGyre?”

  Syll cocked her head. “I believe I know of the area. Mining is it not?”

  “Yes. Yes it is. A while back, I came into possession of a letter. It is very old. It was found near a place called, please forgive me here, Hellsbitch. A colony within The DrearGyre. Actually, close to a mine that was apparently abandoned decades ago. Discovered in a can of coffee of all things.”

  “I see.”

  “This letter is addressed to a Syll. We have reason to believe it is to a Romulan.”

  “My name is not uncommon amongst Romulans. The name is also found in other cultures.”

  “I agree. And the letter has bounced around in many places. And I’ll admit it’s been examined by Starfleet even. I took a little interest in it when I heard its history. And when I was assigned to Romulus, I thought here’s an opportunity I just can’t pass up.”

  “To perhaps, deliver it to the right person after all these years?”

  He laughed trying not to blush. “It would solve many a mystery and satisfy many amateur detectives in the Federation.”

  “Letters can be important,” she said smiling and holding out her hand “I would be happy to see if our ministries can investigate. I am sure that playing post office would be an interesting diversion for them. If they turn up anything, then I will make sure that we inform you. It will be returned to you regardless.”

  The Ambassador handed a very old envelope to her. He bowed,