The Wrong Flavia

Who was Flavia? Who is Flavia? Who will be Flavia?

The Wrong Flavia – 1

Refinery 03G, Kunhri III
December 2401

Captain Elbon Jakkelb’s Personal Log, Stardate 78919.3,

Why me? I wish I understood why they chose me.

First Consul J’mek, of the Reman world Kunhri Three, invited me personally to aid his people with a medical mystery. A small but growing population of Remans have been reporting symptoms of digestive dysfunction, including malnutrition, inflammation, blockages, and even some ulcers and bleeding. Not only does this pose a risk to his population, but Kunhri Three is an essential breadbasket world for the Velorum system at large.

As executive officer of the USS Dvorak almost two years ago, I mediated the negotiation that led to the Kunhri system’s alliance with the Romulan Republic. J’mek and I built a good deal of trust through those talks. However, it was the crew of the Dvorak who seeded the algae farms and hydroponic gardens on Kunhri Three that are feeding them today. Could we have made some tragic mistake in our limited understanding of Reman digestion?

Several crew members from the USS Constellation, who participated in planting Kunhri’s farms, have joined my crew in our investigation of the planet and its people. And Doctor Flavia from Constellation’s Romulan Free State contingent has joined them too.

Flavia hadn’t begun working with Starfleet during the Kunhri Three mission. In fact, Starfleet Intelligence found evidence of the Romulan Free State poisoning Remans, and a Starfleet science officer, to destabilise the peace talks with the Romulan Republic at that time.

I don’t know what compels Flavia to join us, but Captain Taes vouched for her, and this medical mystery will require as many different perspectives as we can get.

 


 

“We’re wasting our time,” Flavia declared, throwing her tricorder to the floor in frustration.

Immediately, her face felt hot. She had been too loud. Again. A flood of embarrassment rose in her chest at the sound of her petulance echoing down the curve of the room. What was now a hydroponic garden had once been a long passageway for carting mineral ore, carved into the underground cave system of the refinery-city.

The Starfleet science officers scattered around the room looked at her —looked right at her— with exaggerated expressions of concern. Lieutenant T’Kal raised an arched eyebrow at her. Lieutenant Nune’s jaw went slack. Those performances poorly masked their micro-expressions of disdain. Only Doctor Nelli’s Phylosian features remained a mystery to Flavia.

The few Remans, harvesting vegetables from the shelves mounted into the hewn stone walls, shot glares at Flavia. They were far more evident in their contempt; she’d call it murderous intent if not for orders from their superiors. Over a year ago, the Remans of Kunhri Three had murdered their Romulan overlords and claimed the planet for themselves. As an agent of the Romulan Free State, Flavia represented the only true heir to the Romulan Star Empire that the Remans hated so fiercely. Whether they despised Flavia for what she represented or for her own qualities mattered little to her.

“It’s not the food,” Flavia said impotently. She crossed an arm over her chest and rubbed at the ache in her shoulder. “Nor the water supply.”

“Would you give up so easily if the patients were Romulan?” T’Kaal asked in a measured tone from across the table between them. Like a typical Vulcan, T’Kaal challenged her in a devious way. She kept her gaze on the trident scanner she dipped into the water tubes running through the long table. T’Kaal didn’t even do Flavia the honour of looking her in the eye.

Ever since T’Kaal was promoted to assistant chief science officer of the Constellation, she has been far more prone to question Flavia.

Probably Yuulik’s bad influence.

“Don’t pretend to be political. It’s not convincing,” Flavia said in the way she might chide a younger sister. She crouched to snatch up her tricorder. She could see the casing had a couple of minor scratches. Clearly, Starfleet models weren’t quite as durable as their Romulan counterparts. In more ways than one.

Shaking her tricorder at T’Kaal a couple of times, Flavia said, “I volunteered to assist the Remans. Just like you. And you can see the same polysaccharide readings as I do, lieutenant.”

T’Kaal blinked twice, and then she looked over at Flavia.

“Given the volume of food produced worldwide,” T’Kaal said flatly, “our sample size is not yet significant.”

Flavia sighed out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She clicked the tricorder into the holster on her hip.

“This isn’t going to work, is it? Our joint mission of exploration?” Flavia asked, defeated. She shrugged helplessly. “I can’t be wrong every day. Not every day. I didn’t join your crew to become colonised by the Federation way of thinking, of being! There has to be collaboration on both sides.”

Seemingly oblivious to the mounting tension, Doctor Nelli interjected to ask, “What’s that sound, Flavia?”

Flavia snapped, “Do you mean my voice?”

“Yes,” Nelli responded. Her monotone was still unphased by Flavia’s naked annoyance. “That melody you’re humming.”

Flavia started to ask, “What m–”

Then, all Flavia could hear was the ethereal whine of two Starfleet transporter beams coalescing five meters away from T’Kaal. The annular confinement beams dissipated, revealing two Starfleet officers in uniforms that were highlighted by security-mustard shoulders.

“Doctor Flavia,” one of them said, “Captain Elbon has requested your presence aboard the Almagest.”

“Has he?” Flavia asked, squinting at the security officer who spoke. She shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything from him.”

She brushed the commbadge off her chest as if to make her point. For all her dismissive performance, Flavia’s stomach went ice cold. Had she been part of a Romulan crew, she knew what it meant when security offered to escort one to the captain.  Interrogation, imprisonment, dissipation. Starfleet wasn’t truly as different as they liked to believe.

The security officer said, “All the same, if you’ll come with us–”

Flavia wasn’t listening. She calculated that the security officers would anticipate her running away from them, making a break for the exit behind her. So she dropped to her hands and knees to crawl under the long table. She skittered toward the security officers, aiming to crawl past them and towards the exits at the other end of the room.

She heard the scuffing sounds of Starfleet boots pivoting on the stone floor. With her keen hearing, she could roughly track the position of the security officers while she remained under the length of the long table. Only when she passed them did she slow her crawl momentarily to swipe a thumb over the power dial of her disruptor –the disruptor she was only permitted to carry outside of Federation facilities– and knock it out of its holster.

Scrambling to the end of the table, Flavia dove to shoulder roll behind three barrels of liquid nutrient. She crouched behind the barrels, dropped her chin to her chest, and draped her arms over her head.

A second later, the disruptor she’d left under the table overloaded in a fiery explosion.

She didn’t spare a glance to see if anyone was caught in the blast. She couldn’t hear them anymore either. The concussive blast in such a tight stone enclosure left her ears ringing. An overwhelming whine of tinnitus took away one of her senses.

Flavia estimated more security officers would be waiting outside the double doors that led into the central pedestrian passageway. Instead, she pounced to her feet and sprinted to the side door that led into the maintenance corridor. Flavia reached for the ancient door handle, but it proved immobile in her grasp. Leveraging her momentum, she smashed her shoulder into the door, and it didn’t budge.

Taking two steps back, Flavia braced herself to throw her whole body weight into the door again when the door swung open from the other side. Already committed to this escape, Flavia raced through the opening, scrabbling past whoever had opened the door for her. She pumped her arms to run faster and to defend herself as she dashed down the corridor.

Assessing her risk, Flavia cast a quick glance back over her shoulder to see how many security officers were about to point their phasers at her.

But she didn’t see a black Starfleet uniform with security-mustard shoulders.

She saw an olive green Free State science ministry jumpsuit like the one she was wearing.

It looked exactly like the one she was wearing.

Behind her, another Flavia ir-Llantrisant slammed the door closed, jamming a flat mag-key on its surface. The other Flavia tapped a code on the mag-key to magnetically override the locking mechanism, sealing the door shut.

“Not you,” Flavia said.

Although Flavia couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears, she could read the lips of the other Flavia.

“Don’t blaspheme,” the wrong Flavia said.

The Wrong Flavia – 2

Guest Quarters, Starbase Bravo
December 2401

Captain Taes could design a two-year archaeological excavation on an alien world, but aligning her rank pips in a vertical orientation was escaping her. Horizontal rank pips had been the fashion for so long now that Taes could affix them in the dark. With her eyes closed.

On this day, she could see the befuddlement and the frustration in her own eyes, reflecting back at her from the holographic mirror. That mirror offered a perfect reflection of her body –from the top of her bald head down to her dress uniform– and yet the bottom pip landed askew on her collar. Her focus was fractured, and there was too little of her energy in the here and now.

“Kellin, I need you,” Taes called out.

Kellin Rayco lumbered into the bedroom of her guest quarters aboard Starbase Bravo, dipping his head slightly to avoid collision with the upper door frame. The speed with which Kellin entered belied the way he had been waiting for an order.

“With your speech?” Kellin offered.

“No, that’s well in hand,” Taes remarked, indicating the widescreen PADD abandoned on her bed. She shook her head slowly, examining how the pips looked from different angles.

“I need your grooming skills,” she clarified, now waggling her fingers at the pips as if they were scalding hot.

Taes couldn’t see his face until he walked through her holographic mirror, evaporating it. Without caution, Kellin began to pluck the pips off her collar, one by one. He looked down at her fondly. She could feel, empathically, his pleasure at the temporary role reversal between them. It should have warmed her, but it raised questions about why his self-esteem would still rely on such moments with her.

“How are the transfer requests coming along?” Taes asked, turning attention back to his role as her executive officer.

Squinting at her collar, Kellin measured it against the length of his thumb, and then he placed the first silver circle.

After a soft huff, Kellin said, “I got stumped on your relative priorities between career rotation, family requests, or personality clashes…”

Shaking her head, Taes reminded him, “My methods haven’t changed since we launched Constellation.”

Kellin’s shoulders rounded, and there was an uncomfortable hitch in his breathing. She could feel a pang in him.

“I wasn’t… here for the launch,” he said softly, apologetically.

Horrified by what she’d said, Taes closed her eyes and pressed her palm against Kellin’s chest. It had been months since the last time she’d lost track of her shared experiences with Kellin compared to what had been his Changeling imposter in the lead-up to the Frontier Day massacres.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Kellin had always been incapable of bearing any tension between them, and today was no different. He breathed deeply, smiled, and affixed the next pip to Taes’s collar.

“My spies have more clues,” he said, deftly changing the subject, “about the orders you’re about to receive from Commodore Ekwueme.”

Allowing him to guide their conversation, Taes dropped her hands to her side and raised her chin to create more space for Kellin to attach her fourth pip. His hands felt steadier now as he put it in place.

Buoyantly, Taes said, “There was a gravitas to his voice when I last spoke with him. I haven’t heard that since he offered me command of a research squadron. Constellation Squadron would have a certain ring to it, no?”

Nodding at Taes eagerly, Kellin said, “The chief engineer of our old scout, USS Grus, and the tactical officer of the escort, USS Meridian, have confirmed both ships have orders to converge at Farpoint Station within the month.”

“That would position them advantageously,” Taes said, “to join Constellation on her next mission of exploration out past the Cygnus Reach.”

Kellin eagerly added, “And the Meridian has been primarily escorting the USS Almagest for the past six months.”

“Elbon’s ship,” Taes surmised. Taes’s previous first officer, and Kellin’s ex-husband, was in command of the Sutherland-class starship Almagest. She didn’t have to guess where Kellin had retrieved that intel.

“A research cruiser could round out Constellation Squadron nicely,” he said, but Taes had to wonder if Kellin meant the ship or if Kellin meant Elbon.  The three of them had been a mighty team in their day.

The neon glow of a holographic PADD flickered alight at Kellin’s chest height. As he tapped at the interface and began to scroll through the obvious alert, Taes took a step back to grant him a semblance of privacy. She reached for the PADD on the bed, taking another look at the speech she would deliver at the gala that night.

“Speaking of Captain Rattler,” Kellin said, half-distracted as he continued to read the communique, “the Meridian remains en route to Caelum Station, transporting the Kunhri Three Reman patients they pulled out of a disabled Antares-class hulk.”

Perching herself on the foot on the bed, Taes asked, “Has she been able to identify the K-7 cruiser that attacked the hulk?”

Kellin scrolled back up the message and shook his head. “No, it had Romulan markings, but it didn’t match anything on our Free State or Republic registries, neither the official nor unofficial ones.”

As if by rote, Taes murmured, “Probably one of the independent factions, given how poorly they’re resourced…” Then she cleared her throat and inclined her head. Meridian was rumoured to be forming into Constellation Squadron, but Taes didn’t have the orders in her hands just yet.

“So why is she informing you?” Taes asked.

“They’ve been interviewing the Reman survivors for the past few days,” Kellin said, then hesitated. “At least, the ones who are well enough to speak. Rattler’s crew has been trying to identify the boarding party from the D-7 cruiser that kidnapped five of the Reman patients. Again, none of the facial composites have matched any known Romulan agents or criminals.”

Kellin swallowed hard. “Until one of the Reman patients was revived from her coma today. She identified a member of the boarding party.”

He gripped the edges of his holo-PADD, and he spun it around.

Displayed in the centre of the PADD was a photograph of Flavia.

Taes got to her feet. There was a pang in her left knee as she did so.

“There will be time for re-supply and speeches later. Prepare Constellation for launch within the hour.”

 


 

The massive cylinder of Refinery 03G was carved deep into the crust of Kunhri III like a great syringe plunged to drain the lifeblood from the planet’s heart. It was at the same time a workplace and a home, a hospital and a playground, to the Remans who had claimed this world as their own. Like all the other refineries on the planet, it was their everything.

And if Flavia ir-Llantrisant wasn’t careful, it would be her grave.

She could hardly hear past the ferocious ringing in her head; she could hardly catch her breath from her wild panting; there was only one figure she could make out in the half-light of the cramped maintenance corridor. She was looking at herself, a perfect copy except for the eyes. Flavia was no naive child herself, but she could see the weariness of something ancient in the eyes of the creature before her.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Flavia asked.

The other Flavia responded quickly, too quickly. She couldn’t read her lips except for a word here or there. It looked like she said “Starfleet” in one phrase and maybe “planetary” in another. Still panting, Flavia couldn’t control her panic reaction. The return of her tormentor and interrogator was distressing enough, and Flavia had lost track of the Starfleet security officers who were hunting her, too.

She couldn’t hear through the tinnitus and could hardly see through the gloom, but her legs were strong. Pressing her feet into the stone-hewn ground, she took some small bubbles of comfort from how ready she was to run.

Stabbing an index finger at the other Flavia, Flavia said, “My government paid you handsomely for my release…”

The other Flavia interrupted her, babbling again. She raised her hands in an open, pleading gesture as she took small steps towards Flavia. She only stopped speaking to raise a hand to her mouth and cough.

“That means nothing,” Flavia insisted, bluffing that she had any notion of what the other Flavia had said. She didn’t run. Not yet. She held her ground.

The other Flavia continued to cough; her body racked with extreme retching until she was spitting up brown bile. She doubled over and fell to her knees but wouldn’t look away. The other Flavia glared at her with a guttural fear Flavia had never seen in any living being before. Litres upon litres of congealed brown gunk expelled from the other Flavia’s mouth until she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Flavia kept panting. She squinted her eyes and strained her ears, listening for any hint of approaching footsteps. Sooner than she wanted to, Flavia padded forward and kicked the other Flavia with the side of her boot. The body offered no resistance and made no reaction. She kicked the body again.  It lay still.  Inert.

Then she searched the body’s pockets for as long as her bravery would allow. As soon as her courage ran out, she started running again, away from where the Starfleeters had been searching for her. She made it through one door and then two, but she was running so recklessly she smashed into the open arms of two men. Two Romulans.

Immediately, she clocked that these weren’t members of her science team, and the Kunhri Remans had murdered all of the Romulans who had lived here under the Star Empire.

There wasn’t time for Flavia to ask the question in her heart when a transporter beam snatched her away.

The Wrong Flavia – 3

Morgue, USS Almagest
December 2401

When Captain Elbon had asked to meet with Flavia about the allegations made against her, he only anticipated a conversation thick with deflection and devious wordplay. At best, he hoped Flavia might present him with a helpful riddle. At worst, she might toss the bitter illvian coffee back at him and rant about her diplomatic immunity.

He hadn’t emotionally prepared himself for Flavia to end up on a morgue slab. Aside from her sickly pallor and her dark hair being slicked back, there were few visual clues to the autopsy Doctor Nelli had completed.

Elbon had worked alongside Flavia aboard the USS Sarek only briefly. Even without knowing him, Flavia had whispered half-lies and assumed secrets about him to Kellin in the dying days of their divorce. Her motivations for meddling in his relationship were just as mysterious as her motivations for joining his mission to Kunhri III. Gone dark like the light behind her eyes.

On their thick motor limbs, Nelli lumbered closer to the body. They used two vines to unfold the sheet over Flavia’s body to cover her face, too. Elbon had always cherished Nelli’s keen sensitivity. Cut off from the natural world of their home, Nelli displayed moments of precognition in their ability to detect energetic, temperamental or vibrational shifts in the physical forms of their crewmates. As much as he valued Nelli’s perspective on the Reman medical mystery, he regretted they wouldn’t accept his offer to stay aboard Almagest as her chief medical officer.

Taking a step closer to the mortuary biobed, Elbon lay a hand over Flavia’s hand. He said a quick prayer. Her hand felt no different after the small ritual. Still cold, still clammy.

“My ancestors used to celebrate the first rain of the warm season,” Elbon said, speaking up.  He didn’t look directly at Nelli. “When they lived on the shores of Dekeen on Bajor, before the Cardassians ever came. The first monstrous rain of the season was a reminder for everyone in the village to dance to the Prophets.” –A single low chuckle escaped him– “I wonder if I should dance now?”

“What purpose would that serve?” Nelli asked. As usual, the voice produced by their vocoder balanced a healthy tension between matter-of-fact and wonderment.

Elbon rubbed the back of his neck, and he said, “A citizen of the Romulan Free State, on a mission of scientific diplomacy, is lying dead on my starship. This could put endanger all of the Federation and Free State’s joint operations: Constellation’s mission of exploration, or mining the Remus fragment in the Kovar System. It feels like the first crack of thunder, doesn’t it?”

“The autopsy results were less chaotic than a thunderclap,” Nelli said. A wave from another of their vines brought up a holographic display. “The body matches our records of Flavia. Perfectly matches. This is– this is impossible in nature. Aside from the loss of life functions, this Flavia is unchanged from a transporter pattern record of nine months ago, before the Dominion’s lost fleet captured her.”

“I reviewed Captain Taes’s logs when Flavia asked to join us,” Elbon admitted. He could detect no judgment from Nelli in that regard. “She only learned of Flavia being sighted once before she returned to Constellation six months ago. Trill’s security service caught Flavia trying to steal the technology that accidentally released those time-lost Jem’Hadar in the first place. Taes always doubted that to be the real Flavia.”

Nelli’s eye-stalks swayed in their approximation of a humanoid nod.

“Only by pulverising a tissue sample,” Nelli reported, “could I ascertain this to be the remains of a Changeling.”

 


 

With her eyes closed to the harsh overhead lighting, the room’s stillness was disturbed by the whirring growl of a hoverchair approaching. Flavia lay still as the grave, slowing her breathing to only the shallowest puffs. She braced herself for a pointed question or a gruff shove on her shoulder. She never expected the tines of a fork stabbing her in the lips. The prodding was joined by a wisened voice sputtering at her.

“Open, open. Open!”

When Flavia opened her eyes, she parted her lips to object. A forkful of a paste-like grain was shovelled into her mouth.

Leaning over the side of her hoverchair, an aged Romulan with a severe bob scooped up another blob from a bowl and forked it in Flavia’s mouth. She looked down at Flavia with a smile so pinched it looked painful. The traditional crown of tikrik grass that encircled her head didn’t match the severe shoulders of the quilted sweater she wore.

When the Romulan muscle had carried Flavia into this bedroom, she had heard them address the woman as Vrutil.

Flavia spat her mouthful of sludge all over Vrutil’s sweater. Unbidden, a memory of the wrong Flavia spitting up her Changeling insides came to mind, and Flavia suppressed a chill.

“What is that spice?” Flavia asked.

She made a performance of disgust, rolling her eyes as cover to examine the small, windowless room. The dusty rose bulkheads had unnecessary geometric protrusion and teal arches to make the space more claustrophobic. It harkened to the Romulan Star Navy decor of her youth. Perhaps a junior officer’s bedchamber, judging by the small bunk beneath her. If her Changeling counterpart had stayed here, Flavia couldn’t fathom how or why she was on a Romulan starship rather than a Dominion one.

“It’s boiled gresh, child,” Vrutil said. “During the Eitreih’hveinn festival, you’re only permitted to eat the seasonal harvest that would have grown in the valley of Chuda.”

Flavia didn’t recognise the elderly face from those among the Free State science ministry. Filled with more questions than answers, she studied Vrutil’s dialect, accent, personal hygiene, and fashion choices: If Vrutil was welcome in the Kunrhi system by the Remans, that probably meant she was aligned with the Republic? Except the Republic had allied themselves with the Federation against the Changelings at the Battle of Farpoint.

Never one to voice her genuine curiosity, Flavia instead asked, “Why are you force-feeding me?”

“The clerics will be cross,” Vrutil said, “if you eat anything different.” The timbre of her voice was particularly nasal, but there was a musicality to the cadence of her speech.

“Your clerics mean nothing to me,” Flavia insisted. She flared the back of her hand toward a festively decorated y’gora tree in the corner. Definitely Romulan; definitely not Dominion.

Lowering her voice, Vrutil remarked, “If you won’t listen to the clerics, then listen to me. I’m old enough to be your mother.” Her flat grey eyes bore into Flavia. Despite the intensity of her gaze, they revealed nothing of her thoughts, emotions, or being.

“So you say,” Flavia retorted.

Vrutil touched a control contact, and her hoverchair lowered, bringing her face closer to Flavia’s face.

“…Was I your mother?” Vrutil asked, seemingly genuinely.

Wincing, Flavia quickly replied, “I can’t imagine so.” She left some flexibility in her answer in case the Changeling Flavia infiltrated this Romulan faction as Flavia or itself. Either option posed tactical advantages.

“Eat. You must eat,” Vrutil said, offering no apparent reaction to how Flavia had answered.

Then, Vrutil smiled so tightly that her lower lip cracked. A drop of green blood swelled to the surface.

“Tradition requires I fatten you up before you die.”

 


 

Elbon took two steps back from the Flavia Changeling’s body. He wasn’t the greatest believer in borhyas, but he could not know precisely where the god-like Founders fit in the Prophets’ metaphysical cosmology.

“What killed her?” Elbon asked Nelli. He cringed, wondering if that came across as too glib.

The leaves across Nelli’s body rippled in what Elbon recognised as discomfort. For all Nelli’s desire for comfort and community, there was the soul of a perfectionist inside them, too.

“We understand the rogue faction of Changelings who infiltrated Starfleet this year underwent horrific bodily modifications,” Nelli said, “to fool our senses and sensors.”

Elbon remarked, “There were reports of them passing on these new abilities through their ability to link. Does that have any similarities to Phylosian mycorrhiza symbiosis?”

Nelli’s vocoder went all the more monotone when they said, “We don’t talk about that anymore.” Swiping through the holo-interface of her autopsy report, Nelli added, “This transformation was said to reduce their lifespan. With apologies, Starfleet research on genetic manipulation is so limited, I cannot ascertain if these modifications were the cause of death.”

Respecting Nelli’s swift change of subject, Elbon said, “The Changeling impersonated Flavia to infiltrate Constellation’s tour of the Delta Quadrant and now our mission to Kunhri Three. Meanwhile, the USS Meridian reports the real Flavia has joined with the Romulan raiders who kidnapped the Reman patients we sent to Caelum Station. …What do either of them want?  Are they working together?”

Snapping out the autopsy report, Nelli tapped at the holo-interface frame. In response, the morgue slab retracted into a stasis unit, sealing the body away.

“All living things simply want to keep living. Keep breathing,” Nelli said succinctly. They approached Elbon and draped a couple of vines across his lower back. With a gentle nudge, Nelli guided Elbon into the broader sickbay complex.

“One more discovery,” Nelli said. “In comparing my autopsy report with the sample Yuulik collected at the Kholara Observatory, I maintain eighty-three percent certainty this corpse is the same Changeling who impersonated Commander Kellin Rayco.”

Scoffing involuntarily, Elbon cursed himself for every praying over that bastard.

 


 

Sinking deeper into her bed, Flavia asked, “Tradition, you say? You can’t mean that. Eitreih’hveinn cannot reach completion until a fallen god is buried in the farmer’s fields.”

Vrutil squared her shoulders. “That’s why I need you fat, Founder. I notice you did not revert to your gelatinous form,” –She flicked the fork again, launching another glob of gresh onto Flavia’s cheek– “when you lost consciousness. Just like your last attack.”

“I never lost consciousness,” Flavia defiantly said. She didn’t blink. She held fast to a vacant expression.  She didn’t even wipe the gresh off her face.

“I was tired. I wanted to be carried by the boys.”

Dipping her head from side to side, Vrutil replied, “A hundred might call you a liar, but I won’t be one of them.”

Her lip curled viciously at her own joke. Vrutil discarded the fork and raised a medical scanner instead. Flavia noticed how naturally Vrutil’s bony fingers gripped the casing of the scanner. A hefty, durable Romulan scanner. That must mean Vrutil had training as a doctor or medical researcher.

“It was the same after your last three seizures,” Vrutil said with a sneer. “And still, the sensors foolishly believe you to be of Romulan biology.”

“Should it not?” Flavia asked.  Only now did she wipe her face clean with the pads of her fingers.

“If you would only explain your secret, I promise I could ease your suffering,” Vrutil said, her eyes softening. “Whatever the other Founders did to you, however your twisted cellular structure decays, you’re trapped in this form now.”

Flavia said nothing. She couldn’t risk further revealing herself as the wrong Flavia to Vrutil.

“Do you have it?” Vrutil asked.

“Have what?” Flavia answered the question with a haughty question.

When Vrutil raised the scanner to Flaiva’s face again, she was effortlessly condescending in asking, “Just how tired are you?”

If she was really the Changeling Flavia, she should have known her own purpose in beaming down to the planet. Pushing down the panic in her gut, Flavia committed to her thoughtless choice rather than drawing more attention to it.

Very,” Flavia answered.

Vrutil’s eyes went flat again. “Flavia ir-Llantrisant’s security codes.”

“No,” Flavia said fitfully, twisting her fear of getting caught into the frustration of failure. “She resisted, so I killed her.”

With a slap on her controls, Vrutil jerked her hoverchair back from the bed.

“Short-sighted clown,” Vrutil spat at Flavia.

“Starfleet never trusted her,” Flavia said, and she swallowed hard. “She’s spent so much time in the Federation, she might as well be an exile of the Free State. She has no worth.”

Flavia braced her elbows on the mattress beneath her and sat upright.

“Now,” she said, “she can take my place in the farmer’s field.”

Vrutil swerved her hoverchair away from the bed and pressed onwards towards the exit.

“The Remans do yearn to eat,” Vrutil said.

The Wrong Flavia – 4

Science Lab, USS Almagest
December 2401

The ambient clamour of conversation created a buffer around Lieutenant Leander Nune, offering the illusion of privacy between himself and Laken ir-Nesthai. They were seated at a teaming workstation with only a holographic LCARS pane between them. Between the excited chatter and computer chimes, not any one discussion in the crowd could be heard distinctly over another. The multi-purpose science lab aboard USS Almagest was one of the largest gathering areas for the science department, and they had claimed a corner for just the two of them.

Among so many voices, it was easy to lose himself.

“If I asked you what Flavia was doing aboard that D-7 battlecruiser, you would never tell me, would you?” Nune asked.

He met Laken’s eyes and held the gaze for every word. Even that small intimacy was defused through the translucent mask of the holo-interface between them.  Laken’s face rarely shifted while he considered a question; his strong jaw remained set.

“That’s not the right question,” Laken said, cocking his head to the left. He smiled softly only then. There was a boyish playfulness to his timbre that belied his actual age.

Laken was the first to look away. He tugged at the cuff of his quilted jacket. That broad-shouldered jacket looked far more finely tailored than any uniform, making Laken stand out all the more in the gleaming Starfleet laboratory.

As a member of Flavia’s Romulan Free State science team, Laken had already been questioned by the security department. They had found no evidence of Laken participating in piracy. Barring that, Starfleet’s tenuous research treaty with the Free State empowered Laken to continue in his role as a visiting scientist. Due to his familiarity with Flavia, Laken had been taken off the medical study of Kunhri III and asked to investigate the astro-political motivations for why a Romulan faction would be kidnapping ill Remans.

All parties understood that Laken would only be free to act through layers of Starfleet liaisons.

Squinting at Laken, Nune supposed, “You would tell me if I asked you, but there’s no guarantee you would tell me the truth. Is that what you mean?”

“Go one layer deeper than that,” Laken said, patting Nune on the forearm. Something was plainly patronising about the gesture, and yet Nune only found it endearing.

“There’s no guarantee I know anything,” Laked added, “Least of all the truth. Flavia has been here, with us, studying the Remans’ medical condition at the same time that D-7 of raiders have been crashing across the Romulan Republic border.”

Laken eased back in his chair, and Nune couldn’t quite see his eyes through the scroll of text on the LCARS pane.  While Nune’s Betazoid empathy offered no feeling of deception from Laken, his senses weren’t trained on him deeply either.

Nune waved a hand at the scrolls of text, images and videos between them. They summarised the USS Meridian crew’s investigation of the Reman survivors they rescued from the D7.

“Maybe you know one thing,” Nune suggested, scrolling down the notes until he found the transcript that was on his mind. “None of the survivors remember Flavia saying much to them, but she wasn’t the only intruder.”

Nune enlarged a visual record of one of the witnesses.  He said, “A Reman named Avek was travelling with his brother. One of the Romulan raiders tagged the brother for beam-out while Avek escaped. He described the Romulan as having branches tattooed on his cheekbones, and when Avek demanded he bring his brother back, the Romulan referred to the pair of them as Nerris and Dellon.”

Shaking his head, Nune asked, “What does that mean? Avek said he knew nothing of the Romulans, but did the Romulans know them specifically?”

Laken’s dark eyes lit up, and a titter of a laugh escaped him. “Nerris and Dellon aren’t real. They’re from a poem my mother told me as a child, a revlav written back when the first Romulus colony was still young. Over the centuries, many mothers recited the same verses about those gluttonous youths who dared to steal their family’s provisions and run away from home.” –He squinted– “There’s not much said about the events, so much as the punishment. Puerile adornment and golden shackles.”

“Nerris and Dellon valued their freedom above all,” Nune surmised, “and so their parents punished them by taking away what they valued most?”

 


 

Left or Right? Escape pod or bridge? Shuttlebay or laboratory?

On cautious steps, Flavia explored her captors’ ship for almost seven minutes without seeing any members of its crew. Judging by the layout and the other compartments she passed through, she recognised her cage as an old science ship, more than fifty years old. It appeared much the same as the ones that had conveyed her across the empire in her youth.

The empty corridors suggested a far smaller crew complement than what would typically be required for a ship of this size. A scant crew led her to believe she was being held by one of the waning independent Romulan factions, if not a secret society within one of the more prominent factions.

In the dimmer light of the corridors, she moved delicately to muffle the sounds of her footfalls. The readings from her dented tricorder offered a limited range: a dampening field of nebulous origins prevented her from reaching the USS Almagest’s computer or subspace transceivers. The scanners could hardly detect any decks of the ship beyond the one she trod upon.

If this was a Republic ship, Flavia’s life would be at risk if they learned she was a Free State agent rather than a Changeling. If this was a Broken Wing ship, Flavia expected to be persecuted for her partnership with the Federation. Escape was her wisest option. If she were here, Flavia supposed Yuulik would, instead, challenge her to investigate what the Romulans were doing in orbit of Kunhri III and if it had any relation to their own mission.

Before she could fully commit to staying or going, Flavia pried open a life support vent and tucked her tricorder inside. She set the passive sensors to continue mapping the ship and detect whatever else it might detect.

The most horrific truth Flavia didn’t want to find would be if this were a Romulan Free State ship. She had reported on her mission to Kunhri III to her superiors; of course she had. They offered no particular instructions other than to preserve her overarching mission objectives. Was it possible she had spent so much time in the Delta Quadrant that her own government wouldn’t have trusted her with their own operations at Kunhri III? Had it cost the Free State so much to free her from the Dominion and her Changeling imposter that her worth had run out?

The life support vent was well-secured when Flavia heard the sound of clanking chains from down the corridor. Four Remans trudged towards her with shackled wrists and shackled feet. At first glance, their eyes appeared glassy, likely sedated. Once again, her thoughts went to the Broken Wing faction, borne from the remains of Romulan prison moons. Was it possible they missed their jailer ways and had taken it upon themselves to punish the Remans for their treason against the Romulan people?

A tall Romulan was holding the chain that bound the Remans. He stomped down the corridor in an out-of-date uhlan uniform paired with farmer boots. He even had the swagger of a stable hand whose opinion of himself had grown beyond his station. His gangly limbs didn’t look strong enough to restrain even one of the Remans without the electronic aid of the manacles.

Flavia stood her ground, folding her hands behind her back. She would never be seen skulking anywhere.

She asked, “How’s the livestock? Will they serve your purposes?” She calculated that she would have to balance presenting herself as the Flavia Changeling and satisfying her burning questions her captors’ identities.

“Sturdy bunch,” he replied, as frustratingly vague as her question had been. As he drew nearer, she saw branch-like tattoos across his cheekbones, exaggerating the angular lines of his sneer.

He glanced over his shoulder to ask, “What say you, Pallauma? Do they have a thousand days of pain in them?”

The so-called Pallauma trailed behind him and the Remans. Despite her tall stature and a well-maintained blowout, there was an ethereal quality to her movement. Her presence was marked by absence.

“A thousand and one, even,” Pallauma said. Although she echoed his words, her own voice had the quality of burnt caramel. The lyrical threat in his timbre wasn’t echoed in hers.

Cheekbones stopped at a large set of double doors and put his palm on the adjacent control panel. He didn’t look inside the darkened chamber as the doors opened. Instead, he set a glare at Flavia.

“You would know all about that, henh?” he asked her accusingly.

Evading the insinuation as assertively as she could muster, Flavia asked him, “Do you ever wonder how the Dominion’s loving embrace could have protected the Romulan people if only you had allied with us?”

Leaving that question to decay between them, Cheekbones stared back at her vacantly as he pushed each of the Remans into what should have been a cargo bay. Rather than packing crates, Flavia recognised biobeds and medical equipment inside.

Breezily, Pallauma interposed herself between Flavia and the others. She touched Flavia’s shoulder, but the gesture felt weightless. Instead, Pallauma held Flavia in place with her open gaze.

“Pay Uchrus no mind,” Pallauma said, and she didn’t lower her voice to do so. “He’s an akaana, and he’s playing at dominance. His confidence was shaken when Starfleet nearly took you both.”

Only then did Pallauma lower her voice. Glancing over, she saw that the bay doors had closed, providing privacy for Flavia and her.

“Vrutil told me what happened,” Pallauma said. She sounded like a politician, alluding to a distasteful topic. Rather than a diplomatic faux pas, Flavia had to assume Pallauma was speaking of the deteriorating health of the Flavia-impersonating Changeling whom Flavia was now impersonating.

An embarrassed quirk of a smile tugged at Pallauma’s lips. “You know what she’s like. I wouldn’t be surprised if she told Uchrus too.”

“Does he think I’m weak?” Flavia asked. “Do I need to keep watch for a disruptor between my shoulder blades?”

“That’s always a good rule to live by,” Pallauma replied. Ironically or not, she put an arm around Flavia’s shoulder and guided her toward an area of the ship she had yet to explore.

“This will be over soon if you can do as you’ve promised,” Pallauma said, her voice swelling with hope. “Once we’ve designed the cure for the Remans, we’ll all live as kings.”

The Wrong Flavia – 5

Science Ship Vanawar, Kunhri System
December 2401

The laboratory was laid out as a ten-sided irregular polygon to ensure no computer access station had a clear line of sight to another. By design, any researcher was intended to collaborate with the science team without any view to the larger whole. Between the oblique angles of the bulkheads and the dim light, Pallauma passed through shadows on her trudge to the only active computer screen in the compartment. This wasn’t a fully-staffed science ship. They had the laboratory to themselves. Flavia couldn’t see Pallauma’s face when she spoke. She had no opportunity to read her expression.

“How would you respond,” Pallauma asked casually, “if I suggested you end your galavant around the galaxy?”

Pallauma looked very much like any number of professors who had tutored Flavia at the astrophysical academy. The capelet draped over Pallauma’s shoulders was fashionable; her dark hair was twice the volume of her head; her cosmetics appeared heavily applied to hide the lines on her face. Each choice was perfectly tasteful on its own, yet none complemented another cohesively. She looked like someone who had only read about fashion from text streams.

That was why Flavia had to remind herself consciously: Pallauma was nothing like her old mentors. Flavia was here among them as a god, a Founder of the Dominion obsessed with seeking revenge on Starfleet. She followed Pallauma into the lab with a slackened expression and slouched shoulders; a god would have no reason to affect an intimidating presence. The very substance of her being would be intimidating enough, she conjectured.

“Who are you to question me?” Flavia asked.

“It’s not me,” Pallauma said dryly, her back to Flavia. “It’s them. In the medical bay. To our knowledge, no Remans have died from ulcers or digestive blockages, but their illness is chronic. Death is chasing them, the weakest of them at least.”

There was no transition. In one moment, Pallauma spoke softly, and in the next, she was projecting like a classical theatre performer. Even then she didn’t turn to look at Flavia. She slapped her hand on a control panel, sending a scroll of green text across every display in the laboratory.

“While you’ve been out on raiding runs,” Pallauma declared, “Vrutil’s researchers are losing ground on the drug therapy. The ligand binding affinity is unravelling unlike any we’ve ever seen before. The nanomaterials I’ve designed to deliver the drugs directly to the digestive tract have failed all of the preliminary tests we’ve run. I understand you’ve been unwell, but your genetic engineering expertise is wasted on rounding up test subjects.”

Flavia held her breath. Her areas of study were broad and deep, given the decades of her career, but the genetic mastery of the Dominion was far beyond the very best in any Romulan empire. She turned to one of the display consoles, choosing one that would hide her face.

“Must you work this hard?” Flavia asked. Aren’t there research archives you can purchase? The Phylosians are experts in bacterial infection, and Denobula has been known to trade quietly with Romulans in the past.”

When she didn’t respond right away, Flavia looked over at her. Given the furrow of her ridged brow, Pallauma appeared to be considering her words carefully.

Then Pallauma spoke quickly: “Obtaining the biomimetic gel from the Orion Syndicate trading post cost me my very last secret.”

“Your last?” Flavia asked, sputtering out the words in disgust.

Pallauma raised an eyebrow. “Our days of loyalty to the Empty Crown, to anyone, are long, long gone.”

The Wrong Flavia – 6

USS Almagest
December 2401

Captain Elbon Jakkelb’s Personal Log, Stardate 78937.8,

I still don’t know why Flavia caused mischief in my relationship with Kellin, back aboard the USS Sarek. We were already divorced; there was no hope of repair. It could have been a twisted attempt to ingratiate herself to Kellin or cause chaos among the senior staff. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.

What matters is there’s still a chance to find out.

Five days after she went missing on the surface of Kunhri III, Flavia returned. She wandered out of the deepest catacombs of refinery city three-gee.

By that time, we had more clarity on the timelines. At the same time Flavia had been observed leading raids against Federation transports, Flavia had also been serving aboard the Constellation and then the Almagest. One of the Flavias was a Changeling, now dead. The Flavia who walked out of the ether has passed all of Starfleet’s new Changeling detection methods. She insists she’s been the one aboard starships the past couple of months.  The Changeling Flavia would have been discovered certainly, she insists.

When questioned about her whereabouts for the past week, Flavia referenced the clauses in the Free State’s research treaty that give her great latitude while operating beyond Federation territories or facilities. She made some vague noise about being restrained by her Changeling duplicate but offered no coherent answers.

When Flavia was questioned about the death of the Changeling, she interrogated the security officer into revealing Doctor Nelli’s theories that the rogue Changelings’ genetic tampering of themselves caused this Changeling’s genetic unspooling. Flavia supposed this sounded reasonable. However, there are no other reports of other Changelings being similarly affected.

Flavia has since requested transport to the USS Constellation at Starbase Bravo.

My executive officer will join her on the transport to the starbase, as she begins a period of parental leave. I’ve been considering candidates for her replacement, but my options are limited. We lost so many experienced officers in the Frontier Day massacre.

With Almagest about to embark on a mission of deep space exploration, I need a first officer with the wisdom and the heart to keep this crew safe. This crew of researchers and explorers make up a city in space — a floating starbase science lab. An up-and-coming flight or deck officer won’t have the right temperament for this level of responsibility.

My mind keeps circling back to Kellin.

We hardly behaved as a family even when we were married, serving aboard the same ship. I trust we would be capable of navigating the perceived conflicts of interest. Captain Taes has been mentoring him for the past few years, and I wonder if he’s already learned everything he’s going to learn from her. She protects him– cherishes him so deeply after he was nearly lost to the rogue Changelings. The way he opens his heart to those under his command, he could be the greatest leader of all of us.

I don’t think Taes is emotionally capable of pushing him the way he needs. Not after she almost lost him.

Pushing him is all I ever did, according to him. Pushing him away.

I don’t know if that makes me any better a captain, but it would offer something different.

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest.