The floor abruptly gave way in front of her, and she pitched forward, falling into a shallow fissure or ravineor a trapand she felt the creatures leap on her the next moment, their hands pummeling her over and over again, their nails slashing at her. She struggled against their powerful limbs, but after an indefinable length of time allowed herself to go limp. She focused her conscious mind inward, ready to wake up fully with the speed of a charging le-matyafrom behind her meditative shield against both mortal terror and physical pain.
They carried her with them instead of dragging her, and she was grateful for that, even as she continued to focus herself on what was to come. Eventually, she heard screams she could identify as coming from Vekkr, but as they came closer, the wailing subsided into guttural cries and moans. She hoped silently that if she should survive the mission, she would be able to find the strength to deliver a painless death to any of her comrades who had become infected.
She remained limp as a rag doll as her captors unceremoniously dumped her against something hard, allowing her to land in a semiseated position. Vekkr was mostly silent now, though in her meditative state, TPol could hear several of the other sounds that were reverberating through the dark, rocky chamber. Within her mind, she withdrew, as if she were a hungry, ravening Underlier waiting to strike from below the baking sands of Vulcans Forge.
A rough hand grabbed her face, its jagged fingernails digging into her chin. TPol allowed herself to come back to full consciousness, but willed herself not to tense up into a defensive posture that the creatures might notice. She opened her eyes, however, and found herself staring into the ravaged face of what appeared to be a female humanoid.
Her features were vaguely similar to those of Vulcans, but her eyes were more prominent and seemed to have multiple lids, nictitating from the sides as well as from top to bottom. The womans ears tapered to graceful points at their tips, but everything else about her external pinnae struck TPol as less than aesthetically pleasing; they were flattened backward, were roughly the same size as the womans entire face, and were covered in bulging greenish veins.
In a movement that might have been a smile had she had lips, the Frislen woman allowed her mouth to tilt upward on the sides as she noticed TPol studying her. Four rows of rotted teethwhich included sharpened, predatory incisorsfilled her oral cavity.
“You will be mine, I think, the woman said, speaking in a perfect Vulcan Standard dialect.
TPol was less interested in what the statement meant than she was in keeping the woman talking. As naturally and fearfully as she couldshe didnt really have to feign the trembling that had overtaken hershe peered around the woman into the dimness of the cavern beyond. She saw three more of the Frislen, as well as the remains of Yekda, and the body of Vekkr, on top of which lay a fifth Frislen, who was moving languidly, almost as if in a drunken state.
“What are you planning to do with us? TPol asked, hearing the quaver in her own voice.
“You will be mine,the woman said again. “That one belongs now to Gromstl, she said, gesturing toward the creature atop Vekkr. “The others, she added, sweeping a clawed hand toward a grate in the floor that apparently covered a prisonlike pit, “will be food. Or fun. Or they will belong,too.
TPol understood that the womans emphasis on the word “belong meant that she intended to infect TPol.
“Why are you preying on the people here? TPol asked.
The woman tilted her head, a scabrous tongue sliding against one of her forward rows of sharpened teeth. “To survive. To feed. To procreate. To be a reminder, always.
TPol didnt know what the woman meant, but needed to keep her talking until the time was right to move. “A reminder of what? That savagery exists in the worlds we inhabit? That sentient beings can debase themselves to the level of carnivores or parasites?
The woman pushed TPols head back roughly and rose to a crouch as she released a noise that might possibly be interpreted as laughter if it hadnt sounded so much like howling. She looked around at the others, then returned her gaze to TPol, who had gathered her arms close in around her torso, clutching herself the way a frightened child might.
“Perhaps one of these days we should allow someone to returnto tell the others what we really are, the woman said. “The origins of what you call the Frislen. Before the experiments, the mutations, the banishment.
The woman leaned in close, fixing TPol with her dark, predatory eyes. “They would tell how wewere once you.
In that moment, TPol allowed her entire being to suffuse itself with every bit of energy she had kept in reserve. Flashing her arms out, she pulled the broken sehlatribs out from where she had concealed them inside her sleeves, tight against her forearms. With a quick slashing motion, she used the jagged tips of the bones to cut the throat of the woman, rolling herself aside even as the ichorous green blood began to spray.
As the dying Frislen woman clutched at her throat, TPol drew the short tricheqfrom the boot where she had hidden it and threw it at one of the other creatures in the cavern. It pierced his forehead, dropping him instantly.
TPol had barely managed to regain her footing before one of the remaining Frislen roared toward her, on the attack. She swiped her foot out in a wide kick, hoping that her second makeshift weapon would work as well as the first. The sehlattusk she had strapped to the side of her boot sliced through her attackers torso, and before his forward momentum had entirely spent itself, the Frislens innards were spilling out upon the rough cavern floor.
A keening sound swiftly filled the chamber, and TPol whirled again, expecting to be attacked by the other two creatures. But the one making the sound was exiting the room through a tunnel, his body slipping effortlessly into the darkness. The other one, the creature atop Vekkr, seemed neither alarmed nor particularly conscious of what had just transpired nearby.
TPol noticed only now that she could hear the voices of Denak and Ycha calling out to her. Pushing aside the still bleeding body of the Frislen woman whose throat she had cut, TPol looked down into the pit below the grate. Despite the darkness that enfolded the pit, she could see her comrades, at least in silhouette. She quickly cut through the improvised twine that held the grate in place, moved it aside, then reached down to grasp the hand of Ycha.
The green blood that still rained down on them from the dying Frislen woman made getting a grip difficult, but within a minute, TPol had finished extracting both her fellow agent and her mission leader.
Denak quickly counted the corpses, and listened as TPol told him about the Frislen that had escaped into the adjoining chambers. “There are many more of them than weve seen so far, Denak said gravely, pointing toward numerous cavelike openings that could have served as berths for sleeping or hibernation. “We probably dont have much time before were beset again. And theyll be angrythis time, instead of merely hungry.
He pointed to some fabric remains that still clothed skeletons in a shady corner. “Get some torches going with those scraps.
As Ycha scrambled to comply, TPol retrieved her tricheqfrom the Frislens forehead. A quick scouting of the cavern revealed several of their partys other fallen weapons: both the useless depowered component devices and a few other tricheqs and bladed weapons.