Star Trek: Starbase 777 - commanders-office

Allan was brought to the first level, where the temperature was a lot nicer for him, but the threat of what was coming was looming over him regardless. His escorts were silent for the entire way, though from the way they moved around each other, one either had to assume they were communicating telepathically, or maybe they just knew each other that well. Upon entering the office, the two immediately vacated the room, not even speaking to its only occupant. They left Allan standing there, hands bound, face to face with...

"Sit down, Lieutenant," Irok tr'Lareth spoke, motioning with one hand towards the free seat opposite him. His voice was deep, his unfriendly grey eyes trained on Allan's minutest movement.

Allan didn't look at the guy at first, and instead sat down. Hands were bound, and it would be a stupid move to try and make any sort of daring move, so he sat in the chair, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back with a sigh. And then he looked up. While he didn't say anything for a moment, it was clear in his eyes that there was fear once he actually used his head - yes, the one he was supposed to be using - to recognize those intensely familiar features. Very intensely familiar, actually. They widened, his breath catching sharp in his throat like someone had suddenly yanked the air away. His muscles tensed beneath the facade of his casual lean. Sure, it was in fact warmer in temperature here, but the fear was leaving him feeling still quite cold, like ice moving its way up his spine. He stared at him for maybe a bit too long, before he looked to the ground, taking a deep breath and letting it out before he looked at him again, meeting his eyes the best he could, with a little more composure in him than the shock of fear from earlier. Still, though, he kept silent - he'd been in an interrogation room before, sure, but it was a nice little Federation prison room. With a normal and friendly guard who was just asking him nice little questions about what he did. This... he had no idea what the situation was like here. Was he supposed to wait for permission to speak? Maybe, so he did.

Irok chuckled at Allan's meek disposition. "What, are you really this shocked to see me, that you cannot bring yourself to say a word? And usually you're so... chatty." He crossed his legs, resting his ankle on his knee. "I wonder. Tell me, Allan Allen: what is on your mind right now?"

"Yeah, actually," he said, quietly, then cleared his throat. "Guards suggested not to run my mouth in front of you, but y'know, yeah, usually, I am pretty chatty, yeah.." he watched as the man also crossed his legs, listened as he asked the question of what was on his mind. Okay, sure. What did he have to lose by answering that? A lot, actually, but ... well, he certainly wasn't going to say everything. Because everything was.. "To be honest, a lot," he admitted, shrugging after he spoke. "Like, to be completely honest with you, it's a lot. There's always a lot on my mind, and - obviously, you know - with everything going on here - this whole... situation, especially." He looked around the room, at the desk if there was one, trying to just... see what decor or anything there was, if there was anything of note here. He paused, then decided to return the question, for some reason. As if this was some sort of normal meeting. "What about you?"

There wasn't much of note in the office, at least nothing Allan could see from where he was sitting. No sentimental items or personalisations; just the cool detachedness of a superintendent's office, which had become Irok tr'Lareth's base of operations for the time being.

A huff, then, in response to Allan's words, Irok's eyebrows pinching ever so slightly, before relaxing again. "You didn't answer my question in the least, boy. You've been questioned before, you know full well that answers like that don't cut it." He let a pause fall, the silence only filled with the sound of their collective breathing. "To humour you, I'll tell you what I'm thinking about. Are you familiar with the phrase "divide and conquer"? I hear the humans have history with that particular idiom, too."

"I did, you-" Allan paused for a second as he thought about his words instead of saying the first thing that came to mind, which would have been... dangerous, surely. "You might just... I mean, like you said, I'm usually pretty chatty, and if you actually want the full answer of what's on my mind right now, you'd get a fuckin' lot of chat, okay?" There wasn't really any bite behind that swear - it was pretty clear that was just the way he spoke. "But I mean, I can, if you want, but... yeah, familiar with that phrase. Where are you going with it..?"

"I am familiar with your way of speaking. I was asking anyway. Please don't presume to know what I want or don't want out of the questions I ask you, Lieutenant," Irok chided, voice cold as steel. "As for the idiom... Where do you think Saren is right now?"

"I'm not, I'm just, you know - checking. I don't know if you're uh, familiar with the topic of consent, but - so, you do want everything on my mind? 'Cause like, I can share, but for example, one of them's, like, a cup game I was about to play, but, um..." Allan trailed off as his brain thought about what Irok had said last, uncrossing his legs and just. Switching them around, some sort of way to shift his position while his hand were still bound. He bit his lip a little while he ran through what to say before he finally answered, not looking at the man in front of him while he did. "Um, I mean - logically, there's... clearly other cells here, so - probably in one of those? There were eighteen of us in the brig, there's six of us in my cell... it's some pretty easy math, would be my guess." That was ... his hope, at least. (edited)

"I am familiar with the topic of consent, yes. I am not some barbarian, no matter how diametrically opposed we are in all things. That being said, if I have to ask for your thoughts in as many words again, I will get angry, and spare me the stupid games you've been trying to play with your subordinates." Irok folded his hands into his lap, his expression impassive for someone so overtly threatening another man. As for the bit about Saren... "That would be the logical conclusion, yes," Irok agreed easily, his face giving absolutely nothing away.

Allan bit his lip when Irok uttered the words "I am not some barbarian". It was to keep himself from scoffing or flat-out laughing, because God, wasn't that a fucking ridiculous thing to say..? He waited until the man finished talking before he spoke again. He had the patience for that, at least. "Okay, so you didn't want to know everything on my mind if you don't want to know about the games, then, see, that's why I asked," Allan was still sounding casual at this point, but it was something he was trying to do now rather than something that just happened. "But sure, okay. What's on my mind. I'm wondering, first, why you're talking to me at all right now, right? Like, what do you wanna know from me, out of all people? Because it's definitely not for anything I can do, you've already gone into and hacked through the starbase just fine, and it's not for the games, and it's certainly not for my hobbies or interests or anything - you know, speaking of, actually - do you have any I should know about? You know, hobbies, interests - clearly not interior design, but, you know - other than stabbing children to death, which is, apparently, not barbarian behavior, got anything else going on? I started getting really into baking cookies last year, actually. People really like them, I could send you the recipes." (edited)

"Don't speak to me like that, boy," Irok warned, the gravel in his voice belying a danger like a rattlesnake rattling its tail. "If I successfully stabbed children to death, you and I wouldn't be sitting here talking, I fear. That is something I'm curious about, too, to be frank; I cannot seem to tell what makes you so interesting that you have half your posting wrapped around your finger, with multiple senior staff in your bed. I'm trying to figure it out." Irok breathed in deeply through his nose, letting it out in a sigh. "I don't expect you to understand, boy. You are... attached, to Saren, something that prevents you from seeing things with a rationale, or leaving things from the past to lie there." A pause, then, as Irok scratched at his chin. "Isn't that something you Federation types believe in, that people can change? I should hope you of all people do believe that, given your own past. As for me, I've not done any harm to Saren since arriving to this planet, even though I could have. Well, not that you can verify this, of course, so you'll have to trust me on my word, which I suppose would be a bit of a challenge for you."

Again, Allan waited until Irok was completely done speaking before he responded. Especially after that warning, he wasn't going to try interrupting or anything like that - no, he just listened, though he was noting things to respond to as they were said, trying to keep track of them in his head for when the man across from him was finished. "Okay, but... like, and I'm - forgive me, I'm really not the best with words, I'm an engineer, you know this - 'to death', like, he actually did... you know, technically, go to death for a second, but... eh, that's just... what's the phrase, sim... sim's antics?" Semantics. He meant semantics. "But, uh... I mean, okay, if you - want to know... like, I don't know, I just..." No, actually, now he was thinking about it. Did he really have half the posting wrapped around his finger? He supposed he was friends with, like, a lot of the station. Acquaintances with over half, actually, according to some behind-the-fourth-wall statistics. But what made him interesting enough for that? "I mean, I... talk a lot to people, I guess, that... you know, tends to get you in the door, right, and I guess people think I'm fun to be around, mostly? And I find them fun to be around, so... you know, it..." He shrugged. "Again, though, if there's something specific you wanna know about me, just uh, ask, really, I'll answer- I'm... a pretty open book, maybe that's also why I'm interesting to people? I dunno, honestly, buuut... yeah, no, we do. Believe in change, I mean, so I guess... I'm also wondering about you, right, like - okay, 'since arriving to this planet' is a pretty recent change, but, I mean!" He shrugged again, and it could be noted that a lot throughout this conversation, his arms were moving a bit anyways - that was because he was a man who really did seem incapable of talking without his hands, even when they were bound behind his back. divider

13:42

"Never too late, that's what the Federation would say, right? But, then, why are we still here, right? Why all this in the first place? Is it just... just some sort of revenge type shit? Is that it? I really did mean it when I asked about your hobbies and interests, by the way, despite the uhhh... you know, like - it can't just be this, right..? I think everybody has, like, a little bit of love in their heart. If not for someone, something, surely?"

"You are... incredibly naive. Almost disgustingly so." Irok stood up, righting himself to his full height. His uniform give him a stature that was imposing as he loomed over Allan, shoulders broad and squared off, the lines of his face diamond-cut and severe. It was no wonder he managed the respect of everyone under his command. He disappeared behind his desk for a second, reappearing with an ornate knife, clearly well taken care of and probably intended mostly for ceremonial purposes. The dark steel blade was buffed and gleaming, the wood in the handle polished and oiled. "I wasn't aware you were in the room when it happened. I wasn't aware you were an expert on what constitutes death. A little engineer who can't even get the word "semantics" out of his mouth without stumbling. Who shrugs and ums and ahs his way through every sentence, yet imagines to teach me a lesson." He pressed the end of the knife under Allan's chin, the point of it pushing into the fleshy bit under his tongue. "I could make you an expert, though. I wonder if it would make you more or less vocal." He pressed the knife in closer, until small drops of blood started to run down Allan's neck, which he took as his cue to take the knife away. "I'm putting money on more. Tell me, boy, what is it you think you know about me, that makes you curious?"

Allan shut his eyes and took a deep breath in and out when he was called incredibly naive. It wasn't a new insult to him; in fact, it was probably one of the most common that he received. And when he opened his eyes a second later, he was watching Irok retrieve... oh, a knife. Yeah, okay, in retrospect, he could've seen this coming. Probably did, even, in the back of his mind, somewhere. And so if there was a reason to keep his mouth shut and not interrupt before, he definitely did now, yet again letting the Romulan finish before he even attempted to speak. He was silent for a moment, his pulse a lot faster as he felt the point of the knife under his chin. The beat of it thundered in his ears, sharp, and he became acutely aware of how vulnerable that patch of skin was, how little pressure it would take to, as Irok put it, make him an expert. His throat tightened instinctively, fighting the urge to swallow against the steel tip, and his breath stuttered out through parted lips in uneven bursts. The sting of blood trickling warm down his neck grounded him, a reminder this wasn't just a threat. It wasn't some fucked up nightmare. It was real, and his fear was a living, clawing thing in his chest, urging him to flinch, to beg - but he strangled it down, burying it under stubborn silence until the blade finally lifted away. Stubborn, frozen silence. It seemed Irok was losing his money, because the engineer was left silent for a while, taking in a shaky breath once the knife was gone. How did he even answer this question? He knew he was curious about a lot of things. Why they were here, why, still, that Irok was choosing to talk to him, what he wanted to know, but what made Allan so curious about all that? Was it really a simple answer? He just had a guess, really, but it might've been wrong - but then again, Irok asked him what he thought he knew, and so... he'd give him what he thought, then. divider

15:22

"I... think I know that you're the Commander here, and... because of that, you... probably don't like the senators that were... mostly killed, possibly by your organization... and when that didn't work to kill all of them, you came after the people who gave them shelter. Attacked the station like it was a piece of cake, really. Which I'm still not sure how that happened, but..." Yeah, no, he wasn't more vocal at all. He was lost here, truly.

Cleaning the trace of blood off of the blade, Irok raised an eyebrow as he waited for Allan to finish. This was not the thing he'd been intending for when asking Allan what he knew about him, since he'd been aiming for the things that Saren had been saying about him. There was something about it that he enjoyed: the fear, the trauma, the lifelong presence on one's mind. Perhaps he hadn't succeeded in killing the boy, but he'd surely killed a part of him. Maybe... maybe that was better. He nodded along, since Allan had correctly extrapolated mostly correct information. "Yes, yes.,for the most part. I could elaborate, since your fellow officers will have figured it out by now. For all your naivety, you aren't stupid... most of the time." He twirled the knife in his fingers without even looking at it. "I'm surprised she hasn't come to gloat about it, honestly. Kemo has always had a flair for the dramatic. Ah, sorry. That would be T'Shai, to you. She's good, isn't she? Did you ever suspect her?" The corner of his mouth quirked up in a small expression of his mirth. He clearly thought this was a little funny.

Most of the time. Hm. He was starting to think the opposite of what Irok had said though once he pointed out T'Shai. T'Shai, who became CTO what, more than a year ago? Fuck. Maybe he was stupid. He was quiet for a moment after Irok asked the question, and sighed. "No," he answered, quite honestly, "though, I... didn't interact with her much. I usually talk with the other assistant chiefs, except, well - you probably already know who I talk to." That much was true - save for the senior staff meetings, he hardly even saw T'Shai around the station. Maybe it was just because he got used to talking with Vara'l about everything, or something like that. The only department chief he really spent a lot of time talking with was Alizati, naturally, and Mephistopheles, if you counted him. "But, no. I didn't."

Irok tutted, sucking air through his teeth disapprovingly. "Och, you really need to pay more attention going forward. She wasn't the only one, you know, although she was the one that made such a swift infiltration possible. And it's not even the first time you've all had to deal with something like that, though of course there's something much less scary about a Marked Resolve compared to a Tal Shiar." Irok was leaning against his desk now, fully relaxed as he insulted the security of the station. "Still, it was a job well done on our part. The senators... we came for them, but you'd done a surprisingly good job of hiding them. I don't suppose you could tell us what you did with them? We could consider letting you go, if you did." The offer seemed... genuine enough. But Irok wasn't someone to be trusted. Still, if ever there was a chance...

Pay more attention going forward. The words cut into him just a little bit, especially as he continued on, but when he was asked a question again, he genuinely thought about answering it honestly. Though, it did puzzle him just a little. "So... sorry, I - I mean, for one, I'm not the most senior officer you've got, I'm engineering, and there's better people you could negotiate with, you've got the XO here, Captain's probably still on the station, I - hope... like, yeah, I do know, but - but..." He leaned back - much as he could, at least, and raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me that - you went in and infiltrated our station to the point where you went under everyone's noses and took over it lickety-split, a lot of tech and hacking involved and ... you couldn't figure that one out? That's kinda a shit job, man. No offense. Like, you might need better engineers or something." Not him, though, evidently, but ... here he was about to beat himself up over the fall of the station, but this was genuinely perplexing to him.

In the blink of an eye, Irok was in Allan's space, and a fist was making contact with his face, breaking his nose with a powerful blow. Once the moment was over, warm blood started pouring down Allan's face, and Irok leaned back again, shaking out his hand with a disgusted huff, the red liquid colouring his knuckles. "I warned you not to talk to me like that, boy. The android had a far better idea of what happens when you act out, but let me remind you of it with a question: what would T'Alea think, if you killed another one of your partners through sheer negligence?" He opened his jacket to fetch a handkerchief to clean his bloodied hand with. "Now, because I am in a benevolent mood, I will offer one last time. Tell me where you're keeping the senators, and I will consider letting you go home."

The hit came so suddenly, and for a moment he thought he was just going to be punched right dead. He'd shouted some swear, dealer's choice, and for a second, the world blurred white around the edges, pain rushing in raw and hot across his face as blood flooded down his lips and chin. His bound hands tugged helplessly against the restraints, hurting his shoulder with how he tried to instinctively reach up, and his efforts to push the chair away with his legs was also futile. Every nerve screaming at him to curl in, to shield himself, to do anything but sit there and take it. But, well. That was the situation he was in. He had to sit here and take it. Take the way that little copper flavor hit his sense of taste, made him gag as he tried to breathe through the sudden blockage in his nose. And then he had to take the words. Hearing T'Alea's name only added to the amount his head was spinning now, seeming to hit his emotions as hard as that hit, followed by the question associated with it. His chest clenched, a strangled noise catching in his throat, but he forced it down, blinking through the sting of tears that were forming at the corners of his eyes now. "Fuck, how- how..." he started, and he had already gone back to speaking before he thought of the words. The pain was sort of stopping him from thinking too much about that. "What the... fuck do you even... mean- how do you kn-" How did he know about T'Alea? Of course, in the moment, his mind was forgetting that the Tal Shiar was great at intelligence and could have easily accessed his service record, seen the reprimand, and gone from there. But right now, his mind went to thinking that they'd gotten that information from someone who knew. There was his parents. Then there was Brokuk and Chadrix. And then there were 4 people who knew on the station; his partners, and Xal, who he'd told about her a few weeks back after the whole ghost mess. divider

22:55

'Negligence'. Speaking of that ghost event, huh, he never thought he'd be thinking about her again so soon. 'Careless', the little ghost demon had said. "Who are you, even - really, you c-" his words were being interrupted by some coughs in between, because his stupid ass kept trying to breathe and was doing it unsuccessfully, but also, he was trying not to lose it completely. How should he even ask the question? He knew that Irok was likely referring to Saren, but what if he wasn't? What if the station was still in the Tal Shiar's hands - a direct result of said 'negligence', and they had the other two of his partners in some fucked up little room? What if it was all of the above? "I - I'm thinking about it, really, j- can you, um - tell me what you.. mean, exactly? Like, um, who.. uhh.. where, like, precise, or, uh- sorry, it's hard to think about how to answer your question on, um, account of-" another little fit of coughs, "all the fucking blood." And the headache that seemed to be getting worse by the second.

Irok scoffed unempathetically. "Don't act stupid. Your other two boyfriends I don't have access to right now, do I? But I happen to have one of them close by. And if you don't start behaving, I'll start doing to him what I'm doing to you in threefold. He can take it, he's a strong kid. But do you want him to take it? Do you want to have been the cause of that?"

"I'm - not acting stupid," Allan shook his head, watching the blood drip down onto his uniform, onto his shorts when he leaned forwards to look at it, onto the bare skin on his thighs where his socks had slid down on the walk here. "I'm.." What was he doing? It was good to know they didn't have control over the station anymore, probably, though it was hard not to insult based on that. But the rest of what Irok had said... Well, he could assume he was telling the truth on that one. Before, he'd said he hadn't harmed him since coming on the planet, right? And while that all might have been some sort of manipulation... Allan's mind wasn't really in that space right now. "So much for change," was something he mumbled under his breath - his blood, rather - as he recalled that topic from earlier. Still, the tears were now starting to mix with the blood, and he let a shaky breath out as he looked from his bloodied uniform, to Irok, to the desk... his head throbbing more and more the longer he kept his eyes open. "Okay, fine. Fucking - give me a piece of paper, or something. Or are you super strict on that here?" Who knew. Maybe paper was a danger here for reasons other than board games.

"Oh, I think you're perfectly capable of just telling me. There's cameras everywhere, and I'm not the sort to forget anything." Irok clearly wasn't planning on giving Allan paper to write things down on. Sorry Allan! Better luck next time I guess.

"No, really.." Allan sighed, "I was - trying to ask you earlier, did you want the precise.. locations," he looked up at Irok, hoping to convey that he was genuine about what he said next, because he was. "It's... mm, there's a reason why I... 'm not the best person to ask, I'm a fuckin'... engineer, right, I... yes, yeah, I paid attention in those meetings but I was listening more to the, fuckin'... tech and shit we had to install, and where we had to put it, but I didn't memorize..." Ugh, all the talk had him feeling nauseous and he had to catch a breath, but he kept going after that brief pause. "The exact room numbers, there's a lot of fuckin' rooms, I'm sure you- I'm sure you know, but I remember, because I'm an engineer, and've got a pretty visual memory, where they were, on the fuckin', the fuckin' diagrams that they showed us in the briefings, so you just... you give me a list of the senators, and the recognition'll kick in, and I'll make a pretty, perfect little diagram for you, okay?"

Irok leaned in for a second as if he was going to smack Allan around again, but turned around at the last second as if he thought better of it. Instead, he went to his desk again, and retrieved a pad of paper that had belonged to Allan to begin with, but had been confiscated. Then he went behind Allan to untie his hands, pinching his wrists together while speaking to ensure he wouldn't move before he was allowed to. "Then draw, boy, but be swift. My well of patience for you is nearly drained." At long last, a pad of paper and a singular pen. (edited)

Allan leaned back instinctively when Irok leaned in, his eyes going wide with fear all over again before he watched the man go back to the desk. For a moment, he thought it was going to be another knife, but then it was... oh hey, the same notepad that Ellie had given him. He just kept it in his desk now? Huh. Well, at least he knew where to get it whenever he got out of here. *If he got out of here. He nodded, taking the pen with a slow, shaking hand.* "Right. I, um - I'll do my best to be, there's - I'm a little... um, yeah." What was he even going to say? A little stupid? A little incompetent? A little negligent, a little careless, a little - fuck, his mind couldn't keep hanging onto those words like that. He moved the paper to the right side of him and looked at it from the side so that he wouldn't get blood and tears all over the thing, and then looked at the list - wait, he hadn't been given a list. He'd started drawing the top half of the starbase when he realized this, and looked up at Irok. "Um-" he started, slowly trying to breath before he spoke again, "I... I do need, um, at least ... some of the names, to... match them, to the - the uh, the visual.. like, like that's how it, I promise, it'll click in my head better that way," he was actually telling the truth about that. Sure, he could draw the diagram and circle some rooms or whatever, but he wouldn't actually remember it very accurately without the names. (edited)

"Alright, then don't tell me anything. It's a wonder anyone entrusts you with critical information of any sort," Irok raged quietly as he took away the pen and pad again, throwing them behind the desk somewhere without as much as a glance. He was completely focussed on Allan. "Weren't you offered a position in Intelligence for your astounding work in the cybercrime department? Although I suppose you can't expect someone who doesn't remember the barest detail to leak information, now can you. In that sense you would have been a worthwhile acquisition, but you don't have much else going for you." He held out the cuffs now, intending on grabbing Allan and sending him back to his cell with his hands bound as he had come. "No sense, no smarts, mouth about as witty as a Pakled and as ever-running as the river. Whatever anyone sees in you, I pray they see sense soon."

"Hey-" Allan rolled his eyes as he watched the pen and pad be tossed away. Fuck, he was actually going to try and draw the diagram. And he was about to say that, too, when Irok went on talking. He swallowed, which was a bunch of gross mixture of fluids at this point, but he was trying to hold back until Irok finished. Tried to hold himself down as he pointed out - from Allan's point of view, quite correctly - that he really had nothing going for him. What did people see in him? He tried to search in his mind for an answer, but he was left with nothing, just weak, senseless stammering that came from his bloody mouth. "I-I.. I was actually, going to- to, um, do my best to draw the s-s-stupid fucking... I mean, fuck, that's fine, if you don't want it, God, fuck, but I -" he looked down at the floor, then back up at Irok, his head spinning from that move while he tried to manage any sort of look in his eyes that wasn't completely terrified and breaking down. "It still fucking confuses the hell out of me, how you really fucking went into the starbase and got access to the main computers, the security cameras, every fucking thing and you couldn't fucking manage it, the one fucking thing you fucking wanted, are you fucking kidding me, are you for real?" He bit his lip again, tasting the blood for the thousandth time, really being made aware of it. It was intense. The smell of it, the taste of it - super fucking salty, by the way, the mix of the tears and blood at the same time - the throbbing of his head, the fucking everything going on was intense as hell, but, fuck, what was he here for? "And maybe I - fuck, maybe you're just as incompetent as me, then. Because fuck, maybe I am negligent, and- and careless, and I've got no fucking sense and no smarts and fucking nothing, whatever you fucking said, fuck, but I - I.. was thinking about stepping down, actually, and - and you know, I wouldn't know any of this stupid fucking info if I did, but I -"

20:00

He sighed, shaking his head, tears clouding his vision, running down his face to come and meet the blood at his chin. He looked down as if that would help. It didn't, it just helped him to stare at his stupid boots. He was starting to feel a little more nauseous the more he thought it over. "So fuck, maybe this is all my fucking fault, maybe I'll step down when I - when I get back to the station, but you know what I.. you know what I won't fucking do, right, you know what I w... I won't leave. I'm not gonna leave the starbase, I'm not gonna give up, I'm not.." he gathered himself again to look back up at Irok and try, try best he could to hold a look into his eyes. "I'm not going to abandon the people I'm supposed to love." "Like.. like you." There it was, then. He looked to the ground again, to the side, wiping his nose on his sleeve to try and clear some of that mess. Nope, still couldn't breath through there. Still gonna be a mess of tears and blood. Still going to stumble over his words... "A-and, and- and maybe. Maybe that's what, that's what - that's what it is, r-right? I.. I love. I love, okay, and maybe I - maybe I care too much, I love too much, maybe it's too much, maybe that's.. that's why I'm so fucking, maybe that makes me stupid, maybe that makes me weak, and maybe it makes me..." divider

20:00

It took him a second to recall the word from earlier. "Naive. But, I - I don't think... I don't think it's something I can stop, even if I wanted to, and that's, I don't know, I- I..." Oh, he was feeling so nauseous now. He knew that he was very, very likely to be killed. But... "I - I love and I care so fucking hard, and maybe that'll kill me, but I do. I love the people closest to me, which yeah, that includes Saren, with all my fucking heart, and I love my friends, I love the starbase and everyone in it, and I - you know, in some fucked up way I don't even understand, I care about you, too. Or the - the person underneath whatever's fucked you up, I..." he laughed, now, more of a shaky set of breaths. Where the fuck was he going with this? It definitely wasn't trying to convince him of anything, or whatever, he was just.. "Sorry. You said it yourself. I'm chatty."

"You are chatty. I stopped listening about two minutes ago." Irok grabbed Allan's wrists, cuffing them, then pulling him to his feet. "I'm glad you could find the inner strength to compare yourself to me and find you like yourself better than you like me. I do, unfortunately, have to inform you," he grabbed Allan's chin harshly with the hand that had punched him before, "that I am at the end of my patience with you. And I was kind enough to warn you about this, but it didn't matter. You've still wasted my time." He pulled Allan along, towards the door of the office, which didn't slide open. Instead, Irok pushed Allan in front of himself, facing the door, grabbing the back of his neck with an iron grip. "Did you get it all out of your system, boy? Did you say words you will be proud of? I hope you did, because you won't get another chance." With all the strength of a Vulcanoid punch, he bounced Allan's little human skull off the metal door, knocking him clean out and leaving him a heap on the ground as soon as his neck was released. Considering for a moment, he looked at Allan's limp body, before deciding to get one more piece of payback. He kicked hard, right in the ribs, taking satisfaction in the dull snapping sound. Then, he opened the door, motioning for the two guards that brought Allan in to take him back out. "Make sure he doesn't die. I may still want him later."

Kayata and Tinuvek silently brought Tarsek to a seemingly arbitrary door in the hallway, looking no different from all of the others. Upon knocking, the door slid open, causing the faint scent of metallic blood and sour acid to greet Tarsek. He was pushed into the office, the door closing behind him and leaving his escorts standing outside.

"Ah, Commander V'hgai, have a seat. I have heard a great deal about you." Whether that was flattery or a threat would be left up to Tarsek's interpretation. Still, as he had with Allan before, Irok was sat in a chair and motioned for the one opposite him. This time though, he was already holding a knife, twirling it with his fingers.

Tarsek did not waste much time analyzing the office before sitting at the chair offered. He could look at the ambient while they talked and he had a suspicion their conversation would be much more interesting. He did notice the knife and the way the Romulan seemed to play with it. A threat? If so, inelegant, impatient. A sign of frustration? Maybe his previous… visitor did not give satisfactory answers. He briefly hoped whoever it had been, that they had survived, before focusing on his own fight. “I cannot say the same, however it was to be expected.” It did not escape him the uncanny similarities between this man and Saren. The young Romulan’s plead came to mind… previous history, he had said before. Family history?

The corner of Irok's mouth quirked up for a fraction of a second, gone as quickly as it came. "Yes, that was by design." He sat up a little straighter, engaging more actively with Tarsek. "How are you, Commander? Your stay must have been one of the more comfortable, I have to admit, but you must still have a lot of questions."

One of the most comfortable, the commander said. Tarsek assumed he referred to the fact he was one of the last ones in his cell to be called. Watching as others were picked. “You would know I am unharmed. You have designed our stay and our… activities. Some would say though that a golden cage is still a cage… and I see no gold around us, commander.” There was no way of knowing about the other cells, though if the smell of blood and the choice of words were any indicators, he could infer his other colleagues had suffered plenty. The man seemed to change his posture as Tarsek gave his answer. Interesting. “Indeed I have questions and I am sure you must hold some for me as well.” He would not be here if there was nothing the other thought him capable of providing, of that he was certain.

"No, I have to admit not all of your colleagues have been as fortunate as you. I did not promise a golden cage, after all; you were just one of the lucky ones." Irok did not provide a further explanation, simply breathing in deeply through his nose before continuing. "Let us start off with your questions, then. I'm sure I can answer at least some of them, and I will do my best to answer truthfully. If you promise you will do the same for my questions, of course."

”My answers shall be truthful.” What good were their words, he wondered. It was not the first time he had played this interrogation game. He knew there was chance of getting valuable information if he was careful enough not to anger the other and cut the chase short. “Let us start with your name, if you may.” An identity besides “the commander” would be good. “And if possible, I would like to know if all of my officers under your administration are still alive.”

Irok nodded, a crease between his eyebrows that had almost seemed a permanent fixture on his visage slowly disappearing as Tarsek spoke. "Of course, a logical first question. I am Commander Irok tr'Lareth. I maintain command of the crew that currently populates this prison, though usually, we are stationed on a warbird. As for your own officers..." he paused for a moment, leaving Tarsek in cruel suspense. "Yes, they are all currently still alive. The only casualty suffered so far has been on my own side." Never mind that he'd killed Pelmor with his own hands. It had been... a sacrifice, the necessity of which came attached to the job on occasion.

tr’Lareth. And as simple as that, Tarsek’s current suspicions were confirmed. His face, however, betrayed nothing of the association his mind had just made. “I grieve with thee, Commander tr’Lareth.” He was unsure of the reaction this phrase would bring, though he was not being dishonest in using it. And any reaction was information. “Alive, though not unharmed I am certain.” He could still smell the blood in the room. “I believe the next question is also to be expected: was your process of abduction random, or is there some hidden logic in the 18 officers currently imprisoned?”

"I didn't promise anyone would stay completely unharmed, and honestly, if you heard the way that boy was talking..." Irok twirled his knife again, almost treating it more like a fidget toy than the weapon it was. "As for the abductions, have a guess for me? I believe you'll be able to figure out that answer based on who you saw in the brig on the way to the prison. They promoted you for a reason, at least I have to assume they did, and it wasn't just your pretty face."

”I am aware no promises were made.” He said. “Aside from our mutual compromise with the truth. It was merely a deduction.” It was the second time the man used that specific phrasing. How illogical Tarsek would have had to be to demand anything close to safety of him, of Tal Shiar, with no leverage to bargain. And it seemed Irok was at least partially interested in his deductions, in the way he rationalized. “There is no pattern when it comes to the identities of the abducted. That was evident when your agents invaded operations. Only two taken, when taking the captain would have been an option. Too many low rank officers taken as well. Officers that would most likely not have any information of interest.” He said. “There is no method when it comes to the order of the officers collected from our cell. Commander Lawson and I would have been logical choices for questioning. Instead, a lieutenant was requested first. Lt. Cdr. Lawson was only requested after an apparent tantrum, and only to be punished. You have also revealed to have seen someone before, when I am the highest ranking officer in your posession.” He was descriptive in his analysis, searching for any signal that he might have evaluated the situation wrongly. “Lack of method, from an organization such as yours, capable of launching the previous operation, does not point towards error. There is no method because there is no need for a method. It was inconsequential who you had within your grasp. I suppose you just needed enough people in numbers.” (edited)

"Very well done, Commander. Accurate on most counts, you receive nearly full marks." Irok seemed almost relieved at the display of intelligence. It could be an act, of course, but based on the scent of blood and the expression on his face, perhaps the person that had come before hadn't particularly impressed him. "As a diplomat and a leader, it is of course imperative that you understand the person opposite you. With your background in anthropology too, as well as the missions performed on the Jobin, it stands to reason that you would know a thing or two about us." Irok stood up then, calmly rising to his full height. He started pacing, slowly, simply walking as he thought. "You were quite the accidental grab, Mister V'hgai. How lucky for me to have my subordinates just happen to acquire the newly appointed second officer of the station. Do you feel very attached to your fellow officers? A sense of responsibility for their wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of the officers on the station?"

Irok was no diplomat, but he was a leader. His words made themselves true for him as well, as he described Tarsek’s background briefly. Very briefly though, information anyone could get from his professional files. “I acknowledge my responsibility, yes. The duty of being responsible comes with the position.” He said in response to the emotional description Irok provided. (edited)

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mister Vulcan, I forget your kind insists on repressing a foundational part of the self until all interpersonal involvement can be explained away and discarded at a moment's notice. So you acknowledge your responsibility over the others, sure." Irok waved his hand as if to dismiss Tarsek's statement, moving on as he continued walking. "How far does that responsibility reach? You don't actually know most of the people working under you. Would you abandon your training for the sake of their, and your, safety?"

”Some do. Some do not. You do not seem to approve, some would call it bad luck for you to have caught a Surakian.” He was used to people focusing on that aspect of him. He was used to people testing that aspect of him, hoping to catch a mistake. “Be more specific on which training. I have several different kinds.” Was this man intending on testing, hoping to break, his logic?

Rather than focus on it, Irok brushed past it entirely. It seemed to matter little to him whether or not Tarsek was Surakian or not. The conversation didn't hinge on it, the logic would follow whether or not someone followed the teachings of some half-mythical figure. "The training on how to deal with sensitive information in the face of foreign intelligence, Commander. They give you that, in the command division."

”I am aware.” He noticed the vocatives changed quite a few times. Wondered if there was a reason and then stored the observation. It hardly seemed of worth now. “Are you asking me what it would take to betray that training?” It was interesting how this line of questioning had followed conversational patterns so far. A negotiation almost. Again, he wondered why, certainly there were more efficient methods to get the information. “If I had an answer to that, Commander, the training in itself would have already failed.”

"I'm only wondering if your training is more important than the safety of your subordinates, Commander. It's nothing so personal as what would cause you to betray that training, I'm merely asking your educated and logical opinion on the matter." Irok's back was turned to Tarsek for a moment, his arms crossed as he brought one to his chin to mime being deep in thought. "Though I suppose the needs of the many against those of the few... a Vulcan could afford to be so callous as to decide that protocol exists for a reason, and should be upheld no matter what."

”Indeed. You might have answered your own question, Commander.” ”Well done”, the professor in him could have easily said. They were not in a classroom, however, and Irok was definitely not one of his students. If what he had deduced was indeed right and if Irok had not lied before, the truth was that there was probably nothing he could do to buy their safety. Seventeen officers chosen at random. Their captors had not been interested in bargains, they wanted to send a message. Allowing them to go would reduce its impact. Saren, at first the only brought here with clear purpose, had said as much and appeared to be correct: they had come here to die. Accepting imminent death by their hands, however, did not blind the Vulcan to the only true hope they got: time. Time, he could attempt to buy. “Though, you might not completely believe in this simple answer, or you would not waste time bringing me here over conclusions you already reached. I am certain I am not here for my ‘pretty face’.”

"Oh, my friend. I am not here to weasel information out of you like a lawyer does to a witness." Irok turned around again, now holding the knife in a reverse grip that would (to the keen eye of one capable of defending themself as such) allow him to both punch and slice easily, as well as stab, if he got the angle just right. "I am here to make you reconsider." He walked up to Tarsek now, looming over the man where he was still seated. "You see, Mister V'hgai, there is one thing about principles that I understand more than anyone else. And that is that they're easily turned around when faced with mortal peril. Pain, some Vulcans can withstand, though not all, but when the choice is capitulation, or slowly being bled like a pig, the understanding that this doesn't need to be the end, for you or your subordinates, usually sinks in quite well." The edge of the knife was placed against Tarsek's neck at an angle, right where the carotid artery was easily accessible. "I will ask you now: will you tell me where the senators that were harboured on Starbase 777 were hidden, precisely, so that I might retrieve them, and maybe even send your crew home while we're there anyway?"

He stared at the man. His blue eyes betrayed nothing against grey ones. Ice versus steel. “Indeed, Commander, you believe your conclusion was not final nor irreversible.” As the blade made contact, he also did not move. Blood did not pour yet, but he prepared himself for the future sting and the warm liquid to drop. “You must also understand, Commander. Your terms are still not compelling enough. ‘Maybe’ send my crew home. Do you believe me naive?” Irok’s move could have been almost offensive, if Tarsek had cared about such things. But it at least seemed the Vulcan was hearing… Thinking… His answer had not been a straight “no”. (edited)

"Naive?" Irok huffed out a dark laugh. "I believe you to be sensible, Commander, and intelligent." He pressed the knife in slightly, the sharpness just right to split skin without issue, but the pressure so controlled by a man who had clearly done this thousands of time, that it was only the capillaries in the skin being bisected, the drops of green blood offering a warning, but no real thread yet. "Will you answer my question, or not?"

”I did. On these presented terms, my answer is no.” There was really nothing else to be answered, even Irok should see the absurdity of the offer. “It would be foolish of me to accept such a risky gamble. Certainly, you would agree.”

Irok sighed. "Perhaps you are not as sensible as previously anticipated. Allow me to elucidate, Commander. Your ship was left dead in the water, your officers on the Starbase do not know where you are. There are hundreds if not thousands of prisons like this scattered throughout Romulan space, and there is no way to find us if you don't already know where we are." Irok backed off then, putting the knife on the desk before returning to Tarsek, leaning over him as he grabbed the back of the Vulcan's chair, boxing the man in. "You will die here, V'hgai, that is the way Thieurrull functions. Except, of course, I'm sure my superiors would look the other way for a few hostages exchanged, provided, of course, we get valuable information in return." Irok looked directly into Tarsek's eyes in order to impress his words upon him. "There is nothing you have to offer that is more valuable to me than the information I have asked for. Any attempt at negotiation on your end is moot, and refusal to cooperate guarantees you will die here, to be forgotten by the universe. There is of course the possibility you can be set free, but that is contingent entirely on your cooperation." (edited)

”It might come as a surprise, but I am aware of our predicament, Commander.“ The knife left his throat, Irok was still talking. “This is not a hostage exchange situation, as you said yourself we are not negotiating. You expect me to deliver the information and then wait for the possibility of my people being released.” He did not turn his gaze, he did not stop his explanation. Maybe Irok simply did not see it, the desperation he tried to evoke at this point was illogical. “We were brought here to die. My superiors do not know of our location and are not in current contact. If there is no guarantee to make me believe you, there is no logic in giving you highly sensitive information in exchange for freedom. Nothing stops you from killing me or my officers. We will be most likely dead either way.”

"Understood." Irok pulled back entirely this time, fetching something from his pocket and fiddling with it. "I'll make sure your entire crew understands it, too. That the possibility of them living is less important to you than the lives of random refugees that they had no choice in taking in. That logic trumps their lives, and that the possibility of returning home wasn't enough for you to make the choice to try to spare them. That you would rather die with certainty, than deal with the uncertainty of whether or not I will choose to be merciful... even though I have been rather gracious to you, compared to the millions of vile things I could have done." He pressed the button, and the door swished open, entering an annoying pink-haired ensign. "Ask Saren what he thinks about all of that for me, will you? I will enjoy hearing it."

”There is no shame to be felt.” Tarsek said. “If they happen to hate me for the decision, I shall bear it. That is… if we live long enough for it to even take root.” Indeed, Tarsek was convict of his answer, and Irok most likely knew as much. This was not an attack on him, it was an attack on their unity. Trust would be needed to survive, and Irok had delivered a devastating blow on his crew-mates abilities to find him reliable. Checkmate. He did not say more. Not even when Saren was mentioned. As soon as the ensign entered the room, he knew their conversation was over. Tarsek’s word had been final, the commander in front of him was no longer his biggest obstacle.

"Your little friends are quite rowdy, Saren," Irok said as he pushed his grandson into his office, firmly shutting the door behind them.

The rough yank made Saren stumble in a few steps, but he managed to stay upright and on his feet. His eyes snapped upwards and all around the room, gauging how it looked, what it had inside, before refocusing back on Irok again. More than a decade later, the man was still taller than him. It was a nauseating sort of realization that Irok was the same height as his uncle. Saren breathed in deep, before even trying to respond, "Being locked in the cell for so long had an effect on many."

"Perhaps we should have killed you all quicker. Kemo and the others were having so much fun, though, and I hate to take away their toys..." He released Saren as he walked further into the room, motioning to the chair that both Allan and Tarsek had sat in before. "Sit."

He was so afraid that the feeling fell back into numbness - both of his body and his soul. Nevertheless, he obeyed. Saren approached the chair and sat down in it, shoulders held, head high, watching Irok's every move.

"I have been wondering, you see. I don't pay too much attention to the Federation on a normal day, or at least I haven't done so before in my career. And then, when the plan to attack the Republic Senate came together, and I got made aware of Kemo's infiltration of Starbase 777 after its crew helped that warbird... what was the name. Kinaen?" Irok settled into the chair opposite Saren, for once talking to a prisoner unbound, because he fully trusted that fear would continue to keep Saren placid as it had so far. "Imagine my surprise when her reports about the station contained the name "Saren tr'Lareth". I understand you'd been a Morvar for a while, which, what a terrible choice for a House, really? But at some point you gave up the disguise. By then, of course, I was certainly interested, and, well. We're here now. So tell me... how did you survive me, that night? I was so sure I'd sufficiently left you for dead."

Kinaen. The Tal Shiar had it's sights set on the Republic ever since Kinaen. That was... that was so long ago. So much time to infiltrate, to squeeze themselves into the communities. And not just the forever alert Republic... Federation too. Kemo was an unfamiliar name to him; but the dawning realization that the starbase had been breached into for months, if not longer, made Saren clench his jaw. What he thought was a sudden ambush in reality was a long-term abuse of trust and Federation values, as well as patience of a species who lived for centuries. Plain and simple. The question that followed made Saren blink, perhaps in slight disbelief. It was... not something he expected. Though, perhaps he should've. "I didn't, in the immediate aftermath. I had to be resuscitated," Saren replied, watching the man's face, trying to see if the retelling of the story of how Irok maimed his own flesh and blood while the world around them burned would elicit any sort of emotion out of him. "They found me after you left. I wasn't there for that, of course - I only remember waking up in the infirmary. Why... why did you ask this?"

Irok sniffed once. "I just wanted to know if I'd actually slipped up that badly. I'd assumed not, of course, but you have to make sure." He sounded so... nonchalant, as he said it. "And I didn't want to make the same mistake twice." He sighed, then leaned forward. "I think we both know you're not making it out of here alive, Saren. Not you, and not your friends and colleagues. My officers are basically at the end of their fun, one of yours killed my second in command yesterday through a combination of misfortune and complete recklessness on her part, and I, frankly, am at the end of my patience. I offered V'hgai Tarsek a way out, and he didn't take it." He looked past Saren for a second, as if thinking deeply. "There is absolutely nothing any of you have to offer me. You won't make it past another week, I think."

Despite himself, Saren let out a wheezy sort of chuckle: "Oh, I know. Unfinished business of twelve years, that I am. I just... I can't help but wonder what lead to this. To you... doing all of this, to your own family." If this was the end of the road, then he might as well ask these questions. It wouldn't matter anyways. It might hurt more, it might prolong the end, but Saren didn't care. And if, somehow, he miraculously survived this second encounter... well. "...How did we become the lesser of your priorities, grandfather?"

"The lesser of my priorities? You're on the same level as all the other prisoners on this planet. Except, well, the ones that stick around have something to offer me. You'll just be joining the ones that don't." Irok sighed again, fidgeting with his hands, before standing and grabbing his knife from the desk. "However, since you are here, and your friends have really tested my patience this past week, and you will not retaliate, I thought to give your death a little personal touch."

As soon as the knife was out, Saren felt his muscles tense up, something in him beginning to shake. His heart, maybe, overworked with stress to the point that it was about to explode. Because here Irok was, again, and here was the knife, again. The long-healed wounds on his torso howled with pain, again. "You really don't care," he spoke, hollow, wide green eyes watching the approaching man as Saren was still seated, paralized by fear or trauma or everything all at once. "You just... you really don't care."

"Did I give you the impression I cared, twelve years ago?" Irok asked rhetorically, approaching with the knife. "I care about the Empire, and the continuation of its spirit. Something your family has thoroughly abandoned, what with your father being a senator for a false government." He spat out the last sentence as if it left a sour taste in his mouth. "I know you won't give him up along with the other senators, so I won't even ask. You won't even get the chance to let everyone go home. I'll just be using you as a little stress relief." With those words, Irok swung rapidly, making a broad swipe across Saren's face to cut his cheek open, a relatively shallow wound that was mostly inflicted to sting.

The ripping sound of the skin on his cheek echoed in his ears, as Saren hissed and recoiled, fresh pain hitting his brain like a nail would glass, shattering the fog and bringing some of the clarity back to him. It didn't hit his eye, he realized quickly, as the Romulan blinked away the moisture to glance up at Irok again. How was this the father of the two kindest, most selfless men Saren knew? How did Irok speak about his own son like this, and not bat an eye, not realize that something is wrong? Alongside his fear and desperation, now bloomed indignation. Because all of these words, all of these actions, were utterly, deeply selfish, and that is just not something that his House - his family - were for. And Saren tr'Lareth was fucking taught better than this. The next exhale after the cut was more akin to a snarl, as Saren clutched at the arms of the chair, pulled up his legs, and blindly kicked at the man's torso, all to throw himself out of the chair, out of Irok's shadow, out of being immediately cornered: "Yeah?! If you want to kill me so bad - earn it!"

Irok coughed once after his chest was kicked, caught off-guard as he staggered back a few steps before he was able to kick back into gear. His face twisted into one of ugly rage, his lips curling up into a monstrous snarl. "Earn it?" he asked, somehow yelling without raising his volume, "How about you earn the right to beg for your life as I drain it from you?" He surged forward, pushing Saren back with a hand around his throat, closing the windpipe and cutting off the blood to the brain. "You'll die here, Saren, and I will finally finish what I started with you."

The push was bone-rattling. The speed and strength at which it all happened were slightly disorienting, and for a moment, the whole office became one singular blur of dark green and gray in his eyes. Feeling the unrelenting squeeze, Saren rasped, a cough threatening to rip through his already burning airways. He gritted his teeth instead. There was no verbal reply to Irok's words, only the defiant light in those teary eyes, the desperate clench of Irok's wrist in his grandson's fists as Saren tried to pry it away from him, and the thrashing and jerking of his whole body as he vied to dig his heels into the attacker. A man reduced to a mere body, but one that refused to die without a fight.

"That's what I thought, you insolent brat. No smart words now, are there? Now, let's see what other memories I can conjure up for you," Irok said, bringing up the knife in his hand against Saren's lower belly. "Try not to struggle too much, Saren, or you'll make it worse for yourself," he cooed cruelly as he started pushing the knife in slowly, to maximise pain.

His body convulsed, the sensation of cold and pain setting off something in his mind, a click and a boom; he tasted copper on his lips as he gasped something breathless and agonized, did he bite his tongue?.. Darkness kept creeping into his vision, slowly consuming the corners of the room and the silver of his torturer's hair, before they began to slowly roll back, leaving Saren's half-lucid stare somewhere on the office's ceiling. He was going to die here. He was going to die. He was dying. He was-- At least he fought. At least he didn't give Irok the satisfaction of submission and absolute fear. He could only hope that right now and then, help was somewhere nearby, and that everyone else soon will be safe. That, while he wasn't able to hold his end of the promise, they managed to do so with theirs. And he could hope that this man in front of him, and others like him, will be stopped. And then no one will be hurt again by Irok, ever again. And... if he had to pass now, this was the belief he chose to go with. He was losing all feeling. Some emotions, however, prevailed. Spite, and sorrow, and also a strange sensation of peace. "What would... your beloved s-son... think of you... now," he whispered, through copper and a small smile, "Irok-k-khhh..?"

"What did you say?" Irok had, at least, the decency to look shocked, before just being angry again. "You... you would throw that in my face, would you? The loss I've suffered is none of your business." In retaliation, Irok pulled the knife out, stabbing once, twice more in rapid succession, leaving deep gashes in Saren's stomach that coloured the front of his uniform a deep and saturated green. He was about to create a fourth wound, when there came a knock on the door. "WHAT!" he yelled, crazed and firmly losing his grip on himself. He let go of Saren's throat as he turned to face the door.

From the other side of the door, a voice called out. "Senator t'Tal'Aura is willing to talk, Commander, but only to you, and it needs to happen before she changes her mind."

Drowsily he watched the shock color Irok's face - perhaps the closest thing he'd had to a human emotion since forever. If Saren was still able to think properly, he'd be shocked himself by the sight. Instead, he just felt bad for dealing such a low blow. "I'm s-sor--" And then his world became agony. His stomach burned like a wildfire. The instinctual scream lodged itself in his throat, right under Irok's vice grip, and all Saren could do was weakly keen and cough and choke on metallic green, his hold on the man's wrist slipping off and away until his arms were hanging listlessly by his sides, save for a weak twitch with every hit of that blade. He didn't react to the release. He didn't react when his knees gave out, and he sank down to the floor with a loud thud that rattled his teeth and bones, all the while painting the office around him with blood from both his wounds and mouth. He didn't react to the sway of his upper body as it listed to the right. He did nothing as he fell, hitting his head and shoulder and everything, a sensation so dull and distant it didn't matter anymore. Saren clung to the world with one ragged, uneven breath, then two, and then-- And then, peace.

Irok glanced towards Saren as he slumped on the floor, before dropping the knife and walking towards the door. "Fine," he said to the people standing on the other side, shouldering past them to leave, leaving Saren on the floor and the guards standing there.

She put her hand between the door inconspiciously as Irok moved past her, so that once Irok had left, Azize led Irek into the office. They picked Saren up in silence, deciding that moving quickly was more important than trying to help right now. They had help on the right floor, anyway.

The office was a mess, chairs and desk overturned despite their size and weight in a fit of overwhelming rage. Irok was pacing in circles, swearing under his breath about prisoners and crew and "those fucking triplets". He knew, clearly, that something was up, but also that he didn't have the chance, or the people, or the knowledge to do anything about it. Knowing something is wrong doesn't mean you know how to salvage it.

Heavy footsteps approached the doors to the office, before there was a knock."Commander," came a muffled voice, it's low tone suggesting Rhean.

Irok stilled, taking a deep breath to compose himself. "What is it this time, tr'Sathe?" he asked, still clearly agitated, though this was... not particularly a strange emotion of Irok's to be directed at Rhean.

Briefly he let his eyes wander around the room. This is where his father spent his time while stationed in this prison. This is where he took people in for questioning. This is where he violently attacked Rojin's nephew. This... this was it. Forty years later, Rojin had this man cornered in a room. The final chapter of the story. He had forty years to prepare for this. Why were his hands shaking? He looked the commander right in the eyes, a gaze that didn't fit the face he was wearing, and spoke. "Commander Irok i-Dartha tr'Lareth, for the atrocities you have committed against the Romulan Republic, her Flotilla, as well as the independent colonies of our people, you are to be taken with us and brought before her court. The defenses of this prison are weakened, your people are in disarray. There is nowhere left to run anymore."

Irok stiffened minutely, before an anger overcame him again. "You-" he started, the emotion plainly visible on his face, his composure shattered firmly. "Who are you? What have you done to Rhean?" He fumbled, his hands shaking too but with a different emotion compared to Rojin, for his disruptor, eventually managing to draw it, though his aim was shaky. "The absolute nerve of you people- whoever you are! You know who I am, don't underestimate me!"

"Rhean was ambushed during his latest patrol and has been sent to Mol'Rihan," he explained, voice low and calm and his. The draw of the weapon made Rojin raise one of his palms, while also showcasing to Irok that he had a disruptor of his own with the other. "None of your people have suffered casualties from the hands of us, I promise. They are currently either already, or being taken into the resistance's brig." Oh, he knew indeed who this man was. He knew very well what this man was capable of - better than Irok could ever imagine. "It's over. Lower your weapon, and come with us. I have no reason to hurt you." Lie. Lie lie lie.

Mol'Rihan... it wasn't a place Irok was planning on going. It wasn't a place Irok thought he would survive: if he was the Republic, or what was left of it, he'd throw him into a dark hole never to be seen again. It wasn't a life he'd be able to be satisfied with. He tensed his arm, his aim getting only marginally better. "I'm not coming with you to Mol'Rihan," he stated, firing once, but missing the impostor's head. "Get out of my office, or I will kill you."

The shot zipped past him, leaving the characteristic smell and heat in it's wake. Was it a warning, or did Rojin just get lucky once again? The thought forced a breathless chuckle out of him. "I don't want to hurt you," he rasped, reaching for his nape with a gloved hand. Everything went to shit forty years ago, or perhaps even before he was born, so he might as well embrace it. A click, and the second skin was shed, and while the short hair, the strong features, and the scarring stayed... they were not the same, not anymore. "But I can't let you continue hurting others."

Irok watched his hands closely, making sure they weren't going to his disruptor. Instead, they were going to his face, and one impostor made way for another. "You..." he growled, low and dangerous, "have you just come in here to mess with me?" The question was asked of his mirror image, a memory carved into him by loss of pride and joy. He wanted to shoot, but was paralysed by the face he was looking at.

"No," came the simple answer. Rojin wanted to laugh, for some reason. Probably so that he wouldn't cry. "I remember the day you came home, and you smelled of blood, and you finally told me about what you really were doing. And... I ran away from home, father. Because I... I didn't want to be part of... any of this. I joined the rebellion to make up for it, instead. And now I want to give you a chance, and take you to Mol'Rihan, despite everything, because... well. It's over, can't you see? The old ways are over."

"YOU LIE!" Irok shouted now, but his hand was lowering, wavering, ever so slightly. "Talai was the soft one! My Rojin was strong, and proud, a true Romulan! He would have-" Irok didn't know what he would have. He would have died for the Empire. He did die for her, did he not? He resumed his ready stance, aiming to kill. "The old ways are not over as long as I live. The Empire is who I have always put my trust and faith in, and her people put their trust and faith in me. Whoever you are, liar, infiltrator, impostor, you will not take me. Either I will die here in her name, or you will."

For a moment he forgot how to breathe. This... might've been the first time he had witnessed his father raise a voice at someone. At him. And the exhale that followed was shaky at best, because being called soft after soldiering on for so long, and hurting people, and being hurt... well, it was just fucking hilarious, wasn't it? "He would've given everything he had for his people, just like you wanted him to. And here he is, doing it. Because someone has to," he had to get rid of the man's disruptor. "Have you? Has every single thing you've done for your children been in the name of the Empire?" Shooting it was risky. He knew at least one of his colleagues lingered behind him. "I will drag you out of here kicking and screaming if I have to, you old dog." And so he ducked and lunged.

When Rojin moved, so did Irok, first shooting once more, twice more, and upon noticing he was missing, bringing his other hand up to claw at his neck. "Everything I've ever done has been in the name of the Empire," he insisted as Rojin made contact, "there's nothing anyone can do to take that away from me." He let himself fall backwards, his back and head connecting with the overturned desk. Still, he didn't let go of Rojin's neck. "Do anything for your people then, impostor. Do it. Or are you all such cowards that you won't even kill?"

Rojin steamrolled into his progenitor, grunting at the joined impact; suddenly, there was a clamp on his neck, squeezing, choking, and fanning the flames of the fight higher. "Drop it," came the response, as he tried to shake the man off of himself. His left hand found the handle of his knife, and pulled. "Drop it, you idiot."

"And then what? Have you stun me, cuff me, jail me and let me rot? Over my dead body, dissident, and I won't go quietly," Irok wheezed out, almost laughing at his predicament, his hand clamping tighter on both Rojin's neck and the disruptor, starting to bring the weapon up and over to try to fire into Rojin's body. "Fight harder. I will go to Erebus satisfied that I fought for my Empire until my dying breath."

The next grunt was more of a wheeze, the attempt at shaking Irok off a failure. He was being slowly killed by his own father. His own father, who either refused to recognize him, or was too far gone to ever do so. Rojin knew what his departure from home did to the man. Talai told him everything. But to see that rot like this? It was different. It was cathartic. "Eneh," he blurted out, immediately deeming himself insane too, because how is his first in this situation to call out for his dad? "Stop it, please..." The knife was out. Unmistakably of their House's origin by design, something the man currently trying to kill him gifted to Rojin on his seventeenth birthday. It was pressed against Irok's own throat, a threat, and a plead that matched the look in his son's eyes.

At the flash of the knife, maybe, finally, a recognition begins to dawn on Irok, whose grip on his disruptor slackened, though not his grip on Rojin's throat. He sat up, slightly, pressing his own neck into the knife to split the skin in order to more closely study the face of the man that was killing him. "Arh'faelirh... Rojin..." he started, green blood beginning to streak down his neck, "taortuu arhem. Hwi mnei mnaeir yy'a." Kill me. One of us must die, and must die willingly.

The pressure of the knife ceased, for Rojin slowly removed it from the neck, and used the sleeve of that same arm to wipe at the older Romulan's neck. His other hand meanwhile was on Irok's wrist, a gentle attempt at guiding it away from his neck. "There is no honor in that," he whispered. "Don't turn me into a kinslayer. Come on..."

A moment of hesitation, then, the pressure on Rojin's throat loosening momentarily. Irok looked... shocked, unsure for a brief moment before his other arm stiffened once more and he lifted the disruptor to his own head. In a way, it was cowardice. The reckoning with his own memory, sharp as it was though failing in this instance, because what he had thought for four decades to be true... wasn't. His son, diametrically opposed to him, even moreso than the eldest had ever been. Fighting him, now, each having their own idea of what a better future would entail. Irok could not stand to see Rojin in any light but that of posthumous glorification; the son who can do no wrong because he is no longer. It was more comforting than the realisation that he had no-one who would stay by his side. That fucking Khellian who betrayed his cause got to have everything, and he... "It doesn't matter who does it, in the end," he breathed, his grip on his disruptor tight so as not to lose it to the desperate hands of a son who didn't want him to die, but his finger not yet on the trigger out of cowardice once more, stuck between not wanting and needing to die. "This is a dignity they will not afford me in the Republic."

This-- no. No no no no no. "Stop!" he barked out, all the while his self-preservation instinct, honed and nursed for so many years now, practically screamed at him to fight, fight, fi-- "You old fool, don't do something you will regret! You don't have to die over this!" He had to step back. He had to step back from this bubble of insanity. "I am requesting backup. I refuse to entertain this thought no more," he didn't have any hypos on him, all used up on the third floor. Fool. Fucking fool. So Rojin began to stand up, to move away, intense gaze focused on that disruptor, on the lack of the trigger finger...

In a moment of... was it panic? Irok sat up, the disruptor leaving the side of his head and being pressed against Rojin's body again, the finger now on the trigger and engaged. "No," he said, trailing off almost confusedly, but whether it was said to Rojin calling for backup, the threat of he himself killing his own son, or something else entirely, that was unclear.

His free hand was already pressed against the communication device in his ear, the tiny little trill of it comforting for his frayed nerves. Because it meant that the request for backup was sent, and will be received, and others will come here soon, and-- And then there was the cold end of a disruptor, pressed right against his heart, the sound of a finger tightening around it's trigger echoing in his very soul, and Rojin stopped thinking entirely. Overwhelm and strike, before the aggressor can do it to you, and then move on to others. It all happens... too quickly. One moment he was leaning away, only to find himself holding onto the body in front of him, his head hanging low, giving Rojin the perfect angle to see the knife firmly held in his hand sticking right out of his father's torso. Bullseye.

"Heh... Thank you." It was over now. A hundred years of terror, ended under a gifted knife carefully handled and skillfully placed between the ribs. As Irok's head lolled backwards, his expression became visible, the wrinkles on his forehead almost smoothed out in calm peace, corners of his mouth quirked up in what could almost be called a smile. The disruptor fell from his hand and made a thunking sound on the green carpeted floor that absorbed the blood that soaked his uniform and ran down his body. Like this, though in life he had been a rather imposing man, the danger rolling off of him exuded out of every pore of his tall and battle-ready figure, he looked rather... small.

As the commander passed away, Rojin just... sat there. Staring dumbly at the man that was becoming a corpse right in front of his eyes, his mind not caught up yet to what just happened, yet acutely aware of it all at the same time. Because it was simple, really. He just murdered his own father. Blindly he reached for the wound, gloves soaking up green as he tried to press on it, all the while watching Irok's face for any sign of life still there. Someone called out to him. Someone slid the floor right besides him, their hands around his shoulders and on his chest ("oh gods, oh-- come on, let's get you out of here..."), two more pairs of hands prying him away, firmly, gently, as if he was worth something. Something was said over his head, and-- Five more were transported away, leaving Hellguard truly barren.