Activation

Posted on Thu Aug 28th, 2025 @ 7:34pm by Ed'Rah, Daughter of Khartan & "Sonnet"

1,278 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: ARYL 1X04: All the Friends We Can Get
Location: Resten II
Timeline: SD 8961.7 (13 August 2290, 20:00)

Resten II was a perfect colony world for a Vulcan security officer.

From sun-up to sun-down, it got hot enough that the majority of the planet’s eight thousand colonists went indoors, mostly deep underground into the dilithium mines. At night, the community came to life as the streets cooled to comfortable levels and the photovoltaic crystals in the mountain range lit up the landscape in manu shifting hues.

Petty Officer Sareya was assigned the day shift. She patrolled mostly-empty streets. Occasionally she would journey into the nearby mountains, especially when there was evidence of unauthorized landings. She was by far the most capable person on the security staff of the Resten II Colony’s Starfleet outpost to handle such daytime activities.

Unfortunately, while the colony’s day-life was unpleasant for most of the colony, its night-life was horrible for Sareya.

People on the frontier worked hard, and so they played hard. People caroused in pubs, ale spilling into the streets. Music boomed from nightclubs, shaking building foundations. Red lights shone through windows attracting the attention of workers that needed extra help to unwind.

The sights, the smells, the sounds, it was all so overwhelming to a Vulcan trying to maintain control and calm.

So Sareya rarely left her quarters during the night. She trudged through the chaos of the evening’s earliest festivities to shut herself away.

Her living situation offered only partial respite. She had her own bedroom but it was attached to a common space shared with three others. Petty Officers ch’Marek and Burnwood weren’t too bad; they had their shares of bad habits but they tended to take night shifts and so were absent when Sareya wanted solitude. Petty Officer Smith, on the other hand, was awful. He snored loud enough that she could hear him through their shared wall. He only left the common area for sleep and his duty shifts, so he was always there. He ate with his mouth open. He made a whistle sound when he breathed.

But it was her posting. She was disciplined. She would endure.

The sun was down. The miners were emerging from their caves. The mountains glowed brilliantly in the distance. Sareya pushed through the growing cacophony and found her way to her quarters.

“Oh hey Sar.” Smith sprayed food crumbs as he spoke. “Your screen has been flashing with an incoming call for the past ten minutes.”

Indeed, the wall-mounted comm panel showed the words INCOMING SUBSPACE MESSAGE in bright blue letters.

Sareya went into her bedroom to take the call.

**

“Computer, open channel, authorization Sareya-Gamma-Five-Echo.”

The computer screen displayed red and gold static and played a distinct audio message.

“chay’ qImroq tuj jajmo’ qapatlhmoHchu’?
‘IwlIj tuj ‘IH HoS, jajvam tuj ‘IH puj.
Qom ghub Qejlu’bogh jevtaHvIS SuS qu’
‘ej qul DIr Soplu’pu’pa’ Dor poH tuj.”

Sareya…smiled.

It was a slight smirk at first, just the smallest break in her composure, which had been held perfectly until that point.

A moment later it grew wider. And wider. Until it was an almost obscene imitation. A sneer. One which communicated utter disregard for everything around her.

It was time.

She had waited for… how long had it been? Two years? Two and a half? Long enough to establish herself as Sareya, denying herself the basic pleasures of life in order to be believable as a Vulcan.

Oh how she longed to hear the words. The first four lines of her proper namesake.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough wings do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

“Llhusra, it feels good to hear that,” she said. She took a deep breath in and let it out with a sigh. “Confirming that Sonnet is ready for action.”

The static resolved itself into an image of a Klingon woman. Ed’Rah smiled wickedly at her agent. “I thought you might be.”

“What’s the mission?” Sonnet asked. Gods, it felt good to go by that name again.

“Leave Resten. Take a subspace amplifier with you, kilocochrane scale. Then get to Neumenides and set up shop. You’ll have a few things to do there. Make sure you have a good comms array; you’ll be doing a lot remotely.”

“Just remotely?” Sonnet asked, her voice tinged with a false sweetness. “You’re not gonna let a girl get up close and personal?”

Ed’Rah bared her sharp, yellowed teeth in an evil grin. “Oh you’ll get some up close action all right. But not right away. And don’t worry. There will be blood, even if your hand isn’t literally in it.”

“Oh I’m sure I’ll find some anyway,” Sonnet said with a giggle, her twisted smile growing larger still.

“Do not risk your position on Neumenides, Sonnet,” Ed’Rah ordered. “Report to me once you’re in orbit with the amplifier; I’ll give you coordinates for a hand-off.”

“Of course boss. I’ll launch before sunrise. I just have some business to handle first…”

**

Finally her quarters were quiet.

A few keystrokes had sent a power surge to the nightclub next door, temporarily halting the music and thumping and bright lights from outside. Sonnet had rigged that sabotage when she first landed and found herself fantasizing about using it, but her cover as Sareya couldn’t be risked.

Silencing the noise from within her quarters had been far more satisfying. There had been snorts and whistles, followed by a sharp crack, and suddenly Petty Officer Smith was incapable of bothering anyone ever again.

“Heehee.” Finally the charade could stop. Pretending to be a Vulcan was hard work. Pretending to be a Starfleet security officer who cared about such things as duty and obligation was harder still.

Sonnet had no such duties or obligations. Not to her own people, who cut her loose when the Romulan-Klingon alliance fell apart. No, Sonnet was a free agent, one who was paid very well to take instructions from the Daughter of Khartan.

Paid well enough to have a well maintained warpshuttle hidden in the mountains, one she could check on every time her superiors sent her into the mountains to check for contraband.

Funny. If they had sent literally anyone else, Petty Officer Smith would be alive today.

There were ten more hours until sunrise. Plenty of time to steal a subspace amplifier from storage and get to her ship.

And then enjoy a journey on an empty ship, where the only noise would be the gentle hum of the warp engine.

Quiet.


END

“Sonnet”
Former cover name: Petty Officer 2nd Class Sareya, Resten II Starfleet Outpost

Ed’Rah, Daughter of Khartan
Secret Advisor to the Sector Forces Commander, Klingon Empire


~/\~


Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

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