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Posted by Lieutenant Commander Peter Sigmundsson (Chief Intelligence Officer) in The Heorot - the return of Kara Nakuto

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Consultant, Former CO) in The Heorot - the return of Kara Nakuto

He was quiet for a good while, to be frank, he’d hoped something like this would happen. He could not… no would not put his family at risk dealing with something like this but Kara, she was probably already at risk, within their crosshairs. It also helped that he could trust her “Do you remember when we first met ten years ago?” he asked without waiting for an answer “I was a lieutenant just back to the Fleet after a decade out, you were a Commander and Acting Captain of the Curie, the first thing you asked me to do was set up a training operation to, and I quote ‘see firsthand what kind of warriors I have onboard my ship’” He said with a half-smile “That’s not a very common Starfleet way of thinking. I would be more than happy to share whatever it is I learn from them with you, I have as much experience out there in the real world as I have within the Fleet and I know what kind of people we’re dealing with, we’ll need allies to rid ourselves of them.

Peter

The memory returned almost instantly. Her first command. The innocence and hopefulness of those days seemed almost impossible to accept now. A trick to force her into believing that she did have the courage and the strength to lead a crew. Of course, her time in command of the Viking was sure to slay any such beliefs. Still, as she replayed the training operation in her mind, a wide grin spread across her face.

“Ha! I knew from that moment that you would be a worthy companion, Peter Sigmundsson! And it is an opinion that the years have not changed. We are similar, you and I. Determined to fulfill our duties and complete our missions, but willing to…seek out unorthodox methods to do so, if the situation demands it.”

She drained the remnants of her glass and sat forward in her seat, her elbows coming to rest on the table’s heavy, scarred surface.
“However, this crew has changed immensely since my last visit and, yourself, Lt Stone and Ensign Luna are the only ones I currently know and trust. I would…appreciate anything you can tell me on the others. Especially our Captain and First Officer. Might they have been placed here under similar circumstances to yourself?”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant)

Peter leaned forward on the table, he’d never spent much time here since his return, he had never been much of a social creature. The design did amuse him somewhat, he grew up around the stories of Vikings and their great halls, most of which had been in the Scandinavian countries but most of his ancestral knowledge came from his countrymen. “I don’t know the First officer that well, Atalanian son of an ambassador. He has a very tragic backstory, his family was murdered some time ago, don’t know any details but he seems clean, just the sort of Officer who’d end up here.” He leaned back a little, looking into his own cup and thought back on his own losses.

Nakuto snorted a laugh. ‘Clean’ and ‘the sort of officer who’d end up here’ seemed like a contradiction from her own personal experience. But the tragic backstory that Peter had also mentioned, now that was a much more powerful lure for whoever or whatever currently controlled this ship. She found herself wondering if the computer had tortured the unfortunate XO with equal malevolence to that which it had enjoyed unleashing on Nakuto herself, back in the day. One positive result of no longer being the commanding officer, at least, was that a large and indelible target had seemingly been removed from the half-Klingon’s own back. Not that she would ever wish the burden she had once carried on others.

“An Atalanian? I do not believe I have encountered one of his kind before,” was, however, the only public comment she offered.

“The Captain, on the other hand, well you should be at least a little familiar with her” He took a moment to finish his bloodwine, wiping his face with his sleeve “She was found by the USS Nova, its first officer a Commander Gloria Ravenfall eventually adopted her. She grew up around Starfleet and joined the academy at eighteen, this is just after the Dominion War. After that, it’s your standard Starfleet Security Career that culminates her promotion to Captain three years ago and transfer here to the Viking.” This was all information that Kara was probably aware of, he knew that, but a good storyteller builds tension. “But what you need to know is that she’s not a regular human, there’s something else there. I don’t know the details exactly but she requires a regular oral intake of blood, without which she apparently falls in some sort of coma, this is secondhand information from the medical staff. What I know for a fact is that she has Klingon level strength, I suspect some sort of genetic manipulation related to her blood levels. But I also know that I trust her with my life and I do vouch for her, she’s one of us”

Peter

Kara nodded. She had met with Ravenfall briefly a handful of times, first when their positions had been reversed and the now-commanding officer had been boarding as a medic. And then later once she had assumed her command in the wake of Nakuto’s own disappearance and eventual, unexpected return. The half-Klingon had also heard the rumours about Viktoryia’s blood consumption although, on a ship where shadows lurched from every corner and portals to other dimensions swallowed half of their crew, it had seemed, by comparison, a trivial and inconsequential matter to be concerned with. But now, following the benefit of temporary distance between herself and the entities on the Viking, Kara found herself considering the matter anew.
“Genetic manipulation?” she repeated, thoughtfully. “Just like Ensign Luna.”

Returning to the bar, Nakuto fished out a second bottle of bloodwine to replace the one now drained on their table, and refilled both of their glasses.
“Peter, I suspect that whoever or whatever is manipulating this ship might possibly also have had some involvement in these genetic experiments. In fact, I do not believe we are the first ship or crew to be used as a test subject in this manner. Nor will we be the last. Unless we can put a stop to it. But I fear that this might be bigger and more far-reaching than either of us have the ability to comprehend. Or to take on.”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant)