Past Demons

Posted on Fri Mar 17th, 2023 @ 3:04pm by Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya
Edited on on Fri Mar 17th, 2023 @ 4:27pm

Mission: Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: SS Mary Rose, Kali's Quarters
Timeline: Middle of Night of the Fourth Day of Festival (MD08)
1382 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Earth, Boston, 2357

The narrow little living room looked so much larger through a small child's eyes than it truly was; but seemed to be closing in on Kali nonetheless as she crouched wide-eyed under the table along one wall in the corner near the couch. On the ground in the opposite corner, her mother was sprawled unresponsive - dead? just unconscious? she couldn't tell from this angle! - blood from the hard hit to her head spilling onto the well-worn floorboards. Nearby was the broken sculpture that had made the strike, and the dead (probably? closer to Kali than her mother was, with Aliereth's knife thrust up under his ribs, and he didn't seem to be breathing?) Tal'Shiar agent in human disguise that had made said blow in their fight. Across from that, her father was still struggling with the second man, both of them grappling one another against the slipperiness of the blood from the few hits they'd landed on one another. It would have been anyone's guess which man would emerge the victor, and Tal's eyes had a desperate intensity to them as they briefly met his daughter's - too briefly for the terrified child's taste; unable to disengage from the fight.

"Go! NOW!" Her father yelled at Kali, and with a last desperate glance at her parents, the preschooler didn't hesitate further, running not for the doors but the one window her father had rigged to open but only from the inside, clambering out it and rolling awkwardly as she hit the ground, the drop from the first floor window to the dirt still a distance for a small child. She looked frantically around, searching for anyone else, but there didn't seem to be a third threat and she started running, all the things her parents had told her to do if this happened racing through her head like a manta: Find humans, or other Earth residents. As many of them as possible, in as public a place as possible; make it hard for anyone to do anything without it becoming too public, too costly.

As luck would have it, when the four year old hit the end of the next block after theirs, there was the neighborhood carnival in the park she'd been badgering her parents to take her to earlier. She slid into the crowd, then into a seat on a ride, alongside a little Andorian and human from the local preschool, and some other kid whose species she couldn't place on sight, and fastened the safety harness as the ride operator did a last check and started it swooping through the air; and she could have been distinguished from the rest of the children on the rides only by their grins and giggles and shrieks of joy to her relative silence and the way her eyes flicked through everything, tracking the crowd, terrified she would never see her parents again. You run; and if we live, we'll come for you; it had been made clear to her the many times they'd gone through instructions for what to do in this sort of scenario. If we don't come for you within an hour; you find someone who seems to be a local authority and you go to them and tell them you need help.The subtext had been blazingly clear even at her age: If we don't come for you within the hour; we're dead, and you need to get the Federation authorities to protect you. Don't get the authorities involved right away; don't bring outsiders into this and risk getting her parents deported for refusing once again to answer too many questions; but if they died, don't wait so long she did, too. Once the first ride was over, Kali slipped in alongside the little Andorian - she thought she looked familiar, had seen her playing at the park before - and went to the next ride, and the one after that, and the cotton candy stand, hopping from one semi-familiar kid to another hoping no adults noticed too quickly one of the smaller children seemed to have no adult with them; all the while breathing fast, the minutes ticking by feeling like they were closing in on her like the room had seemed to.

---

Present Day

Kali woke up gasping, the hot pink comforter on the bed twisted around her, fighting it like it was someone grabbing her until she came to herself enough to realize it was just twisted fabric restricting her and untangled it with shaking hands, still breathing hard but slower than before, eyes flicking around the room just in case, but seeing only her quarters and the various stuff in them. Damn. It had been ages since she'd had that particular nightmare. A lot of other people who'd fought as officers or crew in the war against the Dominion also had the sort she got sometimes about that; but unfortunately hers were sometimes joined by those based on earlier events that seemed to evoke an even more primal response: Almost a half-century later, she could still feel the fear of seeing her mother on the floor, not knowing she was still alive; her father with the second man, not knowing if he was about to die; and running, not knowing if she would be pursued; then not knowing if anyone would ever come take her home.

In reality, it had been less than half an hour, then, before her father had come for her, having stopped only long enough after killing the second man to clean the blood from his face - his and their assailant's - and throw on something that would conceal the rest of it. But at the time it had felt like an eternity, before he'd come, lifted her up against his chest, and taken her home from the carnival, through the back door into the house, and set her down on the couch where he'd laid out her mother, just beginning to stir, while he started in on disposing of the two dead agents and cleaning the blood and broken items from the house.

Ironically, Kali had gotten to know the little Andorian she'd tailed at the carnival - Shiara - well enough to be good friends, as children see it, soon after that, when her parents had signed her up for the local prekindergarten program: Through adult eyes now, she could dissect the timing and actions as one more desperate move from people making their attempts at survival up as they went along: A bet, with the highest of stakes, that any assassin who managed to penetrate the heart of the Federation wouldn't be willing to risk open actions in a public place on Earth, open knowledge of their presence, just to deal with a small child who hadn't done what her parents had. The bet that had seen her sent to every school, junior sports team, summer camp, and after or before school program her parents could find: A guess that the more they kept their child around enough Earthlings, the more the odds anyone who came for them would ignore her, decide it wasn't worth it to burn their cover, and let her live. Some days during some years of her childhood, it had seemed like Kali barely saw them at all, kept away from them at any event or organization judged sufficiently safe, populated, and public nearly until it was time to go to bed, her mother and father trading off each taking half the night to stand guard against anyone who might try again.

Definitely not getting any more sleep tonight, Kali sighed, breathing almost slowed to normal now, rolling out of bed entirely and just stuffing the offending comforter into a haphazard wad on the bed in lieu of bothering to make it, going over to the drawers nearby to pull out some leggings and a shirt and the hidden holster under the shirt, tossing her wrinkled pajamas on the bed in a heap near the blankets. Might as well go find some good caffeine.

 

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