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Chapter Text

2238

Nyota was five years old when the first Romulan ships invaded Earth.

No one had been expecting an attack. None of the outposts along the Neutral Zone, nor any of the deep space scanners within Federation borders had detected any approaching ships. Even Earth’s own satellites had not picked up anything. Not until it was too late, anyway.

The Romulan ships had some kind of advanced cloaking technology. They didn’t even leave a traceable warp trail. Earth had no idea they were coming until the entire armada decloaked in orbit and demanded their surrender.

Of course, being five, Nyota didn’t know any of this at the time—her mother would explain it to her later, when she was older. When she could understand things like interstellar military tactics, and the technical specifications of starship systems.

All she remembered was skipping a red jump rope in her backyard, humming a little tune to herself, before her mama thew open the back door of their house, and barreled toward her. Her mama yelled frantically as she ran. Nyota barely had time to turn and face her, before her tiny body was scooped up into her mother’s arms. Then her mama sprinted back toward the house with her in tow.

In the commotion, Nyota dropped her jump rope on the ground. She yelled and cried and reached out for it as she watched the red handles strike the brown dirt.

But her mama paid no mind to the jump rope, left in the dust. Instead, she continued to haul Nyota toward the house. Then, once safely within the walls of her home, she locked all of the doors, and forced Nyota to sit down in front of their family viewscreen, where a ghastly image was being projected.

In the center of the screen was Earth. It looked exactly as it should—a pale blue sphere, with lush, green continents—against its usual backdrop of stars. But surrounding the planet were hundreds of black, falcon-shaped ships, with wingtips like dozens of knives.

A message was being broadcast, alongside the image. A message repeated in dozens of languages. Though, tiny Nyota, daughter of two linguistics professors who taught at the University of Nairobi, only recognized five. 

Vous êtes entouré. Abandonnez-vous maintenant.

Ríndete ahora. Estás rodeado.

Nǐ bèi bāowéile. Xiànzài tóuxiáng.

Umezingirwa. Jisalimishe sasa.

You are surrounded. Surrender now.

Nyota was scared by the message and the scary black ships. But she was mostly frightened because her baba looked terrified, and her mama was crying. She wouldn’t really understand why they were scared until later.

Until the days she spent playing with her jump rope, carefree, under the sun, suddenly ended. Until, the next morning, when Romulan soldiers marched in the streets. Until three days later, when the "temporary" suspension of interstellar travel and unsanctioned communications with other worlds became permanent. Until, a week later, when the Federation President's throat was sliced open on live broadcast. Until the day after that, when the United Earth President was found dead in his office, killed the same way.

Reflecting back, Nyota might even say that she didn't truly understand the gravity of the situation until fifteen days after the Romulan ships had surrounded the planet. That was when the Romulans formally inaugurated their new leader: a Romulan general named Valen, whom they gave the title of Viceroy of Earth. That was when Romulan Imperial Law began to be imposed on the people of Earth. That was when, as part of the "festivities", the Romulans performed a controlled detonation of the Federation Headquarters.

That was when Nyota’s childhood ended. And a new era of terror began.

…

2258

Twenty Years Later.

“Next!” barked a Romulan soldier.

Nyota Uhura, now a twenty-five-year-old woman, shuffled forward in a line of non-Romulan cadets. She was dressed in the same, bold scarlet uniform all bendainnsu (foreigners) wore to distinguish themselves from the black-clad Rihannsu (Romulans). Her long black hair was tied back in a sleek, stylish ponytail—she refused to cut it into the short, pointy-banged style favored by the Romulans. And, in further defiance of Romulan norms, she wore a pair of circular, jade earrings—a gift from her mother.

While she waited, the person standing two people in front of her was ushered on to the next checkpoint by a Romulan soldier. The man directly ahead of her stepped forward to take their place. A Romulan soldier standing on a short metal platform administered a hypospray to his neck. He pressed it right up against the winged tattoo every non-Romulan cadet was forced to get on their skin when they were drafted into the service. Then, after a click and a hiss, the soldier pulled the hypospray away, and gestured for him to move along.

“Next!” the Romulan called.   

It was now Nyota’s turn. As she stepped up to the platform where the Romulan soldier stood, he scrutinized her, with an expression that hid none of his contempt or disgust toward humans. But she did not return it. Instead, she simply tilted her head back to offer better access to her neck, and waited patiently, and perfectly still, while the Romulan pressed a cold hypospray to her own, tattoo-imprinted skin.

The device clicked, stabbing her with a thin needle. Then it shot some unknown substance into her bloodstream.

When the soldier was finished, he ushered her forward, and called out again. “Next!”

As Nyota stepped past the soldier administering hypos, she rubbed her neck and wondered what they’d put inside her this time. The Romulans claimed the semi-annual hypospray contained an update to their identification chips, allowing them access to basic academy resources for another semester, and carried inoculations against various airborne illnesses. But Nyota had been taught by her parents and grandparents to never trust the Romulans. So she doubted that was all the injections included.

Intuition told her the identification chips probably doubled as tracking chips. Romulans liked to keep their eyes on their property, after all. And that’s basically what every non-Romulan cadet in the Imperial Romulan Military was. Property of the state. To be used and disposed of as the Romulan government saw fit.

There was likely something else in the injections, too. Perhaps a chemical to make her more docile? More willing to follow orders from her Romulan superiors?

She couldn’t be sure. And the Romulans would never publicly confirm anything. But the possibility was enough to set her teeth on edge.  

“Next!”

A familiar face bounded up to the hypo-administering Romulan. As the only fully-green face in the crowd with a curly mane of flaming red hair, Gaila Vro stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of mostly human cadets.

Nyota smiled when she saw her, and offered a subdued, friendly wave.

Gaila smiled back, flashing two rows of radiant white teeth. She waved back vigorously, which only drew more attention to herself. But when it came time for her to stand still, and get her semi-annual injection, she dropped her hand back down at her side and did her best to blend in. She stuck out her green neck, and didn’t even flinch when the Romulan pressed the hypospray against her tattooed skin with a little more force than strictly necessary.

The hypospray clicked. Hissed. Released.

“Next!”

When the Romulan soldier was finished with Gaila, the next scarlet-clad cadet stepped forward—a blonde human male. As he received his injection, Gaila scampered over to Nyota’s side, away from the line of cadets waiting to be let in.

“Nyota!” Gaila called out as she approached.

Nyota tried not to stare at Gaila’s long, exposed green legs, jutting out from under her short red skirt as Gaila came over. Nor at her ample chest, which was heaving under her uniform as she ran. But it was almost impossible. Gaila had always been a knockout. And that fact hadn’t changed during their brief time apart.  

Feeling the heat creep into her cheeks, Nyota turned her gaze toward the looming campus ahead. Then the pair set off together, walking toward the front gate of what used to be Starfleet Academy, but had been converted into a satellite campus for the Romulan Imperial War College not long after Earth was annexed into the Romulan Empire.

All of the old campus buildings had been destroyed—razed to the ground from ships in orbit—after the Romulans had gleaned all of the Federation’s secrets from within. The buildings themselves had once stood as a symbol of hope. Of the Federation’s commitment to peace, exploration and cooperation with other species. But that was exactly counter to the message that the Romulan Empire wanted to send. So, like the Headquarters of the Federation President, various foreign embassy buildings, and anything else that posed a symbolic threat to Romulan domination, they had to go.

The new structures erected in their place were nothing like those they replaced. From contraband pictures her grandmother—a former Starfleet officer herself—had shown her, Nyota knew the old Academy had been made of bright, welcoming, silver buildings, full of tall, clear windows, and interspersed with open walkways full of sunshine and greenery.

In stark contrast, the Romulans had populated the space with dark, imposing structures, full of tinted windows. The open walkways had been replaced with enclosed paths between buildings. The trees and grass had been reduced to ashes, then stripped away in favor of even more walkways and buildings, creating an enormous, convoluted maze.

In front of the campus was a tall, black gate. A pair of Romulan guards, carrying large two-handed disruptor rifles, flanked its main entrance. When Nyota and Gaila approached together, the guards demanded to see identification.

Nyota and Gaila obediently tilted their heads back to expose the winged tattoos on their necks. The guards inspected them with handheld Romulan scanning devices. Then nodded, stepped apart, and allowed them through the gate.

While Nyota and Gaila strode past, into one of the dark, enclosed walkways of the Romulan military college, Nyota tried to strike up a light conversation to distract from the unpleasantness of their injections.     

“How was your summer break?” Nyota asked while they walked down a long, thin hallway, lined on both sides with rows of tinted windows.  

Gaila groaned. “Summer break is a—what did you call it? a mishomer?”

“Misnomer,” Nyota corrected. “Meaning its name does not accurately reflect what it actually is.”

“Right, that,” Gaila replied. “It wasn’t a break at all. Only thirty days. And whose idea was it to spend them all trying to earn extra credits by working on Deneva Prime in the dilithium mines?”

“Yours,” Nyota reminded her.

Gaila blinked, looking a little dazed. “Oh, right. Well, remind me not to do that next time. That was hard work!” she rubbed her shoulder, as if it were still sore from the labor.

“At least you got to choose where you went. And you got paid,” Nyota replied. “Unlike the Remans.”

Gaila’s lips clamped suddenly shut and tightened at that. Suddenly Nyota wanted to clap a hand over her mouth. Slavery was a bit of a sore spot for her Orion friend. She’d almost been sold into it herself as a child, before her older brother, Kai—only a teenager himself—had smuggled her out. He’d basically raised her on Earth, all by himself, hoping to give her the opportunity for a better life. But the Romulans attacked the day after he and Gaila were granted asylum by the Federation. So, it wasn’t exactly what they’d been hoping for.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” Nyota rushed to say.

Gaila cut her off. “No, no, it’s okay. It’s a good point. Everyone suffers under the Empire—well, except the Romulans, of course—but some suffer more than others.”

“That’s true,” Nyota allowed. “But I still shouldn’t have rubbed it in. You already know, better than most, what the Remans go through. You almost went through something similar.”

Gaila dipped her head and chuckled darkly to herself. “You know, I respect what my brother did for me, but sometimes I wonder if I would have fared better on Orion.”

Nyota stopped short in the dark hallway. Just a few paces ahead of her, Gaila stopped and turned around.

“You would have been a slave. You wouldn’t have had any freedom,” Nyota contested.

“Am I really free, here?” she asked, gesturing to the dark walls around them.

Nyota swallowed, then rubbed uncomfortably at the tattoo on her neck. Gaila did have a point. They hadn’t chosen this life. The Romulan government had drafted and branded them after their mandatory aptitude test scores came back.

Nyota and Gaila had both performed their best on the tests, hoping to earn the right to apply for some of the more prestigious jobs a bendain was allowed to do. Because generally, having higher scores gave one more options.

But being too smart in the Romulan Empire came with a high cost. Military service, or death. Which hadn’t been a hard choice to make.

“At least back home, I’d be doing lap dances and giving people blowjobs—and you know how much I like giving blowjobs.”

Nyota nodded. She did know. More than she wanted to, actually. Gaila loved sex and made no secret about it. And there was nothing wrong with that. Except that Nyota wished Gaila would have sex with her instead. Which was its own can of worms.

Although Nyota appreciated being Gaila’s friend, there were many times when she wished they could be something… more. She just never knew how to broach the topic. Especially when they’d probably be given separate ship assignments when they graduated, and never see each other again.

“You like computer science, too,” Nyota pointed out.

Gaila sighed. “Of course, I do. But is it worth it, if I’m just going to be…” her eyes darted around the corridor, checking to make sure that they were alone before adding in a whisper, “…helping them?”

Nyota sighed. She’d asked herself the same question many times. Her aptitude for languages was a real gift, and a communications officer was one position the Romulans were happy to delegate to bendainnsu, unlike Commander, or Sub-Commander. But if she was translating messages from Klingon to help the Romulans conquer them—which seemed a likely projection of her future career—was it worth it?  

Nyota leaned closer to Gaila in the long, dark hallway. Then whispered her most traitorous thoughts aloud. “What if we… helped the people trying to not help them?”

It was kind of oblique wording on purpose. To judiciously avoid tripping any Romulan security systems that might go off if she said any alarm-triggering words. And to avoid being overheard by any of the black-uniform-wearing Romulan cadets starting to file into the campus behind them.

But Gaila still understood her meaning. And with that understanding, her red-haired eyebrows rose.

“You can’t possibly be suggesting…” Gaila trailed off, also unwilling to say it aloud. “We’d be killed.”

“Only if we’re caught,” Nyota corrected. “Besides, the Romulan Empire is gearing up to go to war with the Klingons any day now. So, we’ll probably die either way.”

She shrugged and let the unspoken implication hang between them. Wouldn’t you rather die for freedom than for them?

Neither of them dared to say even that much where anyone could hear it, though. There were spies everywhere. And it was a well-known fact that the entire school was bugged. 

Sure, there was probably too much data for the Romulans to sift through for what they’d said so far to trip any alarms. But they weren’t willing to push the limits. Not when the consequences were so extreme.

Instead, without saying a word, Gaila stood back in a dark corner and took a moment to mull over what Nyota was hinting at. While she pondered the traitorous notion, though, Nyota swore she caught something moving in her peripheral vision. And that spooked her enough that she took Gaila by the wrist and dragged them both quickly down the long hallway, toward the bendain dorms.

“Wait, where are we going?” Gaila asked.

“Away from here,” Nyota said cryptically.

She must have sounded like she meant business. Because Gaila didn’t argue.

…

They made it about halfway to the dorms before Nyota saw it again—that shadow on the edge of her vision.

They’d reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into the campus’ main indoor lobby. The floor was a dark, veiny marble. To their left were the hallways leading to the bendain block, which included their dorm rooms and classrooms. To their right was the side of campus they were not permitted to enter without special authorization and/or escort—the Rihan block. And in the center of the lobby, was an enormous circular fountain, placed under the campus’ only transparent windows, to let some of the sunlight reflect off of the leaping and curving jets of water.

Nyota paused by the fountain, close enough that the sound of the rushing water would drown out anything she said to any nearby Romulan listening devices. Then, turning around, and stepping slightly in front of Gaila, in a protective stance, she addressed the shadow trailing them, in a hiss.

“I know you’re there. Come out and face us.”

For a second, Nyota thought maybe she was being paranoid. That maybe she’d imagined the dark shape following them. But a second later, another cadet stepped out of the shadows. And as he began to approach, her heart nearly stopped when she recognized who it was.

It was Viceroy Valen’s son. 

She knew this instantly because he looked almost exactly like his father. He had the same aristocratic features, proud v-shaped ridges and pointed ears. He was thinner—a lanky, awkward youth, compared to his father's regal figure. But he was similarly tall and pale-skinned. And he had the same inky black hair, cut in the pointy-banged, traditional Romulan military style.

What is he doing here? Nyota thought, panicked.

She thought someone like him would be in the Viceroy's Compound. Tucked away from society. Kept away from danger. But here he was, wearing the black uniform of the Romulan cadets. As if he planned to fight and die alongside them someday.

He took a few steps closer to where Nyota and Gaila stood, with their backs facing the central fountain. Then he stopped and offered a friendly greeting. “Jolan’tru. My name is Toval.”

He spoke at a normal volume that would be easily picked up by any nearby listening devices. But that was not the reason Nyota jolted. She had listened to every public news broadcast she could, since the invasion began, including those in Romulan. But if the cadet standing in front of them was Toval, that meant he was the Viceroy's eldest child. The heir.

Fearing what might happen if she did not comply, Nyota decided to play along. “Jolan’tru,” she repeated at the same volume. “I am Nyota Uhura. And this is my roommate,” she said, gesturing to Gaila, “Gaila Vro.”

Toval’s gaze flicked between them as they introduced themselves. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His expression was frustratingly unreadable. But his intentions did not seem to be immediately hostile—he didn’t have that murderous gleam in his eyes that Romulans got before they attacked you. So, Nyota decided to give him the opportunity to explain why he’d been following them before she tried to figure out if she could get away with slamming his head against the fountain and making a break for it.

Probably not without painful consequences, she thought bitterly.

Slowly and deliberately, Toval started walking again, moving even closer to the fountain. As he neared, Nyota was surprised at how young he looked. His cheeks still had a significant amount of baby-fat.

It made sense. With a birthday only a year after the invasion, that made him nineteen now. A freshman. But her mind spun as she remembered another detail. Yes, he was Viceroy Valen's son, and eldest child. But he was specifically the eldest child the Viceroy had fathered with a human “war bride”, born only a year after the invasion. Which made him only half-Romulan.

Nyota's gaze flicked back to his black uniform. It was surprising enough that he was here as a cadet at all. But if he was half-human, why had he been classified as a Rihanha instead of a bendain?

Her thoughts came to a crashing halt when Toval stopped, less than a foot away. Nyota tried to put some distance between them, but was thwarted when her back pressed against the cold stones of the fountain. With nowhere to run, she swallowed hard. Her heart hammered in her chest. Rushing water roared in her ears.

“What do you want?” Nyota hissed, hoping her words would be masked by the sounds of the fountain. 

“I couldn’t help but overhear what you two lovely ladies were talking about,” Toval whispered.

Nyota’s heart sank like a lead weight. Gaila, behind her, sucked in a nervous breath and held it in.

“It—it’s not what you think,” Nyota stammered out quickly.

Toval raised a single, black eyebrow. “Is that so?”

He was still whispering, which was weird. She was whispering to reduce her chances of getting caught by Romulans listening in. But Nyota didn’t know why he would bother to conceal his accusation—perhaps to give them time to offer a justification for their actions?

Whatever his reasons, his presence did not bode well. The Viceroy’s son had no authority himself, and his half-human nature put his standing in the Romulan social hierarchy in question, but pissing him off still wasn’t a good idea. With one covert message to his father, he could make them both disappear.

“There is no greater honor than serving the Romulan Empire," Nyota lied, hoping that might get Toval to back down or walk away. But to her frustration, he did neither.

“That’s a pity," Toval said so quietly she almost didn't hear him. “The Reformist Movement could use talented minds like yours.”

Nyota’s ears perked up. The Reformist Movement was one of the trigger phrases. The sort of thing that the Romulan listening devices scattered around campus were programmed to sound the alarm if they heard.

Of course, it was less suspicious if a Rihanha said it, and any offenses would be reviewed in context. But his context was damning. And it was probably only because of the fountain that they weren’t already up to their armpits in Romulan security officers.

Now it was Nyota’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You’re Viceroy Valen’s son,” she stated flatly as if that fact spoke for itself.

And to her, it did. There was absolutely no way the Viceroy’s son could be involved in the Reformist Movement. The son of a Romulan overlord being part of the resistance? It was laughable.

No. Toval couldn’t be sincere. He must just be trying to trick them into outing themselves so he could turn them in. It was the only explanation that made sense.

“I am Valen’s son,” Toval agreed, taking another step closer to the pair. “But I am also Linette Greenwood’s son. And my mother would be very disappointed in me and my father if we were not advocates of a better future for her people.”

Nyota blinked once. Twice. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

“Your dad is part of the Reformist Movement?!” Gaila blurted out a little too loudly.

Fortunately, the fountain was louder. But Toval still flinched, and shushed her.

“Not here,” Toval said in an urgent whisper. “Meet me in my dorm room after the Opening Ceremonies are concluded. Room 1247 in the Rihan block.”

Nyota shook her head. “We don’t have access to the Rihan dorms.”

And this is probably still a trap. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Tell the guards I requested your presence specifically. If they press for details, wiggle your fingers in the air and insinuate that I take after my father,” Toval instructed.

“How’s that going to help us?” Nyota asked.

Toval’s cheeks flushed slightly green, and he ducked his head, a little ashamed as he explained, “The guards will assume I’ve invited you two to my room in order to engage in… intimate activities. They will not question you further.”

“Have you invited us to your room for intimate activities?” Gaila asked, suddenly looking over Toval with new, slightly hungry eyes.

Nyota elbowed her in the ribs. “Gaila!”

“What? He’s kinda cute.”

“He’s also a Romulan,” Nyota said through gritted teeth.

“Technically, he’s only half-Romulan,” Gaila countered.

“That’s Romulan enough, apparently,” Nyota bit back, glowering at Toval’s black uniform.

Toval held up two placating hands. “Ladies, it is not my intention to actually… erm… mate with you,” he assured them awkwardly. “It is merely a convenient pretext.”

Gaila looked a little put out. Meanwhile, Nyota sighed with relief.

“My room simply is one of the only places on campus where we can meet in private,” Toval continued. “Being the Viceroy’s son has its… privileges.”

It took Nyota a moment to figure out what he meant. When it clicked, she was shocked. He was telling them his room wasn’t bugged. Whether that was true or not, she couldn’t be certain yet. But if it was true, then he was handing them an incredible amount of power. She and Gaila might be physically weaker than Toval. But they both had four and a half more years of combat experience than he did. In a room without listening devices, they could easily find a way to gang up on him and kill him. And he had to know that. 

Suddenly Nyota was intrigued to see if he was being genuine or not. If this panned out…

Well, she couldn’t say it was exactly how she’d planned to spend her final semester at the Romulan Imperial War College. And there was still a large chance that this was all a set up. But a chance to join those resisting the Empire’s iron fist… Well, she’d take it.

“We’ll be there,” Nyota said.

“We will?” Gaila asked.

“We will,” Nyota reiterated.

“I guess we will,” Gaila played along.

“Excellent. Jolan’tru, Cadets Uhura and Vro. I will see you then,” Toval said.

Nyota and Gaila returned the sentiment. Then he walked away, toward the side of campus they weren’t permitted to enter, leaving them near the fountain.

After he was gone, Gaila asked her in an urgent whisper, “Do you think it’s a trap?”

Nyota shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

…

The Romulan Imperial War College’s Opening Ceremonies were conducted the same way they always were, each semester.

Nyota wasn’t sure why the Romulans had decided it was necessary for everyone to sit through them every year, twice a year. She felt like she had gotten the picture the first time she’d been ushered into the enormous amphitheater in the south wing of campus and spent three hours listening to various Romulan faculty members drone on about how passionate and proud everyone ought to be to serve the mighty Romulan Empire.

But it wasn’t worth risking punishment to skip them. Especially because this was her last semester—the last time she would be forced to endure that particular flavor of Romulan propaganda.

So, without any other viable options, she and Gaila dutifully sat through the fanfare and the dull, monotonously translated speeches until they were formally dismissed. It felt like forever. And by the time they finished wading through the swarming crowds of red and black-clad cadets back to campus, it was already late afternoon.

Sore, tired and hungry from standing in line, waiting to receive their semi-annual hyposprays all morning, then spending almost just as much time sitting on hard metal bleachers in the amphitheater, Nyota and Gaila elected to grab a pair of ration bars for a late lunch and rest for about fifteen minutes. Then, figuring Toval was likely wondering where they were, and unable to curtail her curiosity about what he had said earlier any longer, Nyota urged Gaila to follow her across campus toward the Rihan dorms.

They were both extremely nervous as they approached the narrow corridor separating the Rihan block from the common areas of campus, where both Rihannsu and bendainnsu could roam freely. Trespassing in restricted areas, of which the Rihan block was one, was an offense punishable by death. And because they'd never before had a reason to go over there, it was something they'd never tried before.

But getting past the guards was, surprisingly, just as easy as Toval had promised. With a few waggled fingers, saucy winks, and insinuations about Toval’s family line having a particular fetish for foreigners, the guards posted in front of the entrance to the Rihan block had stepped quickly aside, looking like they wanted to wash their ears and eyes with bleach.

Gaila tittered with laughter at their reactions. “What a bunch of prudes. I’d show them a good time if they weren’t such sticks in the mud.”

For her part, Nyota wasn’t able to be quite so cavalier about the whole thing. Getting past the guards was just the first step. If they crossed paths with any Romulan cadets or Professors, they could still be reported. And the punishment would still be the same. 

But as they pressed on, deeper into the Rihan block, looking for Toval’s room, they didn’t run into anyone else. Most of the Romulan cadets were taking advantage of the free period to visit the college’s newly upgraded holographic training simulators, which were briefly available for recreational use. Those that hadn’t opted to bury themselves in war simulations preferred to stay in the privacy of their rooms rather than linger, where anyone could see them, in the hallways.

Romulans were secretive like that. Which, in this case, worked to their advantage.    

When Nyota and Gaila reached Toval’s room, it wouldn’t open for them on its own. It was keyed to only automatically open when reading Toval’s bioscans, apparently. But ringing the chime beside the door summoned him to open it himself. Then he quickly ushered them inside.

When the door shut behind them, Nyota and Gaila’s eyes immediately roved around the room, taking it in. With a king-sized bed draped in dark gray covers, an emerald green leather couch, an enormous personal viewscreen, and two large double doors concealing what must be a gigantic closet, it hardly resembled a typical college dorm room. It looked more like a swanky penthouse suite. Only the Romulan Imperial War College logo, emblazoned on the wall behind the bed shattered the illusion. 

“Wow, this is a lot bigger than our rooms,” Gaila observed.

“And you get this all to yourself?” Nyota said, disbelieving, but also a little jealous. If she had this kind of space, she probably wouldn’t keep finding Gaila’s underwear sticking out of her stacks of PADDs. In the cramped space they shared, they basically had to live on top of each other. And while Nyota lived a fairly spartan existence, Gaila owned forty-six pairs of shoes, an absolutely massive quantity of jewelry, and hundreds of skimpy outfits for nights when she felt like throwing a party in the lobby of the bendain dorms.

Which was at least once a week. Sometimes twice.

“As I said, being the Viceroy’s son has its privileges,” Toval explained. Though this time he had the decency to sheepishly rub at the back of his neck, as if he was somewhat embarrassed by all the special treatment.

“Yeah, speaking of which, how does that work, by the way?” Nyota asked, plopping down on his green leather couch and crossing one leg over the other, like she lived there.

What? He invited me. If he has a problem with it, he can kick me out.

“You’re only half-Romulan, right?” Nyota pressed.

Gaila gaped in shock at her brazen words. But Toval did not take offense at her question. From where he stood, he merely nodded. “That is correct.”

“Yet, you’ve been given the Rihan uniform,” Nyota pointed out, gesturing to his black clothes. “Is that standard procedure for half-Romulan cadets? Or just a fluke because you’re the Viceroy’s son?”

“Nyota!” Gaila cried, aghast.

Nyota understood her roommate's reaction. She was not usually this rude or blunt with anyone. Especially not high-ranking Romulans. But she was deadly curious, and she needed to know more about who they were talking to before she was willing to risk treading into topics that could get her executed. If this guy was somehow for real, then he could take it.

“It is standard procedure,” Toval informed her cooly.

That made Nyota sit back on the couch in shock. “But that’s… Your government does realize that’s only going to incentivize humans to shack up with Romulans, right?”

Nyota could understand why the Romulans didn't care that Viceroy Valen had taken a human consort in the first place. Although it was seen as a gross abuse of power from a human perspective, in the eyes of the Romulans she was just another spoil of war. A collectible. A symbol of his absolute domination over humanity. 

But as rampant xenophobes the Romulans didn't like the fact that the Viceroy had fathered three children with his human companion, and refused to take a proper Romulan wife, to produce untainted heirs. In fact, Nyota had heard his own generals speculating on public channels that his suspicious attachment to Linette Greenwood constituted perversion. So, the Romulan government on Earth had to make sure Valen's particular fetish for foreigners didn't spread, right?

“Wait, what do you mean?” Gaila asked.

“Every good parent wants what is best for their children,” Nyota explained to Gaila. “And if hooking up with a Romulan is all it takes to secure one’s children the privileges of being considered Rihannsu, then… even if I disapprove, there will be some humans who will deliberately seek that out. Try on purpose to catch a Romulan’s eye, so that maybe their kids will have a better future.”

Gaila stood back and tapped her chin as she pondered this new information. “I’d never thought of that. But you’re right.”

“In several generations, that means there will be a bunch of half-breeds running around,” Nyota went on, shuddering as she imagined an influx of half-Romulan, half-human cadets in the coming years.

In spite of the unpopularity of his actions in some circles, the Viceroy was far from the only Romulan who had taken a human trophy consort after seizing power. The lower-ranked soldiers in particular seemed inordinately keen on following their leader. And if the Romulan Government was going to give half-Romulans the same social status as their fully-Romulan peers… well, there would be little to deter future generations from making the same decision.

Nyota frowned. “But the Romulans have to know that, right?”

The Romulans were many things, but they weren’t stupid. So, either Toval was lying, and he was a fluke, only allowed to be considered Rihanha only because of how important his father was. Or the Romulans had some other, more nefarious agenda in mind.

“You are an astute one, Cadet Uhura,” Toval assessed, sounding impressed.

“So, what’s the long-term plan?” Nyota asked.

“It is much as you suggested,” Toval told her. “Interspecies unions between humans and Romulans will remain publicly discouraged on both sides, but the benefits to humans for seeking them will remain. Thus, gradually, more Romulan genes—which are dominant—will be introduced into the human genome. Until we have replaced you.”

Nyota was with him until the last part. Then she sputtered out a disturbed, “Excuse me?”

Toval waved a dismissive hand to allay her concerns. “I do not think it will work quite as planned. Humans are notoriously stubborn and equally unpredictable. I was simply explaining what the Romulan lawmakers on Earth are thinking.”

“I thought Romulans were xenophobic,” Nyota said.

Toval raised an eyebrow. “An interesting accusation to make of the child of an interspecies union.”

“I meant in general,” Nyota corrected. “Not you specifically.”

Though, to be honest, that was still a possibility. Being half-Romulan didn’t make it categorically impossible for him to be xenophobic. It might not be in his best interests. But people had been known to internalize negative beliefs, even about themselves, from the flawed world around them, sometimes.

“Speaking of Romulans in general, I would have to say that is correct," Toval said. "However, in our nearly two-thousand years of existence, the ideology of Romulan supremacy has taken many different forms. And not all of those forms align perfectly with adjacent human concepts.”

“What does that mean?” Gaila asked.

“It means that Romulans have a long history of interbreeding with our enemies,” Toval explained. “Even if that seems counterintuitive from a human point of view.”

“A long history?” Nyota probed.

That certainly hadn’t been included in her propaganda-filled textbooks on the subject of Romulan history.

“Why do you suppose the Remans have pointed ears?” Toval said.

Suddenly Nyota’s entire world flipped upside down. The Remans and the Romulans were related?

“You are aware of the other part of that story, of course—how, when my Romulan ancestors arrived at the twin worlds, which you call Romulus and Remus, they found them already inhabited. How it was decided to shunt the natives off onto the world with the less hospitable climate, and force them into slavery?”

Nyota nodded. That part was in the books.

“What is not readily publicized is the fact that Romulan criminals were also shunted onto Remus. And the Romulan prison wardens often… well… took Reman companions.”

Nyota’s eyes narrowed. That was an overly polite way to talk about what essentially amounted to prison rape. But she supposed that Toval, as the product of a similar arrangement between a Romulan in power and one of the subjects at his mercy, would have a different point of view.

“Nineteen centuries later, Remans as a species entirely genetically distinct from Romulans do not exist,” Toval informed her. “All currently living Remans have at least some Romulan genetic markers.”

Nyota took a moment to process all of that. “So, the Romulans think they’re going to slowly drive humanity effectively extinct by eventually interbreeding us into something else?”

Toval, to her horror, nodded. But then, to her relief, he added. “Not all Romulans agree with this plan. And it is unlikely to work, in any case. The Remans were a relatively small population to begin with, and were often given no choice in the matter. Humans, in contrast, are plentiful, and remain able to choose their own mates.”

Gaila held up a hand to interrupt. “Wait… You’re telling me that you think… your mother… chose your father?”

She was careful not to make any direct accusations. But Nyota knew what her Orion roommate was getting at. There was no way any human woman could really meaningfully consent when the Viceroy could have her and her entire family executed for disobeying him. He wouldn’t even have to threaten anyone directly. Just knowing he had that level of power would make anyone wary of saying no, regardless of what they really wanted.

And on top of that, everyone had heard the rumors about the early days. About how Viceroy Valen had lined up human women in the streets at gunpoint, searching for the perfect, exotically beautiful one to share his bed.

Everyone except Toval, apparently. “Of course. My father struggled to find anyone willing, at first. The first women he approached all cowered away from him. But during the search, my mother—not a candidate he had originally considered—approached my father directly and offered to fill the role. She claims his good looks were a motivating factor. My father says she was quite brazen in her approach.”

Nyota regarded Toval with a dubious stare. She couldn’t tell if there was any truth to what Toval was saying, or if his parents had omitted a lot of details and he was just really, really naïve.

“Even so,” Toval continued as if he had not been interrupted, “in spite of the potential benefits of having a Romulan mate, and half-Romulan children, I do not believe it will be the most popular option. The majority of humans will still prefer their own kind.”

Nyota let out a sigh of relief. At least until she realized Toval couldn’t be the only Romulan aware of this.

“So, what’s plan B?” Nyota asked.

“Even if Romulans do not succeed in spreading their genes to all of humanity, some Romulans believe the interbreeding itself can act as a vector to indoctrinate a larger portion of the population in the Romulan way,” Toval explained. “Though, that too, is a somewhat erroneous belief, built on the assumption that a half-Romulan child will only absorb the values of their Romulan parent. Which, at least in my case, did not turn out to be true.”

Nyota squinted, trying to figure out what Toval meant. “So, you’re saying, even if they can’t manage to change the entire human race on a genetic level, the Romulans think, by creating conditions favorable to human/Romulan interbreeding, they’ll be able to enact some kind of… cultural genocide, by only teaching the next generation Romulan values?”

“In essence, yes,” Toval agreed. “However, as a means of cultural genocide, it is inefficient at best, given that, in spite of my father’s heritage, my human mother still managed to instill in me an appreciation for human culture. In him, too, actually.”

Both of Nyota’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You’re telling me Viceroy Valen has an appreciation for human culture?”

Toval regarded Nyota with open confusion. “I thought this was a well-known fact? He attends operas with my mother frequently. And he has a Rembrandt hanging in his office.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t grow up with him,” Gaila pointed out. “And he doesn’t brag about going to operas when he appears on the weekly broadcast, rattling off the names of the people he’s had put to death for treason.”

Toval winced, then sighed. “My father is… a complicated man.”

“Speaking of which, that’s kind of why we’re here, isn’t it?” Nyota asked. “You claim to be part of the Reformist Movement. And you even sort of implied that he might be in on it too. But forgive me if I’m skeptical.”

“You should be,” Toval said, taking a seat beside her, and gesturing for Gaila to sit on his other side—which she did. “My father would not be a very good Reformist if people suspected him.”

Nyota had to admit that was a pretty good point. It also made it hard to believe him, however.

“If he’s part of the Reformist Movement, why doesn’t he just… liberate Earth?” Nyota asked. “Make an Executive Order that says we could elect our own leaders. Follow our old laws again. He could do that, right?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Toval allowed hesitantly. “However, such a drastic legal change made without the consultation of the lawmakers on Romulus would immediately draw the attention of the Praetor. And he would most likely remove my father from his position immediately and have our entire family executed.”

Nyota winced at the part where Toval casually mentioned the Praetor slaughtering his whole family. It was realistic. But it was unnerving to hear him speak about it so matter-of-factly.

“Also, even if our lives were not in jeopardy,” Toval continued, “if my father were removed from his position as Viceroy, it is guaranteed that a much less pleasant replacement would be chosen.”

Nyota crossed her arms over her chest. “From where I’m standing, your father’s pretty unpleasant.”

Toval cocked an eyebrow. “You are currently seated,” he observed, his gaze flicking to where she sat on his emerald green couch.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Nyota explained.

“Ah yes, one of your Earth idioms,” Toval said in recognition. “My mother is quite fond of them.”

“Then you understand what I mean when I say I’m not seeing a lot of peace and prosperity, liberty and happiness from where I’m standing,” Nyota said.

“I do,” Toval replied. “But then it is evident that you have not had opportunities to stand in many places.”

Nyota blinked and leaned forward at this. “What do you mean?”

Toval sighed. “Your ignorance is understandable. The Romulan government has strictly limited communication between former Federation worlds to prevent them from creating a functional joint resistance movement. This works to the Praetor’s advantage, but also to ours. It means communication with Romulus is also limited, and thus my father is able to offer the people of Earth freedoms many of the other worlds under Romulan jurisdiction do not currently enjoy.”

Nyota’s eyebrows knit together. Freedoms other worlds do not currently enjoy? What was he talking about?

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, ‘freedoms that other worlds do not currently enjoy’?” Nyota asked.

A quick glance across Toval’s emerald green leather couch to where Gaila was sitting, revealed she was just as confused. Realizing he would have to be a little bit more specific, Toval sighed, then began to explain. “What I am about to tell you cannot be permitted to leave this room, is that understood?” he said in a deadly serious tone.

Ah, so now we’re getting into the stuff that could get us killed, Nyota realized. Alright. Well, if he’s going first, I guess that’s okay.

Nyota nodded silently. Then, after an awkward beat, Gaila copied her with even more vigor.

After receiving confirmation, Toval rose from his seat between Nyota and Gaila, dragged over a tufted ottoman from the other side of the room, then sat on it across from them, so that he could face them while he spoke. Then, in a low, grave voice, he launched into his explanation.

“Though I was not yet born, I have heard the accounts of how my father was received by the people of Earth. I know his ascent to power was and is still deeply unpopular. I know he is viewed by many as a tyrannical dictator who delights in tormenting his subjects. However, it is not just as his son that I disagree with that assessment. It is because my father has included me in security briefings since I turned fifteen. And from them, I have gleaned that the other Viceroys are much, much worse.”

Nyota leaned forward on Toval’s couch, the leather creaking under her as she shifted positions. She regarded him with wide, curious eyes. “How so?”

“General Mallatorix, Viceroy of Vulcan, on his first day in office, ordered the entire capitol city of Shi’kahr to be razed to the ground in a very un-surgical orbital strike.”

Gaila reeled back in shock. And Nyota blinked in stunned disbelief. He couldn’t mean…

“This was nothing like the controlled detonation that leveled the empty Starfleet Academy, or the vacated Headquarters of the Federation Government,” Toval rushed to add, before they could get the wrong idea. “There was no warning. No evacuation. Seven million people died. And that was just the start.”

Nyota clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. She couldn’t imagine how things could get any worse than that. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to. But to her mounting dismay, Toval went on.

“In addition to massacring their people, Viceroy Mallatorix has made it a mission of his to utterly destroy Vulcan culture. He launched similar strikes against important Vulcan monasteries, in the early days of his reign. He set the hallowed Vulcan libraries and museums on fire. He has outlawed the teachings of Surak—the logical principles that Vulcans pride themselves in.”

“No,” Nyota breathed, appalled.

She didn’t know a ton about Vulcans—Romulans restricted a lot of information about other species. But from what her retired Starfleet grandmother had told her, Logic was kind of their thing. To take that away from them was…

“Yes,” Toval refuted. “Vulcans are forced to emote in public and forbidden from using any of their telepathic abilities, under threat of a permanently brain-damaging procedure to remove them if they do not comply. They are forbidden from accessing any of their heritage. Instead, they’re force-fed Romulan indoctrination.”

“That’s horrible,” Gaila commented.

“In spite of this, there is a strong underground movement there—working tirelessly to preserve what they have left. But it is… a ghastly thing Mallatorix has done to them,” Toval said, finishing with a shudder.

Nyota swallowed. There was Romulan censorship on Earth, of course. But thinking back, she suddenly realized why Toval thought everyone knew Viceroy Valen had an appreciation for the arts.

Aside from the most damning symbols and treatises of resistance, he’d left the churches, libraries and museums alone. Hell, he’d even gone on record saying he “didn’t care what the primitive peoples of Earth believed, so long as they swore their first loyalty to the Romulan Empire.” Which was a comment she’d always resented, because it seemed creepy and colonialist, but now, she saw it through new eyes.

With that comment, Viceroy Valen had preserved the freedom of religion, and the freedom to pass on other crucial aspects of cultural heritage. It wasn’t as good as if he’d never shown up in the first place, of course. But it was much, much more than Vulcan had.

“And on the other worlds?” Nyota pressed, suddenly curious.

Earth had been so isolated from the rest of the universe ever since the Romulans had invaded. Right now, Toval was her only insight into what lied beyond that wasn’t from the Romulan-propaganda-laden textbooks she was assigned to read in her history classes.

Toval shook his head sadly. Which made Nyota’s stomach drop.

“On Tellar, the Romulan attempts to quell their near-constant uprisings with orbital strikes have made the surface of their world uninhabitable. The Tellarites have been forced underground. And now most of them are compelled to mine their planet’s abundant resources for the Empire.”

Tears sprung to the corners of Nyota’s eyes. The surface had been made uninhabitable? What a catastrophe. All that plant and animal life… devastated. She tried to imagine what that would be like, on Earth. And she just couldn’t do it. The prospect of all the trees and wildlife going away…

It made her sick. And Nyota had the feeling that hearing any more wasn’t going to help.

But she had to know. 

“And… Andoria?” she asked, struggling not to cry.

“Andoria is an authoritarian nightmare,” Toval said.

Those words alone were almost enough to move her to weep, after everything she’d already heard. But then he went on. And that’s when the tears started to flow.

“To say they are treated like chattel would be incorrect. Domesticated animals have more freedom than they do. The Andorian people are micromanaged. Every single aspect of their lives, from birth to death, is decided by the Viceroy and his enormous committee of bureaucrats. The natives are not even permitted to choose their own mates. They’re matched up by a genetic algorithm designed to maximize genetic diversity, and minimize “problematic” genetic traits. Andorians born with any physical deformity are killed shortly after birth. Those who survive are assigned work that is believed will benefit the Empire, according to their aptitude tests. They’re obsessed with numbers. They’d wipe out half a continent if their statisticians told them it would increase their productivity percentages and profit margins.”

Nyota gasped, then choked on silent tears. Gaila, still sitting on the other side of Toval, shook her head and mouthed “no” in horrified disbelief.  

“Andoria has always been cold, but it has been made into a heartless, dispassionate machine. There are no options, like there are here on Earth,” Toval announced.

Suddenly, Nyota’s tears dried. Then she scoffed. “I can’t speak for your mother, but I wasn’t given a choice. I was told very clearly after my aptitude test results came back that I had two options. Join the Romulan Imperial War College and fight for the Romulans, or die.”   

Toval blanched. “Most humans have a choice,” he corrected. “It is limited, yes. It would be suspicious if it weren’t. But those below a certain threshold are allowed multiple choices of career. Your parents, for example, were permitted to continue their careers at the University of Nairobi.”

“You only punish the extra smart,” Nyota stated flatly.

Toval sighed. “I understand that it appears that way. But there are many factors at play. In preparation for a war against the Klingons, the Romulan Empire has set recruitment quotas for each conquered world to meet the number of foot soldiers necessary to win. My father is trying the best he can, within the confines of a corrupt system.”

Nyota frowned. “He could stand to try a little harder.”

She expected Toval to offer another excuse for his dad. But instead, to her surprise, his gaze turned wistful and he softly smiled. “You remind me of my mother. She has told him the same thing, many times.”

Nyota had never met the infamous Linette Greenwood. And every human being had been trained to view her as somewhat of a species-traitor, in spite of the mitigating circumstances that had likely led to her accepting Valen’s advances. It was hard to sympathize with her, after all, when she lived in the lap of Romulan luxury, and had not used this privilege to publicly raise a single complaint on behalf of humanity about the atrocities the Romulan Empire was heaping upon them.

But this comment from Toval raised her estimation of the woman considerably.

Maybe Linette was still a traitor in some respects. Nyota had always assumed that Valen had coerced her into his bed. But Toval made it sound like his parents’ relationship was consensual. And Nyota couldn’t imagine what kind of woman would willingly have sex with the person who slit open the Federation President’s throat on a live, international broadcast, then bragged ceaselessly about it afterwards.

But at least, behind the scenes, she was trying to help humanity.

“So, you see, in relation to how free Earth was under Federation rule, I will not dispute that its people are more oppressed now,” Toval allowed. “But when measured against the other worlds the Romulan Empire has conquered, comparatively, Earth is a paradise.”

Nyota understood what he was saying. But still, she felt obligated to protest.

“They’ve branded us,” Nyota argued, pulling back the red collar of her uniform to show off the tattoo imprinted on her neck.

Toval’s slanted brows knit together. “You are referring to your military insignia?”

Nyota nodded. “And the injections.”

“Which provide you with inoculations against disease, and access to many areas of the campus, which as a whole is otherwise restricted to those with non-Romulan bioscans,” Toval explained.

Nyota’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think that’s all they do.”

Toval sighed. “You are perceptive. I hadn’t planned to tell you this just yet, but I now think it would be prudent.”

“Tell us what?” Nyota probed, leaning forward on the couch again.

“That there is a reason we’re drafting the most intelligent humans, regardless of obsequiousness,” Toval replied.

“What does obsequiousness mean?” Gaila asked.

“He means regardless of whether or not we’re compliant and obedient.”

“Correct.”

“Well?” Nyota challenged, leveling Toval with an expectant stare.

Toval shifted his weight on the tufted ottoman he was sitting on. Then, with great reluctance, he said, “My father opposes the Senate’s decision to prepare for war with the Klingons.”

He made this statement with an enormous amount of gravity. As if that was the most shocking thing he’d said today. Which in Nyota’s estimation, it wasn’t. But he was most likely measuring by different metrics.  

“We’re overextended as it is,” Toval explained further. “With our current manpower, we may be able to isolate and subjugate the dozens of populated worlds that formerly belonged to the Federation, but this state of affairs is already not tenable in the long term. And if we send hundreds of thousands to die in another unprovoked war, it will only worsen the problem, even if we rely mostly on non-Romulan soldiers.”

“The Romulan population already pales in comparison to the size of its population of non-citizens under its rule. And that’s still a lot of dead Romulan Generals and Commanders,” Nyota agreed.

“Correct,” Toval replied. “If we conquer the planets under Klingon jurisdiction now, they will all require their own Viceroys and military forces to police and defend, stretching our resources even thinner.”

“Someone’s going to take advantage of that opening,” Nyota realized.

“Yes,” Toval said. “Eventually, without as much oversight, the various resistance movements on the conquered planets will find ways to communicate with each other. If the underground resistance movements of various worlds coordinate their efforts, especially while our resources are overextended, the Romulan Empire will have a real problem on its hands.”

Nyota nodded. “I understand why that would be bad for the Empire, but that’s…”

She took a deep breath before saying her own first truly damning thing. After everything Toval had said without tripping any alarms, she figured his word was good. That the room wasn’t bugged.

“…good for Earth, right? We’d be free.”

Gaila sucked in a breath, and her eyes darted nervously between Nyota and Toval. This was the moment when they would find out if he really was sincere. Or if this was really all just an elaborate trap.

For half a second, Toval’s eyebrows furrowed in contemplative disapproval, and Nyota panicked, thinking she had miscalculated. But then his features smoothed out, and he continued, as if nothing was amiss. As if Nyota hadn’t just said words that could get her killed in the wrong company.

“For how long?” Toval pressed.

Nyota frowned. “For as long as we could defend ourselves.”

“Do you want to be at constant war?” Toval asked.

Nyota felt frustration bubbling up inside of her. Whose side is he on?

“No, but freedom is worth fighting for,” Nyota bit out acridly.

“Then you and my father are in agreement,” Toval declared.

Gaila shook her head forcefully, tossing flaming orange curls in every direction. “I don’t see how that’s possible. It sounds to me like he wants to keep Earth as part of the Romulan Empire.”

“That is correct,” Toval agreed.

Which only made Nyota and Gaila more confused.

Toval sighed. “There is a reason it is called the Reformist Movement, and not the Liberation Movement. I know that distinction may be difficult to grasp. But our purpose is not to destroy the Romulan Empire or even necessarily to liberate Earth or any of the other worlds. Only to change the Romulan Empire to be more hospitable to its non-Romulan inhabitants.”

Nyota frowned. In hindsight, it should have been obvious from semantics alone. But all this time, she’d been operating under the assumption that the Reformist Movement was some kind of secret band of human freedom fighters, given the harsh punishments that could be doled out for even mentioning the name of the group aloud. She’d expected Viva la Revolución. Learning that it was, instead, an unambitious, mostly Romulan-ran effort to make their own society slightly less horrible to the people it subjugated was a major disappointment.

Nyota swallowed. “When you said freedom, I thought you meant…”

“From the Empire, not within it,” Toval finished for her.

Nyota nodded, grateful that he’d been willing to say the damning words for her.

“It is a common misconception,” Toval explained with a sigh of his own. “The Romulan Government views any dissenting opinions, even those held by Romulans wanting to improve their own government, as equally traitorous.”

“Then why not go the whole-nine-yards?” Nyota demanded, her eyes flashing, suddenly furious. “Why not try to overthrow them completely, if we’re running the same risks?!”

“And put Earth in the crossfire?” Toval challenged.

That made Nyota clamp her lips shut. He had a point. If Earth rebelled against Viceroy Valen, the Praetor would send more warbirds to take it back. And this time, he might not accept their surrender without making a few, devastating orbital bombardments first.

Gaila frowned. “So, if… liberating Earth isn’t the plan, then what is?”

“Slowing the rate of Romulan expansion, and improving the lives of those who already live under Romulan rule,” Toval explained.

“Yes, yes, I get that, but how,” Gaila asked. “Like, what’s your plan specifically?” 

“My father has attempted to petition the Senate to establish guidelines. Bare minimum decency requirements for the treatment of non-Romulans on our conquered worlds. Requirements that would enshrine things like the freedom to choose one’s own mate, and the freedom to choose one’s own beliefs, so long as they do not undermine the Empire directly. But he has been shot down and mocked at nearly every turn. I won’t repeat some of the things they insinuated about him and my mother in the process.”

He didn’t have to. Nyota could easily imagine it. The accusations that a human whore had made him soft.

“So, legal avenues of change obviously didn’t work,” Nyota summarized. “So, what’s the illegal plan?”

“My father’s primary goal at the moment is to slow the rate of Romulan expansion. To stop the Romulan Government from conquering any more worlds, which may overextend our resources and place even more people under unchecked subjugation. That is why, when they declare war on the Klingons, we will act. My father has encoded a secret subroutine into your identification chips, sent in four pieces, every other semester, until a cadet has a complete set. He has also set the chips to automatically activate when he receives the news.”

Nyota’s eyes widened. Viceroy Valen had—

“You turned us all into sleeper agents?” Gaila blurted out.

“This is why my father chose Earth’s most intelligent individuals to fill our recruitment quotas. After all, he can hardly openly recruit the most brilliant minds to his cause.”

“But what is this cause, exactly?”

“You will be given instructions specific to your station when the time arrives, via the implant. That is why it was important that you be smart. So you would understand the instructions quickly, and understand that acting on them was in your best interests. However, in broad terms, the goal is to commandeer Earth’s entire fleet, and turn it on the Senate, instead of whatever our Klingon target is.”

Nyota shook her head in disbelief. “You’d be turning on your own people. Starting a civil war.”

Toval shrugged as if this wasn’t anything terrible. Or at least not anything new. “Romulans have a long history of turning our backs on our own. If you asked the Vulcans, they’d say it started when we turned our backs on them and became Romulans.”

“Still, what does your father hope to achieve by attacking the Senate?” Nyota asked.

“There is a branch of the Reformist Movement building on Romulus as well. As it operates now, everyone suffers under the Empire. Some more than others, obviously,” he immediately stipulated, to make sure it was clear he wasn’t trying to say his situation was anywhere near as bad as theirs. “My father, and all the other Reformists scattered throughout the quadrant have the same goal: to make the Romulan Empire better serve all of its subjects. Romulans, Remans, Tellarites, Andorians, Vulcans, Humans…”

Nyota blinked, confused. “Why?”

“You disagree with this mission?” Toval asked, mirroring her bewilderment.

Nyota rapidly shook her head. “No, of course not. That sounds great. Second best to freedom from the Empire, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything that’s a step up from what we’ve got. I just… I don’t understand why your father would care. He’s the Viceroy. He’s got tons of status and power. Why would he be willing to risk so much to try and improve the standing of non-Romulans within the Empire?”

“Because he loves my mother,” Toval announced. “And that’s what she wants.”

It took Nyota several seconds to process what she was hearing.

“He loves her?” Nyota repeated, completely incredulous.

“Oh yes, he is quite smitten,” Toval replied, resolute, and smiling faintly. “Originally, he had plans for Earth that were similar to Mallatorix’s goals for Vulcan, albeit less extreme. A few tactical strikes on important cultural and historical centers to destabilize human culture and identity. But my mother told him she’d never forgive him if he destroyed the Louvre. So, he did not go forward with those plans.”

Nyota blinked, taking that in. That would go a long way to explain why the Romulans had mostly left art and history museums that dealt with primarily pre-first contact history alone, in spite of their efforts to control the populace through censorship and propaganda. It also explained why the Louvre had installed a new plaque in honor of a new, generous, anonymous donor.

Viceroy Valen didn’t want to upset Linette Greenwood. It appeared her opinion mattered to him a great deal.  

“He does love her,” Nyota breathed. Then her countenance shifted. “How did that happen?”

Now it was Toval’s turn to be confused. “I am surprised you two do not realize the effect your species have on Romulan men.”

“Enlighten me,” Nyota said, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering at him.

Toval tapped his nose. “Humans have a distinctive scent. It is quite powerful.”

“Yeah, I know, we stink, apparently,” Nyota said, waiving a dismissive hand.

“No, no, you misunderstand,” Toval cut in. “We would rather perpetuate the myth that you smell unpleasant because the truth is so much more… embarrassing.”

Toval suddenly seemed raptly fascinated with the carpet. His unwillingness to meet her eyes piqued her interest.

Nyota raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”

“Your scent is…” Toval blushed, but still wouldn’t look at her. “…quite intoxicating. The ancestors of Romulans evolved on a planet where salt was less abundant. As a desert, salt is a valuable resource. You smell…”

“Like a valuable resource?” Nyota said, not bothering to hide her distaste for that concept.

“Yes, yes, but there is more,” Toval rushed to say. “Your scent. Your musk it is… humans must have strong hormones. To us, you smell like you are constantly ready to… breed. Like an animal in heat. It’s very… distracting.”

Nyota leaned back on the couch and eyed Toval skeptically. “Are you distracted right now?”

Toval heaved a heavy sigh. “I would be lying if I said I was not,” he admitted with startling honesty. “But I am not a beast. Nor a Vulcan afflicted with a biological embarrassment my ancestors decided to electively cut out of our genome thousands of years ago. I can control myself.”

Nyota rose up off the couch, and took a step behind it, to put more distance between her and Toval anyway. And Toval didn’t pursue her or press the issue. In fact, he stayed sitting on his tufted ottoman and staring at the carpet until Gaila, still sitting on the emerald green couch across from him, reached across and tapped him on the shoulder. Then he finally lifted his eyes and looked at her.

“Okay, so that explains humans. But Romulans are immune to Orion pheromones,” Gaila reminded him. “Just like Vulcans.”

“That may be so, but we are not immune to your…” he glanced down at Gaila’s scarlet-clad boobs for half a second, before quickly darting back to her eyes, “…other charms.”

Nyota rolled her eyes. Men. Were they the same in every species?

Though she had to admit she was being a little hypocritical. How many times had she covertly looked at Gaila’s figure? Or not so covertly, when they’d undressed in the same dorm room?

Nyota felt her face getting hot. It was probably best not to be thinking about that right now.

“So Romulans think we’re hot,” Nyota summarized. “And specifically, your dad thinks your mom is hot enough that it’s made him go all soft,” she said, pointing to Toval. “Which everyone already knew. Great.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “How does that help us?”

Has this all been a monumental waste of time? she wondered.

Toval steepled his fingers together and sighed. Which made Nyota think they were finally going to get to the part where he told them why he’d brought them here. “There is information vital to the goals of the Reformist Movement which we have reason to believe is being stored on a professor’s personal computer terminal hidden somewhere in his office. If you two could seduce him—”

“You want us to be honeypots?” Nyota cried, aghast.

That was the super-secret Reformist Movement mission he had for them?

She almost wanted to punch him. He’d lured them all the way here, and told her all that devastating information about the state of the other three founding member worlds of the Federation, and disappointed them by revealing their mission was only to make the Romulan Empire slightly less awful rather than remove it from Earth entirely, only to drop this lousy mission on them?

“I’m down to be a honeypot,” Gaila said, perking up on the couch and smiling brightly.

Nyota rolled her eyes. Typical Gaila.

“I know you are,” Nyota said. “But I was hoping to do more… secret agent stuff.”

“This is secret agent stuff,” Gaila countered. “Sexy secret agent stuff, sure,” she allowed. “But it’s still very much secret agent stuff. And I mean, we can always say no. But we can help,” she stressed. “Shouldn’t we try?”

Nyota groaned, pressing two hands to the sides of her face and massaging her temples. She didn't like this mission one bit. And she still didn't fully trust Toval. But Gaila was right. If it was for the good of humanity...

“Okay fine. Tell us, Toval. Who is this professor?”

…

Professor Chulak was the most unpleasant individual Nyota had ever met. He constantly wore a scowl on his face and was always grumbling, whining, and complaining. He seemed to resent the fact that he’d been chosen to teach the eredhin baerhie (foreign cadets)—a less esteemed position than teaching the eredhin Rihan (Romulan cadets). And of course, he took out this resentment on his students. He snapped at them at the slightest provocation. He assigned an absolutely brutal amount of coursework. And he surpassed rigorous and veered straight into vindictive with this grading scale.

In addition to looking down his nose at all the bendainnsu in his class, and being a nitpicky, hyper-critical bastard who never once praised their hard work, his lectures themselves—which Nyota had been forced to attend four and a half years in a row—were a unique form of torture. Long. Monotonous. Mind-numbingly boring.

On the day after their conversation with Toval, Nyota and Gaila sat next to each other in the lecture hall, listening to one of them. While he dully recited the heavily redacted and propagandized "official" version of Romulan history, Nyota and Gaila exchanged pained glances.

This was the person Toval wants us to seduce? they seemed to ask each other with their eyes.

Unfortunately, it was. And, as if his acerbic personality, blatant xenophobia, and the fact that he waxed almost romantic when speaking about the Praetor, was not enough, to top it all off, Professor Chulak was ugly.

He looked middle-aged by human standards, so he was probably at least ninety-years old, and the years had not been kind to him. He had sagging jowls, sunken-in eyes, and something of a double-chin, which stuck out over the black collar of his instructor’s uniform. Male-pattern baldness was less prevalent among Romulans than humans, so he still had a full head of hair. But it was poorly cut, streaked with grey, and lied in flat, lifeless, over-greased lines.

For several minutes, as she watched him pace in the front of the classroom with his hands clasped behind his back, reciting passages from their history textbook, word for word, Nyota pondered the possibility of going back to Room 1247 and telling Toval they couldn’t do it. But then, while Chulak circled the room like some kind of oily vulture, she caught the determined gleam in Gaila’s bright, blue eyes. Then she realized, if only for Gaila’s sake, she couldn’t back out now.

In all her years of knowing her, Nyota had never seen Gaila look this dedicated to something before. She looked dead-set on seeing this through. And if that was the case, then Nyota wasn’t going to let her do it alone. She loved her enough for that. Even if the idea of going anywhere near a sexually-aroused Professor Chulak made her want to gag.

“When the Narada appeared in Romulus’ orbit, at first Praetor Vrax assumed it was an enemy ship,” Professor Chulak drawled. “Its technology was so far beyond our own as to be almost completely unrecognizable. However, its warp-signature was Romulan, as was its captain when he answered the Romulan Military’s hails. The captain referred to himself as Nero and claimed his vessel originated from one-hundred and fifty-four years in the future—a claim the Romulan Astrophysical Academy first dismissed as spurious, given that there were no prior confirmed cases of time travel in Romulan history. This claim, was, however, later proven true when the vessel was confiscated by the Romulan Government and its databanks included verifiable information about the future.”

Ugh, I know all this already, Nyota thought as the Professor continued. I did read the assigned section in the textbook.

But of course, he probably doesn’t expect us lowly bendainnsu to do our homework, or remember the contents, Nyota realized with a frown.

“Captain Nero did not wish to relinquish possession of his ship at first,” Professor Chulak continued. “However, the Romulan government was eventually able to persuade him to donate his great vessel to the Empire.”

Nyota’s eyelid twitched. Persuade? Was that what they were teaching people these days?

That wasn’t what had been printed in the original text. And the discrepancy was almost laughable. Although, Nyota had to admit, a disruptor blast between the eyes was pretty persuasive. The dead, after all, couldn’t resist.

“After Captain Nero was removed from command, his second-in-command, Ayel, was taken in for questioning regarding the events of the future. And the remainder of the crew were relocated to accommodations befitting their generous contribution to the increased might of the Romulan Empire.”

Nyota was less certain which parts of that paragraph were true. But her gut told her that was a funny way to say thrown in jail while the Romulan Empire made off with their prize.

“The Narada was then examined by Romulus’ finest engineers, who discovered, in only two short years how to reverse-engineer its technology. In another three, we were able to outfit our entire fleet with the upgrades. A wonderful accomplishment, made possible only by the miracle of the Narada's arrival. Then, on the day our last ship was finished, under the cover of cloak, the entire Romulan Star Navy crossed the Neutral Zone border for the first time since 2160 and—”  

“Excuse me,” Gaila interrupted, raising a hand. “I have a question.”

Professor Chulak stopped mid-sentence, then pivoted on the cold stone floor to glower at her. “And what question did you deem important enough to interrupt me, Cadet?” he asked in a low, threatening voice, practically dripping with acid.

Nyota shivered and swallowed. She hoped Gaila knew what she was doing. She, for one, didn’t want to be the one to piss this guy off.

Gaila put a mock-contemplative hand on her chin, and tilted her head, like she was trying to puzzle something out. “I was just wondering… did your parents dislike you, you know… when you were born?”

Nyota’s mouth dropped open in shock. What the hell was Gaila doing?

“Of all the impertinent—!” Professor Chulak started to roar.

But Gaila wasn’t finished. Emboldened by his reaction, she stood up and leaned over her desk. “Your name, Chulak. Well, maybe your parents didn’t know this, but it sounds a lot like a word from a backwater dialect on Orion. Chuulak. It refers to a type of execution that’s slow and torturous. You know, kind of like your lessons.”

The entire class “ooohed” at that. And several human cadets even tittered with laughter.

“Shut up! All of you!” Professor Chulak demanded. “And you, Cadet,” he said, rounding on Gaila. “Sit down and keep that pretty mouth of yours sealed until the end of class. Do you understand?”

Sensing she’d pushed as far as she could without incurring more serious consequences, Gaila nodded and sat back down. Then, a little flustered, but undeterred, Professor Chulak continued with his lecture.

“As I was saying, in 2238, the Romulan Armada, newly outfitted with technology gleaned from the Narada, crossed the Neutral Zone border and set a course for Earth. Three-hundred and seven ships traveled undetected, into the heart of Federation territory. When they arrived in orbit of Earth—”

This time, it was Nyota who raised a hand to interrupt. “Professor Chulak, I have a question.”

Again, Professor Chulak stopped mid-sentence and turned to glare at the person interrupting him. This time, his beady black eyes sparkled with rage.

“Is it about my name?” the Professor bit out through gritted teeth.

Nyota pretended to look surprised. “Why yes, actually. The Romulan General who suffered a massive defeat at Galorndon Core was also named Chulak,” she rushed to say before he could cut her off. “And I doubt your parents, being the upstanding, intelligent Romulans that they are, of course, were unaware of that. So, to reiterate my roommate’s question, did you do something as a baby to upset your parents?”

The classroom howled with laughter this time. And Professor Chulak looked about ready to blow a gasket.

“Both of you, leave this room at once!” Professor Chulak screamed. “And I expect both of you to be in my office after the class has concluded to discuss your punishment. Or else I shall be forced to take more extreme disciplinary measures. Is that understood?”

Nyota nodded demurely. Then she and Gaila both rose up out of their seats and walked out of the lecture hall. They had to pass several rows of human cadets as they left. Some of the cadets flashed smiles and gave them discreet “thumbs up” gestures as they left.

Nyota flushed with embarrassment. She’d never been a rabblerouser like this before. But she had to admit it felt good.

…

When they made it out into the hall, and shut the door behind them, Gaila leaned up against the wall and sagged with relief. “Well, that went better than I expected.”

“I wasn’t sure exactly what you were doing, but I decided to play along,” Nyota admitted. Then in a whisper, she added. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We need to get into his office. That’s where they think it is.” Gaila explained, careful not to use any alarm-triggering words or get too specific about the terms of their mission just in case anyone was listening. “Last night, as I was thinking about how we might do that, I remembered he always invites naughty students to his office. Which has no windows. And is soundproof.”

Nyota thought she understood what Gaila was getting at. They could seduce him in there, then, while he was distracted, look for the computer terminal the Reformist Movement had asked them to find. But she was puzzled by Gaila’s apparent resourcefulness.

“And you know this, how?” Nyota asked.

Gaila rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “One day last semester, when you were out sick I—”

“Oh my god,” Nyota groaned.

Gaila nodded. “Yeah, I got bored, okay? I made some snide comment in class. And for that, he gave me a verbal lashing, then made me scrub the floors of the Xenogenetic Research Labs while he watched. Spent the entire time staring at my ass.”

Nyota frowned. Professor Chulak was, unfortunately right. Gaila did have an amazing ass.

“And you never told me this, because…?” Nyota asked.

“You were busy barfing,” Gaila offered in her own defense. “I wasn’t going to heap more nonsense onto your plate at the time. Besides, scrubbing floors isn’t hard. And everyone stares at my ass, creepy professors or not. It wasn’t like I was getting tortured or executed.”

Nyota rolled her eyes. Gaila had a funny way of being considerate sometimes. Yet, she appreciated her thoughtfulness all the same. It was part of why she was in love with her.

“Anyway,” Gaila continued, shaking Nyota out of her wandering thoughts. “When we go to his office, follow my lead. I think I know a way to get us out of trouble and get everything we want.”  

Chapter Text

Professor Chulak glowered at them. “Do you realize just how much trouble you’re in, Cadets?”

Nyota and Gaila sat in the professor’s office on two, stiff metal stools. Across from them sat the Professor in a wide, black-leather wingback chair. Acting as a physical barrier between them and the professor was a tall, dark grey desk. Professor Chulak’s fingers were interlaced atop the polished desktop. His broad shoulders were hunched. His thick, slanted eyebrows were narrowed. And his thin, waxy lips were pursed into a firm, disapproving line.

Nyota swallowed nervously. “Sir, I understand the gravity of my actions and I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit,” she said, ducking her chin deferentially, not meeting his eyes.

Professor Chulak relaxed marginally at that, leaning back in his chair and unlacing his fingers. He left one hand on the desktop, and lifted the other to tap one of the sagging sides of his jaw contemplatively. Then he turned his gaze toward Gaila.

“And you, Orion?” Professor Chulak asked.

“We’re both very sorry for what we said,” Gaila said, laying it on a little thick. “Buuuuut,” she added, reaching slowly for the professor’s hand still lying, palm-facing down, on his desktop, “I think I might know of a way we can make it up to you.”

While she spoke, in a low, suggestive voice, she skimmed her green fingers oh-so-gently over Professor Chulak’s ochre-toned flesh. His gaze flicked down to his hand, eyes blazing first with shock, and then scandalization as she brazenly stroked his fingers. It was no secret that Romulan hands were sensitive in an erogenous-zone sort of way. In effect, what Gaila was doing was as bold as if she’d nibbled on his earlobe. Or kissed his neck.

But to Nyota’s surprise, Professor Chulak didn’t yank his hand away. He let it rest where it was, and let Gaila continue to draw lazy patterns over it with her own hand. Soon his eyelids began to droop, and his breath hitched.

“I trust…” Chulak had to pause to take another, shuddering breath, “…you know what you are offering, Orion. But does your human friend know and agree to this… exchange?” he asked, his heavy-lidded gaze reluctantly leaving Gaila’s face to look over at Nyota.

His eyes raked over her, seething with something dark and lecherous. Nausea roiled in Nyota’s gut as the middle-aged Romulan undressed her in his mind. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to slam a fist down on his desk and kick him in the balls. But there were two things that stopped her from doing that.

First, Romulans didn’t keep their testicles between their legs. They stored them in their lower back—which would be a lot harder to reach, given how high the back was on his imposing black leather chair. Second, Toval had explained just how vital this information they were trying to steal from Professor Chulak’s computer was. And they wouldn’t be able to carry out their mission if Nyota injured a Romulan instructor.

They’d be sent straight to the Interrogation Labs in the Rihan block, where Romulan cadets would practice torturing them. Needles. Knives. Suspension. Sensory Deprivation. Waterboarding. Centaurian Slugs. Electrostatic shock…

Nyota shivered, just thinking about it.

So instead of kicking Professor Chulak in the crotch, like the pervert deserved, she forced herself to smile prettily. Then she leaned back on her stool and reached for the fastenings at the collar of her scarlet uniform.

Professor Chulak watched raptly as she opened her uniform jacket. The interiors of the Romulan Imperial War College were heated to temperatures more comfortable to Romulans—whose ancestors hailed from the hot desert planet of Vulcan. So, in the warm environment, Nyota had forgone wearing the uniform undershirt in an effort to keep cool.

She was still wearing a bra—plain and white—which preserved some of her modesty. But as the rest of her smooth planes of soft, brown skin above the waist were exposed to his hungry gaze, Professor Chulak licked his lips and nodded appreciatively.

“As it appears you are both in agreement, I think… I could be persuaded to overlook this incident,” Professor Chulak purred, staring directly at Nyota’s cleavage.

Nyota swallowed, making her chest heave up and down before Chulak’s eyes. He followed their movement, like a hungry mogai. Then, without breaking eye-contact with her boobs, he said, “Computer, lock door.”

“Door locked,” a robotic voice replied.

“Engage privacy protocols,” Professor Chulak continued, his eyes never once leaving her skin.

“Privacy protocols engaged. Audio and visual monitoring is temporarily disabled. Switching to bio-scans only.”

Nyota almost sighed with relief. That’s what they’d been hoping for. The Romulans might be paranoid. But they were also secretive. And neither humans nor Romulans especially relished the idea of being watched by some unknown stranger while having sex.

“Now…” Professor Chulak drawled, flashing a yellow-toothed smile at them both. “Where were we?”

…

A cramped instructor’s office was not the best location to have sex in. But Gaila had made do with broom closets, kitchen countertops, and every type of furniture in the galaxy. So, while Nyota would have been at a loss as to what to do without a bed, for Gaila, working with only one wingback chair, a huge, looming desk and a couple of stools was a piece of cake.

To start, they were sticking with the chair. Professor Chulak remained sitting in it, while Gaila knelt in front of him, between his legs. At some point, Gaila had also stripped off her uniform jacket, and stuffed it under her knees to cushion them from the hard floor. But like Nyota, she was still wearing her uniform skirt and a bra. The only difference was her bra was bigger, lacier and racier, and pink.

Nyota tried not to stare at it. But the neon pink was eye-catching against her Orion skin-tone. As was the way it strained to contain her large, green breasts. Also, it was infinitely more appealing to look at, than watching Gaila placing teasing kisses along the center seam of Chulak’s uniform trousers.

His pants, mercifully, were still on and weren’t open yet. But Nyota could see the outline of his cock already straining through the material. Watching Gaila nuzzle her nose against it, and giggle like she was enjoying herself, simultaneously made Nyota’s cheeks burn, and her heart fester with jealousy.

What she wouldn’t give to have Gaila kissing her crotch like that.  

Ugh. What a waste.

To avoid having to watch Gaila give Professor Chulak the best blowjob he’d ever had in his miserable life, and so as to not arouse suspicion, Nyota decided to walk around behind the chair, and pick up the finger stroking where her roommate had left off. Nyota wasn’t nearly as naturally skilled at it as Gaila was. But by the time she started skimming her fingers over his, Gaila had already found the fastenings of his pants, and opened them with her teeth. After that, Professor Chulak quickly became so thoroughly distracted by what Gaila was doing between his legs that he hardly even remembered that Nyota existed.

That suited Nyota just fine. She was happy to lazily trail her hands over Professor Chulak’s while Gaila did the brunt of the work. Although he clearly got a kick out of it, the finger-touching didn’t really do anything for Nyota personally.

After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling and half-heartedly rubbing Professor Chulak’s fingers, though, Nyota got curious as to how Gaila was doing. She chanced a quick peek down just in time to watch Gaila swallow Professor Chulak’s long, thick, erection whole. It was almost as green as her at this point, and painfully hard. Some clear, viscous fluid had started to weep from the tip—probably some kind of natural lubrication that Romulans made. Though, Nyota couldn’t be sure. She’d never slept with a Romulan before.

When Gaila’s perfect lips, painted a lovely rose-gold hue, parted and took him in, she moaned around his cock, like she was just as turned-on as he was. Nyota knew it was an act. But that sound, combined with the sensation of being enveloped by Gaila’s warm, talented mouth, made Professor Chulak close his eyes and release an equally wanton moan of his own.

Nyota tore her eyes away from the sight as quickly as possible. But the mane of curly red hair bobbing up and down in Professor Chulak’s lap kept taunting her in her periphery. And the pathetic, mewling, whimpering sounds of delight Professor Chulak started to make as Gaila worked her magic, were impossible to ignore.

Remembering what they’d come here for, Nyota took advantage of the professor’s blissfully oblivious state to slip away from his chair and search the room for his personal computer terminal. Toval had described to her what it would look like. But she assumed if the Reformist Movement had any idea where he was keeping it, they would have found some excuse to send one of their operatives to confiscate it earlier.

Crawling around on her hands and knees to avoid being seen in Professor Chulak’s peripheral vision, Nyota checked every drawer of his desk, every shelf in his closet, and was about to give up when she spotted a blinking light poking out from underneath a loose floorboard. When Professor Chulak moaned especially loudly, she shoved the board aside, and dug out the computer terminal.

Working quickly, with her heart pounding in her chest, Nyota took the data stick Toval had given her out of her uniform skirt pocket, and slipped it into the nearest port. Immediately, a series of tiny blue letters flashed across a little screen on the edge of the data stick, reading downloading… 1%.

Nyota sighed with relief. She’d half-expected to trip some kind of alarm.

Professor Chulak probably had other failsafes in place, of course. For example, the data she was downloading was most likely encrypted. But as the little numbers crept higher and higher, and Professor Chulak and Gaila continued making all sorts of obscene noises in the background, Nyota didn’t worry about that just yet. She figured that was a problem for Toval and the other members of the Reformist Movement.

Or maybe Gaila. She did have a knack for computer code.

Either way, it was a future problem. Right now, Nyota’s main priority was getting all the information downloaded before the professor realized what they were doing. But to Nyota’s consternation, the little numbers were creeping up too slowly. 3%... 5%... 6%...

Come on, come on, come on.

Deciding it would be suspicious to be missing from the action for too long, Nyota left the data stick in the port, and slipped the floorboard more or less back into place. Then she sauntered back over to where Gaila was sucking Professor Chulak’s cock like it was her favorite kind of lollipop.

Nyota didn’t know how Gaila did it. How she could apply herself to the task of blowing their crusty, caustic, curmudgeonly, history professor with such gusto. She hesitated to ascribe it to Gaila’s Orion genes. That seemed thoroughly reductive. But something about Gaila was just built different than Nyota. Something that allowed her to shut off the rational part of her brain that was screaming at her that this was their enemy, and just lose herself in the process of pleasuring him.

Nyota was more than a little jealous of that, too, as she retook her place behind Professor Chulak’s chair and resumed stroking his hand, as if she’d never left. Even just trailing her fingertips over his knuckles made her want to gag. She couldn’t imagine trying to deepthroat him.

Does he taste bad? Nyota wondered with morbid curiosity.

It could go either way, honestly. Taste was connected to smell, and the one good thing that could be said about Professor Chulak was that he didn’t reek. Romulans didn’t sweat. His skin was clean and dry. The grease in his hair was probably some kind of poorly chosen, and too-liberally-applied hair gel. So there was a possibility he tasted just fine.

Nyota frowned and decided she shouldn’t think about that too hard and instead should remain focused on her own contributions. Worried that she appeared insincere in comparison to Gaila, Nyota slowly lifted one of Professor Chulak’s hands and pressed her lips against the back of it. His skin felt kind of clammy and cool—though the cool part was to be expected. Romulans and Vulcans both had a lower internal body temperature than humans.

The professor gasped when Nyota’s lips brushed his hand. Emboldened by his reaction, Nyota tentatively raised her lips to kiss his bony knuckles. That earned her a stuttering, “Au’e.” Which in Romulan, was a very emphatic “yes”.

So, Nyota continued peppering his hands in kisses, moving from his knuckle to the fingertip on his pointer finger. Then, when she reached the end, she slipped the digit between her lips, up to the first joint, and lightly sucked on it.

As she'd suspected, he tasted fine. Nothing to write home about. But not bad. When she sucked on his finger, though, Professor Chulak gripped the leather armrest of his chair with his free hand. Then he tilted his head back and moaned in ecstasy. The combination of Gaila sucking his cock, and Nyota licking his fingers was, apparently, divine, if his facial expression was any indication. For a moment, all the creases in his skin disappeared, and his shoulders completely relaxed.

The reprieve was brief, however. When Nyota slipped off his index finger to give a similar treatment to the next one, Gaila flicked her tongue just so, against the line of ridges decorating the underside of Professor Chulak’s cock. Then his whole body stiffened, and he cried out as he started spilling his release in Gaila’s mouth.

Nyota dropped the professor’s hand then, expecting it to be over quickly. But there was another anatomical difference between Romulans and humans that hadn’t been covered in their basic Romulan anatomy class. Apparently, Romulans produced a lot of ejaculate. Therefore, what usually only lasted five or six seconds for human men, dragged on for fifteen. By the end of it, Gaila’s mouth was so stuffed full of semen that it dripped from the corners of her mouth in sticky, milky white lines.

Gaila, cocksucking champion, had tears forming at the corners of her eyes trying to keep it all in. Worse still, when Professor Chulak withdrew his cock from Gaila’s mouth, it was still hard. And the lecherous gleam in his eyes indicated that he thought this was far from over.

Gaila forced herself to swallow. Then, while she licked the stray droplets of semen off her lips, she looked like she was mentally preparing herself to go another round. But Nyota couldn’t stand to watch that happen. So, she surprised Gaila and herself by stepping in front of her.

“My turn,” Nyota announced with more confidence than she felt.

…

Gaila had protested at first. But, if Professor Chulak thought this turn of events was odd, he didn’t show it. He simply watched, with a gaze so heated Nyota thought it might burn holes in her skin, as Nyota shimmied her skirt down her hips, kicked off her boots, and then stood before him in only her underwear.

The panties she was wearing were a white pair that matched her bra and contrasted sharply with the dark tones of her skin. Professor Chulak, for his part, didn’t seem to care what color they were, though. The leering slant of his eyebrows just told Nyota that he wanted to see them off.

Figuring the download was probably still in progress, and knowing her blowjob skills were nowhere near Gaila’s level, Nyota made a split-second decision. With trembling fingers, she undid the clasps of her bra, and dropped it and her panties on the floor.

Gaila stared at Nyota in shock as she took a step toward Professor Chulak, now completely nude. Nyota knew Gaila wasn’t surprised by the nudity itself. In their years rooming together, they had gotten very comfortable seeing each other in varying states of undress. But Nyota’s bold decision to strip in front of this slimy Romulan professor had Gaila completely gobsmacked.

Nyota could scarcely believe it herself. She wasn’t a virgin, but before this she’d only ever slept with three other people. All of whom she’d been involved in serious relationships with, and none of whom had been gross, middle-aged Romulan professors.

But as Nyota approached the professor without a stitch of clothing, she tried not to think of it in the same context as her other encounters. After all, she wasn’t going to be making love to him. Not really. She was just using him to further the aims of the Reformist Movement. So, if anything, he was the one that should feel dirty about it. Not her.   

While Gaila gaped like a fish and words escaped her, meanwhile, the professor’s dark eyes raked over Nyota’s entire body, fascinated and enthralled. Predictably, his gaze lingered on the areas that had previously been covered—at the soft folds of flesh between her legs, and her dark brown nipples. But he surprised her by looking her directly in the eyes when he murmured, “Ouye.”

Beautiful.

Nyota felt herself flush, embarrassed by his flattery. For a second, she almost forgot that this was something extremely sleazy. That she was effectively buying his mercy (and the information the Reformist Movement needed) with her body. For a second, she got confused and thought Chulak felt some small bit of genuine adoration toward her.

But he quickly ruined the moment with his next words. “I don’t know what our esteemed Viceroy is thinking, putting the two of you in cadet uniforms and assigning you to fight and die alongside us on warbirds. Clearly, you were made for this.”

Professor Chulak pinched one of her nipples sharply to punctuate his last word. Nyota yelped in pain and surprise as his short, blunt nails dug into her sensitive nub. Fortunately, he quickly let go and soothed the hurt with several, softer, circular strokes over her aching areola.

“My apologies, I forget you hevammsu are so fragile,” he said, deliberately choosing to use the derogatory word for humans instead of the neutral “Terrhasu”. He also spoke the whole sentence with equal parts derision and remorse. Which was a confusing combination.

After that, Professor Chulak continued to toy with her breasts, with a much gentler touch. He made sure to give both sides equal attention. Despite his unpleasant personality and remarks, his soft caresses and little tugs sent tingles of pleasure through Nyota’s chest. Then, after he had dragged his thumbs and forefingers all over her nipples, and the dark, bumpy skin around them, he snaked one hand down around behind her and pulled her closer to him.

Nyota let him drag her over to him, ever mindful of Gaila’s eyes on them both. Gaila was still kneeling on the floor next to the chair, in her bra and uniform skirt when his hand found the small of Nyota’s back and yanked her forward. But as Nyota clambered into the professor’s lap, Gaila took that as her cue to get up off the floor, and pick up where Nyota had left off with the finger sucking.

Gaila sucked his middle and fourth finger into her mouth simultaneously as Nyota settled in, straddling the professor’s trouser-clad thighs with her bare legs. Again, Professor Chulak breathed, “Au’e,” and closed his eyes, drifting off in pleasure.

Unwilling to let Gaila do all the work again, Nyota shifted her hips and ground down against the professor’s exposed erection. His free hand flew to her hip immediately, at first, Nyota thought, to stop her. But he only guided her movements, digging his fingers into her pliant flesh when he wanted her to grind down harder, and easing the pressure when he wanted her to back off.

Nyota followed his nonverbal instructions, trying not to think too hard about what she was doing. Trying to convince herself that this wasn’t any different from the various battle simulations she’d participated in. This was just… a new technique for immobilizing the enemy. Yeah, that’s it.

Her efforts to convince herself were not very effective, however. Professor Chulak sure was immobilized. But the feeling of his stiff, semen-and-saliva drenched cock, gliding over her most intimate parts made it hard to concentrate, and bombarded her body with a cacophony of conflicting reactions.

Part of her wanted to be sick. In spite of all of her efforts to mentally reclassify what she was doing into something more palatable, the gritty reality was that she was having hot, messy, skin-to-skin, sexual contact with a Romulan enemy. And that knowledge made her want to throw up all over that nice, pristine black instructor’s uniform of his.

Yet, the other part of her wanted to disobey Professor Chulak’s instructions for an entirely different reason. His hand on her hip was telling her to only grind down against his slippery cock enough to tease her, but never quite satisfy her. Meaning she was getting quite frustrated. Enough that she was starting to contemplate the notion of disobeying his non-verbal commands and grinding down harder in that one place specifically, to stimulate the under-touched nerve-endings in her clitoris.  

It was a very puzzling mix of impulses. Half of her wanting to run miles away from here, and the other half wishing for nothing more than for Professor Chulak to urge her hips down, closer to that most sensitive part of her body.

To make matters even more confusing, when one of the ridges of his alien penis grazed her clit, her legs suddenly quivered around his, and she gushed fluid into his lap. Enough that for a terrible second, Professor Chulak looked at her in horror, as if assuming she’d peed on him, before he figured out what was going on.

“Mosmhafheqq khia arhem,” he muttered, awestruck.

I make you wet, Nyota translated automatically.

She didn’t think he was addressing her directly. She wasn’t even sure if he knew she was fluent in Romulan. He just had a tendency to revert to his first language when he was distracted. Apparently, among other things, pouring vaginal lubricant into his lap counted as distracting.

Which… fair.

Nyota had to admit it was a little distracting even to herself.

A moment later, Professor Chulak used his right hand to sweep between Nyota’s legs. Nyota couldn’t help the mewl that escaped her lips when his rough thumb brushed between her folds and his knuckle rubbed against her clitoris. But he pulled back all too quickly, with his finger glistening with her wetness.

He brought his finger up to his eye-level to inspect it. Then, experimentally, he darted out his tongue to taste Nyota’s fluids coating his skin.

“Mhire,” he noted with approval.

Tasty. He thought she was tasty.

Now that he knew this, his gaze suddenly turned even hungrier. Which made Nyota slightly frightened of what he might decide to do next.

Is he going to try to lick up more, from the source? Nyota wondered frantically.

They weren’t really in the right position for that. If Professor Chulak suddenly bent over and tried to put his mouth between her legs, they’d probably both find themselves sprawled inelegantly on the floor. Gaila, who was still laving his left hand with her tongue, might get pulled into the tangle, too.

Fortunately, even with a brain completely fogged with lust, the professor had better sense than that. Instead of flipping them both onto the ground in a misguided attempt to access her nethers, he merely pulled his left hand free of Gaila’s lips and used both hands to tug Nyota closer, until their chests were flush.

Gaila’s mouth hung open, stunned that the fingers she’d been licking had so abruptly departed.

Nyota let out a soft "oof" as Professor Chulak pulled her against him. Her breath hitched when her nipples brushed up against the stiff fabric of Professor Chulak’s uniform jacket, and she had to throw both hands around his neck to steady herself. She hadn’t meant anything by it. But the professor perceived both actions, which were instinctual and self-preserving, as invitations to further intimacy.

With a low rumble in his throat, Professor Chulak circled his arms around her back. Then he dipped his head against her neck, and trailed his squat, protuberant nose along the column of her throat.

Nyota held deathly still in his embrace. She wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, pulling her close and prodding at her skin with his nose.

Confused, she glanced over at Gaila for answers. But to her disappointment, Gaila just shook her head and shrugged.

A moment later, Professor Chulak inhaled sharply against her neck, and sighed. Suddenly his purpose for their increased closeness became clear. He wanted to smell her. And if the sounds of satisfaction he was making as her scent permeated his olfactory senses was any indication, he liked what he smelled. A lot.

Nyota felt herself flushing from the base of her neck to the roots of her hair, in spite of herself. Maybe Toval was right. Maybe human women did have a unique effect on Romulans.

As if to further prove Toval’s assertion, Professor Chulak took another large whiff while his nose was buried against her neck, and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her back while he savored it. His cock, still rock hard and pressed up against her stomach now, suddenly wept more lubricant, which dripped down like translucent honey between her legs. Most of it ended up in his lap. But a couple drops spattered her thighs and one landed and hung heavily on her clitoris.

Involuntarily, Nyota shivered. That’s when she realized that if she didn’t act quickly, she might enjoy this, too. And she didn’t know if she could live with that shame.

Hoping to wrap things up faster, Nyota wriggled in Professor Chulak’s iron grasp until she was positioned over his cock. Then, knowing Professor Chulak was already slicked up with Gaila’s saliva, along with his own lubricant and semen, and trusting that she was wet enough from all the accidental stimulation, Nyota sank down onto it.

As predicted, his cock was so slippery she glided right onto it without any trouble. It was thick, so she felt a slight burn at the stretch of it filling her. But it quickly passed as she slid further down.

Nyota slid all the way down to the hilt. Professor Chulak gasped in equal amounts shock and pleasure as she took him inside her. He pulled away from her neck suddenly, only to grab her by the sides of her head, and mash their faces inelegantly together.

He seemed… unpracticed in the art of kissing. Or perhaps it was simply that he was over-eager. Too fast. Too hungry. Too much teeth and not enough tongue.

For a moment, Nyota feared she might suffocate, since he wasn’t letting her breathe. Then, at last, he pulled away from her face, gasping desperately for air. She panted with him, her chest heaving against his, and making her nipples rub delightfully against his uniform again.

It was at this moment, that Professor Chulak finally decided to start thrusting his hips into her. The force of the first one was so powerful it nearly knocked Nyota off balance and onto the floor. She dug her fingernails into Professor Chulak’s shoulders to keep herself upright as he slammed up into her moist channel. Apparently, he liked that, because, half-delirious, he said: 

“Stev arhem ssuaj mhivoi Haidhnen Valen partrai amton'wi'kha hevam.”

Nyota froze when she heard it. He’d said, “Now I understand the reason Viceroy Valen has a human whore.”

Suddenly, she had to fight the incredibly strong urge to slap him across the face. “Dælfte aou'nel arhem amton'wi'kha'hel,” she spit back, without thinking. Then, in a fit of madness, she added, “Ahr’ri'hwathech s’khia arhem.”  

I am better than a whore.

I am your Queen.

Nyota fully expected the Romulan beneath her to argue. To splutter and scream at her for her impetuous statement. It was utterly ridiculous. She didn’t even know why she’d said it.

But to her surprise, Professor Chulak did not reprimand her. For a moment he could only stare at her in stupefied shock as he realized she could understand him. That she was fluent in his language. Then, to her astonishment he ducked his head, looking ashamed and murmured:

“Veherrin, ri'hwathech s’ahrem.”

Apologies, my Queen.

Nyota’s eyebrows both shot up in unison. She had no idea what had gotten into him either. Or when he would come back to his senses—and he would, eventually, she was sure of it. Heady as it apparently was for the both of them, this madness couldn’t last. She wasn’t anyone’s queen in any meaningful sense.

But suddenly Nyota thought she understood how Linette had so much power over the Viceroy. How she’d been able to convince him to spare so much art and history, in spite of how that might, in the long run, undermine the Empire. Nyota had a feeling that if she hadn’t already found it, she could ask Professor Chulak himself where he was keeping his computer terminal. And in his love-sick haze, he might just tell her.

It was an intoxicating feeling to have that much power over him. And as she bounced up and down on Professor Chulak’s cock, Nyota realized, with a flash of shame, that she liked that feeling.

Could Toval be telling the truth about his parents, too? Nyota wondered, as she sat on Professor Chulak’s cock like he was her throne, and she was his queen. Did Linette really approach Viceroy Valen and offer to be his?

It was farfetched, if one assumed Linette had pure intentions. But was it possible that Linette had initiated a sexual relationship with the Viceroy for much the same reasons Nyota was riding this Romulan’s dick now? Hoping that he was horny enough to manipulate for her gain?

For all of humanity’s gain?

Nyota almost lost her balance again, floored by the implications of her line of thought. If that was the case, Linette wasn’t a traitor. She was a hero.

She’d pacified the viper. Well, maybe not completely. Viceroy Valen still allowed too many terrible things to occur under his reign. But she’d pacified him enough and wrapped him around her finger enough that he was planning on waging a civil war against his own people to give Linette what she wanted. Which was impressive.

No wonder Toval sounds so proud of her.

A flash of orange brought Nyota out of her thoughts. While Professor Chulak slammed his dick in and out of Nyota, Gaila glanced around, making her hair fan out around her head like a fiery halo. And as the professor held Nyota up in his lap by the sides, and tucked his head deferentially against her chest, Gaila stood awkwardly as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. Which was probably a first.

Nyota knew this wasn’t Gaila’s first sexual encounter that involved more than two people. She’d stumbled in on a few of them. But all of those had been with human men. Human men who were enthralled with Gaila’s scent. With Gaila’s Orion pheromones.

To have the shoe on the other foot—to be the girl ignored in favor of another who smelled better—had to be totally bizarre to her. Seeing the way it affected Gaila made Nyota feel bad.

She didn’t regret making the smarmy professor call her his Queen. It had felt better than sex to hear him say it. To hear that measly, mealy-mouthed worm be brought so low that he could only grovel before her. It was karmic justice for how he’d made her plead for his forgiveness before.

Gaila didn’t know that was what he had said, anyway. She only knew a few basic phrases in the language. And “Veherrin, ri'hwathech s’ahrem,” wasn’t one of them.

But still, Nyota’s heart ached when she saw Gaila fidgeting awkwardly next to Professor Chulak’s black leather chair. Gaila was clearly feeling out of her element. And since this was supposed to be her element, she was having a bit of a crisis of identity.

For a moment, Nyota’s eyes locked with her friend’s, and she tried to think of something she could say. Something she could suggest that would perk Gaila up.

Objectively, it was pretty weird for someone to invite their friend to participate in dubiously consensual sex with them and a third party. Especially when said someone had a raging crush on said friend and really wished she could ditch the douchebag she was currently riding and just kiss said friend senseless.

But just like how Viceroy Valen refused to destroy the Louvre and any institutions like it, even though they might undermine his authority, because Linette loved art, Nyota would do anything, even something that made her stomach turn, to see Gaila smile.

“Come here, Gaila. Let’s finish him off, together.”

…

In the end, Nyota’s suggestion necessitated the three of them moving to the floor. Professor Chulak, drunk with arousal, guided them to a plush rug he kept in the corner of his office, and got a pillow out of one of the cabinets. In fact, he was so out-of-it, that when Nyota raised an eyebrow at the pillow, Professor Chulak offered an unexpected explanation.

“Sometimes, I require it for rest. When the weather is too cold, I become tired. Or when the remote faculty meetings drift to plans for the upcoming Klingon campaign—as they too often do, these days—I mute the speaker and… go to sleep,” he confessed, his eyes darting around anxiously, like he expected to be caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

“Wait, you sleep through your faculty meetings?” Gaila chimed in, as she arranged the pillow in her lap, and eased Professor Chulak down to lie his head on it. That way, she could kneel on his rug, and look down into his eyes, while stroking his hair.

“Only the parts about the war,” Professor Chulak clarified as he lied back, as if that made his offense any lesser. “It doesn’t pertain to me. Twenty-years ago I was injured during the Alpha Centauri campaign. My hip never healed right, so the doctors will not approve me for active duty,” he said, patting his left side and gritting his teeth in obvious pain. “And since being grounded… I just can’t bear to listen to their bids for glory. Not when I can’t join them.”

Nyota frowned as she faced Gaila, and arranged herself on top of the professor, sinking back down onto his still-hard cock again. None of what he’d said excused the way he treated his students, of course. But suddenly, Nyota thought she understood it a little better. He was angry that he couldn’t be a soldier anymore, and he took that anger out on everyone he could.

Fleetingly, she felt guilty that they were taking advantage of him like this. At least, until he fouled it up again by speaking further.

“You’re quite skilled at this, Cadets,” Chulak praised as he started thrusting up inside Nyota again. While she rode him, Gaila continued to pet his hair. “Perhaps… we could come to some sort of… arrangement? Extra credit. Waived final exams. Unlimited access to the simulation rooms. Surely there must be something you bendainnsu want that I can provide.”

Nyota and Gaila looked down at the professor sprawled between them with matching looks of pity. He must be pathetically lonely to attempt to solicit their future attentions before they’d even finished with him.  

Shared grimaces passed between Nyota and Gaila at the idea of repeating this torrid venture. But, intuiting that he probably wouldn’t take rejection well at this juncture, Gaila ran her hand through his hair again, and smiled warmly down at him as she made a deliberately open-ended statement.

“Let’s worry about next time, next time, m’kay?”

Professor Chulak hastily nodded. Then remained mostly silent, aside from the occasional grunt or moan, as Nyota bounced up and down on his cock, and Gaila’s hands drifted sensuously down his scalp, across his temples, over his chin, across his neck, and onto his shoulders.

After a few minutes, Professor Chulak suddenly stiffened. Then, with a whimper, he finally came a second time.

As he shot a seemingly endless series of jets of hot, sticky ropes of semen up into her vagina, Nyota felt dirty and queasy. She’d never had Romulan cum inside her before. It felt mostly the same as the human variety. But it was the principle of the matter that left a bitter taste on her tongue.

Well, that and the absolutely ludicrous quantity of it.

When Nyota finally pushed off of Professor Chulak, it glipped and glooped out of her, leaving a wet sticky trail in her wake. As it accumulated on the professor’s rug, initially Nyota panicked, thinking he’d be concerned about the mess. But when her eyes darted up to his head, still resting on the pillow in Gaila’s lap, his eyes were closed, and he was breathing softly, in and out.

He was fast asleep.

Wow, was that so good it knocked him out? Nyota wondered.

It was possible. But it was also possible that he was just a tired old man with a bad hip, and this had been more than enough exercise for him for one day. Even though Gaila and Nyota had done most of the moving around.

Whatever the case was, it made for a convenient getaway. While Professor Chulak softly snored in Gaila’s lap, Nyota clambered off of him, and padded quickly, but quietly over to the loose floorboard in his office. Then, with meticulous care, she lifted it slowly, without making a sound, and checked the data stick.

Downloaded. 100%.

Perfect.

Nyota snatched up the data stick, put back the floorboard where she’d found it, and snuck back over to where Gaila was still kneeling on Professor Chulak’s rug, with the sleeping professor. For a second, she struggled with the logistics of moving him while he slept, so they could make a break for it with the data they’d come for.

But just as Nyota started trying to convey to Gaila that they should leave through a complicated series of silent gestures, suddenly the professor stirred.

Immediately, Nyota panicked. I still have the data stick in my hand. And I’m naked. I don’t have any pockets!

For a second, she considered popping it in her mouth. But the saliva in her mouth might degrade the data stick and make it hard to read later. So, without any other option, she hastily stuffed the stick inside Gaila’s bra. And that, of course, is when Professor Chulak decided to open his eyes.

Chapter Text

Professor Chulak’s eyes drifted up to rest on the scene in front of him. The two lovely female cadets who had just taken turns sexually pleasuring him were more or less where he had left them when he had dozed off. Except that now the human had her hand down the front of the Orion’s bra. And the look on her face as he caught them in the act was one of extreme panic.

Oh? Chulak thought as he observed the pair. Are they lovers?

Chulak had been so distracted by their offer straight out of his wildest fantasies, their exotic beauty, and their incredible skill, to think about why they were so comfortable sharing him in a sexual situation. But in hindsight the fact that they were already lovers made the most obvious sense. Most roommates would not be so… comfortable being naked and engaging in sexual activities around one another.

The girls looked frightened to have been caught, however. Which gave Chulak pause. Perhaps they feared that he would disapprove? Though for what reason, Chulak could not fathom.

They seemed to be a fine pair for one another, at least from his limited perspective. Over the past nine semesters they had both consistently been in the top of his class, despite his draconian grading scale. They both evidently enjoyed each other’s company. And they both shared many similar interests—including taunting him in front of his students, unfortunately. Though he could not be too upset when their delinquency had resulted in this.

They were different species, yes, which might have disgusted other Romulans more obsessed with racial purity than he. But they were both bendainnsu, and both female, so their relationship with each other posed no threat to the supposed “sanctity” of the Romulan genome, anyway. Not to mention Chulak would be an enormous hypocrite to oppose their intimate relationship when he had just received sexual pleasure from them both.

So… assuming they would not mind having an audience, he would not mind watching. On the contrary, Chulak would enjoy that very much.

“Do not stop on my account,” Chulak told them.

The two girls stared at him, blinking in stupefaction at his words. While they remained frozen in place, slowly, Chulak sat up on the rug he’d been lying on. Then he stood and walked back over to his chair. Once sitting, he swiveled the chair to face the two girls. After which he began stroking his own renewing erection.

As his fingers glided over the stiffening flesh, Chulak’s eyes remained fixed on the pair. For several seconds, the two alien women did not move. Then, the human swallowed, and slowly, uncertainly moved the hand that was inside the Orion’s bra, and began to fondle her companion’s breasts.

The Orion girl’s eyes widened as she felt her roommate and lover’s hands begin to rove beneath the cups of her bra. Probably, the green girl was surprised that they were going to continue with an audience. But quickly the Orion recovered from her shock. Then she lifted her own, green hands to touch the human’s bare, brown breasts. And Chulak smiled.

Finally, they were getting on with it. As the two women in front of him slowly began teasing and pinching at each other’s nipples, Chulak's blood roared with satisfaction. It was such a beautiful sight, he did not even mind that he was only a voyeur. Though of course, while they touched each other, he couldn’t help but imagine what he would do at his next opportunity to participate.

Next time, he would not be a mere recipient of their attentions. Next time, he would seize control. Lower them onto his desk, one after the other, and—injured hip be damned—take them properly.

Chulak’s mind burned as the images flashed across his mind. Yes, he would show those uppity hevammsu where they belonged. Writhing beneath him, moaning his name. 

The Viceroy was wise, Chulak was learning from this experience. The Viceroy understood what the lesser species were good for. And while Chulak masturbated to the sight of two alien women sexually stimulating each other, he suddenly ached to follow in the Viceroy’s footsteps. To fill one or both of these cadets with his seed, until they bore him children.

It was a surprisingly tantalizing thought, in spite of everything Chulak had been taught as a youth about the wrongness of interbreeding with the enemy. It wasn’t as if any Romulan females wanted him, anyway, given that he could not return to active duty and had little honor as a teacher of bendainnsu.

But in any case, Chulak was getting ahead of himself. Convincing the women in front of him to bear him half-Romulan children was a long way off, assuming he could ever manage to coax them back into his embrace in the first place.

For now, he should just enjoy the show. 

…

For a crazy second, Nyota wished she was a telepath. So, she could apologize to Gaila for doing this. For fondling her own friend for the sake of the mission. And probably ruining any chances of them ever actually getting together for real.

I’m so sorry, Gaila.

Even without communicating, Gaila seemed to understand the important part, though. That Nyota was acting in the best interests of the mission. That she was fondling Gaila’s breasts beneath a concealing layer of hot pink lace to allay Professor Chulak’s suspicions. So that he wouldn’t realize Nyota had just jammed a data stick down Gaila’s bra.

In fact, Gaila understood so well that, with only a moment’s hesitation, she threw herself into the task of pleasuring Nyota right back. To really sell the impression that they were lovers who had simply gotten carried away while Professor Chulak was dozing off his last orgasm.

Nyota knew it was just an act. That Gaila couldn’t really want her like that.

But Nyota’s traitorous nerve endings knew no such thing. So, when Gaila’s warm, soft, fingers glided expertly over the swell of her breasts, and pinched the buds of her nipples, Nyota’s whole body lit up like an electric fence. Heat rushed south, blooming between her legs. And her heart swelled, as if they were actually, finally, making love.

They weren’t, of course. The decidedly off-putting sounds of Professor Chulak furiously masturbating in the background made that clear. But Nyota had her back to him as he sat in his chair leering at them and openly stroking his cock. So, for the moment, she could pretend that it was just them. That they weren’t doing this for the Romulan Reformist Movement, but for themselves.

After a few delightful pinches of each other’s nipples, Gaila’s hands skimmed across Nyota’s belly, then delved between her legs. Her caress was so fluid, so smooth, it was like magic. And when Gaila’s fingers found Nyota’s clitoris, they knew just how to tease it—to sweep delicate circles around it, and even apply a minor amount of pressure directly to it, in a way that quickly had Nyota bent over and gasping.

Unwilling to allow Gaila to do all the work, Nyota pulled her own hand out of Gaila’s bra, leaving the data stick secured and hidden in Gaila’s ample cleavage, and slipped it up under Gaila’s red, uniform skirt. There was a lacy pink thong in the way. But that was easily pushed aside. Then Nyota did her best to copy Gaila’s actions. Though the way Gaila’s ministrations kept making her shudder and moan was making it remarkably difficult to concentrate her efforts.

Gaila didn’t seem to mind Nyota’s unpracticed swipes at her nether regions. In fact, she seemed to like them well enough. Because soon she was wet, too. And they were both panting heavily, while practically racing to get each other off.

Professor Chulak was wildly entertained by this, of course. Nyota could hear his breathing getting heavier, and the slick sound of his hands pumping the lubricated shaft of his cock, picking up in pace. But it was hard to remember he was even still in the same room as them, let alone on the same planet.

Nyota and Gaila were in their own little world, filled with tenderness, intimacy and pleasure. Almost like they had planned to do this. Almost like they were real girlfriends.

Nyota’s heart constricted in her chest with the knowledge that they weren’t. But she didn’t let her own personal problems stop her. She kept going, experimenting with playing with Gaila’s green labia, and removing her hands for a second to stroke her roommate’s thighs, before diving back in to attend to the main event.

Nyota really didn’t know what she was doing. She’d never had sex with a woman before, though she’d always wanted to. But she hoped for what she lacked in experience, she made up for with enthusiasm.

If the way Gaila was acting was any indication, then Nyota was succeeding. Her chest was heaving so hard it seemed to threaten to spill out of her bra. Which made Nyota somewhat nervous about the data stick still hidden there. But by some miracle of physics, it stayed put.

Eventually, what they were doing turned on Nyota so much, that she couldn’t help but lift one of her hands to curl it in Gaila’s fiery red hair. Then she tugged their heads together, so their lips could meet.

Gaila’s eyes widened at the kiss initially before her long lashes fluttered gracefully shut. Then they were kissing, ardently, passionately, fiercely, as if they were trying to devour one another. At least, at first. Then the kisses devolved into soft, lingering things, that made Nyota’s mind soar, and her heart ache.

God, I wish this was real, Nyota thought desperately.

When they were done making out for Professor Chulak’s viewing pleasure, they rested their foreheads together. A moment later, their hands resumed their movements in each other’s laps. Until, suddenly, Nyota somehow touched Gaila in just the right way. Then Gaila was shuddering against her hand, and gasping.

Nyota’s blood roared at the sound. By virtue of walking in on her roommate en flagrante delicto a few too many times, Nyota had heard the sounds Gaila made during orgasm enough to be familiar with them. But she thought there was nothing quite so rewarding in the entire universe as the sound of Gaila coming because of something she did.

In fact, it was so rewarding, that it was, in part, what sent Nyota herself over the edge a few moments later (Though Gaila’s expert hands doing numbers on her clit certainly also helped). And then they were both moaning, and quivering and gasping together, in a shared haze of ecstasy.

Despite the unfavorable circumstances, it was better than any sex Nyota had ever had. As bright warmth spread through her, making her toes curl, and her heart tremble, Nyota never wanted it to end.

Unfortunately, it had to. And when it did, they harshly returned to reality.

Right as they were both coming down from the high of their almost simultaneous orgasm, Professor Chulak came for the third time since their activities had begun. He released an ugly, mewling whine, and sprayed a veritable faucet’s worth of ejaculate onto the floor about a foot away from his chair.

Nyota winced as she heard his semen splatter on the ground. All the heat and passion drained out of her instantly, leaving her feeling cold, sticky and gross.

The same thing seemed to happen at the same time to Gaila. After Professor Chulak spent himself on his own office floor, she quickly looked down her cleavage to make sure the data stick was still there, masking the action by adjusting her bra at the same time. Then she tugged her panties back into place and started gathering up their clothes.

The professor, fortunately, made no protests as they redressed themselves. He seemed still a little dazed in the afterglow of his third orgasm. So, they dressed, quickly and wordlessly before that could wear off. Then they tried to straighten up their appearance as much as possible, before moving simultaneously toward the office’s only entrance and exit door.

Before they opened it, Gaila glanced over her shoulder at Professor Chulak, whose spent cock was still hanging outside of his uniform pants. She skittered over to him and quickly refastened his pants for him, since he seemed momentarily unwilling or incapable of doing it himself. Then, she and Nyota both resumed their progress toward the door.

As they swung it open, Professor Chulak called after them, “Come again, anytime you like, ladies.”

Nyota resisted the urge to cringe. But neither she nor Gaila turned back to face him. They simply walked out into the hallway beyond, and shut the door firmly behind them.

…

Somehow, they managed to get back to their dorm in the bendainnsu block without anyone looking at them funny. Nyota thought she must look like she felt—a dripping, debauched slut who had whored herself out to the enemy.

But when she passed by a mirror, she was surprised to find that she and Gaila didn’t look all that different from normal. Maybe a little sweaty. Maybe a little exerted. But they would have looked that way anyway, if Professor Chulak had made them run laps around campus or scrub the floors, or any of the usual punishments for minor infractions.

When they reached their assigned dorm room in the bendain block, Gaila took the data chip out of her bra and stuffed it in her underwear drawer for safe keeping until they could arrange another meeting with Toval. In the meantime, though, they both were in desperate need of a shower.

For efficiency’s sake, and so that neither of them would have to sit alone in the dorm room, still covered in filth, Gaila offered to share the tiny sonic shower stall that adjoined their shared bedroom. But, although it wouldn’t be the first time they’d been naked together in the same room, and there was nothing inherently sexual about sharing a shower, Nyota declined.

Now that she knew what sex with Gaila was like she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop herself from staring or otherwise behaving inappropriately. Which was the last thing she wanted to do. The way she saw it, she’d already violated Gaila’s boundaries enough for one day.

Gaila, surprisingly, attempted to protest, to coax Nyota in anyway. “Come on, it’ll be fun! I’ll scrub your back, and you can scrub mine!”

Traitorously, Nyota's mind filled with images of soap suds hugging Gaila’s curvaceous figure. Of their naked skin pressed against each other as the soft vibrations of the walls freed the sweat and semen from their bodies. 

But in spite of how tantalizing the prospect was, Nyota remained adamant.

Eventually, Gaila shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then she bounded into the bathroom alone.

While Gaila turned the sonic shower on, and started humming to herself in tune with its vibrations, Nyota sat down on her cramped, dorm room bed, and began the unpleasant process of peeling off her soiled uniform. The fabric of her jacket and skirt clung uncomfortably to her sweaty skin. And her underwear was sticky, both with her own fluids, and some of Chulak’s that had continued glooping out of her.

Gross.

Once she managed to pull it all off, with a huff, Nyota chucked her clothes into the laundry basket. But then she was left sitting naked on her bed. And that was distinctly worse.

Being naked again made Nyota remember what she’d done. How… easily… she’d climbed onto Professor Chulak’s cock. Necessary or not, it shouldn’t have been so simple. To push down her own disgust. To mount the enemy and take him inside her.

Her stomach turned. What does it say about me that I can do that?

Nyota also remembered how powerful she’d felt making the professor moan her name. How good it sounded to hear his pathetic ass call her his queen. She’d never known she had such dark impulses. That she would enjoy listening to a man grovel beneath her while she rode him into oblivion.

What does that say about me? she wondered, terrified of the answer.

Realizing she was ruminating, Nyota shook her head and tried not to worry so much. But the longer she sat on her bed, the more the events that happened in Professor Chulak’s office seemed to catch up to her. And now that she was no longer surging with the adrenaline of the mission, the emotions she’d been holding at bay, suddenly came crashing down on her.

Hatred came first. She hated Professor Chulak. She hated this stupid secret mission. She hated Toval for assigning it. She hated the Reformist Movement. She hated the Romulan Empire for making it necessary.

Then came guilt. She’d slept with a Romulan. And though it was under false pretenses, she’d still gotten some tiny, fleeting sparks of pleasure from the situation. Enough to make her feel like a rotten little whore.

I’m pretty sure good girls don’t almost get-off on the laps of cranky Romulan professors, she thought bitterly.

And finally came anxiety. The way she treated Gaila when they were caught in a compromising position kept playing over and over again in her head. How wide Gaila’s eyes had been when she’d groped her breasts. How startled she’d been when Nyota had kissed her in front of Professor Chulak.

Nyota swallowed thickly and wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them close to her body. As bad as she felt about what she had done with Professor Chulak, at least she knew he had no regrets. In fact, he would probably fondly masturbate to the memories for months, perhaps even years to come.

Ugh.

But Gaila, on the other hand, had been totally unprepared for Nyota to touch her in that way. And Nyota could only imagine how that made her feel to have… essentially been violated by her best friend.

The guilt got worse. Tears beaded at the corners of Nyota’s eyes. What have I done?

Nyota knew Toval wouldn’t hesitate to excuse her actions. She was only doing what was necessary for the mission. Nothing more. Nothing less. Romulans were practical like that.

But humans were messy. And Orions…

Well, Nyota didn’t actually know enough of them to make sweeping generalizations. And Gaila hadn’t seemed upset, neither during, nor after the act. But Gaila was very adept at putting on a show. So maybe she was just pretending everything was okay. Maybe, deep-down, Gaila was severely traumatized. Maybe, after she got clean, she wouldn’t be able to bear looking at Nyota again.

Nyota let go of her knees and sat up on her bed in horror. She scarcely wanted to picture it. She had depended on Gaila for so much these past four and a half years. If this mission cost her Gaila’s friendship…

Nyota swallowed and slumped over onto her side. For now, as she listened to the vibrating sonics from the shower in the next room, she could be comforted by the fact that her roommate was nearby. But would that last? The uncertainty of their future was part of why Nyota had never told Gaila how she felt about her.

There was another reason, though Nyota was loathe to admit it. In this world of secrets and betrayal she couldn’t afford to risk scaring away the one person she could trust. But now, it seemed very likely that she had. Which scared Nyota.

Without Gaila, she didn’t know how she was going to manage her last semester at the Romulan Imperial War College. Sometimes, quite literally, Gaila was the only person keeping her alive.

Emotionally overwhelmed, Nyota briefly entertained the notion of throwing some clothes on. Maybe if she wasn’t naked anymore, she could quiet the voices in her head. But she didn’t really want to dirty any of her other uniforms. Nor did she want to face Gaila yet. Which meant no showering until Gaila was finished.

Quickly, the point became moot anyway. Before she could move, suddenly the bathroom door opened, and a freshly cleaned Gaila walked out, wearing nothing but a bath towel.

Nyota averted her gaze immediately, to avoid staring inappropriately at her roommate, and to keep Gaila from seeing the devastated look on her face. Fortunately, Gaila seemed distracted with the task of getting dressed in clean clothes, so she did not notice anything was amiss.

Surreptitiously, Nyota wiped the tears beading in the corners of her eyes on her arm while Gaila slipped into lacy black underwear, polished black boots and a fresh scarlet uniform. When Nyota turned back, feigning as best of a smile as she could manage, she saw Gaila sneakily tuck the data stick into her new bra, before closing her jacket over it.

Head tilting in surprise, Nyota asked, “Where are you going?”

“Back to Toval’s place,” Gaila replied. “He’d probably prefer one of us go to him sooner rather than later. I’ll go while you shower.”

Nyota swallowed. She’d been hoping they’d go together. But of course, Gaila was right. It wasn’t safe for them to hang onto the stolen data chip for long. Even buried in Gaila’s dresser, amid her lacy underthings, and away from the prying lenses of hidden cameras, there was still a chance it could be discovered. Romulans liked to perform random searches of the bendain dorms, and they would take perverse delight in uncovering a genuinely damming bit of contraband—a far cry from their usual, spurious confiscations.

Plus, Nyota reasoned that Gaila probably didn’t want to be around her right now. Not after circumstances had forced them to have sex in front of Professor Chulak. So leaving while Nyota got clean made the most logical sense.

Nodding numbly, Nyota slid off the bed, and walked into the bathroom. Then, just before she closed the door, she called out, “Good luck.”

But Gaila was already gone.

…

Nyota scrubbed herself vigorously in the sonic shower. But no matter how hard she drove the soap against her skin, or how high she dialed up the vibration settings, nothing seemed to wash away the pervading feeling of filthiness. She felt rotten to the core. Inside and out.

After nearly a half-hour of abrasive scouring, she gave up, turned off the shower, and returned to the dorm room. As she padded across the carpet, she half-expected Gaila to be back, sitting on her bed wondering why Nyota had taken so long.

But to Nyota’s disappointment, when she returned to the main bedroom it was as empty as it had been when she’d left. Which was to say, extremely cluttered—with stacks of PADDs, high-heeled shoes, lacy undergarments and assorted lipsticks scattered across every available surface—but devoid of the one person who made that clutter bearable.

For a moment, Nyota considered dressing in a fresh uniform herself, and waiting up for Gaila to return. But when she checked the time, she realized it was getting quite late.

Nyota frowned.

Originally, she had assumed Gaila would simply drop the data stick off and come back. But as Nyota stood in their shared dorm, growing lonelier and more anxious with each passing second, it became obvious that Gaila had additional plans.

Maybe she decided to try decrypting the data?

That made a fair amount of sense, actually. Gaila was a computer genius. And if Toval really was serious about this whole Romulan Reformist thing, he probably had all the necessary equipment to help her crack that data stick open tucked away somewhere in that ridiculously lavish dorm room of his.

Still, Nyota didn't like it.

She wasn’t worried about the mission. That had gone surprisingly well so far, improvisational lesbian sex aside. Retrieving the data had been easier than expected, and they'd managed to avoid tripping any alarms, so it stood to reason that everything else should work out fine.

And she wasn't worried about Toval hurting Gaila, either. He had proven himself trustworthy enough during their conversation that she seriously doubted he would cause her bodily harm. And on the off-chance that Nyota was wrong, Gaila had way more combat training than he did. She could easily take him, one on one. 

No, the only reason Nyota didn't like Gaila's extended absence was because she missed her.

Again, Nyota entertained the notion of waiting up for her roommate. Although it was late, she'd seen Gaila untangle extremely complicated encryption codes in minutes. So even the most convoluted safeguards shouldn't take her more than a few hours to crack.

But then, suddenly, Nyota remembered she didn’t know what she should say to her roommate when she returned. 

It was embarrassing, really. Out of everyone at the Imperial Romulan War College she should be able to find the right words. She was the top communications officer in the school, and a skilled linguist. But as she put on fresh underwear, and tied back her hair again, everything she could think of to say just sounded stupid.

I hope you can forgive me for groping you in front of the enemy. And for having sex with you to cover up what we were really doing. Yeah, I know, it was for the mission, and you probably don’t hate me near as much as I hate myself for it. But also, I really enjoyed it. Because I’m a creep, apparently. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.

No. That would never work.

Blaming her inability to wordsmith on her groggy brain, and figuring that conversation would go over much better when she was well-rested, Nyota changed into a pair of wide pajama bottoms and a comfortable, fitted tank-top. Then she turned off the lights and slid beneath the covers. But as she laid there in the dark, she tossed and turned, finding it difficult to fall asleep.

Nyota groaned and rolled over, pressing her face against her pillow. But that didn't work either.

Frustrated, Nyota twisted around in her blankets to face the other direction, then stared across the room in the dark. The clutter of PADDS and assorted clothing items created lumpy, stalagmite-like shadows on the wall. As Nyota’s eyes traced over the strange, gloomy shapes, she continued tried to think of the right words to say to Gaila when she returned. But as she laid there, tracing the outline of one of Gaila’s sequined bras on the floor, Nyota was drawing blanks.

For several hours, she kept at it, twisting phrases around in her head, trying to make them work. Eventually, however, at some ungodly hour of the night, when Gaila had still not returned, exhaustion claimed her. Then Nyota fell into a heavy, mercifully dreamless, slumber.

…

Gaila did not return to their shared dorm until the next morning. And quite late in the morning, at that.

Fortunately, it was the third day of the dhaei, (the ten day Romulan week) and the Earth Division of the Romulan Imperial War College had decided to follow the same schedule as their counterpart on Romulus, and the same schedule as the Romulan Senate, meaning it was their day off, and there were no classes for them to attend. So, Gaila’s tardiness posed no real issue. Though it did raise an important question.

What had she been doing all night in Toval’s room?

The obvious answer was that she had been decrypting the data stick. That was the next step in their mission, after all. But the timing didn’t quite make sense. The Romulans were secretive, but even the toughest encryptions couldn’t take that long, could they?

Nyota bit her lip. If they weren’t decrypting the whole time, then had they…?

She thought back to how Gaila’s eyes had raked hungrily over Toval’s figure on the first time they’d met him. A flash of jealousy seethed through her, before rationality took back over. She had no claim on Gaila. No right to demand exclusivity. Especially not after the way she’d infringed on her the day before.

And it wasn’t as if Toval was necessarily a bad choice.

Nyota was surprised at herself for thinking it. But it was true.

Yes, he was Romulan, and sleeping with him would have been difficult for herself as a result. Even though he was trying to improve conditions for other species, Nyota could not completely mentally separate him from the rest of his people and what they were doing to her planet.

That was just her personal problem, though. Objectively, Toval was fine. Better, at least in terms of raw, physical attractiveness, than many of Gaila’s other dalliances, even. Even Nyota couldn’t deny that his attempts to mimic his father’s suave, sophisticated demeanor were both charming and adorable. So, unfortunately, if Gaila wanted to fuck his brains out, there was little Nyota could say against it.

In fact, for all the ways a sexual relationship with the Viceroy’s son could improve both their lives, and solidify their cover, Nyota should probably be encouraging it.

But Nyota couldn’t find it in herself to be that magnanimous. At the end of the day, she wanted Gaila all to herself. So, when Gaila finally sauntered back into their dorm after a long night in Toval’s room, snapped open a ration pack, and started nibbling on her breakfast, Nyota sulked on her bed and said nothing.  

“Whew, what a night!” Gaila exclaimed between bites of her breakfast bar.

“Tough encryption?” Nyota guessed.

Gaila hesitated. “…Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“You are a computer genius,” Nyota pointed out.

Gaila shrugged, taking the compliment. “Anyway, that was the easy part. There was a lot of data to sift through. And I mean a lot,” she stressed.

Nyota perked up at that. Maybe they really had spent the whole night working. Maybe there hadn’t been any sexy tomfoolery at all. Unlikely, knowing Gaila. But it was a comforting thought.

“What did you find?” Nyota asked.

Again, Gaila hesitated. “Well… exactly what we were looking for.”

Nyota leaned forward on her bed curiously. “Which is…?”

Toval hadn’t exactly been super specific about what they were going to find, aside from the fact that it was "vital to the goals of the Romulan Reformist Movement". Perhaps that was because the information was “Need to Know” only. Or perhaps it was because he didn’t know exactly what it was, himself.

Gaila paused nibbling on her breakfast bar to look nervously around the room. Assuming she was trying to look at the bugs they suspected the academy had planted in their living quarters, Nyota nodded and shut up. Right. They probably couldn’t have that conversation here.

“We can go back to Toval’s room after breakfast,” Gaila suggested in a casual tone.

Numbly, Nyota nodded. She wasn’t sure how keen she was on seeing the Viceroy’s son again. He’d gotten them into this mess. And the emotional fallout was still weighing on her.

But after a night of sleep, Nyota was feeling a bit better. And Gaila seemed to be fine, as perplexing as that was to witness. So maybe seeing him again wouldn’t be as terrible as Nyota had first thought it would be, after her post-adrenaline emotional crash yesterday.

Or maybe Gaila wasn’t fine. Maybe her perky behavior over breakfast was still just an act.

She looked happy as she tossed Nyota a breakfast bar of her own. A sunny smile graced her rounded face. And though her bright blue eyes were rimmed with dark green shadows, betraying the lack of sleep she’d had the night before, there was still the ever-present spring in her step.

But Gaila was so good at this—a true natural in the world of espionage—that Nyota could never be sure. Before her brother had recused her from a life of Orion slavery and brought her to Earth, she’d spent her early childhood faking smiles and burying the discomfort that accompanied being someone else’s property. And after she’d come to Earth and the Romulans took over, she’d fought tooth and nail to have a bubbly, optimistic outlook on life. So, she had plenty of practice pretending to be fine.  

Nyota frowned as she unwrapped her breakfast bar, trying to puzzle it out. When she bit into the bland, dry, flakey substance, her stomach twisted in knots. And not entirely from the taste.

…

After breakfast, Nyota and Gaila styled their hair as they usually did, donned fresh scarlet cadet uniforms, then crossed campus together. No one paid them any mind as they wound through the dark, labyrinthine hallways. It wasn’t unusual for bendainnsu to roam the campus grounds on their day off. Once they checked in for the school year, they weren’t allowed to leave the campus without a Romulan escort, which was difficult to arrange. So, there was little else to do by way of entertainment.

Once they reached the entrance to the Rihan block, however, they were stopped again. This time by an entirely different set of guards than the ones that had confronted them earlier. They must rotate in shifts, Nyota realized as the imposing, black-clad Romulans stared them down.

“You there, halt!” one of the guards called.

Obediently, both Gaila and Nyota came to an abrupt stop. Remembering their military training, they held their hands straight down at their sides, and stared straight ahead. And they were silent. Bendainnsu cadets did not speak to their Romulan superiors unless spoken to.

“This area is strictly off-limits to any non-Romulan personnel,” the other guard announced, crisp and imperious.

“We have been given special dispensation,” Nyota began to explain, batting her eyelashes suggestively. “Cadet Toval—”

But these guards weren’t having it. “Silence!” the first one who had spoken roared, cutting her off.

Then, to Nyota’s horror, the Romulan guard unholstered his disruptor and raised it to be level with her forehead. As he pointed it directly at her skull, the barrel began to glow green, and she heard the deadly device power on.

Shit. Abort. Abort. Abort.

Immediately, Nyota threw up her hands in the universal gesture of surrender and took a step back. Not knowing what else to do, Gaila quickly copied her. Which was the right move. There was no use arguing with an irritable, and most importantly armed Romulan.

For a tense moment, Gaila and Nyota did not move. But despite being perfectly frozen, the guard did not lower his weapon. He kept it pointed directly at Nyota’s head, like he intended to shoot her anyway, just to make a point.

Fortunately, before any shots could be fired, the other Romulan guard spoke up. “Beistu!” he hissed at his companion. “Rii legarehrir!”

Nyota translated automatically. Halt! She has surrendered.

Thankfully that seemed to give the Romulan with his disruptor pointed at them some pause. But he still did not lower his weapon. Instead, he began bickering back, also reverting to Romulan, assuming the two foreign cadets in front of him could not understand.

“Ahr’argere rii,” the one with the disruptor aimed at her head snapped.

She is being insubordinate, Nyota internally translated.

“Dhat. Rii aehfvihrir,” the other protested.

No. She has complied.

“Nokhos, mnean mnaeri aekhei. Mnean mnaeri chameto temohriein rheahkai.”

Nevertheless, we must shoot. We must reinforce the school’s rules.

Then, presumably for her benefit, he switched back to Federation Standard. “Clearly, it seems the bendainnsu require a reminder of the regulations.”

His voice was cold, and his eyes hardened on her with deadly intent.

Gaila gasped in horror. And Nyota swallowed hard. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her breathing turned shallow. Her body was surging with adrenaline, preparing to flee. But there was no way she would be able to outrun a disruptor blast. So, without any other option, she squinted her eyes shut, bracing for the pulse of hot green light that was going to disintegrate her brain matter.

“lhiu!” Enough! someone shouted.

Nyota’s eyes flew open at the familiar voice. And sure enough, marching toward the pair of guards, wearing a very stern and severe expression, was Toval.

As his patrician features filled her vision, Nyota’s heart soared. His presence exponentially increased their chances of getting away from these trigger-happy guards alive.

But as he drew closer, and she got a closer look at him, her mood soured slightly. In spite of presumably being up all night helping Gaila decrypt the data stick, he looked just as pristine and unruffled as ever. His black uniform looked freshly pressed. His equally dark hair was perfectly combed. His pale, faintly olive-toned skin looked soft and dewy. There wasn’t a hint of darkness beneath his deep-brown eyes, either.

Damn Romulans and their ability to go without sleep for days, Nyota thought, in a fleeting fit of jealousy.

The guards pivoted to face Toval near-instantly upon hearing his order and his approaching footsteps. The change in their demeanor that followed was as rapid as it was disturbing. Their puffed-up chests deflated. Their arms fell to their sides—including the one still clutching a powered-on disruptor. And they immediately took on the same air of obedient compliance Nyota and Gaila had slipped into when they were challenged by the guards.

Oh, how the tables have turned, Nyota thought.

Toval came to a stop only a few feet away, then his eyes raked over the pair of Romulan guards, glaring in a chilly, judgmental way he had never looked at herself or Gaila. It made shivers race up Nyota’s spine. Especially when he glowered at the disruptor in one of the guards’ hands, and sharply commanded: “Khia. Ihii hyaa-aifv rrhaar uæ,”  

"You. Put that weapon away.”

Nyota’s ears perked up at Toval’s choice of second person pronoun. Romulans were somewhat obsessed with rank, and their language reflected that. She had expected Toval to use the nonmodal second person, hwio, to indicate that they were equals, since they were both Romulan. Or even nnearh, the mode of address subordinates used to talk to those who outranked them, given that he was only a cadet and was addressing a fully-fledged Romulan officer. But he had specifically addressed this Romulan guard with khia—the form of “you” only used when a superior was addressing an inferior. The same word Professor Chulak had used to address her.

It wasn’t a derogatory form of address. He wasn’t insulting the guard. But it clearly showed that Toval believed he was in charge around here. Which seemed completely absurd to her. Yes, he was Viceroy Valen’s son. But he was also a nineteen-year-old, first-year cadet. So surely, the guard would reprimand Toval for his disrespect. Right?

But to Nyota’s further astonishment, it appeared Toval was correct in his assessment of their relative ranking in society. As soon as Toval delivered his orders, the Romulan guard squeaked out a submissive affirmative, “Daie!” then rushed to comply.

While he powered off and holstered his weapon, the guard’s eyes were wide with panic, as if he expected to be beheaded for the slightest wrong move. And when he straightened back up to match his companion’s stiff parade rest, his terror remained in clench of his jaw and the stiff line of his shoulders.

Nyota didn’t feel any pity for the man. He’d been trying to kill her only seconds ago. But the way Toval was throwing around his status as the Viceroy’s son made her uneasy. She’d gotten comfortable thinking of him as taking after his human mother, appearances aside. But maybe he wasn’t as dissimilar from his father as he had led her to believe. Maybe he really would have these guards executed if they defied him.

Toval gave the guards one last icy stare before diverting his gaze toward Nyota and Gaila. As soon as he turned, his cold, commanding exterior melted away, revealing the softer, friendlier version of him they were used to.

It was… almost eerie. Like he had become a completely different person.

“Are you hurt, e'levir?” he asked Nyota and Gaila.

Nyota almost jumped. His voice was startlingly tender. And e’levir was the plural of the Romulan endearment “my love”. In other words, he was addressing them as if they were his lovers.

Which wasn’t too surprising, since that was their cover story. Still, Nyota was unaccustomed to having him call her and Gaila such things. And the effortlessness with which he delivered his lies was unsettling.

Almost as unsettling as how quickly Gaila rolled with it. “We’re fine, thanks to your gallant heroics,” she replied, reaching out to skim her green fingers over his knuckles, before curving around to caress his fingertips—a rather seductive way to say “thank you” to a Romulan.

The sudden stimulation threatened to make Toval short-circuit, if the way his eyes almost rolled back into his head way any indication. He clearly found Gaila’s actions very arousing. But to his credit, he quickly composed himself.  

“You can thank me properly once we have retired to my quarters,” he replied, his voice low and dripping with lascivious suggestion. Which was enough to make Nyota’s cheeks flame, even though she knew it was just an act.

But Gaila, apparently, didn’t think they were laying it on thick enough. So, to really sell the idea that they were lovers, she pouted and groaned, “Must we wait so long?” as if she was bursting with desire and simply couldn’t stand to wait the relatively short walk it would take to reach Toval’s quarters from here.

Nyota expected Toval to scoff at her friend’s completely ludicrous display of wantonness. But instead, he rolled with it. His gaze darkened, and he leaned in close, until his and Gaila’s noses were almost touching. A playful smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “I doubt very much that the guards would appreciate it if I simply took you where we stand, in the middle of this hallway,” he purred.  

Although she knew they were both just bluffing, the mental image that accompanied his words made Nyota blush all the way up to the roots of her hair and avert her eyes. And the Romulan guards seemed to be having the same problem. Whereas before they’d been pale from fear, now their complexions looked distinctly green. And they both seemed abruptly very interested in the dark tile floor beneath them, staring at it with longing, as if hoping it would swallow them up.

Not keen on being roped into another threesome with a Romulan for the sake of the Reformist movement, especially not in such a public place, Nyota thought fast. Then she jumped into the conversation. “…I, for one, would prefer to keep our bedroom activities out of the public eye.”

Toval looked toward Nyota and nodded. “That sounds reasonable to me, e’lev,” he agreed. Then he abruptly turned back toward the rather pathetic looking Romulan guards and leveled them with a threatening glare. “I trust that this will not happen again?”

“Of course not, sir,” the guard who had been brandishing the disruptor at Nyota earlier quickly said.

“See to it that it does not,” Toval ordered. “I want all shifts notified that these women are with me, and they must be allowed to enter and exit this block at my leisure.”  

“Daie, Rekkhai,” the two guards replied in automatic unison.

Yes, sir.

Seemingly satisfied with the guards’ response, Toval motioned with a beckoning finger for Nyota and Gaila to follow him, then he turned around and began walking briskly back to his quarters. Nyota and Gaila followed, hot on his heels, leaving the two miserable looking guards behind.

Chapter Text

“Ladies, I would like to formally apologize for that… display I was forced to make out there,” Toval said once he, Gaila and Nyota were all safely ensconced within his quarters.

“The fake-sexy talk or the abuse of your father’s authority?” Nyota asked, the bug-free nature of Toval’s quarters loosening her tongue.

Gaila’s mouth fell open, aghast at her friend’s brazenness. But Toval didn’t bat an eye. He was either very used to these kinds of accusations, or he was simply hard to rile up. She suspected it was probably some of both.

“Both,” Toval replied sincerely. “I know the sexual nature of our pretense is… uncomfortable, especially for you, Cadet Uhura. And frightening other Romulans with my father’s name does not exactly endear me, or my father’s cause, to the both of you. However—”

“It’s okay,” Gaila cut in. “I know you only did it to save us. Besides, I can’t speak for Nyota, but I thought the sexy talk was pretty hot,” she admitted. “In fact, I almost wish you had taken me in front of the guards.”

Toval’s face flushed a brilliant green. And now it was Nyota’s turn to drop her jaw, appalled.

“Gaila!” she hissed.

“What? I said it before, he’s cute!” Gaila pleaded in her defense.

Nyota hated the fact that Gaila was right. Viceroy Valen and Linette Greenwood had some pretty excellent genes and had made a model-worthy son. But that was so beside the point right now.  

“Ugh, can we just focus on the mission?” Nyota pleaded.

“Yes, of course,” Toval replied. “I assume Cadet Vro filled you in on our progress last night?” he said, looking at Nyota directly now.

Trying not to think about how long they had been together that night—suspiciously long—Nyota nodded vigorously, causing the ponytail trailing down her back to bob up and down.

“She said you were able to decrypt the data,” Nyota said. “But I still don’t know exactly what we found.”

“Of course. It wouldn’t be safe to tell you outside of this room,” Toval readily agreed.

Nyota took a seat on Toval’s emerald green leather couch and cocked her head at him. “So, do I get to know now?” she asked, a little impatiently.

After everything she’d been through to get the information, she felt a little entitled to know its contents. To know if they were worth watching Professor Chulak blow a load in Gaila’s mouth. To know if they were worth climbing on his cock. To know if they were worth the disapproving stares of the Romulans guarding the entrance to the Rihan block. To know if they were worth almost getting murdered by those same guards. To know if they were worth being forced to fuck her best friend.

To her relief, Toval seemed to be thinking along similar lines. “Yes, of course. That is only fair, given the sacrifices you both have made to obtain it.”

He glanced between them both as he said this. Between where Nyota sat on his couch, and Gaila still stood, hovering near the door. When his dark eyes locked with Gaila’s something passed between them, which immediately raised Nyota’s suspicions about the two of them again. But it only lasted a second before his eyes flicked back to Nyota and his face turned deadly serious.

“But I should warn you, it is rather shocking information.”

Nyota blinked, stunned. She hadn’t expected Toval to give her a content warning. But she couldn’t imagine anything more upsetting than what she’d learned in the past few days. Between being made aware of the atrocities Mallatorix was committing on Vulcan, and the world-upturning knowledge that Viceroy Valen was part of the Reformist Movement, Nyota was convinced that nothing could faze her.

“I can handle it,” she assured him.

To her surprise, however, Gaila faltered. “I’m not sure I can.”

Nyota whipped her head around to look back at her friend in shock. When their eyes met, Nyota scrutinized her face, searching for clues.

A worried crease had settled between Gaila’s dark orange eyebrows. One arm was crossed over her body, clutching nervously at her other wrist. Her toes were pointed inward. The line of her uniform-clad shoulders was tense.

Gaila bristled slightly at the attention, then shrugged in an attempt to blow off her own reaction. “He already told me all of this last night. I’m… not sure I want to hear it all again. It’s… a lot.” Then her gaze moved back to Toval. “Can I be excused for this part?”

Toval’s face shifted. “And where do you propose to go? Returning to your dorm so quickly will no doubt spark suspicion in the guards. Especially given the eagerness you displayed in front of them to… um… copulate with me,” he finished awkwardly.

“I wasn’t planning on leaving your quarters,” Gaila clarified. “Just borrowing your ensuite jacuzzi again.”

“Hold on,” Nyota cut in. “You have a jacuzzi?”

“Indeed,” Toval replied as if that was a totally normal thing to have and not completely insane. “Cadet Vro discovered its existence last night between decryption cycles and insisted on a test run. Are all Orions so… aquatic? Or are the bendainnsu accommodations really so lacking?”

The answer was, of course, that the Romulan Imperial War College didn’t deem it necessary to equip the lowly bendain dorms with something as nice as water jetting tubs. Hell, even the rest of the Rihan dorms probably didn’t come with that feature. Sonic showers were standard-issue on Romulan warbirds, to conserve resources. And this was a military academy. So, to everyone who wasn’t related to the Viceroy, a jacuzzi was an unthinkable luxury.

Not exactly sure she wanted to let Toval know just how wildly privileged and out-of-touch he was, Nyota ignored his questions. Instead, she asked Gaila, “How long were you in there?”

Gaila’s expression turned sheepish. “I lost track of time. That’s part of why I came home so late. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Nyota said, feeling lighter than she had since this morning. She hated to admit it, but she liked the idea of Gaila soaking in Toval’s fancy scented bathwater much better than her soaking in his cum.

Toval nodded. “You may utilize my facilities. So long as Cadet Uhura is not uncomfortable being alone with me.”

Gaila’s eyes flicked back to Nyota, expectantly. And Nyota suffused with surprise at what she saw on her friend’s face.  

She could tell from her expression that Gaila wanted very badly to leave. Which set Nyota’s teeth on edge. She was nervous to learn anything Gaila didn’t want to hear twice. And she wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of being alone with Toval either. Even if Gaila would still be within screaming range.

But Gaila had been even more alone with him last night and obviously wasn’t dead or anything. Plus, he had stuck his neck out for them by standing up to those guards. So, they could probably trust him.

Guessing this might be the only way she might find out what was on that data stick she had retrieved at great cost, and desperate to know what was on it, reluctantly, Nyota nodded. This earned her a cheery smile from Gaila, and two green thumbs up. Then Gaila walked over to an enormous set of double doors that Nyota had initially presumed was a closet, and pulled them open. 

Beyond the doors was an absurdly extravagant bathroom suite, and a walk-in closet. Which almost made Nyota roll her eyes. Did the architects seriously think Toval would wither away and die without every imaginable 5-star luxury at his fingertips? Did they plan to make his ship accommodations this lavish, too? Did they forget this was the military?

While Nyota marveled at the overabundance, Gaila happily bounded into the bathroom. She shut the doors on her way in, leaving Nyota and Toval very much alone.

A few seconds after Gaila’s departure, they heard the sound of rushing water and a deep, satisfied sigh, which let them know Gaila was getting into the bath. At that time, Toval decided to get up and take the seat beside Nyota on the couch. Which was closer than she would have preferred, and made her shrink back an inch or two automatically.

But unlike Professor Chulak, Toval kept his hands to himself. And thankfully his demeanor seemed to be all-business and no pleasure.

“The data which you and Cadet Vro retrieved from Professor Chulak’s computer terminal mostly contained recordings of the meetings he admitted to sleeping through, in case he needed to cross-reference them later,” Toval revealed. “Nothing particularly of interest there. The Reformist movement already has a faculty member who sits in on those meetings and pays much better attention. However, beneath those recordings we found this.”

Toval reached for a sleek, silver PADD that was sitting on the ottoman in front of his couch and held it up so Nyota could see. On the PADD was a series of detailed illustrations—ship schematics, it looked like—and blocky green text in High Rihan. As Nyota scrutinized the drawings, she jolted, realizing she recognized the ship. And her fingers, tracing over Romulan letters spelling Narada, confirmed her suspicions.

“Is this… data straight from the memory banks of the Narada?” Nyota asked. “The ship from the future? The one from which the Romulan Empire got all that advanced technology that made the invasion of the Federation possible?”

Toval nodded. “The very same.”

Nyota’s brows knitted together. “But that contains—”

“Knowledge of the future,” Toval finished for her. “Or rather, knowledge of a different future.”

Nyota frowned. “I don’t understand.”

She set the PADD back down on the ottoman in front of her, then looked to Toval for an explanation. Toval picked the PADD back up and swiped a pale finger across it to bring up a different page. Now the PADD displayed two timelines parallel with each other, but with different markers and text on the latter halves.

“The Romulan invasion of Earth, and the other Federation planets has changed the course of history,” Toval explained in the same patient, level tone, pointing to 2238 on the second timeline, where the words Terrha legarehrn (Earth Surrendered) were printed. “Actually, the divergence begins even sooner,” he amended, sliding his finger backwards to 2233, where the timeline was labeled Narada hilain (Narada arrived).

Nyota folded her arms in front of her chest. “I know my history.”

“Our timeline’s history, yes,” Toval readily agreed. “But the Narada itself originated from a different timeline,” he explained, sliding his finger up to 2387 on the first timeline above theirs, with different dates and labels after 2233. “One where it never went back into the past and gave the Romulan Empire a century-and-a-half edge over the rest of the quadrant.”

Nyota pursed her lips together for a moment, processing that. Then she asked, “But doesn’t that mean the data is all useless? If our timeline is different, then the same events won’t occur.”

“Regarding political events, certainly,” Toval quickly agreed. “In Captain Nero’s timeline, there was no second Romulan invasion.” He pointed to the empty space on the upper timeline in 2238 to signify nothing of note had happened. “The Neutral Zone treaty established in 2160 held for over two-hundred years. A few secret missions were launched at various intervals to test the might of the Federation, and re-ignite war between our governments if the Federation was found lacking,” he added, pointing those out on the timeline. “But our technologies were fairly evenly matched. There was no clear advantage. So all-out war was always deemed too risky.”

Nyota’s eyes widened as she did the necessary mental math and the implications of it sank in. “That means… in Captain Nero’s timeline, the Federation still existed until 2360.”

“Until 2387,” Toval corrected, letting her know that his two-hundred-year figure was rounded, and not exact. And then, to drop a further bombshell on her, he continued, “And presumably after that as well. That’s simply when the Narada’s historical records end,” he told her, pointing to the very far right edge of the first timeline. “But I sincerely doubt that it simply collapsed after that. At the time Nero departed that timeline, the Federation was a flourishing superpower spanning eight-thousand light years and containing over one-hundred and fifty-member worlds.”

Nyota gasped, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Shocking didn’t even begin to cover it.

When the Romulans had taken over in 2238, their numbers had been in the mere dozens. From what Nyota had heard from her parents and grandparents about that time, she knew they had been in a period of rapid expansion, and there had been ongoing talks with numerous planets in that decade, who were considering joining the Federation. But all of those talks had fallen through the moment the Romulans took over the existing member worlds, of course. Now the Federation was nothing more than a memory, that existed only in the minds of the earlier generations.

It was a horrible tragedy. But one that Nyota had always seen as somewhat inevitable. They had jetted into the grand interstellar sphere with too much optimism and not enough caution. Or, in other words, they’d boldly gone and fucked around and then found out. If it hadn’t been the Romulans, then it would have been the Klingons, or the Orions or the Suliban or the Xindi or someone else. That was what Nyota had always assumed.

But to think, that there was a universe out there where the Federation’s utopic and probably overly idealistic principles of cooperation and diversity had lasted not just seventy-seven short years, but over two-hundred and with the possible prospect of many more, made Nyota’s heart yearn and ache, deep and hollow.

It was possible. A government founded on principles of peace wasn’t necessarily doomed to be conquered by other less scrupulous nations. In this universe, they’d just been victims of a spectacularly bad stroke of luck. A wrinkle in time that had delivered the perfect weapon into the hands of their greatest enemies at the perfect time.

No wonder Chulak talks about the Narada like it was some kind of cosmic gift, Nyota realized.

Because from a strictly Romulan perspective, it basically was. Without the Narada arriving in precisely that right place at exactly the right time, none of this would have happened. Conquering Earth simply wouldn’t have been possible, let alone any of the other planets in the Federation. They would have been safe. They would have been free.

Now Nyota was beginning to understand why Gaila hadn’t wanted to hear this twice. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. Her head was swimming with all sorts of emotions. Longing. Anger. Despair. It wasn’t fair.

If it wasn’t for Nero and his stupid ship, they could have had normal lives. She and Gaila could have grown up, lived whole lives as free citizens, and probably died on an Earth that still turned under the white and blue Federation flag.

But instead, they were doomed to live beneath the raptors’ wings. And the only thing Nyota could do about it was maybe try to make that existence marginally less shitty.

Nyota gritted her teeth. She also understood now why this information was so heavily classified. This was the sort of knowledge that radicalized people. This was the sort of knowledge that sparked revolutions. And not the wishy-washy half-measures Viceroy Valen and his son were taking. But real, violent, capital-R Revolutions.

What she didn’t understand though, was how this helped the Reformist Movement. Didn’t they want to keep Earth as part of the Empire?

Toval set the PADD back down on the ottoman in front of them. “As you can see, our universes are very different in terms of political history,” he segued, sensing that Nyota was ready for the next part. “But regarding natural events…”

Toval trailed off intentionally, waiting for the implications to sink in on their own. When they did, Nyota wasn’t nearly as shocked as she was by the last revelation. But she suddenly understood why the Reformists were interested in the Narada’s data. The tactical advantages that could be gained by knowing when every natural disaster in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants that occurred over the next one-hundred and twenty-nine years were astronomical.

“What’s coming?” Nyota asked, bracing herself for the worst.

She already didn’t like the direction this conversation was headed. Knowing which natural disasters were coming for the quadrant seemed like both a blessing and a curse. Already, her mind was spinning with unpleasant possibilities.

Worst of all, Toval had never stated whether Earth was one of those one-hundred and fifty member worlds that made up the Federation in that alternate 2387. While the planet seemed fine now, space was full of all sorts of hazards that could make it uninhabitable. Rogue comets. Solar flares. Wormholes opening up in places they shouldn’t….

Seeing the tension in her shoulders, Toval lowered two placating hands, “You may relax. No harm will come to the planet Earth.”

Nyota did relax quite a bit, hearing that. But she tensed again when she realized there were a lot of other places in the galaxy she cared about. Places that might be scheduled to encounter some natural calamity in the next century. Places like Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar…

“I can see you are already thinking of other planets which formerly belonged to the Federation that might be in peril,” Toval accurately presumed. “Let me assure you, they are not in danger either. At least, not from any natural phenomenon,” he assured her.

Nyota relaxed even further at this news. Yes, the Romulan Empire was obviously still a threat to everyone in the galaxy, the other former Federation worlds especially. But it was nice to know no rogue space anomalies were going to do the Romulans’ dirty work for them.

As that information settled, though, Nyota was faced with a sudden problem. “If they’re all going to be fine, then… who is going to be in peril?”

…

While Nyota and Toval carried on their clandestine conversation in his quarters, on almost the complete opposite side of campus, Professor Chulak sat grumpily in his office. A pile of PADDs sat next to him on his desk, containing his students’ subpar classwork. A few hours prior he’d gotten a small measure of satisfaction in doling out harsh grades. But the brief high of his vindictive glee had long since worn off. And without any faculty meetings to attend, he was utterly, and irritably bored.

If he were less disliked among his Romulan peers, perhaps he could have made social arrangements. But the other faculty found him almost as unpleasant company as his students did. Besides… even if they could tolerate his acerbic personality, all the other Romulans could stand to talk about was the war. Always the war.

The war that he had nothing to say about. Because it was a war he could no longer participate in.

Chulak sighed and his mis-healed hip ached at the memory of the conflict that had crippled him. The Alpha Centauri campaign was one of the early conflicts in the Romulans’ bid to take over the Federation. It began a mere four dhaei after Earth’s surrender. And overall, given that it had ended in Romulan victory, it was a credit to their history.

But Chulak could not even boast to his Romulan colleagues of being honorably wounded in one of its many battles. He had neglected to include this fact in his account to the two bendainnsu cadets who had sexually pleasured him the day before, leaving them to assume better of him, because they were not at liberty to check the records themselves. But technically, although he had been part of the complement of troops selected to invade Alpha Centauri, he had been injured before he had even arrived on the battlefield.

It was shameful, the way it had happened. He had been careless in his youth. He was so excited for the attack scheduled at dawn that he hadn’t thought to check the terrain when he made camp on that first night. Six of his comrades died in a rockslide, due to his poor planning. He was the only one in the tent lucky enough to make it out alive.

Or perhaps unlucky, he mused with a sigh. Survival had left him caught in limbo. His offense was deemed an accident—not worthy of imprisonment or execution. Yet, his own people wanted almost nothing to do with him, which was its own kind of death.

Chulak sighed. There was no point ruminating about it. Nothing could change what had happened. So instead, he began drumming his thick fingers on the surface of his desk, trying to think of something he could do.

The holographic war simulations, a favored pastime of his colleagues, were out for obvious reasons. The campus gardens, while lovely, were too often populated with young lovers who would not appreciate being disturbed by the likes of him. And since their dalliance, he had seen no sign of either Cadet Vro or Cadet Uhura. Which was not surprising. They would no doubt be enjoying the relative freedom the third day of the dhaei provided them.

As Chulak dismissed every available option his mind could conjure, he realized, begrudgingly, that what he really needed was a hobby. It wouldn’t cure his irritable mood, or fill the emptiness that festered in his gut—only lasting companionship could do that. But given how unlikely his prospects of finding a companion were, he would have to settle for a distraction. A hobby would provide him with plenty of that.

As for what hobby he should take up? Chulak didn’t have the faintest clue. Many renowned soldiers and generals liked to go home and sing or paint or write poetry. But artistic pursuits—of which Chulak was fairly certain he would do poorly at—were not the only option. There were hobbyist scientists, archeologists… He could take up beekeeping. Or perhaps he could care for a more agreeable Terran animal, like horses.

The options were fairly limitless. It would take a computer terminal to help him narrow them down.

Fortunately, he had one of those. 

Feeling somewhat less dismal and more motivated than he had felt in years—no doubt in response to the pleasure he had received the night before—Chulak rose out of his office chair and got down on his hands and knees to pry up the loose floorboard that hid his computer terminal. His hip groaned in protest as he lowered himself to the ground. But he had long since learned to ignore it.

Gritting his teeth, Chulak grabbed the loose board and flung it aside. The computer terminal beneath was covered in a thin layer of dust from disuse. But Chulak was less concerned with that than the fact that some of the dust had been brushed away, near the sides and near one of the ports. And most damning of all… the lights were still on.

Chulak scratched his head and addressed the empty air in Rihan. “Who turned my computer on and forgot to turn it off?”

…

Within Toval’s dorm, his conversation with Nyota continued. “There are two principal disasters which were noted in the data retrieved from Professor Chulak’s computer terminal that the Empire is most interested in, both of which are not due to happen for some time,” Toval explained. “The most crucial of these two is a supernova which will occur in 2387 and, if left unchecked, it will destroy the Romulan system.”

Nyota reared back in shock. Her mind spun, unable to believe it. Destroy the Romulan System? Like the whole thing? Romulus, Remus, their sun, and all their moons and neighboring planets?

Nyota could scarcely comprehend it. The tragedy was simply too large. The human brain simply wasn’t equipped to think on that scale. It made her head hurt, just trying to visualize the billions of lives… the trillions of species, the sectors of space that would be impacted. 

But if it was true—and again, there was no reason for Toval to lie about something like this—it put the Romulan Empire in an extremely delicate position. It meant they would either have to abandon the base of their operations for the last two-thousand years—a choice which would leave them alive, but scattered and weak and having to start their empire-building essentially from scratch. Or they would have to try to fight nature itself—to find some way to prevent the supernova, or circumvent its effects.

Neither option seemed promising. Nyota suspected that was also the current opinion of the Romulan government, given how much of a tight lid they’d kept on this in the twenty-five years that had passed since the Narada had dropped that information on their doorstep. But they had been given a one-hundred- and fifty-four-year heads-up. So maybe in the one-hundred and twenty-nine years that remained they would think of something.

At least, Nyota hoped they would think of something. Which surprised her. If the Romulans were crippled by a planetary disaster, then their grip over the former Federation worlds currently under their thumb would necessarily loosen, and perhaps Earth could be free once more. So, in theory, Nyota should be overjoyed by the prospect of nature serving up the Romulans a real problem.

But in practice, she couldn’t bring herself to think that way. Regardless of what the Romulans had done to them, there were billions of innocent Romulan civilians living on Romulus, and hundreds of thousands of Remans trapped on Remus, none of whom deserved to go up in flames because of the actions of their greedy, corrupt government.

No matter what, no one deserved genocide.

“Does the Romulan Government have any plans to stop it? To protect Romulus from the blast?” Nyota asked earnestly.

“That’s actually how Captain Nero came to us,” Toval surprised her by saying. “In the alternate timeline he comes from, a Vulcan Ambassador by the name of Spock had come to live on Romulus prior to the disaster and predicted its effects.”

Again, Toval reached for the PADD sitting on the ottoman in front of them. This time, he brought up an image of an elderly Vulcan man walking the streets of Romulus. Nyota didn’t recognize him, of course. Whatever version of him existed in this timeline was at least a hundred and fifty years younger, and probably trapped on Vulcan under Mallatorix’s rule. But his deep brown eyes held a surprising amount of kindness. Which made her feel that she would like to get to know him, if possible.

“Ambassador Spock tried to warn the ruling council of the time of the impending disaster,” Toval explained. “But they would do nothing. They refused to see the severity of the situation. So instead, he and Captain Nero took matters into their own hands.”

Toval swiped aside the image of Ambassador Spock to bring up a picture of a globular, red substance. Nyota did not recognize it, nor understand its material properties, but its appearance alone, like a giant drop of blood, set her teeth on edge.

“With the assistance of the Vulcan Science Academy, Ambassador Spock and Nero were able to create a singularity-generating substance, which they intended to fire into the supernova to consume the blast before it reached Romulus.”

Nyota’s heart sank at Toval’s word choice. “I assume because you said ‘intended’ it didn’t exactly go as planned.”

Toval shook his head sadly. “No. Unfortunately not. Ambassador Spock took the fastest ship the Vulcans had.” He swiped across the PADD again to show her an animation of a spinning, jellyfish-like spacecraft. “But he was too late to prevent the blast from reaching Romulus. The planet was destroyed.”

Nyota winced. That was what she had been afraid of.

While her eyes were still closed, and her fists clenched, Toval went on. “Even though his primary objective had failed, Ambassador Spock still launched the singularity-producing substance, to consume the blast before it could affect other systems. But he could not escape the singularity himself. I do not believe he could have, even if his mission had been perfectly successful. It was, by all accounts, a suicide mission.”

Nyota’s heart constricted again. She didn’t know anything about this Spock person, other than that he was evidently a Vulcan who had chosen, for reasons unknown to her, to live on Romulus for a time in some far flung, alternate future. But regardless of his history, she had to admit that being willing to die to save a planet that wasn’t even the planet of his birth was an extremely noble act.

Too bad it hadn’t worked out, though.

“Now this is where things get a little… strange,” Toval prefaced, lowering the PADD into his lap.

His words made Nyota open her eyes and look at him. He wore a befuddled expression. And that made her intrigued.

“Captain Nero, furious at Ambassador Spock for his failure, followed him into the singularity.”

Nyota blinked. “Wait, like, on purpose?”

Toval nodded. “As far as we can tell, yes. Navigational logs from the Narada indicate that his ship was not initially in the gravity well of the singularity. He willingly ordered his men to pilot into it. I suppose, he must have hoped to shoot the ambassador’s ship down, as punishment for the mission’s failure, before he and his crew were crushed to death by the singularity. Not the most rational choice, mind you—but he had just lost his home planet. And when our authorities captured him, he was… not making a lot of sense. It’s extremely possible that witnessing the destruction of Romulus drove him clinically insane.”

Nyota shivered at hearing that. She couldn’t imagine that watching Earth get blown apart would do wonders for her mental health either. But still… driving straight into a black hole on purpose, on some half-baked attempt at… what… revenge? Towards the guy who had been trying to save his planet, but had just gotten there a little too late?

Nyota failed to understand what exactly that would achieve. But Toval was probably right. Nero had likely been driven totally nuts. He wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t planning. He was just reacting.

And if he was that unstable, while captaining a vessel as formidable as the Narada… Nyota shuddered just thinking about the damage he could have done. She hated to think it, but maybe the Romulans had done the galaxy a favor when they’d put a disruptor blast through his skull.

“Fortunately for Nero’s crew, the singularity turned out to contain a wormhole through space and time. And that’s how the Narada was transported back one-hundred and fifty-four years and dropped directly into Romulus’ orbit,” Toval finished.

“He went through the singularity and came out on the other side?” Nyota asked.

Toval nodded. “Essentially.”

Nyota blinked, again, processing that. She’d never heard of that happening before. She wasn’t even sure if it was possible—a black hole acting as a portal between space and time? But then again, wormhole physics wasn’t her forte.

“And what about the other ship? Ambassador Spock’s? Didn’t you say that got sucked into the singularity, too?”

Toval shifted uncomfortably on the couch cushions beside Nyota. “Unfortunately, that is the part we don’t know. Captain Nero was convinced Ambassador Spock would arrive in our timeline at some future point. His insistence is recorded quite plainly in the files, alongside the raw data from the Narada memory banks. But according to the data we retrieved, the Romulan military has apparently been scanning the entire quadrant for any signs of the ambassador’s ship, or the unique radioactive signature of the substance his ship was carrying, and in twenty-five years, there has been no recorded sign of him. Which I personally think is a good thing,” he added on, unexpectedly.

“Why is that?” Nyota asked.

“Ambassador Spock’s ship carried an enormous volume of the same substance he used to contain the blast,” Toval explained, lifting his PADD again and swiping backwards until he reached the image of that blood-red globular substance again, before handing the PADD to Nyota. “A single drop of which swallowed an entire supernova,” he stressed. “It’s intended purpose was peaceful, but its potential as a weapon of mass destruction is obvious.”

Nyota sucked in a deep breath. Toval was right. It was obvious.

She set the PADD back atop the ottoman in front of them quickly, as if the silver casing had burned her. But the image of that strange red matter still glared threateningly back at her.

“To make matters worse, there is currently no method to predict where or when Ambassador Spock will arrive, if Captain Nero is in fact correct in his assumption that he will arrive at all,” Toval relayed with a hint of exhaustion. “In some ways, we were lucky that Nero appeared right over Romulus. He could have just as easily arrived in Klingon territory and given them an unprecedented advantage. Or halfway across the galaxy, powering up enemies we’ve never even met. Wormhole physics is not my area of expertise, but I know enough to know that it’s an incredibly imprecise field. Most wormholes are not stable and do not have fixed ends.”

“Meaning Ambassador Spock could show up anywhere, at any time, with a massive payload that a lot of different interstellar governments would love to get their hands on,” Nyota summed up for him.

Toval nodded gravely. “Precisely. So that is another event the Romulan government is watching out for. In conjunction with the impending supernova in this timeline.”

“That’s already two disasters,” Nyota countered.

Toval shrugged. “The Romulan Government is not yet willing to count the arrival of Ambassador Spock as a disaster. Whether or not it will prove negative depends largely on when and where he arrives. If he arrives at all.”

Nyota glanced back at the scary globe of red matter still depicted on the PADD in front of her. She wasn’t sure she agreed with the Romulan government on that one. Even if it never showed up, the mere possibility of anyone getting their hands on a substance that could generate black holes was frightening enough to classify as a disaster in her mind.

“The supernova, however, is a proven entity,” Toval clarified, reaching for the PADD and bringing up a recent stellar survey. “The star in question has been re-examined with more sophisticated tech originating from the Narada and the timeline of the explosion matches the projections of the Romulan Astrophysical Academy’s current data.”

Nyota swallowed. That wasn’t encouraging news.

“So, if that only counts as one disaster, what’s the other disaster you mentioned?” Nyota asked.

“The other disaster the Romulan Government is keeping an eye out for is much smaller in scale, but no less important to the state of interstellar politics. It is also sooner.”

“How soon?” Nyota probed.

“If the events of the previous timeline hold…” Toval said, swiping back to the image of parallel timelines he had shown her earlier, “…it happens in 2293.”

Just thirty-five years, Nyota thought.

The impending supernova was frightening. But it wasn’t scheduled to happen within Nyota’s lifetime. Unless doctors discovered some miraculous technology to extend human lives by another century, she’d most likely die before it happened. If not sooner, while conscripted to fight for the Romulans.

But assuming she was smart and wasn’t killed in a misguided Klingon campaign, thirty-five years was definitely within reach. Something that could affect not just future generations, but her directly.

Leaning forward, Nyota tried to read the blocky Romulan lettering under the date marker 2293 in the first timeline. But she didn’t recognize the first word. And the second, morllejn (exploded) sent ice through her veins.  

“What’s going to happen?” Nyota asked, terrified.

“In Nero’s native timeline, in 2293, the Klingon moon, Praxis, exploded,” Toval revealed.

Nyota gasped. “Their moon exploded? How? Why?”

“The Klingons over-mined it and neglected to use proper safety precautions with the energy-generation plants located on its surface,” Toval explained. “The explosion generated an enormous subspace shockwave and severely polluted the atmosphere of Qo’noS, which would have led to a complete de-oxygenation of their atmosphere if they had not shutdown nearly all of their military operations and focused all of their manpower on resolving the ecological issue for the next several decades.”

“They were incapacitated,” Nyota realized aloud. “They couldn’t fight anyone anymore.”

Toval nodded. “That is correct. In order to avoid being pulverized by their enemies while they recovered from the disaster, in Nero’s timeline, they reached out to the Federation, to cease hostilities between them, and begin a tentative alliance which would protect them from their enemies.”

As he said this, Toval tapped on the 2293 date marker and it expanded to fill the screen, showing images of the exploded moon, and a copy of a treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire listed as the first Khitomer Accords—implying there were more later. Which was a lot to take in. As Nyota’s eyes flicked over the screen, her heart filled again with a strange and empty longing. She had no particular love for the Klingons. But at least there had been a Federation to ally with them.

“But in our timeline, there is no Federation for them to reach out to,” Nyota pointed out, taking the PADD from him and zooming back out to show the two timelines side-by-side.

Toval nodded again.

“And… all of those broadcasts,” Nyota said, dropping the PADD into her lap as she suddenly started piecing it together. “The Romulan government bragging about conquering the Klingons next. Driving up the Klingon production of ships and weapons… I didn’t understand it before. Why get them ready to face the Romulan Empire’s fleet? Why give them time to build an armada? But no… the Praetor is trying to get them to trigger their own disaster ahead of schedule. Get them to over-mine their own moon, and drive up energy production to dangerous levels in anticipation of an all-out war. So that they’ll cripple themselves. And that’s when the Klingon campaign will begin.”

Toval nodded a third time. “As far as we can tell, that’s the plan.”

…

Professor Chulak sat in his office with a monitor propped up on his desk. His beady eyes were utterly fixed on it, scouring his office’s security footage of the last few days to see who had snuck into his space and tampered with his computer terminal.

Since the new semester began, there was only one gap in the feed—when he’d switched his monitoring systems to bioscans only during his intimate liaisons with Cadet Uhura and Cadet Vro. But he ruled them out of his list of suspects almost immediately.

And why not? He could personally vouch for where they had been during that time—either sucking his dick or riding it. Even if their alibi had not been rock-solid and between his legs, he just could not picture them doing it. Tampering with a Romulan professor’s computer terminal as a bendainnsu was a capital offence. And though he was loathe to dole out compliments to aliens, after last night he considered both women to be too kind and too intelligent to do something as criminal and stupid as that.

No, it had to be someone else, he decided. So Chulak continued to scan the security footage, pausing and narrowing his eyes at the screen whenever someone else walked in. Cadet Vro and Cadet Uhura might have been the only students to proposition him, but they were not the only ones who visited his office. A handful of other delinquents from his other class periods had been summoned there in the past two days. Any of whom could have decided to slip by after hours for revenge.

Grabbing a nearby PADD from atop his polished desktop, Chulak hastily began to type up a suspect list. He put down the names of everyone who entered his office since the semester began, aside from Cadet Vro and Cadet Uhura. Then he put little flags next to anyone who so much as bumped the loose floorboard where he concealed his computer terminal.

He was going to catch who did this. No matter how long it took.

…

Several tense seconds passed in Toval’s room, during which neither Nyota nor Toval said anything. They simply sat next to each other on Toval’s emerald green couch, awkwardly waiting for the other to speak. It seemed the conversation was winding down to its natural end.

At least, until Nyota suddenly had another question. “Does anyone else know?” she asked, handing Toval back his PADD. “About everything you’ve told me, I mean. About the supernova. About Praxis…”

“The pertinent information gleaned from your mission has already been passed up the line to the leaders of our Reformist cell.” Toval told her, setting his PADD back atop the ottoman in front of them. “They’ll disseminate it as they deem appropriate.”

Nyota sat back on Toval’s couch, letting everything sink in. Her head hurt from the information overload. There was so much to take in—from the impending destruction of Romulus, to the Klingons shooting themselves in the foot, to the horrifying possibility of Ambassador Spock and his weapon of mass destruction popping up anywhere at any time.

There was no doubt in her mind now that her actions had been worth it. That her one, disgusting night with a sleazy Romulan professor hadn’t been in vain. This knowledge of what was to come gave the Reformist Movement one hell of an edge.

And that made Nyota feel a lot better about the whole thing. She could live with herself and her actions—even the ones that jeopardized her relationship with Gaila—if it meant that the Klingons might not have to suffer what the Federation went through. If it meant that the Reformist Movement was able to take advantage of the tactical opening the destruction of Praxis would provide to launch their own campaign against their own corrupt government. If it meant that life on Earth might soon become a bit less shitty.

But Nyota also knew she couldn’t relax just yet. Her role in this was far from over.

“So, what happens next?” she asked.

“Nothing. We wait to receive our next mission,” Toval explained.

Nyota blinked quizzically. “We wait?”

“We cannot take any actions without a coordinated plan. Otherwise, we could jeopardize the whole movement,” Toval explained. “Therefore, we must wait until our superiors have processed the information we have gathered from this mission and disseminate our next assignment.”

Nyota sighed. In the end, working for the Reformist Movement wasn’t all that much different than taking orders from the Romulans who loved the current state of the Empire. She still had to do what she was told. And she couldn’t be part of the decision-making process. A process that was going to dictate everything. Including who lived and who died.

She frowned. Then something else occurred to her which only made her frown deepen.

“What was this information doing on Professor Chulak’s computer terminal anyway? I wasn’t under the impression that his security clearance was all that impressive. Certainly not any more impressive than someone like… I don’t know… your father.”

Nyota was hoping for some kind of explanation that made sense. Surely, as the Viceroy’s son, Toval would have a better idea of how Romulan security worked than she. Which was why she’d played along with his harebrained scheme so far, in spite of any niggling doubts. But to her horror, he offered nothing of the sort.

Instead, unexpectedly, Toval’s face cracked into an unsettlingly wide smile. “Your cleverness never ceases to impress me, Cadet Uhura. I knew eventually, you would discover the truth. But you are quicker than I expected.”

Nyota’s stomach dropped. “What truth?”

She didn’t like the implication his words carried. The implication that Toval had been lying to her and Gaila, even by omission. Of course, she knew that as part of the Reformist Movement, he couldn’t tell them everything, in order to protect the wider movement. But there was a stark difference between “need to know” and intentionally misleading them.

“That the Reformist Movement was already in possession of the information on Professor Chulak’s computer terminal,” Toval revealed. “That this mission was merely a test.”

Nyota sat back on Toval’s couch, flabbergasted for a moment. She stared up at the ceiling, her head spinning. Forget the impending supernova. Forget Praxis. This was the real bombshell Toval was dropping today.

Nyota blinked once. Then twice. Then a third time. Then her vision went red.

Chapter Text

A test? A test! Toval had made her whore herself out to the enemy for a fucking test?!

Nyota was going to kill him.

“You said the information on Professor Chulak’s computer terminal was vital to the goals of the Reformist Movement!” she roared, jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction.

“And it is,” Toval assured her, raising two hands in his own defense before scooting away from her a few inches on the couch. “I did not lie to you about that. The data gleaned from the Narada’s memory banks has informed the plans of every Romulan faction since it arrived in orbit of Romulus twenty-five years ago. You simply made your own conclusion that we did not already possess this information.”

“A conclusion you didn’t bother to correct!” Nyota bit out through gritted teeth.

Toval kept his hands up, and his tone turned placating. “I apologize. The deception was necessary.”

“Necessary?” Nyota repeated, appalled. “What on Earth made you think tricking me and my roommate into fucking a professor for nothing was necessary?”

“It was not for nothing,” Toval protested. “Nor was it… some kind of arbitrary hazing ritual. If you would allow me to explain?”

Nyota stared daggers at Toval for a moment, considering his words. She didn’t really want to listen to any more of his excuses. But she did want answers. As long as he gave her more of the latter and less of the former, she would be okay taking a moment to cool down and hear him out.

Lowering her accusatory finger back down to her side, leaning back into her seat and releasing a deflated sigh, Nyota said, “Fine. Go ahead. But whatever you have to say, it had better be good.”

“Your talents caught our interest last semester. I am confident in saying you are the most talented xenolinguist in the quadrant. And your friend makes several of Romulus’ most skilled computer analysts look like amateurs by comparison,” Toval praised, sounding genuine in that, at least. “But before I could entrust either of you with a genuine assignment, I needed to assess your and Cadet Vro’s skills in the field and your willingness to follow orders with minimal upfront information.”

Nyota’s lips remained curled into a frown. “Okay, so you felt the need to vet us—to make sure we were capable and could be trusted to do what you asked—before entrusting us with a real operation. I can sort of understand that. But why not just… tell us that?”

Toval’s head tilted quizzically. “Would you have gone through with the mission if you had known it was only a test?”

Nyota’s lips formed a hard line. “Well, no, probably not… Which brings me to my next point. Why couldn’t you have just… come up with some kind of simulation?”

Toval shook his head. “A simulation would have only proven how well the two of you perform in simulations—which we already know from your college records is quite good. However, there’s a stark difference between simulations and the real thing.”

Nyota’s delicate black brows knitted together as she attempted to put together what Toval meant. “So… what you’re saying is that in order for it to be an adequate test…”

 “…You needed to believe it was real, so that you and Cadet Vro would approach it with the appropriate attitudes,” Toval finished for her.

Nyota hated that what Toval was saying almost made sense. She had seen the statistics—battle simulations were a remarkably poor predictor for how officers would actually perform when the stakes were real. The heat of a real conflict could drive even the top scorers in the simulations to turn tail and flee. But this revelation still had her reeling. A test?

With her trust so thoroughly shaken, she didn’t know what to think. Or how offended to be.

“Was Professor Chulak in on it?” Nyota demanded, an edge of anger creeping back into her tone.

She knew the Reformist Movement didn’t have the luxury of ethical purity. Especially if this was how they chose to vet new recruits. But it didn’t take a genius to surmise that allowing two cadets to seduce him under false pretenses, when he could have just as easily handed over the data was a deeply, deeply skeevy move.

“No. He is not one of our operatives,” Toval replied with staunch certainty.

Nyota sighed with relief. Somehow, illogically, that made her feel better.

“In fact, his extreme loyalty to the Empire was one of the reasons he was chosen, as opposed to any of the other faculty members, who would have been in possession of a similar computer terminal bearing the same Narada data in their offices somewhere. We needed to be certain that you two could handle a situation with some genuine stakes,” Toval offered as the Reformist Movement’s justification for giving them such a harrowing entrance exam. “If the two of you had been caught…”

Nyota swallowed. There was no need to finish that sentence aloud. She and Gaila had been painfully aware of the consequences during every single second of that dreadful office encounter. It was some of the reason Nyota suspected Gaila had been so willing to go along with her insane plan to have sex for Chulak’s viewing pleasure. Better that than death.

Which led to another, much more important question: “How do I know that’s not what this whole thing was about?”

Toval blinked, then narrowed his eyes, obviously not quite following what Nyota was getting at. “Pardon?”

“I mean, okay, so you already had the Narada data. But I didn’t know that was something Professor Chulak would have access to, which means it must be restricted by a higher level of clearance than mine.”

“The portions you retrieved are restricted by a Level III clearance, yes,” Toval revealed.

Nyota stopped short. “Which means… given that I’ve only been granted a provisionary Level I, I’ve committed a crime against the Empire,” she said, her voice dropping suddenly.

“That is correct,” Toval replied. “It is also a crime for you to steal data, regardless of clearance level, from a Romulan Imperial War College Professor’s private computer terminal,” he further pointed out.

Nyota swallowed, then braced herself for the worst. She’d been so wrapped up in the idea of doing something good that she’d gotten complacent. But what if, after all that, this was a trap? What if, after letting Professor Chulak ram his disgusting cock up inside her, she ended up on the execution block anyway for her crimes? She hated the idea of Toval betraying them in this way. But it was all too possible. Romulans had been known to play the long-con, after all.

“Wait. How do I know that you’re a part of the Reformist Movement at all? You’ve lied—and yes, lying by omission still counts as lying—to me before,” Nyota accused. “How do I know that this isn’t just a… convenient way to get me to self-incriminate?”

If Toval was surprised by her accusation, he didn’t show it. “If my claims to be part of the Reformist Movement were only a ruse and my only goal was to trick the two of you into signing your own death warrants, why would I not simply let those guards kill you? It would have been much less hassle than going to all this effort to recruit you.”

Nyota frowned as she mulled that one over for a bit. Toval did have a point.

“And while we’re on the topic, in the spirit of transparency, I will tell you that I have not passed up any of the Narada data which you and Cadet Vro retrieved up the line, since we already have higher-fidelity copies of the same information in our data repositories,” Toval explained, making the pit in Nyota’s stomach gape open wider.

But then he said something she didn’t expect. “I did not technically lie to you, though. I have passed along the information that is actually pertinent to the movement. The information that you two have both passed your entrance exam with… what is it my mother would say… floating colors?”

“Flying colors,” Nyota corrected automatically. Then, gradually, her heart began to lift with tentative hope. “Wait… you mean… we passed?”

“More than that. Your performance was exceptional,” Toval praised. “There was some debate among the upper echelons whether or not you would even be able to locate the computer terminal without being told precisely where it was hidden within Professor Chulak’s office. And yet, not only did you find it, but you were able to download the entirety of its contents and bring them to me, all without arousing suspicion, or tripping any alarms. We are all quite pleased with your work.”

Nyota took a moment to process that. She… wasn’t sure how to feel about that, honestly. She was glad that she and Gaila had not let Toval, or the Reformist Movement down by performing poorly on their entrance test. But she still hadn’t met any other members of the Movement besides Toval, so she had no way of verifying if what Toval was saying about their opinions was true. And it was hard to feel proud of herself for getting a good grade in snooping around and Romulan fucking.

Something that was apparently normal to want, and possible to achieve.

“Okay, so fine. Say I believe you’re telling the truth about being part of the Reformist Movement,” Nyota allowed, for the sake of argument. “What happens if I’ve decided I don’t want to do this anymore, if this is how you’re going to operate?”

“Things are not going to be like this going forward,” Toval assured her.

Nyota scoffed. “You really think I’m going to believe that? That it’s going to be full-transparency now? When have the Romulans ever operated that way, let alone in a secret rebellion?”

Species stereotypes were always overly reductive. But in just the same way as Klingons were known for being all about honor and Vulcans were all about logic, secrets were kind of like… the Romulan thing. So it was stupid to think that Toval would ever be fully honest with her.

Toval bowed his head in shame. “You are correct that I cannot promise full transparency going forward. The success of the Reformist Movement depends on a limited spread of information, to protect its members if any of us are discovered.”

Nyota scowled at Toval. This was not helping his case.

Toval sighed. “I know you are skeptical—and you have every reason to be. I do not know what I can do to regain your trust. But please know that if I thought there was any other way to induct you two into this movement, I would have taken it. This was the only way we could test your skills in the field without compromising genuinely novel information.”

He was so good at lying it was hard to tell if he was faking. But his voice rang with such sincerity and his doe-like eyes shone with such longing that she wanted to believe him. Plus, Nyota was stricken with the realization that if she walked away now, then screwing Professor Chulak really would have been for nothing. Having been tricked into it as some kind of twisted recruitment test was… deeply unpleasant. But having it mean nothing at all?

Nyota shuddered. No. She couldn’t live with that. It had to mean something. Even if it was just her entry ticket into the movement. Proof of her willingness to do what it took.

“So… you really are a part of the Reformist Movement?” Nyota began hesitantly.

“Of course,” he said, as if the fact that part hadn’t been a deception should be obvious. “And now, officially, so are you. So long as you still want to be,” Toval replied. “Congratulations.”

He sounded sincere enough in his adulations. However, there was still one glaring problem.

“Does Gaila know? That this was all a test, I mean,” Nyota asked.

Toval nodded. “I expected it would take longer for her to deduce. Initially, I had supposed her to be the less intelligent one between the two of you,” he admitted, with a small degree of shame. “However, that quickly proved to be an erroneous assumption.”

“When did she find out?” Nyota asked.

“She figured out the truth as soon as we began decrypting the data,” Toval informed her. “The encryption was ‘too rudimentary to be top-secret’ I believe were her exact words. Which is true. Aside from a few details deemed sensitive enough to require a higher clearance level, such as records of past and future Romulan security codes, and technical specifications of untested future technology—which were not included in the data found on Professor Chulak’s computer terminal—the information stored in the Narada memory banks is available to all the professors employed at this academy, as well as any Romulan military officer ranked higher than a sub-lieutenant. Therefore, while it is forbidden for any non-Romulan personnel, regardless of military rank, to access, and the Romulan government certainly wouldn’t want it to fall into enemy hands, it isn’t sensitive enough to require deeper precautions.”

“It was hidden under a floorboard in Professor Chulak’s office. A place no one would have access to without being at least a student of the Romulan Imperial War College, or without an invitation into his office. Unless you’d told me it was in that room somewhere, I wouldn’t have thought to look,” Nyota supplied as points in favor of the current security measures.

“Sufficient for Level III clearance information, yes,” Toval agreed. “But I imagine you both assumed you were retrieving information that even my father was not privy to. Which could only be something marked for the Senate’s or the Praetor’s eyes only, given that my father possesses a Level X security clearance.”

“And that kind of information would never be stored on campus…” Nyota realized aloud.

“Correct,” Toval informed her.

“Ugh, I feel like such an idiot for not seeing it sooner,” Nyota groaned, putting her head into her hands. “I just got so caught up in wanting to do something that I guess I… didn’t fully think through all the logical holes in that mission.”

“Do not blame yourself for your ignorance,” Toval insisted. “I deliberately misled you. And for that, again, I do apologize. But as I said, it was necessary.”

Nyota nodded a bit stiffly. She wasn’t sure she believed that yet. She wasn’t sure she could ever stomach the notion that hopping on Professor Chulak’s dick just as a test was necessary. A part of her still wanted to punch Toval for making her go through that. But now she was even more curious as to what Toval and Gaila had gotten up to all night.

“If Gaila figured it out as soon as she started decrypting the data then… what exactly did you two spend all night doing? I know she took a long bath in there somewhere. But that can’t have taken the whole time. And you weren’t really sifting through any of that data, trying to understand it, were you?”

Nyota tried to keep the accusation out of her tone. And utterly failed.

If Toval was disturbed by Nyota’s ire, again he didn’t show it. “You are correct. I did not need to peruse the data myself because I was already familiar with its’ contents. Instead, I spent the night explaining to her everything I just told you. Except in reverse. First, I told her that your mission had been a test. Then I told her what the data she had retrieved actually contained. About how Nero arrived in this universe via singularity. About the possibility of Ambassador Spock arriving in the same manner at some unknown future time. About the upcoming supernova. And the Romulan Government’s plot to trigger the destruction of Praxis ahead of schedule.”

“And that took you all night?” Nyota asked skeptically.

Toval ducked his head. “No. But it did take quite a bit of time after that to convince her to allow me to continue upholding pretenses with you, to determine when you would naturally discover the truth on your own. She wanted to tell you the truth right away.”

Nyota’s heart filled with warmth hearing that. Gaila was the best.

“So… you two didn’t have sex?”

It was pretty tactless of Nyota to just ask that outright. But she had been worrying about it all day, and was tired of not knowing the truth. And if Toval felt like he could jerk her around with lies and misdirections, then she didn’t owe him any politeness.

Toval’s face flamed green. “Of course not! Not that I would have declined, had she offered…” he trailed off, sounding a little wistful as he no doubt imagined what such an encounter would have been like. “…But no,” he said, coming harshly back down to reality. “No, that was absolutely out of the question. Cadet Vro was very upset with me for most of the night. I made no advances. And she made no advances. Nothing could have been further from our minds.”

Nyota’s eyes narrowed. “But today she said she wished you had taken her in front of the guards.”

Toval flushed even darker at the memory. “That she did. And I do believe she meant that, given that she repeated it in private when we had no audience to perform in front of. But today is a different day than yesterday. Your friend is not one to hold grudges. I also imagine that saving your lives earlier today was an effective indicator of my sincerity. She too, had her doubts about my connections to the Reformist Movement after my deception was revealed. But preventing her death seems to have assuaged her concerns.”

Nyota wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Toval was right that Gaila was quick to forgive. But she wasn’t sure she could be so flexible.

“And what if I’m not as forgiving as Gaila?” she asked.

Toval paused, mulling that over for a moment. “The Movement would accept either one of you as operatives by yourselves. But they, and quite frankly I, would prefer that you joined together. You are an extraordinarily effective team.”

Nyota nodded at the compliment. Then she sat, considering Toval’s offer.

“As for… any potential future dalliances between herself and I,” Toval prefaced before continuing, “…I will not encourage Cadet Vro’s attraction to me if it makes you uncomfortable. The value you two both bring to the movement far outweighs any personal considerations. Besides, I would not wish to appear as though I was taking advantage of the situation.”

“I… really don’t have any authority to tell you and Gaila what to do or not do with your sex life,” Nyota begrudgingly admitted, as much as she wished that wasn’t the case. “As long as it’s consensual, it’s fine.” Even if it will make me insanely jealous. “And as far as ‘taking advantage goes’, I already beat you to it,” she blurted out, without thinking.

Now it was Toval’s turn to be surprised. “Pardon?”

Nyota sighed. She couldn’t exactly retract what she had said now. And then it all came tumbling out.

“During our mission Professor Chulak almost caught us with the data stick. I shoved it into Gaila’s bra at the last second. But then he saw my hand between her boobs, and… well, we had to improvise a plausible explanation for why I’d put it there,” she explained lamely.

Slowly, Toval turned to face Nyota again, until their knees were almost touching. Then his eyes widened. “You were forced to perform sexual acts with Cadet Vro in order to preserve your cover?”

Nyota nodded. “I was. And I wouldn’t have any regrets. Except that I think she secretly hates me for it.”

Toval frowned. “I find that scenario highly unlikely. Cadet Vro holds you in very high esteem,” he asserted, seeming to mean it.

But it didn’t matter how much he believed it. It simply couldn’t be true. Not after what had happened in Professor Chulak’s office.

Nyota shook her head. “You don’t know her like I do. We’ve known each other for over four years.”

Toval hesitated. “While it is true that your association with her is of a considerably longer duration than mine, as I said before she does not strike me as the sort of individual to hold grudges. Especially not over something that was necessary. She does not even seem to hate me. And she has much more compelling reasons to do so, given that I lied to you both about the true nature of your mission.”

“She could be faking it. She’s good at that,” Nyota suggested, snappishly.

Toval took a moment to consider that. But his next words weren’t at all what she was expecting. “Why don’t you ask her?”

Nyota blinked quizzically. “What?”

“Ask your friend if she felt violated by what you did. If she did, then you can make amends. If, however, she enjoyed herself—which I imagine is the more likely scenario—then the two of you can move forward with your relationship.”

Now Nyota was really confused. “Relationship?”

Toval was confused right back. “I was given to understand that ‘girlfriends’ is the human term to denote two romantic partners who are women?”

“Yes,” Nyota confirmed. “But we’re not girlfriends. Just friends.”

Toval narrowed his eyes. “The two of you are female, and therefore ‘girls’ and also ‘friends’. I fail to understand the distinction.”

“Friends is platonic, girlfriends is romantic,” Nyota clarified. “I know it’s confusing. Welcome to Federation Standard.”

Toval took a moment to process that. “So, if I understand what you are saying correctly, you are not currently engaged in a romantic relationship with Cadet Vro?” he asked, sounding rather incredulous about that fact.

Nyota shook her head sadly. “No. Not currently.”

Toval took a moment to be surprised by that. Which, given how easily Professor Chulak accepted their ruse, made Nyota wonder if everyone else thought they were a couple. Because that would be embarrassing.

“Do you… wish you were?” he probed.

Nyota jolted in her seat at Toval’s question. She wasn’t sure how he’d caught on to that. Was her attraction really that obvious to others? Or was Toval simply extraordinarily observant? Either way, seeing no reason to lie to him, she merely bit her lip. Then nodded.

“Is Cadet Vro aware of this desire of yours?” Toval asked, lowering his voice ever so slightly, even though it was unlikely that Gaila could hear them over the roar of jetting water and bubbles coming from the bathroom.

Nyota shook her head. “No. God, no. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

Toval tilted his head as if trying to puzzle something out. “You assume she will not return your feelings?”

“You’ve seen the way she throws herself at everyone she thinks is hot. She isn’t exactly gun-shy about sex. If she wanted me, I think I’d have gotten the memo by now,” Nyota explained.

Toval frowned. “I’m not certain I concur with your assessment of the situation. Cadet Vro certainly does typically take a casual approach to sexual encounters. But perhaps the reason she has not made any advances towards you is precisely because her regard for you transcends the mere physical. She does not want to… frighten you away with a too brazen approach.”

Nyota waved her hands back and forth dismissively and stood up off the couch. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Perhaps not,” Toval allowed. “You two have known each other for longer than I have. I can only comment on what I have observed in the past few days. Nevertheless, it is obvious that your friendship is strong. If nothing else, I urge you to believe that it can survive what I have put the both of you through.”

Nyota opened her mouth to retort. But closed it again after a second. She really didn’t have a witty come back to that. Besides, even if he was way off-base about Gaila’s feelings for her, Toval was right about one thing. They’d endured Romulan torture together. What was a little fingering between friends compared to that?

…

Although the weather outside was favorable and a walk would be beneficial for his health, Professor Chulak remained in his office, hunched over the monitor in front of him. Scanning his office’s video feed was a tedious process that was taking him hours. But Chulak had nothing better to do on his day off. So, his eyes kept scanning the video, which was racing by on fast-forward, jotting down names, and trying to come up with a viable theory of who would have disturbed his device.

About three hours in, Chulak saw something that gave him pause. He tapped keys on the side of the monitor to slow the racing video feed down to a normal playback speed as he saw another person walk into his office. The video feed was timestamped two days ago. And the person entering his office was Professor Sentra, one of the other Romulan faculty members.

She was an older faculty member, one who had only taken up teaching after a long and decorated career in the intelligence-gathering sector of the Romulan military. The pure silver cap of hair decorating her head and spiderweb of fine lines creasing her dark brown skin were both testaments to her long life of service to the Romulan Empire. But her old age had not robbed her of any of her vanity, it appeared, since she favored dressing in long, billowing robes of the finest silk the worlds under Romulan rule had to offer.

Chulak considered her appearance on the video feed significant because she didn’t visit his office often. None of the faculty did. He was not well-liked by his own kind. But as Chulak watched her slink around his office with an infuriating air of superiority, he realized that only made the prospect of his computer tamperer being a fellow professor more likely. A fellow professor, as a Romulan, would face a much less severe punishment for tampering with Chulak’s terminal. If they possessed adequate security clearance to access everything he had on file—which was likely, as most of the professors had clearances that exceeded his own—they probably would only get a slap on the wrist. There was no justice for those at the bottom of the pecking order.

Swearing under his breath a string of colorful Romulan, Chulak refocused his eyes on the screen as Professor Sentra made a disparaging comment toward his person and moved to leave his office. For several steps, she glided with impeccable grace. Then for some inexplicable reason, she seemed to trip over nothing, and land directly over the floorboard that housed his computer terminal. In the feed, Chulak had attempted to rush to her side and help her up—it was the gentlemanly thing to do. But his hip had protested at the sudden movement, and he had spent a few minutes incapacitated by blinding pain.

His pain had made it impossible to keep track of what Professor Sentra was doing at the moment. And unfortunately, the angle of the video camera and the spread of her voluminous robes as she lay, almost spread-eagle, across his floor, made discerning what had happened after the fact quite difficult. Professor Chulak could not be sure whether or not she had been able to push aside the loose floorboard and tamper with his device.

But, although the video feed proved nothing, it did not rule it out either. Professor Sentra instructed the Rihan cadets in the art of espionage. If she at all practiced what she preached, she was more than capable of making it look like nothing was amiss when she was violating his personal property.

Professor Chulak’s jaw set in a hard line as he stared at the haughty woman onscreen. You might think your position, relative to mine, means you are untouchable. But I will make sure you are brought to justice for your crimes.

…

After talking to Toval for another half-hour about the trivialities of military academy life, Nyota felt somewhat calmed down from the sting of Toval’s revelation that her and Gaila’s mission to seduce Professor Chulak had only been a test. Once she felt some semblance of emotional equilibrium slip back into place, she and Toval decided to invite Gaila to rejoin them.

When Gaila emerged from Toval’s bathroom ensuite, she looked almost exactly the same as when she’d left—aside from the fact that her fiery red hair was now damp, and a fluffy grey towel, emblazoned with the Romulan Imperial War College’s insignia, was draped over one arm. She had redonned her scarlet cadet uniform, and was fiddling with the hem of her skirt, looking a little nervous. Her bright blue eyes flicked between where Toval stood and Nyota sat, full of questions.

“Did he… tell you yet?” Gaila asked.

Nyota nodded, then fixed Gaila with a knowing look. “Yes. All of it.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Gaila exhaled with considerable relief. “I left mostly because once he started talking about what we found I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to keep it from you. I’m bad at lying to my friends.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad quality to have,” Nyota thought it was worth saying.

Gaila hung up her damp grey bath towel on a hook jutting out from the wall next to the double doors leading into the bathroom. Then she walked over and plopped down on Toval’s emerald green couch next to Nyota.

Gaila looked brightly at Toval. “So, what now?”

“It is as I told Nyota before. We wait for our next assignment,” Toval explained.

Nyota turned and looked askance at her roommate. “Wait… are you sure you still want to be a part of this? Even after they tricked us?”

Gaila shrugged. “It makes sense though, why he did it. If you were in his position, would you have given us a genuine, high-stakes assignment, right away? And risk the actually useful information falling into someone else’s hands, or getting hidden away somewhere even harder to reach, now that they know someone wants it? I don’t think so.”

Nyota pursed her lips together. She didn’t like it, but Gaila was right. At least as far as the needs of the Movement went, Toval had made the sensible choice.

“Still, it would have been nice to know it was just training,” Nyota complained.

Gaila shrugged. “We wouldn’t have done as good of a job if we didn’t think it was the real thing.”

Nyota sagged where she sat. Well, that was certainly true.

Taking in a deep breath, Nyota made her decision. “Alright, if Gaila wants to stay, then I’m in,” she said, which made Toval relax. At least until Nyota glared at him before continuing. “But no more funny business, capisce?”

Toval swallowed thickly and nodded in the affirmative. “Understood.”

…

Nyota and Gaila left Toval’s dorm room shortly after that. Again, the hallways were deserted, so they didn’t have to worry about running into any other Romulan cadets. But as they passed the guards on their way out of the Rihan block, Nyota stiffened, preparing for the worst.

This time, however, the guards did not threaten them again, or even point and jeer. Instead, they tried their best to ignore the two bendainnsu cadets who had just emerged from Cadet Toval’s quarters, letting them filter back into an area of campus where they were permitted without any outward reaction or comment.

Nyota breathed a sigh of relief once they left the Rihan block behind. The dark, imposing hallways of the Romulan Imperial War College were not exactly welcoming, no matter which part of the buildings you were in. But after her run in with the guards today, she felt a lot safer in the parts of campus where she was legally authorized to be.

Of course, her reprieve would not last forever. In spite of her doubts and fears, she had agreed to join the Romulan Reformist Movement. Which would necessitate her crossing into the Rihan block much more often than she would have preferred.

Hopefully, thanks to Toval throwing around his weight as the Viceroy’s son, there would not be any further incidents. But one could never be too cautious, Nyota decided. Next time, she wasn’t going to argue if the guards told her to walk away again. And she had a feeling Toval would understand.

After all, she wasn’t any use to the movement if she was dead.

…

“Professor Chulak, to what do I owe this…” Professor Sentra’s voice died, unwilling to say the Rihan word for pleasure. Because it was not a pleasure to have him of all people barge into her office unannounced on one of her days off, “…visit?” she settled on finally.

“I think you damn well know why I am here,” Chulak spat.

The acid in his tone, and daggers he was glaring at her made Sentra raise her delicate, silver eyebrows. “I do?” she asked, not feigning her confusion in the slightest. Though she could tell from the way his pasty, thin lips curled in disgust, that Professor Chulak thought she was.

“Do not play coy with me. You are not as much of a master of subterfuge as you think. You must be getting sloppy in your retirement from military service,” he assumed. “You left the lights of my computer terminal on.”

Ah, so that was what he was on about, Sentra realized. Then her dark lips pulled into a small smile. So, he has taken the bait.

That was good news. Professor Sentra was not certain she shared the same enthusiasm the Viceroy’s son had for the two bendainnsu cadets he had been tasked with inducting into the Reformist Movement. But as a secret member of the movement herself, she did not like to see new recruits fail. So she’d snuck into his office and tripped the lights on his computer to make it slightly easier to find, and to throw Chulak off the right scent. The fact that this meant Professor Chulak suspected her instead of his star pupils meant that all was going according to plan.

“You have no proof, or else you would have accused me in front of the College’s disciplinary board,” Sentra replied coolly, careful to neither confirm nor deny the other professor’s accusations.

Professor Chulak scowled at her remarks, deepening the lines around his jowls and chin and only managing to make his appearance more unsightly than usual. She could tell that he knew she was right. But still, he remained undeterred. He took a few determined steps forward, all the while fixing her with his most intimidating stare.

Professor Sentra had to resist the urge to laugh. She wasn’t scared of this sad, pathetic little man. Whatever he thought he could do to her, with that malignant hip injury of his, paled in comparison to what she could do to him if provoked. He really ought to count himself fortunate that she had only tampered with his computer terminal, and not decided to slit his throat. Or caused him to suffer an unfortunate “accident” on one of the college’s many, hard, black, marble staircases.

“I have video evidence that places you in my office within the time frame when my computer was disturbed,” Professor Chulak revealed.

“Simply being inside that pathetic excuse for a broom closet you call on ‘office’ hardly counts as ‘evidence’ of anything. Except perhaps astoundingly poor judgement on my part,” Professor Sentra cut back.

Professor Chulak’s yellow teeth came together, and his lips pulled back into what he no doubt believed to be a fearsome snarl. “I will see to it that you face justice for your violation of my personal property!” he roared.

“By submitting the video feed from your office for review by the disciplinary board. Video feed, which, if I am not mistaken, also includes evidence that you have been sleeping through faculty meetings, and that you have taken students—bendainnsu, at that—to bed?” Sentra challenged with a single, dubiously raised eyebrow.

“I…” Professor Chulak’s voice faltered as what she was saying finally registered in his pathetic little brain.

“You may have initiated privacy protocols, but it does not take a genius to deduce why a miserable lech such as yourself would be doing in a soundproofed office with two young women desperate to do whatever was necessary to avoid punishment,” Sentra further accused.

Professor Chulak’s smarmy face twisted suddenly with unexpected glee. “You could not know that such things happened without stealing the data from my computer terminal. You have just admitted to your own guilt!”

He seemed to think this was a victory for him. Oh, what a naïve fool he was.

“And what exactly do you intend to do with that information?” Sentra challenged. “If you attempt to use that to bring me down, you will only be bringing down yourself. I have a Level VI Security Clearance, and nothing on your terminal exceeds a Level III. Therefore, tampering with your computer is a minor infraction. Worthy of a few weeks’ suspension, at best. But neglecting your duties as a faculty member and abusing your position as a professor to mate with your students?”

“It was not abuse! We had an agreement!” Professor Chulak roared out in his own defense. But a second too late, he realized that was a mistake.

“And now you have just admitted to your own wrongdoings,” Professor Sentra pointed out, rather satisfied with herself for the way things were turning out.

Professor Chulak clenched his teeth and let out a low growl of frustration. Clearly this confrontation was not going the way he had planned. But he was not willing to concede defeat just yet. Despite herself, Professor Sentra had to admire him a little for his stubbornness.

“There is no law that specifies that sexual encounters between Romulans and other sentient species is a crime. If such a law had been written, our beloved Viceroy would be the first to be arrested.”

“The fact that they are not Romulan is not the problem,” Professor Sentra countered, sidestepping the issue of the Viceroy and his human war bride entirely for the moment. Their relationship, as unsavory as Professor Sentra found it to be herself, was not in question here. “They are your students. And as a professor at a highly esteemed and highly scrutinized Romulan institution, you ought to have more decorum than that.”

“That is merely your opinion,” Professor Chulak argued. “Exchanging sexual favors for services rendered or even reduced sentences is commonplace in Romulan society. I have not broken any laws.”

“Then I suppose you will have no issue with myself spreading knowledge of your actions among your students? Informing the entire bendainnsu student body that their professor is using his institutional power to gain sexual gratification?” Professor Sentra threatened.

Professor Chulak opened his mouth to protest. Then closed it.

Professor Sentra’s lips stretched into a wide grin. Now, she had defeated him.

What he had done might not be illegal, by Romulan standards. And probably would only get a few disturbed looks before being quickly brushed aside if brought up in the schools’ disciplinary courts. But humans—which made up the vast majority of the non-Romulan cadets at this college—operated on a much more restricted system of sexual ethics and would not take kindly to the news that Professor Chulak was trading leniency in his punishments for sex.

The Viceroy could get away with being public with his perversions because his station made him relatively untouchable. But Professor Chulak had no such protections. His office would be defaced with derogatory graffiti. And that would just be the start. Most likely, he would be harassed day in and day out for the foreseeable future. He could dole out all the punishments he wanted. But the humans would persist in making his life a living hell, until he was forced to resign to escape the torment. They were a stubborn people, especially when they believed they were acting as martyrs for some righteous cause.

“What is it that you want?” Professor Chulak snapped.

“I suppose the easiest term for it would be mutual blackmail,” Professor Sentra replied smoothly, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say. “You do not tell the board of your suspicions that I tampered with your computer terminal, and in exchange, I will keep quiet about your naptime during faculty meetings, as well as all past and future dalliances you may engage in with your students.”

Professor Chulak blinked at that last part, surprised. “You would allow me to… continue to see the cadets in question in a sexual capacity?”

“As much as the notion of you having any sexual intercourse at all personally disgusts me, I would rather you direct your perversions at some lowly hevamsu than seek to defile an honorable Romulan lady. Besides, as professors, I think we should all be permitted our… quirks. So long as we are discrete,” she stressed. “Consider it incentive for you to keep your end of the bargain.”

Professor Chulak took a moment to consider her terms. Then, at long last, he nodded. “I accept your offer.”

“That’s the first smart thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Professor Sentra replied snidely.

Professor Chulak scoffed at the insult. “Now, if you’ve finished tormenting me, I will be taking my leave.”

“Please do let the door hit you on the way out,” Professor Sentra snarked, but if Professor Chulak heard her, he paid her no mind as he sulked out of her office and back into the labyrinthine hallways beyond.

Well, Professor Sentra thought to herself. That settles that.